《A Dark God In An Otherwise Godless Multiverse》


 Where did the author go? (3/9/2020)

    Hi friends! I apologize for the hiatus. I''m a graduate student in my (hopefully) final semester of college and these last few weeks have been intense. Because of that, I have been losing time to write. I ultimately made a choice to refocus and double down on a promise I made many months ago: to work on my rewrite of this story. And I''ve actually done that! Whoo, we stan a man who keeps his word right?


    So here''s what y''all, my beautiful readers need to know: My rewrite is on WebNovel (link in the author''s note). I''m contemplating bringing it over to Royal Road, and am likely to do that.


    There are over 30 chapters on WebNovel, and that is exactly what I wanted before I started the process of bringing it over. I''m just unsure of whether or not I should.


    The WebNovel rewrite of this story has shorter (for the most part), first-person chapters and features a HUGELY rewritten (and different) story. It has the same basic premise, but I handle it so differently and in my opinion (and the opinions of the first few reviews, for what''s it worth) better than the original, and one reviewer checked out this story and mentioned that they like the rewrite way more.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    I lose a lot of the repetition of this story, my protagonist isn''t a complete child, and I feel as though I''ve learned from at least a few of the obvious and utterly inane mistakes I made writing this version.


    So here''s what''s up in the air: I don''t think I am going to just stop writing this story. I honestly don''t. I like this story, and I enjoy writing it. That said, I am absolutely and obviously slowing down the number of chapters I churn out, on this specific story, for the foreseeable future. I want to write a chapter every week if that, but I make no promises because my schedule remains... fluid for the foreseeable future.


    That said, if you''ve missed Althos it might be worth checking out my other story. If you want to wait until I transfer the story over to Royal Road, please let me know. That''d be a really good encouragement for me to step up and do that, which I''m likely to do, I just haven''t begun to do just yet.


    I''ve missed y''all and would love to see some of y''all check out my rewrite. Even and especially if you were a critic of this particular version of the story. It''d be cool to see if maybe you think my rewrite is worth a read.

 Prologue: Alone In A Forest

    Most creatures were born or were created. The godling wasn''t like most creatures. And so, instead of being born a baby, or being created and stored in some secret location until it matured, it went from nonexistence to existence in an instant. It sprung into life fully mature and ready to influence the multiverse in a range of ways but also ignorant of its origins or of the particular reason why it knew strange and seemingly trivial things.


    It sprung into existence in a small forest. The creature phased into reality in the middle of a small and artificial path, surrounded on both sides by thick trees that freely shedauburn colored leaves. It phased into reality with its eyes closed and kept those eyes closed for a few moments while its brain absorbed tons of information all at once.


    The first things it noticed were the smell and taste of the forest and air respectively. The forest smelled diverse and well-inhabited. It could instinctively identify dozens of different types of trees, grass, naturally grown vegetables, and more by scent alone. It could also smell a variety of different fauna ranging from squirrels to wolves, to more magical creatures like small fey-folk deep in the forest. The last thing it could smell was the thick scent of nature magic. The creature didn''t know how it knew this, but it presumed that the source of that magic was either a powerful fey-creature or a druid, either of which possessed potent nature magic in their blood and used it freely. Such magic left a lingering and detectable impression on the world around it, even when unused, and that impression was what the godling could smell.


    The taste of the air was something the godling savored. The air tasted clean and free of the polluting effects of logging or of other actions taken by metal focused civilizations. Any societies that may have existed in the forest were capable of coexisting with nature and were not overly reliant on forged tools or on the destruction of nature, which helped explain why the forest was so clean. The creature knew that such cleanliness and purity were unusual and so decided to enjoy it while it had access to it. The magic in the air added a slight kick to the taste, akin to what civilized creatures might call a "spice", but the godling was a newborn, or at least as newborn as a godling could be, and had no way of knowing what civilization called or might have called anything. So instead of focusing on labels the creature freely enjoyed the taste of the air on its tongue and in its lungs without worrying about the preciseness or nuances of language.


    The creature sensed the ground underneath it and wondered what that it would feel like on its hands. The creature felt the soft dirt directly on its feet and enjoyed the warmth of the grainy substance underneath it because it lacked shoes and so the sensation of the clumps at its feet was something it could detect freely and without obstruction. Weirdly enough the creature knew it wasn''t naked, feeling clothing on other parts of its body.


    It wore a thin shirt made of magic but mysteriously customized to feel like plain and undyed woolen cloth, and thick pants also made of magic but designed to feel like thick fur garments, colored the same shade of brown as a wolf''s fur might be.


    The creature itself knew this was odd and this made the creature curious, but the entity was intelligent enough to know that any questions it had about the source of said clothing were beyond its ability to answer at this moment. Instead of focusing on them and getting nowhere the creature knew it should focus on the knowledge it could gain and moves it could make.


    Before the creature opened its eyes for the first time it knelt down and grabbed some of the soil from the artificial path it sprang into existence on. It kept the stuff in its hands as it observed and studied it. It allowed itself to memorize the tactile sensations of the stuff and committed various things about it to memory.


    Among other things, it memorized the size of each grain of the stuff in its hands and wondered about their origin because they didn''t match up with the rest of the materials it could sense around it, through some ill-defined sixth sense it possessed.


    It lifted the clumps to its noise and inhaled which ultimately confirmed its suspicions that the stuff smelled quite different from the other scents in the forest. Because of the overwhelming amount of native trees and grass that surrounded it, the scent couldn''t overpower everything else but it was quite obviously alien to the rest of the forest.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    The creature opened its eyes and uncupped its hands at the same time, allowing the particulates at its feet to fall back to its original location. The sight before it was breathtaking. It stood on a small path that was marked by soft dirt and clearly stood out in comparison to the rest of the forest it was in. The dirt beneath it was a cool yellow color and the rest of the soil and grass around it that wasn''t a part of the path was a dark shade of green.


    If the creature had to guess why that type of dirt was chosen by whoever designed the path it was probably because such a color, even as muted as it was in comparison to other shades of yellow, was very bright when contrasted with the things at its feet.


    Filled with mysterious knowledge, the creature knew that it could see in the dark without any problems. The same mysterious knowledge also told it that some other beings weren''t so lucky. This path probably existed for them. Without the path getting lost in the forest would have been significantly easier and the lightness of the path made it easy to notice, even as the sun was setting off in the distance and light, normally blocked from the forest''s lowest layer by the tree line, was flooding the forest.


    Other sights in the forest around it included the majesty of the trees that surrounded the artificial and comparatively brightly colored path. The creature knew with but a glance that the trees it could see were older trees, tall and vibrantly alive. Each of them freely unleashed beautiful dark red leaves that quietly glided to the ground below their canopies, guided by a gentle breeze. This produced one of the only noises the creature could hear, the soft rustling of the wind as it stripped leaves from trees and to itself and pulled them to the ground below. Occasionally the creature would hear the soft pitter-patter of footsteps in the distance, usually belonging to small animals that called the forest home. Rarely these steps would be louder and more distinct, belonging to one of the few magical beasts living in the forest. But those steps came from kilometers away, far from where it was and in a place the creature didn''t particularly feel like walking towards.


    The creature wished it could know what it looked like, but it lacked any reflective surfaces from which it could see its reflection. It knew in time that that would change, so, for now, it simply considered its own appearance something it would learn soon enough. A lot of things were marked like that in the creature''s mind.


    Thinking but for a moment about what it should do, the creature came to a decision it felt satisfied with quite easily: it would follow the path in a direction it suspected would lead it out of the forest. It started down that path immediately and wondered about what it would find next.


    <hr>


    Miles away from the forest a single shoddily built log cabin was hidden away from sight by virtue of its location inside a small cave. This also protected the cabin from the cruelty of the sun. This log cabin had three inhabitants, but only one of them was meaningfully alive. He was a husband and a living human. His wife was on her knees next to him, drops of blood pooling in her eyes and threatening to come pouring down in the form of vampiric tears, which would have only amplified her ravenous thirst by doing the equivalent of dehydrating her. She was a vampire. They both stared long and hard at the third inhabitant of the log cabin; a human male. A dead human male.


    They were silently examining the body, and this corpse was not a cadaver in the same sense that the wife was a body. This corpse was lifeless, inanimate, and most tellingly it was drained of all blood, blood which had leaked out of various puncture wounds that were visible to anyone who looked at it, some of them on the dead man''s hands and others on other exposed skin, including his groin.


    Anyone who sat down and examined the deceased man would be able to determine that the soul that had once inhabited that body had long left it. They could also tell that for some reason or another the inanimate thing wasn''t going to rise on its own, like the remains of many other victims of vampires tended to do. This was probably more useful than not, but it still presented them with a real problem.


    Not only did they have to deal with the corpse in some way or another, but sooner rather than later they''d also eventually have to contend with the consequences of the woman drinking human blood for the first time in a decade. Such an action, even when done in self-defense, affected those rare vampires who sought peace and tolerance from their neighbors in cruel and unpredictable ways. The sole living creature in the log cabin felt his mind racing at a mile a minute as he considered what to do to avoid even more disasters befalling them as a consequence of this.

 Chapter 1: Tremor-sense & Scrying

    The first few minutes the godling spent walking on the trail the young creature was quite easily distracted. Even doing something as simple as walking along the sandy trail would be pleasantly distracting to the creature. It enjoyed the feeling of its feet sinking into the trail beneath it, and was delighted to feel the warmth of the sand-like soil on its feet.


    Unbeknownst to the creature, it was autumn and it didn¡¯t have any shoes on so when its feet were out of the sand they were exposed to a chilly breeze that occasionally blew through the forest.


    It had other clothes on, a plain-looking but warm cloth shirt made of magic, and a pair of equally magical pants that looked like and felt like thick fur meant to both protect the wearer from the attacks of wild animals and provide some measure of protection from the cold.


    Other distractions came in the form of the creature listening to the sounds of the forest itself. The creature had astounding hearing and could clearly hear noises that came from as far as hundreds of meters away.


    The sections of the forest the godling wandered through were themselves fairly quiet as if the forest were waiting for the creature to do or say something, but its presence didn¡¯t matter to most of the forest and it heard the noises of forest life off in the distance.


    The real reason why the section of the forest it was in was quiet was due to the trail it walked on.


    Humans frequented the forest and animals learned to avoid the areas they were most likely to come across humans. The primary reason why did that was that humans were skilled hunters who¡¯d delight at the chance to trap a rabbit or snag the pelt of a wolf and many animals learned that firsthand before their neighbors began to avoid the humans.


    Humans also had a bad habit of marking the paths back home they took by creating things like the trail that the godling walked on and so whenever an animal saw that path it turned around and fled from it.


    Off in the distance, the sounds the godling heard were a bit more interesting than the sounds the creature could hear further down the path. It heard the sounds of heavy padded feet stepping onto and crushing leaves and the sounds of fish hopping out of water as if to swim upstream.


    It heard the sounds of wildlife engaging with each other, bears and wolves starring each other down and roaring or barking at each other, and a rather ominous noise: the sound of wild laughter echoing through the trees.


    Those noises, especially the laughter, seemed to come from far away and felt distorted as if they had been changed from however they originally sounded, which caused the young god to feel a faint sensation of concern. The creature wondered to itself if the presence of the trees were partially responsible for the distortion of the laughter or if there was something more magical at play.


    Shortly after hearing the bouts of wild laughter the creature felt something stir in the air before hearing a subdued explosion tear through part of the forest several kilometers away. These noises and sensations were intriguing to the entity, but ultimately it decided to stay on the path it was on.


    It had been walking down it while listening to the forest and was beginning to stumble across footprints and hoofprints and considered investigating them, before ultimately deciding to stay the course.


    The footprints in the sand ahead of it were clearly human in origin though the entity didn¡¯t know that since it had never seen a human before. Upon reaching them the creature knelt down and examined the prints left in the sand with a thorough eye for detail.


    It spent several minutes memorizing the dimensions of the prints and carefully studied how deep each footprint was as well as looking for details within the footprint itself that might enable it to identify the source of the footprints if it encountered said source. Out of curiosity, the creature decided to look back and examine its own prints.


    Bizarrely, when it turned around the creature noticed that it hadn¡¯t been leaving prints. It lifted its knee just a bit to see if it left one while it was kneeling down and studying the prints left behind by some other forest explorer but was disappointed to see that it hadn''t.


    The creature thought for a moment and then chalked it up to a mystery it¡¯d have to solve later. It had no way of knowing how soon it''d be consumed with a desire to investigate mysteries like this.


    When satisfied with its oddly scholarly study of the prints the creature got up and resumed its walk. The prints lead off the path so instead of following them vigorously the creature quickly decided to resume its walk while heading in its intended direction.


    <hr>


    The creature¡¯s first experience using its own mystical powers came when it approached the edge of the forest.


    The creature sprung into existence in a part of the forest that was fairly well explored and documented, which was precisely why there was a path there. It had followed the path and walked atop it for all of its short life, and as it neared the edge of the forest the path not only widened it also got deeper.


    Each step on the path as it neared the edge of the forest caused the creature to have to take more time to lift its feet out of the sand and such an inconvenience was annoying to the entity. It had no patience for this and so it quickly decided to step off of the path.


    Once it made this decision it slowly walked towards the edge of the path. Each step was made with an awareness that it¡¯d be off the path soon and so it decided it was worth luxuriating in the warmth of the sand-like soil just a bit longer. It even backtracked a bit so it could enjoy the sands as it preferred.


    When it reached where it intended to step off the sands it did so quickly like it was trying to drink an unpleasant tasting drink that would help it feel better in the long-run but still dreaded the actual task it needed to do.


    It was pleasantly surprised to find that the forest floor beneath it was warm. Unlike the sand-like soil it had walked on before the forest floor, the floor¡¯s warmth didn¡¯t extend throughout its feet, but just the bottom of them. It was still more than it was anticipating, and so the creature was grateful for that at least.


    The creature¡¯s power didn¡¯t activate at that moment. Its power required it to already have taken its first steps somewhere before it could be used and so the first steps the creature took onto the forest floor were like each of the steps it had taken before. It was on the creature¡¯s second steps atop the forest floor that the power activated.


    The second time its feet were brought together and they touched the floor beneath it, it fell to its knees as its mind reeled from an explosion of knowledge.


    The creature¡¯s power activated without the creature''s understanding of it, or its consent and the surprising sensation of its mind-expanding brought the entity to its knees.


    It basked in the sensation of its mind-expanding and filling with new knowledge, but the sensation was also powerful enough for the creature to need to take a second and sit down since the power actively increased its mind.


    What had happened was actually quite simple: the god possessed remarkable senses and as a complement to that it also possessed an ever-active mental map. The mental map came in the form of a sort of radar that sensed and revealed the locations of all nearby creatures that were on the same surface as it.


    For that power to activate it had to be on a solid surface, it could release mental waves that explored the surface and imperceptively bounced off of things also on the same surface. Each time a wave bounced back off of nearby creatures the godling¡¯s mental map was updated with their new locations and their distance relative to wherever it was.


    This new knowledge revealed fairly little to the godling. It had a limit of roughly 50 meters and was imperfect because it was limited to the surface and didn¡¯t seem to be capable of detecting flying creatures. Aside from the locations of creatures burrowed just under the surface of the forest, it mostly confirmed what the entity already knew.


    Namely that most of the forest¡¯s inhabitants were far away, over 50 meters away and behind it, deeper in the forest, at least since that appeared to be the limit of the power¡¯s reach. But the creature now had experience with some of its own abilities, and that new experience would undoubtedly serve it well in the near future as it left the forest behind.


    After recovering from the shock of the power¡¯s activation and analyzing the knowledge the mental map contained creature got up and experimented. It noticed that it¡¯s map was updated with any movement it made no matter how slight, so long as such movement involved one of its feet touching the ground beneath it. That was handy because it immeasurably increased the difficulty of catching the entity off-guard, and the creature delighted in such knowledge.


    The creature considered turning around and exploring the forest for a bit. Its newly discovered ability gave it greater confidence, but it ultimately decided that it was worth leaving the forest for now. It nodded to itself and continued down the path that it suspected and hoped would lead it out of the forest.


    <hr>


    The god''s young mind was filled with simple thoughts. It was a brand new creature, no more than a few minutes old, and it was alone so there was no real reason to consider that it should be any more mature than it was at that moment.


    I wonder what these things are called...


    That was one of the god''s idle observations and questions about the various sorts of natural debris and foilage that littered the forest floor. It looked at the assorted twings, branches and more that it walked by.


    The deity''s idle thoughts were about the nature of the strange objects it came across. Many of these objects were mundane things to humans and other lifeforms with language, but not to the deity.


    I sure would like to meet another living thing sometime soon...


    The other idle thoughts were about desires and "wants" the deity had. They were the musings of a simple child, not of a powerful deity who as of yet not only didn''t know about its own powers, but also didn''t understanding the nature of other living things, even if it possessed some strange knowledge that alerted it to the reality that it wasn''t alone in the world.


    <hr>


    The log cabin was silent. Awkwardly so. The married couple studied the corpse in front of them. After nearly a minute of silence the husband, a middle-aged human who looked older than he was due to stress prematurely aging his skin, spoke up.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    ¡°So¡­ how do we get rid of it?¡±


    His wife, a youthful-looking beauty with fair skin and a fondness for clothes that matched her complexion, was actually older than he was.She was stunned by the callousness of her husband¡¯s remarks, and upon realizing this her husband coughed to clear his throat and rephrased his statement.


    ¡°How do we get rid of him?¡±


    This was almost as callous, but that time the coldness didn¡¯t come from contempt. It came from social ineptitude. He didn¡¯t mean to sound cold this time, it was just the way he talked. This remark was far more to Cynthia¡¯s liking and so she responded to it.


    ¡°Well¡­ can you go outside and start a fire? I¡¯m sure the smell is starting to get to you anyway, and I can¡¯t do it myself because, as you well know, fire isn¡¯t exactly something I¡¯m comfortable around.¡±


    Cynthia¡¯s husband looked at her and studied her carefully. He was too proud to admit it, but the stench of blood seeping into their floorboards as a result of the many puncture wounds penetrating the body and the smell of the body¡¯s emptied bowls were definitely getting to him.


    He wasn¡¯t sure he wanted to leave her alone in the house with the body while he started a fire, but there was definitely logic behind her suggestion. Without an idea of his own, it¡¯d be difficult to say no to the suggestion and none came to mind.


    His wife¡¯s eyes were calm, but there was something else there as well. Some other emotion that was harder for her husband to analyze. Her calmness was surprising since the couple had left their old community behind so she¡¯d be away from other humans and therefore there¡¯d be less blood for her to be tempted by.


    He had long figured such distance from the power and pull of blood would have made her weaker to the seductive its power.


    It was at that moment that he realized that she was probably still delirious from the impact of the fresh human blood she had already drunk from the deceased would-be-rapist currently rotting in front of them. So long as that blood was fueling her she¡¯d likely be able to resist the need to feed on other humanoids.


    So he had fairly little time, perhaps a matter of hours, before she became susceptible to the ravenous urges that plagued vampires who hunted humanoids. Which meant he needed to move fast.


    Upon realizing that, he sprung into motion and spoke softly to his wife even as he dashed past her to grab what instruments he needed so that he could start a fire outside of their cabin.


    ¡°Alright. I¡¯ll do that.¡±


    His words were heard by his wife, but she remained on her knees and silent for a few more moments. As he glanced at her while moving past her he could tell she was trying to focus but was having difficulty. He walked deeper into their cabin and grabbed a pile of tinder that would serve as fuel for the fire, as well a flint to start the fire with.


    He returned from deeper inside the cabin within a minute and as he walked towards his wife he was distraught to notice that she had yet to leave where she was when he had left. He approached her and then spoke softly.


    ¡°Honey? Do you need help getting up?¡±


    His voice was unusually soft when he asked this. He was a grumpy man but he had always been capable of tenderness with her. He waited for her to respond and had placed the items he retrieved on the floor so he could reach out and lightly touch her shoulder. She responded before he could lightly touch her and pull her into his embrace.


    ¡°No honey. I¡¯ll be fine..¡±


    Her voice drifted off, but it sounded unusually alluring. He could tell there was something unusual about her current state, unusual beyond what she was normally like when she drank humanoid blood. She spoke again moments after her voice drifted off.


    ¡°Sorry! I¡¯ll be fine. There was something odd about the baron¡¯s son. When I bit him to stop him from approaching me it didn''t¡¯ work. That¡¯s never been the case before. When we¡¯re done here it might be worth investigating. If my bites aren¡¯t capable of stopping an attacker I might just have to invest in something else like a sword, but so far that¡¯s just never happened.¡±


    Despite the shock, she was clearly feeling and her stunned awe and terror, her voice had regained some of its usual strength. This was slightly reassuring to her husband, and he nodded at her, though she had her back turned to him.


    He was still concerned but at least some of that concern had been assuaged when she returned to something resembling her old self.It was at this moment that he thought to ask her what she planned to do.


    ¡°So babe, while I handle the fire what are you going to be doing?¡±


    Curiosity laced his voice and he was genuinely curious as to what she would say. In response to his question, she turned to face him and smiled. Even in her current, mildly vampiric state, her smile was dazzling and disarming. It was a charming feature she had possessed before she became a vampire, but her vampiric transformation definitely accentuated it.


    Her smile exposed her thin canines, teeth he knew were like hypodermic needles meant to suck blood efficiently and with relative safety as opposed to brutal fangs meant to crush and tear humanoid flesh.


    ¡°I¡¯m gonna make our unfortunate and unwelcomed guest here easier for you to transport my love!¡±


    Her voice was giddy, and he could tell she would enjoy this. This would have frightened him in the past, but he was used to it now. This too was a part of what she was normally like after drinking blood.


    He looked at the corpse in their tiny living room and realized that there were multiple ways she could lighten the body. The first that came to mind was the normal ways someone would lighten a corpse, such as dismembering it or using basic spells to lighten the load. But then he abruptly realized that despite the corpse¡¯s pallor due to the cause of the nobleman¡¯s death being bloodloss, given the freshness of the corpse there should still be some blood in it.


    He looked at his wife, who had spent these last few moments studying his face with the vivid curiosity and interest of a cat given a new toy, and was aware that his question was most likely written all over his face. He preferred having to leave his question unspoken and his wife looked at him, before reading his expression and realizing what concern might be on his mind.


    It took her a second to be aware of the question he was hoping he wouldn¡¯t have to ask aloud. When she realized what was on her husband¡¯s mind she giggled, the sound pleasant and filling the room with a sort of cheeriness that the room had lacked ever since the now-deceased nobleman had first invaded the log cabin.


    ¡°Oh, honey. No. No! I¡¯m not going to drink his blood. I¡¯m gonna dismember him. It¡¯ll be easier to transport and ultimately burn his body if we do it in pieces rather than start a fire and try to burn him all at once. Given what we have access to in this cave I don¡¯t think it¡¯d be possible to burn him all at once even if we tried.¡±


    Despite the specifics of her comments being deeply disturbing, her husband was relieved to hear what she said. It was also deeply logical. He agreed with her assessment and was about to turn to leave the cabin when he heard her quietly add something.


    ¡°I¡¯m not gonna drink any more of his blood.¡±


    Her soft voice was unusually and purposefully quiet. Gregory was unsure of whether or not she had wanted him to hear that. But he also knew that there wasn¡¯t much they could do at this moment. And he had a task to complete. But that doesn''t mean he was to stand by and do nothing if his wife didn''t believe in herself.


    He lifted her up and turned her around so she was facing him. He did this so that he could study her carefully.


    He gazed into her eyes, currently swirling pits of darkness as her enemy¡¯s blood surged through her veins and then carefully examined her facial muscles. He was studying her, trying to determine if she believed in herself. She met his scholarly examination of her gaze and her facial muscles with pride and strength. It was reassuring to him and hinted that she had wanted him to do what he could to believe in her.


    After a few moments, he determined that she believed her words, and nodded at her. He wasn¡¯t exactly the talkative type, and he gently put her back down where she had been before. The two of them looked at each other for a moment, aware of the grim nature of the actions they¡¯d have to take over the next few days and painfully aware of the possibility that their lives would never be the same.


    Then Cynthia nodded at her husband and turned around so she was facing the corpse. She immediately began to activate one of her vampiric powers, a sort of shapeshifting that was focused on individual body parts.


    Before his very eyes, her hand began to darken as blood collected there and then her hand regained its normal pale color seconds later. The blood was used as fuel to be spent as part of the cost of using a vampiric power. And then her fingers began to fuse together into a single flat surface. He had only seen her do this once before and the rest of the process wasn¡¯t pretty so he quickly grabbed the items he needed and moved to leave the cabin.


    As he left their cabin he heard her quietly grunt in pain. She was doing her best to stay quiet, but her efforts weren¡¯t entirely successful. In fairness this wasn¡¯t because she had low pain tolerance, it was because of the sharp pain the power caused its users.


    She had once described the power¡¯s sensations upon activation as comparable to having small blades tear through someone¡¯s skin from the inside, so the skill was evidently immensely painful to activate and that Cynthia''s groans of pain were as quiet as they were was a testament to her self-control.


    As he walked away from their cabin and to a distance far enough from it to safely start the fire, Gregory mentally promised his wife that when they were safe and the next few days had come to pass he would do something truly romantic so that they could recover from these days blissfully.


    But sadly for Gregory, what Gregory didn¡¯t know could hurt him. And it was hurting them, both him and his wife, right at that very moment. Gregory lacked the magical intuition to detect or resist the scrying spell that had been cast on the body of the nobleman and was now watching him.


    The scrying spell, cast by a mischevious imp many kilometers away from the cave, had effortlessly determined their location. The imp had been looking for the nobleman and was a bit shocked to find that the nobleman was now a noble-corpse.


    <hr>


    Far away from the cave and the cabin, the imp who cast the scrying spell contemplated telling its master about its grisly discovery. After thinking about it for a minute or so, which was truly an impressive accomplishment given how little the creature cared about the nobleman the spell had uncovered, the creature decided it¡¯d tell its master if its master thought to ask it, but would otherwise keep this juicy information to itself.


    Imps obey their arcane masters, but they prefer to follow the letter of their master¡¯s commands and not the spirit behind their orders.


    <hr>


    The wizard¡¯s tower that housed both the imp and its master was located farther away from the cave than the cave was from the forest. It was in a fairly isolated location that was kilometers away from the nearest settlement, which was the town lorded over by the wizard¡¯s boss: a baron named Miles Hightower.


    The wizard worked for the baron as a magician and court spell-singer. The two communicated via magical amulet that allowed for the wizard to spend most of his time in his arcane lair.


    The tower was an odd blemish on the landscape. It was a tall home, coming in at about 65 meters tall and only a few meters wide. It was more like an impossibly long needle than any sort of respectable-looking tower. This was because of magic.


    The tower was wider on the inside than it was on the outside and each layer of the tall thing contained multiple floors and more than enough room for even a small settlement.


    The wizard who lorded over the tower was a proud and secretive fellow. He preferred to labor alone, aside from his familiar. Weeks ago he had succeeded in selling his soul to a devil for power and to gain a new and wise ally: an infernal imp who served him as an adviser and as a familiar.


    So the area surrounding the tower had been deemed his property and his property alone. He purposefully kept it uninhabited, not that many would willingly settle so close to a spell-slinger anyway.


    The middle layer of the tower was where the wizard was hard at work. It was also where the wizard¡¯s familiar, the lazy imp who was the only member of the royal court with any eldritch expertise, lazed away. The imp already knew the location of the deceased nobleman thanks to its successful scrying spell.


    It had kept watching the scenes in the cave for a few moments after casting the spell and coming across the corpse in an unknown cabin, which strangely had been built inside of a cave. It had watched as the human man started a fire.


    Before undoing the spell the creature willed it¡¯s arcane eye back to the log cabin and was genuinely shocked to see that the man¡¯s companion, a strange vampire, was hacking away at the nobleman¡¯s body with a blade it couldn¡¯t quite see. It hadn¡¯t dared to approach the vampire since she likely would have detected the spell. Vampires were more sensitive to magic than humans were.


    It didn¡¯t know who the woman was who was hacking away at the body with a blade that she must have had hidden on her person somewhere. It didn''t know who the large man who was starting a fire was, but the imp¡¯s master made the mistake of not ask it where the body was.


    Heck the man didn''t even ask where the nobleman might have gone, which in the imp''s mind meant it wast free to keep such valuable intel to itself.


    The imp was doing its best to train the wizard into a powerful evil spellcaster, but the wizard wasn¡¯t receptive to the training yet. He wasn¡¯t even aware that he was being trained. Especially since the wizard still had the arrogance of a spell-singer who just received a big power boost and most likely believed that he would be the one in charge.


    The imp didn¡¯t mind that all too much, it was first and foremost a patient servant of evil and could wait for when the pride of the spell-singer was broken. It took the imp a few moments of contemplation on its current circumstances to come to a delightful realization.


    In a moment of unusual mental clarity, the creature realized that the breaking of the wizard¡¯s pride might come a lot sooner than it had first anticipated upon meeting him. The baron wasn¡¯t patient and he was demanding that the wizard locate his son soon.


    The grinning imp was a scary sight. Had its master been watching it, the creature likely would have been questioned as to why it had such a creepy expression on its face. But the wizard was hard at work preparing to cast his own, deeply simplified scrying spell in an effort to locate the baron¡¯s missing son.

 2: Angel

    The orb angel had been flying high over the human kingdom when its sensors picked up a faint echo of divine energy. This was or at least could be a momentous occasion, the likes of which hadn''t happened since the end of the age of gods, eons ago.


    The creature wanted to celebrate but knew that before it could it would need to investigate. And so the strange entity turned in the general direction of that faint echo, somewhere in the forest on the western edge of the kingdom, and began to fly towards it.


    So long ago that it hurts most mortals to try and conceptualize, the gods and their cosmic peers and rivals were instantly obliterated following a mysterious and cataclysmic battle. When this occurred their creations did not meet the same fate as their creators. For most of their creations, this was fine or at least something that they could endure, as the majority of the species the gods and their peers created were independent thinkers that could survive in and maybe even thrive in a godless multiverse. That wasn''t always the case though.


    Some lesser angels, such as a rarely spotted species known in angelic circles as Orb Angels, were only a bit more intelligent than base robots, and they depended on the gods they served for their commands. The biggest distinction between them and base robots was that they possessed a barely sentient soul. Orb angels were among the various kinds of lesser angels that entered an odd state in the post-deicide multiverse wherein they could be commanded by any other angel who possessed a soul that was morally similar to that of their particular divine master.


    Roughly 10,000 years ago the orb angel currently en route to the forest the godling sprung to life in, to investigate, was given a command by an angel of gossip that it was to observe the country the forest was located in. This country is known as the kingdom of Sailos.


    When motionless, the creature''s default and preferred state, the entity peacefully and unobservably floated over the nation, flying high over clouds and using incredibly powerful sensors to record events going on underneath it. Not once in its almost 10,000-year vigil had it ever had a reason to descend to the world below. It had been instructed that it could descend to the world below its skyward route but only under certain circumstances, and due in part to its speed, and in part, to the disinterest its new master had with the affairs of humanity it had yet to encounter such circumstances.


    One circumstance, something that very few entities sincerely believed would ever occur, that allowed for the creature to descend to the earth below to launch an investigation was the detection of any divine energy no matter how faint or minute. And one of the strange results of the godling inexplicably springing to life were waves of measurable divine energy being detectable in the forest, with each step the creature took resulting in divine echoes being equally detectable by angels with measurement abilities or tools.


    The orb angel itself was a tiny thing. Its kind had been created to keep an eye on events in the mortal worlds, not to inspire servants of the gods or terrify enemies of divinities so they had been designed to survive harsh conditions and to avoid notice. They could also freely change their size and magically project an image of themselves that was considerably larger than they actually were so they were free to be spawned as tiny things and only make use of their abilities if circumstances demanded it. It was just under a meter tall, perhaps 95 centimeters, and maybe half a meter wide.


    Like any other self-respecting orb, it was circular in shape. Its body was light blue which made it harder to spot in the air. It looked like a vaguely metallic orb that had been painted by someone who loved the sight of a clear sky. Not all orb angels were designed to withstand or avoid the dangers of flying high in a magical world wherein creatures like dragons and hippogriffs existed and roamed the skies, so this particular orb angel was faster than some others of its kind and was capable of using a mixture of technology and magic to fuel a sort of rechargeable camouflage. Due to the skills needed to evade dragons in the sky, this particular orb angel was also given just a bit more wisdom than others of its kind and could magically utter words, not just communicate telepathically.


    The entity was normally impressively unthreatening, but it possessed the ability to conjure a shield of elements around itself which served as a deterrent to high-flying predators who may wish to snack upon an instrument of the gods of yore. If it wished it could clothe itself in a cloak of lightning, raging water, blazing fire or even absolute darkness. The sight of an orb angel in a flaming halo or surrounded by darkness was an awesome one, even if the creatures at all other times were so unimpressive people could look in their general direction and not notice them.


    The creature was quickly approaching the forest the godling had sprung into life in and began its descent as it sensed the density of divine energy in the air increasing. It intended to meet the source of this resurgence of divine energy.


    <hr>


    The godling had kept walking through the forest. Its pace was incredibly quick compared to humanoids who relied on muscles and stamina to run and to maintain their paces. The godling didn''t rely on those things to fuel its speed or its endurance, so it was capable of maintaining a pace as quick as it wanted indefinitely. The creature could move at speeds so quick they produced a sonic boom but the being was unaware of that and even if it did have the knowledge needed to do that it wouldn''t want to. There was no benefit to moving at that speed.


    The godling came to a stop only when its senses warned it that something was quickly approaching, which occurred due to the orb angel miles away exuding divine energy. Seconds after its senses indicated something coming towards the forest it was in, the hairs on the back of its neck went up in warning as it felt a sort of sensor flow over the forest, including over it. Something was detecting it!


    The creature''s mind was moving at a mile a minute as it mentally prepared for battle. It balled its fists up and waited for whatever would happen next to happen.


    <hr>


    The orb angel had begun to descend as it approached the forest and it began releasing bursts of energy that served it as an advanced sensor and allowed it to identify creatures that it was near. When its first bursts of energy touched the forest it was positively blown away by the diversity of life within the woods.


    It could detect fey, bears, human loggers, wolves, and all manner of magical beasts. It could also detect the source of the divine energy, but that wasn''t identified by name like the other life forms had been. Instead of telling it a name and a species, the creature''s sensors were incapable of identifying the source of that information, even if they detected a definite source. It was very strange and puzzled the creature who thought about it as it neared the forest.


    The source of the divine energy pulsing out of the forest was near the edge of the forest and so with each passing second, the angel drew closer and closer to whatever had set off its sensors.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    <hr>


    The godling laid eyes on the angel before the angel laid eyes on the godling. The strange, metallic-looking orb, entered the very edge of the godlings vision by shattering some trees with its dense body and speeding towards the source of the divine energy in the forest. The creature was proceeding at speeds that were honestly incredible, far faster than the godling had been during its walk and it was the first creature the godling had ever physically seen that was capable of floating.


    The orb was floating and it was drawing closer and closer to the ground with each passing second as it speedily approached the godling. As far as the godling could tell there was no particular mechanism that allowed the dense orb to do that, so it wondered how the creature was capable of doing that and curiously wondered if it was capable of replicating the orb''s actions.


    The orb didn''t appear threatening or imposing in anyway, so the godling relaxed even as the odd-ball being approached the godling at a dizzying speed. It was doing a number on the forest though, as the strange metal orb was dense enough to smash through trees without losing any speed and the noises of the trees being decimated was definitely distracting to creatures in the forest far from where the two divine beings were.


    <hr>


    The orb angel did the mid-air version of skidding to a stop just meters away from the godling. Due to being the creations of gods and therefore capable of subverting physical laws, orb angels could see without physical eyes. They weren''t reliant on their sensors, and the angel could scarcely believe its metaphorical eyes. The source of the divine energy in the forest was a living creature. And not an angel, but an actual deity. An immature one, but a godling nonetheless.


    The creature that stood before the angel, curiously and silently observing it, was a godling. It was radiating intense divine energy that seemed to wash the area directly around the godling in gentle golden light, even if that light quickly dissipated once it left the creature''s skin.


    The godling itself looked like someone who might have had an angel as a parent, making it a member of the species collectively known as the half-celestials. It had an androgynous, attractive face with full lips and high cheekbones and the only physical hint that it wasn''t human was that its eyes had golden sclera and lacked pupils. It also had naturally tan skin, as if to help it blend in among humans. The godling drew slightly closer to the angel and then softly smiled. Its radiant face grew even more attractive as it smiled at the angel.


    The soft smile went from being a kind one to a confident grin after a few seconds of continued silence between the two and in grinning the creature showed its teeth to the angel. It had a perfect grin, complete with perfectly straight and white teeth.


    The creature''s clothes completely covered the rest of its body below its neck but it was clearly muscular. Its arms were hidden underneath the long-sleeves of the shirt it wore and its hands were hidden underneath gloves that completely hid them from sight. The gloves came into existence as the angel was skidding to a stop in front of the godling and so the angel had a chance to glimpse at the godling''s bare hands, which had been tanned and calloused as if the newborn godling naturally sprung into existence as a hand to hand fighter. Nothing could stop its muscles from pressing against the shirt it wore and revealing a vague outline of a muscular chest.


    The creature was fairly tall. Its full height was over 2.1 meters and the creature had long legs. The pants were a color that completely hid the legs from sight, but the body of the creature did appear to hint at its physical capabilities, even if they understated or undersold what the being was capable of and so the legs appeared thick even underneath the pants it wore.


    The angel noticed that its tanned feet, which didn''t have shoes on even after the angel rather recklessly approached it, were thick and covered in dirt. The angel was curious about why the only parts of its body exposed to the elements were its face and its feet, but it was in no rush. It examined the feet in detail, and as it did so it allowed itself to descend closer to the feet to get a better look at them. As it observed each part of the godling''s body it moved so that it could closely examine wherever it was looking. It was now just barely not on the ground, and when it finished its observation it went up and did its first full-body scan of the godling.


    Its scan was quick and revealed nothing that the angel didn''t already know. But being this close to a god and being exposed to its divine energy was slowly empowering the angel, improving its abilities and mental faculties second by second.


    After admiring the creature''s appearance the angel realized the godling was waiting for it to speak. The creature took a second to warm up its vocal processing unit and then attempted to communicate.


    It considered what it should say to the being and then in a moment of genius-level thinking for an orb angel, normally some of the least intelligent of angel-kind, realized that it was entirely possible that the godling had no idea what it was. That was probably an important thing to ask it. It figured it should also introduce itself. And so that was what it would do.


    "Hello! I am... an angel. Do you... know what you... are?"


    Its voice was mechanic and there was an odd delay between some of the words. This was due to the creature needing to mentally type out words in advance, and the technology that emitted the words deciding at random what points it would stop. Once it finished its message it waited for the godling to respond.


    <hr>


    The godling had curiously and silently observed the angel as it seemed content to visually explore the godling with unclear intent. It watched it with a confident gaze and waited for it to finish visually examining it. The creature had no idea what the angel was, and the godling''s conception of self was also limited. That was understandable when one considered the circumstances of the creature. Namely that it suddenly sprang into existence in a forest and had spent literally its entire life, a life that could be measured in minutes, exploring the forest it came to life in.


    Shortly after the angel finished its visual examination it seemed to come to the conclusion that the godling was waiting for it to speak. That wasn''t particularly true, but when the orb did its best to ask the godling a question, the divine being instantly understood what it was asking and saw in it an opportunity to gain knowledge.


    The godling answered the question almost as soon as the angel finished asking it. Its answer was short and honest.


    "No, I don''t."


    The silence that followed the godling''s declaration was very awkward. Though the godling wasn''t quite sure how it could tell, it was sure that its answer surprised the angel.


    <hr>


    The angel thought to ask the godling that question because scanning the godling revealed that the entity was a newborn. Even though it asked the question, it hadn''t actually believed the godling could have been ignorant as to its nature, it believed that the entity would have encountered another lifeform and then begin to compare itself to that lifeform and quickly put two and two together like angels were capable of doing. There were a few problems with its assumptions.


    The first problem was that the godling hadn''t encountered another lifeform yet. The angel was literally the first lifeform the godling had actually interacted with. It had heard other lifeforms and it had even seen them, far off in the distance, but the angel was the first to approach it and engage it in conversation.


    The second problem was that the godling had no conception of superiority or a desire to feel superior to other lifeforms. It wouldn''t rank itself above other lifeforms like angels did.


    The third problem was that it lacked a conception of what gods did. It knew that it was capable of walking quickly, but if it met other beings it would have assumed they were capable of doing what it was capable of doing. It needed to learn but to learn it had to meet other beings, which it hadn''t done yet. Angels had a sense of purpose instilled in them by the gods, gods didn''t. Especially not godlings that sprung into existence as godlings.


    After thinking about how to proceed, the angel spoke again. Its mechanic voice had been strengthened by its proximity to the godling and came out with fewer delays this time, especially since the message itself was longer. Prior to speaking it had been lost in thought for several moments and had absorbed considerable divine power in that time.


    "Well... you''re a godling. An... immature god. I suppose you''ll... have to learn what that means. Are you... ready to learn?"

 Chapter 3: Out Of The Woods

    The sounds that had drifted through the forest came to a definite and noticeable stop when the orb angel asked a critically important question to the godling. It had just asked the young deity if it was ready to learn what it meant to be a deity. And both the angel and the godling could sense the unnatural, and in its own way, deafening silence around them. The forest itself seemed to want to hear what the godling would say next.


    The godling thought for a few moments. It wasn''t a very long time but in the eerie silence of the forest, it felt like hours passed before the godling made its next move.


    The godling edged closer to the orb angel and nodded.


    "I''m ready."


    Its voice was quiet, but it was also confident. The godling had spoken precisely 5 words in its short life, two simple sentences that over the course of their lives most mortals uttered at some point or another. And yet both of the sentences it had spoken to the orb angel easily counted among the most exciting sentences the orb angel had ever heard in its life, a life that was counted in the eons.


    The orb angel did its approximation of a nod: it slowly but noticeably rose in the air and then lowered itself back to its original height, floating at a height that was just a bit shorter than the godling''s height.


    After it did this oddly cute gesture it spent a moment thinking and the silence that fills the air was still odd but not nearly as eerie as the previous silence.


    It broke the silence of its own accord soon after. It had an important question to ask the godling.


    "Well, then I''m ready to teach you. But first: do... you want to stay in this forest? There''s a town... a few dozen kilometers away... If it''s you and I, I believe we... can reach it in a few... hours if we leave now."


    The godling didn''t hesitate this time. Its voice carried a certain level of happiness and eagerness as it spoke to the orb angel.


    "Let''s go to this town you know of! Talk to me along the way."


    The orb angel heard this response and began to emit a noise of excitement, a soft whirring sound that was surprisingly pleasant to hear.


    "Of course! I''ll take you... there right away. You... set the pace, tell me if you want... us to go faster or slower. I think it would be wise... to focus on traveling until... we arrive at our destination"


    After saying this the orb angel took the lead and began to float in the direction of the town it had mentioned. The godling followed behind it, curious about its own nature and about the town the angel was taking it to.


    <hr>


    Neither of them spoke again until after they left the forest. The godling happily followed behind the orb angel and was more than happy to focus on traveling, as the orb angel had advised until it had completed its escape from the shaded woods and eagerly burst into the grasslands beyond the forest. All in all, it took about 2 and a half hours of hiking before the two beings came across the exit out of the forest. When they saw the light of the area outside of the forest the godling jumped with joy and then dashed towards the exit. It didn''t stop until it was completely out of the forest.


    It only came to a complete stop when it wasn''t underneath the shade of the trees. Before it laid a vast expanse of tranquil looking grass, with flowers sparsely popping out of the ground every few dozen meters and a few small trees dotting the landscape. Anyone with senses as precise as those of the godling or to a lesser extent as precise as the orb angel could see for kilometers in all directions in the grasslands, or at least all directions aside from behind the odd pair, due to the presence of the forest and the relative density of trees blocking their vision.


    The godling took this time to try and call up its mental map. The map had changed the moment the godling entered the grasslands, and the young deity wanted to see what differences there were between the map of the forest and its current map.


    It took the map a moment to update, but when it did it showed that any creatures nearby were underground. The godling looked to the sky for a second but didn''t see any birds. It also noted that the orb angel wasn''t on the map, despite being well-within the distance to be detected by it if the creature had been on the ground. So though the map was still useful for preventing ambushes, for now, its functional usage was limited to learning where families of rabbits had their dens and where any subterranean worms were hiding from birds.


    The godling sighed in annoyance.


    <hr>


    The angel watched the godling as the deity silently fiddled with its mental map, though it wasn¡¯t sure what the odd newborn was doing at a glance, for a moment before turning away from the god. It was when it turned that the angel noticed the flowers ahead of both of them, waiting just a few meters away from the entrance to the forest that the two had just used as an exit.


    Seeing the flowers put the orb in an even better mood than it had been before. It reacted to the sight of the flowers by making odd and quiet noises of delight and floated towards them while the godling was still messing with its mental map.


    In its exuberance and shock at leaving the forest behind them, as well as its desire to learn about its first godly power, the godling hadn''t paid much attention to the angel when the angel performed its first scan of a local flower. The godling wouldn''t miss the next few times the angel scanned local flora.


    <hr>


    Within a few minutes of the two finishing their journey out of the forest the godling had started paying attention to the angel again. The orb was in a fantastic mood now that they had left the forest and the godling quickly noticed that the orb seemed to enjoy the sight of the flowers even more than it did which was an impressive feat, because even the deity hadn''t expressed its delight at the sight of the flowers the strange plants amused the young god greatly. The grasslands had many different types of flowers and the godling''s sight gave it a greater appreciation for their diversity than many humans or monsters would have had unless they were looking for specific flowers with the knowledge to identify what they needed or were alchemists searching for wild ingredients.


    Whenever the angel stopped and hovered over a flower the godling would notice it, aside from the very first time it had done that. It was an odd sight.


    From time to time during their hike, the angel would stop while hovering right on top of the flower and emit an odd noise. The godling wondered if it were somehow using that sound to record the flower, or else somehow identify it. The godling didn''t feel like questioning the angel over this since they had just met, but its rough guess about the angel''s actions was actually correct. The orb was identifying the flower through the usage of a skill it possessed that enabled it to record basic information about the flower including some of its potential usages in potions.


    <hr>


    The two of them walked through the grasslands and as they did so they were exposed to the sun''s rays directly. This was normal for the orb angel who floated high enough in the sky that it was used to the sun ray''s but what was new to the creature was how warm it was on the surface. Since it sailed through the air kilometers in the sky it was normally exposed to intensely cold air and the sun''s rays did little to warm it up. Even in the relative chill of the autumn day, it was still considerably warmer down on the surface than in the air above the clouds so the angel needed a bit of time to adjust to the heat of the grasslands. The grasslands were warmer than the forest where they had the canopy of local trees that was greatly useful for mitigating how hot they''d get, especially the angel.


    On the other hand, the godling was getting used to this. The warmth of the sun on the skin of the godling was incredibly pleasant. It was perhaps the most pleasant sensation the godling had ever felt, in all of its few hour-long life. It could definitely get used to sitting around in the sun and simply absorbing its rays.


    Sooner or later the godling would think to question the orb angel it was traveling with about the sun, but not right now. Not when it was content to soak up the rays the sun above them graciously emitted. Its questions could wait for when their hike was over.


    <hr>


    The grassland was a gigantic region consisting of rolling grassy hills, vast expanses of fairly flat and obviously grassy land. In the far off distance, the godling could spot or hear other living creatures. There were herds of wild animals softly grazing on the grass at their feet throughout the region, and the godling could hear birdsong in the skies above it. It hadn''t looked at the sky yet, but when it did it knew that it''d see birds soaring through the air.


    The grasslands smelled odd. The creature''s enhanced senses picked up more than just the normally delightful scent of grass. It could smell faint traces of long-devoured carrion, as well as the residual scent of animal droppings from many meters away. It could even smell the iron-like scent of blood, though it had no way to know what these scents were, due to its youthful ignorance. The mixture of smells surrounding the two beings created an odd cocktail for its senses, one that would have left lesser creatures dizzy.


    The grass was soft and pleasant to feel underneath the feet of the godling. It enjoyed the sensation of crushing the flowers underneath its feet and delighted when it felt those same flowers rising up underneath its feet when it moved off of them and resuming their original positions. It was its ignorance of nature that kept the godling from questioning this clearly odd and unnatural development since flowers, though they were flexible, shouldn''t be able to bounce all the way back from something like that.


    The orb noticed that it had stopped and turned to observe its behavior. At that point, the godling had already memorized and enjoyed the beautiful sight in front of it and was now doing something else but it was something that was only slightly different. The godling was now admiring the sky above it. It was, after all, the first time it had ever seen the clear blue sky. There was a lovely grin on its face as it memorized the sight above it, a cloudless and infinite expanse of blue sky and in the incredibly vast distance, a glorious and bright sun. It took it a few moments to do that, and then its gaze once again turned to the sight before it, but this time it focused its gaze on the orb angel.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    "Now that we''re out of the forest and we have a new location before us why don''t you start to teach me a bit of what it means to be a god?"


    Its voice was filled with curiosity and its gaze had a new sort of childlike innocence and an intense longing for knowledge that gave it hints of both childlike wonder and a respectable hunger for knowledge. The orb angel watched it for a few moments while wondering where it should begin.


    Before it responded to the young deity it began to move again. The godling had wondered if it was being ignored, just for a moment since right when it wondered this was when the orb spoke its response.


    "Gods are... beings of power and creation. Though each god has... different powers and can... create different things, they also have different... levels of... power, they are united in... essentially being made of power and who create... things. You have yet... to meet them but there are... many beings that aren''t gods, or angels. Creatures... unlike us. One type of them... humans... live in... the town we''re heading towards."


    This response from the orb angel was something for the godling to chew on. Then it added something more to its explanation.


    "Gods, and other immensely powerful beings... vanished a long time ago. A very... long time ago. You are the only... god we''ve found since the gods and creatures comparable to gods... vanished."


    The orb angel''s mechanical voice lacked the functionality for emotion, but the godling was sure that it recognized a twinge of sadness in its voice anyway. Its words clearly carried a certain weight and the godling would reflect on them for over 45 minutes.


    The godling also noticed that while the new information was useful, it didn''t actually tell the godling what it meant to be a god. Knowing that it had the potential to have great power and to create things was neat, but it still didn''t know how to create things or access any sort of power aside from its odd mental radar. The young deity hoped it would learn how to use this great power other deities apparently had soon.


    <hr>


    After nearly an hour of hiking had passed, with the godling occasionally instructing the angel to speed up as the only times it broke the silence, the godling wondered if all regions were like this. At this point, the deity and the godling had known each other for a few hours, and though the two seemed to mesh well with each other walking in silence would eventually grow boring. This was doubly true when you spent time hiking over terrain that didn''t seem to change all that much.


    Both the parts of the forest that it stuck to and the areas of the grasslands it wandered over were areas that didn''t seem to change all that much., though part of the problem laid in the fact that the godling could see much farther than humans or elves could. This meant that it adjusted to a lot more at once and saw changes in scenery much more quickly than others could and thus spent longer with each part of its trek mentally laid out before it than humanoids did. It was a bit boring.


    So the godling decided to meaningfully break the silence that had followed the angel''s last declaration.


    "So orb angel... what do you plan to do? I mean if you''re being honest and are correct,"


    The second sentence the godling spoke caused the orb angel to spin in a circle wildly. The godling could tell its remark accidentally struck a nerve and spoke up faster so as to stop the small creature from cutting it off.


    "then that means that my being here, my very existence even, is an event of deep significance. You''re here now, teaching me and guiding me to where other lifeforms live, but what happens after that?"


    The godling didn''t stop until it had finished its statement and asked its question. In the time that took, the angel calmed down a bit but the godling could sense slight annoyance radiating off of it. It was most likely formulating a response even as the godling asked it the question.


    The godling, after thinking about it for a few moments, decided it wouldn''t be bad to add something to its past statement. Hopefully, something that would soothe over any hurt or unpleasant feelings the angel might have had as a result of the godlings statement.


    "And if it makes you feel any better, I do believe you. I''m not accusing you of lying. I''m merely saying that there is a chance you could be wrong about what you believe I am."


    The godling waited for a few moments to determine what the angel thought of its addition. Judging from the way that it didn''t seem to react, at least physically, the godling assumed that the addition to and clarification of its original statement didn''t hurt the angel''s feelings at least. That wasn''t bad, even if it wasn''t good.


    And then the orb angel spoke. This time the angel''s response had very few interruptions. It was worlds apart from when the angel had spoken to the godling the very first time, perhaps a few hours ago.


    "Well... for now, at least, I need to teach you. Sooner or later I''m gonna have to return to the other angels and alert them to your existence, but I don''t want ...to do that before I ensure that you have basic knowledge about this world and about the significance of your existence..."


    The creature paused for a moment and considered what to say next. The godling wasn''t sure how he could tell, but he knew that the creature didn''t really anticipate being questioned as to its plans. The existence of the godling was significant, not only to the godling but also to the angel.


    The godling watched as the orb took a few moments to order its thoughts in a way that would make sense for the godling. Though the deity had no idea that this was what the angel was doing.


    "I''m no great sage among the angels, not by any means or any stretched definition, but I know a lot that will be useful for teaching a young god. You''re... a god, and that means that angels should be serving you. So far none of us are, not even me just yet, but as you grow in power and radiance I believe... I believe that other angels will find you. And many... could join you. Angels serve... the gods."


    The godling nodded at the angel''s response. It was silent for a few moments, growing increasingly fond of the silences between when the two of them spoke due to their relaxed nature and reflection of its own inner calmness. Then the diety broke that silence.


    "Would you like to serve me?"


    Its voice was gentle and curious, honestly unsure of what it meant to be served by angels. It was also deeply confused by the very idea of servitude.


    "Maybe one day. Angels are servants... of the gods. It''s... what we do. We gain strength... by serving the gods and aiding... them. Even though you''re... just a godling I have... already been growing steadily while being in your presence."


    Upon hearing this the godling realized that it was true. The orb angel''s ability to speak had improved over the incredibly short time they''ve spent together and though the godling wasn''t sure how it knew this it felt fairly certain that the creature had grown smarter as well.


    After thinking about this for a few moments the godling urged the orb angel to move even faster. It sensed that they were approaching their destination.


    <hr>


    Within the hour the odd duo was about to reach the crest of one of the grassy hills that were common throughout the grasslands when the orb angel spoke. This was the first time that it spoke up and initiated a conversation since it had first met the godling so when it heard it speaking up the godling was ready to hear what it had to say.


    "Godling, I need you to listen to me."


    This time its voice was different even in comparison to when it spoke last. It felt stronger, more vibrant and almost capable of expressing emotion. It was indifferent in tone as of right now, but the godling could sense that the voice was changing from within the orb angel and not just growing in complexity of thought, but in some odd, and difficult to pin-down, organic way.


    "Once we reach the top of this hill we''re gonna be visible from the town below it. You''ll be able to hear humans, one of the species out there that''s not like you even if you look like them. You might be an immature godling, but you''re infinitely more powerful than even the strongest humans in all of history."


    The godling listened to the angel. The small creature had yet to explain why that mattered, but it was clear that it did. The godling was naive and ignorant to a lot but it wasn''t stupid. It was perfectly capable of understanding urgency and knew that whatever the angel said next would be of great importance. It patiently waited while the floating being gathered, and then structured its thoughts.


    "You need to be careful displaying your strength. Humans... are slower and weaker than you, by a gigantic amount. And though you are ignorant of their ways, they are also dumber than you overall. Until you... gain a true familiarity with this kingdom and a general familiarity with humans they''ll view you as naive at best and dumb at worst."


    "That''s... fine. It''s annoying, but it can ultimately help you while you adjust... to this new setting. It''s also worth telling you this right now: you can speak... in and understand all languages due to you being... a god, but mortals and even other... types of beings can''t always do that. If someone is speaking in a different language, I intend... to let you know because it''ll sound more or... less the same to you. If you respond... they''ll hear you speaking in their language. That''s shocking to a lot of people, because... mortals don''t always assume that you can... speak their language."


    When it finished that statement, the angel paused again. It needed a second to figure out how to proceed with this next train of thought.


    "I''m going touse a skill I have to join with you. When I do I''ll be... entering you. It won''t hurt or anything so don''t worry about that. You and I will be able to communicate telepathically, with our minds, and when you next have a moment of privacy I''ll be able to teach you how to call me out of you... and back into the world.


    ¡±Humans don''t remember much about the angels and if they see me... they''d think that I was something else. Maybe a construct. It''s... just easier for you to enter the town by yourself. I''ll help you if any guards ask you anything. Telepathically."


    When the angel finished its last sentence it waited for the godling to respond. The godling looked at the angel and then nodded its consent before speaking.


    "Well... I am going to trust you. Whenever you''re ready go ahead and do what you need to do and we''ll proceed from there."


    The angel proceeded to do just that. The orb began to spin, increasing in speed with each complete rotation and then instantly vanishing.


    What happened next was easily the most shocking thing the godling had ever experienced. Not that it had much competition yet, but it was still very strange. The godling heard a voice from inside of its head!


    [Hey! Can you hear me?]


    "Yes, I can. It''s weird though... can you hear me?"


    The godling was curious about how this so-called telepathic communication worked. Its question might have been asked out loud, but to the godling itself, it made perfect sense for the creature inside of it to not be able to hear it if it asked a question audibly. The problem was that it didn''t know how telepathic communication worked, beyond that it could receive messages from other people. That didn''t mean it knew how to send those messages out, and the creature didn''t assume it possessed the ability to communicate telepathically, even though it hoped it could learn how to do that.


    [Though it''s understandable for you to do so, there''s no actual reason for you to speak out loud when you respond to me. If you give me permission to do so, I can read your mind, or even receive specific messages you construct for me. I recommend doing that so you don''t look... odd to the residents of the town we''re about to head towards. Humans generally don''t take well to talking to oneself.]


    The angel responded instantly and the godling''s mind began to realize that the creature''s difficulties with speech weren''t mental. It''s possible the creature''s problems were somehow physical.


    The godling refocused after wondering if it could somehow find a way to fix the being that wanted to teach it things, and then tried to will its thoughts to the angel.


    [Hello? Can you hear me?]


    The godling''s mental question was heard loud and clear by the angel and the creature did the mental equivalent of a squeal of delight. The sound was somewhat annoying to the godling and very loud to the creature since the sound felt like it came from inside of the deity''s head.


    The deity itself didn''t point this out but now the creature could hear emotions in the mental "voice" of the angel, and it was excited to be able to reliably perceive what the strange creature was feeling.


    The angel''s response to the deity came seconds after its delighted squeal.


    [Yes I can! Let''s practice this a bit and then travel to the town. Remember: it''ll be visible just beyond that hill.]


    And then the two began to practice their new and stealthy form of communication. They''d practice for a full half an hour before the godling felt ready to continue its journey.


    Just over the hill, they''d be able to see a town. The first town the godling would ever lay eyes on.

 Chapter 4: The Town

    The duo had practiced communicating telepathically for over half an hour. They had gotten used to the odd skill and the godling felt confident enough to resume its hike, while the orb angel continued to stay in its odd incorporeal state supposedly having "joined with" the godling. The godling didn''t ask for permission or for the angel''s insight either, once it felt confident in its ability to communicate it simply and suddenly resumed its hike up the hill.


    The slope was gentle enough that it wasn''t taxing and it wasn''t just because the godling was a creature that didn''t rely on stamina. The hill it was on might have been tall but it didn''t climb at enough of an incline to be especially draining on something''s stamina even something like a gnome or dwarf wouldn''t have been troubled by the climb.


    The godling reached the top of the hill within a matter of minutes and it had eagerly rushed over the peak of the hill to lay its eyes on it had anticipated would be the first settlement it''d ever see. Instead what it found beyond and beneath the peak of the hill, nestled neatly in the valley, was something else altogether.


    [Hey, wasn''t there supposed to be a town of humans here?]


    [Yes... I had flown over here just a week ago and I definitely sensed humans here, as well as complex structures. Not... this.]


    The sight that greeted the odd duo was an eerie one. Instead of seeing a lively town populated by humans in the distance the two saw the ruins of a small settlement. And without the hill blocking the noises coming from the ruins, both of them could hear inhuman roars and loud commands in the guttural language spoken by orcs, even if they couldn''t quite make out the specifics.


    <hr>


    Below the peak of the hill in the ruins of the small town, various orcs busied themselves. The town had been destroyed for less than 12 hours, and even though it was a tiny settlement with just a handful of buildings there was still more than enough work to go around so the orderly pack of orcs had settled in and begun to do the work needed to definitively mark this as their territory.


    The orcs were the warriors responsible for the town''s destruction. It took only 15 of the warriors to overrun the entire town and each of them had the physique of a warrior who spent a lifetime honing their martial skills. Only 3 of the warriors were dressed in heavy armor, they had been the warriors who boldly charged at the town''s gates and thus took on the most risk in the previous night''s battle.


    Their primary duty was to serve as a distraction and rouse the fear and fury of the town''s defenders. When they eventually breached the town''s gates they efficiently and brutally finished off defenders of the town who were poisoned and often left paralyzed or crippled by the stealthy attacks of their peers. Eventually, they took down the gates leading into the town. This also enabled the archers to enter the town and support them with more accurate strikes than the archers could launch from outside of the gates. These heavily armored orcs used their hands in combat, powered by thick muscles and pure rage.


    Of the warriors not dressed in heavy armor, 6 of them served as archers who did their best to surround the town and open fire on any guards who tried to attack their heavily armed companions from behind the supposed safety of weakly built walls. They were equipped with heavy longbows that were nearly as tall as themselves and fired thick arrows laced with debilitating poison over the walls, or in the case of the strongest archer in the raiding party, through the walls themselves.


    Their strike were more surgical and struck many of the town''s guards. Due to the nature of the poisoned arrows poison, their strikes left those unlucky enough to survive their attacks unable to lash out and in deep pain. This protected their more heavily armored companions. This valuable service enabled their front-line fighters to approach the gates with relative safety and eventually destroy them, tearing them down with their bare and bloody hands.


    The other 6 were sneaky rogues who snuck into the town while their companions distracted the town''s defenders. The 6 rogues had spilled the most blood in the battle, having struck at vital targets like the town''s mayor and the lone doctor in the town. They also caused general mayhem by going around and starting fires at key points in the tiny town like the local inn and the local smithy. They used cruel-looking karambit knives and before the night-time battle was over their knives were slick with enemy blood.


    The battle lasted for about 3 and a half hours, and none of the orcs had died even though various orcs had been injured by the very first humans to respond to their attack. The humans themselves either died or fled leaving the town nearly deserted and newly ruined. Now each of the 15 warriors was in a different part of the ruined town, taking stock of the spoils of their battle and exploring what the humans left behind.


    <hr>


    The godling had been given a new toy as it walked down the hill to investigate the ruins. The source of its new toy was the orb angel, who recognized the dangers of approaching a ruin but also knew that stopping a creature with the same sort of insatiable curiosity and energy as the godling was difficult at best. The angel also recognized that it was immensely improbable that whatever the cause of the town''s destruction was could handle the power of a godling, even one that was less than half a day old.


    In its left hand, the godling now held a regal looking staff. The staff was over a meter tall and was the same color as an old oak tree as well as being fairly unadorned with decorations aside from the etching of a few words in the language of angels. It exuded an aura of serenity mixed with power.


    Unlike most magical staffs the mystical stick the godling held wasn''t topped off with a magical orb. It merely looked like a fancy walking stick, that seemed to imbue the air around it with a fascinating and calming air. The godling itself looked more divine carrying the magical stick, well aware of the stick''s true and most unusual nature.


    The staff the godling held was actually the shape-shifted orb angel who decided to merely run with things as they were. Rather than try and convince the godling to go somewhere else, the orb angel had decided to aid the creature that might one day become its master by metamorphizing into a form that could increase the combat capabilities of the odd creature. It did this by transforming into a staff and insisting that the godling channel any magical energy used in combat through it, so that the angel could shape and refine the magic into powerful attacks.


    The godling had infinite magical reserves but lacked the knowledge to use magic in combat and they could both sense the dangers lurking in the ruins with their enhanced senses. As they neared the ruined settlement the various things they sensed increased in potency and in number.


    Now that they were closing in on the ruins they could smell the charred remains of humans mixed with the scent of recently burned wood. Their noses were assailed by the scent of rotting corpses and the godling had a look of displeasure on its face as it neared the ruins.


    The godling was also close enough to the ruins to be able to make out words and sentences in the rough language spoken by the orcs and was curious to investigate what the orcs had foolishly dubbed their "spoils of war" and see what it could or would take for its own.


    <hr>


    The godling''s first encounter with a mortal went about as well as the orb angel had anticipated. Minutes after the metamorphosis of the orb angel, the godling walked past the ruined and shattered gates leading into the ruins and its presence was detected by a particularly attentive orc archer who decided it would guard the ruins from any uninvited guests.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    The archer was hidden thanks to the cover provided by the wall that surrounded the town off to the side of the gate and felt confident that the mysterious stranger who entered the ruins would be an easy target to take down since all it had were its clothes and a staff that more closely resembled a walking stick than a mystical weapon.


    The orc archer was a brave fellow who felt that it could handle the strange-looking human by himself, especially since the human had its back turned. He thought he had yet to be detected by the godling and the godling''s companion, who he was unaware of since it was metamorphized into a staff, and spent several moments notching an arrow that was so densely dowsed in poison that it was dripping, to its longbow.


    After that, he quietly moved his bow into place and aimed. When he felt confident its aim would strike true he released the arrow. The arrow didn''t go far.


    Instead of piercing the orc''s target, the arrow flew through the air and then harmlessly splintered into a thousand flakes of lightly poisoned wood after hitting an invisible barrier of some sort. The orc roared in anger and realized that the human had a sort of mystical shield around itself. And then the human turned in its direction and simultaneously rose its staff to be aimed squarely at the bestial humanoids chest.


    <hr>


    The godling wasn''t sure what to do. It knew that anything the creature tried would fail to harm it, but it wasn''t sure of whether or not to stun the humanoid, kill it, or to try and chat with it. The angel in the godling''s hand sensed the godling''s uncertainty regarding how to proceed and thus decided to speak up.


    [Godling, if I might make a suggestion... perhaps you should merely entangle the creature. If you give me permission to do so and supply me with the magical energy needed, I can ensnare the creature using roots. We are fighting on unpaved ground, after all, it shouldn''t take much energy to capture this one orc.]


    The orb angel''s suggestion was a smart one. The duo and the creature they were facing were on unpaved terrain and densely packed grass, so summoning roots to immobilize the beast would do quite nicely. But the godling had a suggestion.


    [So far none of the creature''s companions appear to be moving any closer. I''m gonna send the energy your way, just like I did with my thoughts earlier, but make sure you silence the creature as well. There''s no need to recklessly get the attention of other creatures right now.]


    Shortly after using its telepathic abilities to make the suggestion, the godling felt the angel''s mental nod of approval and an increase in the respect the angel afforded the deity. The godling responded by smiling softly and sending the angel a rush of magical energy, imbuing the staff with an excess of magical power which was quickly sent forth into the ground beneath them.


    The magical energy surged forth in the direction of the orc who was still excessively angry that his plan had been so quickly foiled and had yet to plan a new course of action.


    He suddenly and recklessly lunged at the godling, intending to savage the weak-looking creature and for a second before he was captured, the orc was out from under the cover of the wall behind him and the sun shone on the creature''s black skin. He sailed through the air in the direction of the godling, intending to fight the creature in melee combat.


    While he was in mid-air the orc reached where the magical energy was, which caused an immediate reaction. Roots burst out from underneath the bestial humanoid and tripped the creature.


    He painfully tumbled through the air and then slid to a stop not far from the godling, with the roots following close behind. The roots tore through the ground and threw dust all over the scene of the conflict, before catching up to the orc and binding him.


    Roots not only twisted like ropes around the creature''s thick legs and even thicker arms, but one slid over his mouth and two positioned themselves near his nostrils, clearly threatening the creature. Unlike the other roots which were blunt and thick, the two roots positioned near his nostrils were thin and ended in sharp looking heads.


    The threat was clear but the orc was too busy seething at the godling to notice it. So the godling walked over to the orc and forcibly moved his head so that he stopped glaring at the creature who captured him and saw the sharpened roots poised to execute him in an instant if the godling thought such an act was necessary. That was frightening but not enough to curtail the creature''s aggression and deep rage at his own weakness and inability to assess a situation.


    <hr>


    Moments later the godling had lifted the orc off of the ground and hauled him over to the wall from which he initially struck. Upon reaching the wall which the orc hoped would provide cover earlier, the godling lazily threw the orc at the wall and then waited until the creature had stopped groaning in pain, even though the sound was distorted due to the roots covering the orc''s mouth. While it did this it moved closer to the raider and looked at him, moving from standing up to crouching so it could more easily study the humanoid it had just fought.


    The godling spent a few moments silently examining the orc. The creature was not good-looking even though he had admirably thick muscles.


    This particular orc had dark skin, mostly resembling the coloration of an onyx gemstone. His face was covered in scars, some of which appeared to be self-inflicted and the orb angel informed the godling that they looked to be rough approximations of runes. Even setting aside the scars, the creature was not pleasant to look at.


    The orcs face could most charitably be described as if someone took a jet black rock and savagely chiseled the most gruesome looking features they could think of onto it. He would definitely have intimidated any normal opponents, but the godling was unphased by the creature''s cruel-looking features.


    His dense nose covered in scars wasn''t frightening to the godling. His rough and thick cheekbones didn''t fill the godling with fear. His resting facial expression was one of barely contained malice but none of that mattered to the studious and cruel creature who had captured him.


    The godling''s hands began to explore the scars that marred the face of the orc, studying how dense each of them were and mentally noting how the creature reacted to the sensations of his scars being touched. Sometimes the creature seemed to shiver in what might have been a sort of anger-filled pleasure, but other times he obviously winced at even the most gentle of touches.


    The godling gently moved the roots covering the orc''s mouth aside, and savagely slapped the creature when he tried to bite the god. It had removed the roots so that it could see the creature''s teeth, not invite a counterattack even though it had predicted such a response by the humanoid. It responded in a way that would make it clear that it would not allow such actions.


    Two of the orc''s teeth were thick tusks that had pressed against the roots that the godling had weaponized against him, and some of the others were needled sharklike teeth with the rest, just a handful really, being fierce-looking pointed teeth that the divine being presumed were useful for cutting into flesh. That last type of teeth were oddly placed throughout his mouth. His breath was gross smelling and carried the scent of recently consumed raw meat.


    The creature had hate-filled red eyes and never once did his gaze move from the face of his captor. He was clearly memorizing the godling''s face and was most likely planning how grotesque his revenge would be if he got the chance to escape from this embarrassing situation.


    The godling smiled at the orc and the gesture carried with it a surprising amount of mock-kindness and gentleness. This was done to infuriate the orc further and it did, causing the orc to resume his futile resistance against the roots, a resistance that he had stopped after he got slapped. The orc had correctly identified the roots as the cause of his immobilization but did not have the strength to free himself.


    After it felt satisfied with its exploration of the raider''s face, the godling continued its study of the creature. The godling spent a few moments examining the density of the creature''s neck before it suddenly launched its hand at the raider''s neck, effortlessly grabbing the creature and standing up. In standing up the creature also lifted the orc off the ground.


    The orc weighed several hundred kilograms but all it took the godling to manhandle the humanoid was a single hand and no effort at all, just the energy needed to stand up from a crouch. The godling experimented with how much strength it put into its grip so that it could mercilessly study how the thickly muscled creature reacted to the painful sensations he was forced to endure.


    After a few minutes of cruel and somewhat scientific testing, the godling dropped the orc listening with a satisfied smirk to the soft sound of the orc''s unconscious form hitting the ground. The godling''s experiments had at some point robbed the orc of consciousness, and so the godling eventually relented.


    It was curious and surprisingly cruel but it didn''t want to break its new toy.


    <hr>


    Before it left to continue exploring the ruined town, the godling turned and directly poured magic into the ground beneath the orc. It envisioned the ground beneath the orc softening like grassy quicksand and absorbing the unconscious body of the orc.


    Its purpose in doing this was to hide the results of its mischief from any other orcs who may otherwise come across their unconscious companion. It didn''t want the orcs to catch onto the fact that it was there. That would have made them come together and openly confront it, which would be a lot more boring than if it snuck up on them one by one.

 Chapter 5: New Knowledge And Readying An Ambush

    The godling silently watched as the orc was slowly dragged into the ground. It continued to watch the results of its own odd display of magical prowess until the orc''s unconscious head sunk beneath the visible surface of the unpaved and grassy ground the two had interacted on top of.


    Once it watched the unconscious humanoid sink beneath the surface of the malleable grass, it poured even more magic into that area and solidified the same ground it turned into a pit just moments ago so that the orc would remain trapped there unless it purposefully decided to free the raider.


    Satisfied with its usage of magic the creature nodded to no one in particular. Then the deity turned back in the direction of the town and went off in the direction wherein it could hear noises resulting from nearby orcish activity.


    <hr>


    Shortly after it resumed its potentially destructive journey into the town, the terrain beneath its feet began to change. It went from walking on top of unpaved terrain, mostly warm and grassy terrain at that, to walking on top of cool cobblestone. The godling keenly and noticeably felt the change as its feet were the one area that was unarmored and was nakedly visible to anyone who could see the godling. It was the area of the godling''s body that was the most sensitive to outside stimuli. It wasn''t a fan of the cool sensation of the cobblestone and decided to find a way off of it quickly.


    Not long after the terrain it was walking on changed it reached the houses, or more accurately the huts, at the most remote outskirts of the small town. Such huts were shoddily built, often composed of a fusion of dried mud and other natural and often free things the poorest villagers could find. The shelters, if they could even be called that, were then built using the magic of a low-level mage or in rare cases by a serf who happened to come across a remarkably low-level scroll of the spell most commonly called create shelter.


    The godling could tell at a glance that these huts had been in disrepair long before the orcs struck this town. It could hear the sound of vermin roaming freely inside of the huts, and smelled the damp musk of mold, most noticeably the scent of mildew coming from inside of them.


    An inexplicable longing to meet some of the unwelcome yet tenacious inhabitants of these miserable shelters filled the godling. The creature''s natural curiosity compelled it to answer the longing, so the godling temporarily put its initial mission on hold and ventured into the nearest hut which was not far from the creature so it took it a matter of moments to reach the grassy curtain that acted as a front door.


    From the outside, the tiny hut that the godling was about to enter was a small shelter that had a quirky roof made of leaves woven together using a strange homemade adhesive. Impressively the adhesive held together even though the hut itself was abandoned and devoid of any sentient residents who''d be needed to reapply it.


    <hr>


    From the inside of the tiny home, the creature was greeted by a dense and noxious mixture of scents. The myriad of smells mixed together to create a pungent cocktail and had the creature been mortal, such a powerful scent could well have sickened it. Instead, the godling quickly and quietly adapted to it without so much as uttering a single complaint.


    The small hut was devoid of furniture, though the godling could see odd patches of discoloration on the floor in the hut. The deity inferred that the hut''s minimalistic interior was due to theft and hadn''t been the natural state of affairs when the house was abandoned, however long ago that may have been. It moved silently through the tiny hut and explored the floor with its eyes.


    The floor was dusty and as a consequence of that, the dust made it an easy place to track things. The godling easily noticed the tiny padded footsteps of mice, and after taking a few moments to scan the various prints that went from one end of the hut to another began to notice differences between sets of tracks, including a difference in the number of digits in each print and in the density of each print, suggesting significant differences between the mice living in this house.


    One particular set of prints stood out to the godling. At this point, the deity estimated a total of 5 different mice in the hut, and of them, 2 had fewer digits than the rest of their little family. The godling was interested in the lighter mouse that lacked a few digits compared to the rest of its mousy family. It was curious as to what the creature would look like, and especially in comparison to the rest of its tiny family, or at least its tiny neighbors.


    [I can tell you''re feeling... curious again. Do you want to try and call the mice out of hiding using magic?]


    The source of the suggestion was the staff the godling held in its left hand. The mysterious artifact was actually an orb-angel that had shape-shifted to better aid the deity in combat and to shape the magic the godling supplied it with into memorable attacks. So far the staff had been used once: to bind the orc who was now hidden just beneath the surface near the town''s wall.


    [Can I do that?]


    The godling''s question was a good and a fair one. Though the deity had infinite magical power, the creature had only used magic once on its own and that was to manipulate the earth itself. It had yet to use magic that directly affected a living creature.


    [Yes you can. Let me explain how to do so.]


    And so the angel who accompanied the godling readied itself to begin instructing the godling in the power of illusion magic.


    <hr>


    The godling was now seated in the center of the small hut. It quietly and respectfully listened to the words of its angel companion whose staff form was placed gently on the floor, the area surrounding it cleared of dust by a single powerful and magical gust of wind it had expelled shortly before the godling placed it on the floor.


    [Illusion magic is an especially potent form of magic that doesn''t actually affect reality itself. In its more common form, it targets minds and souls, plaguing them with the creation of fake stimuli meant to trick them into running into a trap, turning on their friends, or otherwise make them take specific courses of action. In another, more powerful and sinister form it could directly target minds and souls and use magic to overwhelm and override their wills and turn them against friends or make them believe sworn enemies are righteous and trustworthy allies.]


    The orb angel spoke of this magic with an odd reverence. Its telepathic voice was quietly filled with awe and respect for the subject matter. The godling noticed this and after a moment of contemplation decided it needed more knowledge. So the creature spoke up and directly asked the angel what was on its mind.


    [Hey, listen. I''ve got to ask you something... I''ve noticed some weird stuff about you and I want to understand what I''ve seen. You know as much about me as I do, and frankly, you know MORE about me than I do. I want to know more about you. What''s up with the plants from earlier? You know, that weird thing you did when we were in the grasslands? And why do you seem to like illusion magic so much? Don''t get me wrong, it sounds awesome, but it is odd how much you like it.]


    The orb angel was mentally silent for a moment before it could formulate a response it felt satisfied with.After thinking for what felt like a long time, the odd creaturedid respond to the blunt questions.


    [My name is Samyaza. In the distant, and I do mean DISTANT past, I served an evil god of poisons, serpents, and illusions. I was deeply affected by what my old master was passionate about and it instilled in me an admiration for the old domains of he whom I once served. I am unsure of the sort of god you will become, but I am not remotely ashamed of the deity whom I once served.]


    Its mental voice was somber and its thoughts brought a heaviness with them. It continued without waiting for the godling to respond.


    [That''s why I feel strongly about this. I may not know the true fates of the disappeared gods, but I remember my old master and if in teaching you I can instill in you an admiration for the subtleties of poisons, illusions, and serpents then perhaps a portion of my master''s power will live on in you. And earlier I was scanning the plants and seeing if any of them had any usages in potions, or better yet in poisons. They had usages in potions, but not in poisons, sadly.]


    The angel was uncharacteristically forthright in its declaration to the deity. Its words were powerful and changed the mood in the small hut bringing it down but also inspiring the godling.


    The godling quietly developed a new layer of respect for the ancient angel. It also realized that in order to convince the creature to become a true servant it would take time and that the angel wasn''t merely searching for someone to serve. The angel was a complex being with the will and skills needed to do things that advanced its own agenda.


    <hr>


    The silence that followed the declarations of the angel were broken by the angel deciding to return to its lecture. After a few minutes of silence, while the godling absorbed the weight of the declarations, the angel carefully thought about what it would say next. Ultimately it decided to return to its original topic: teaching the godling how to use illusion magic.


    [To use illusion magic you''ve got to have a clear mental image of what you want to do. Either form of the magic requires an indomitable will, a clear understanding of the sensations or feelings you want to evoke, and significant amounts of magical energy.]If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    The godling nodded and began to clear its mind of outside stimuli. It focused on what it wanted: it wanted to cause the mice it saw to come out of hiding and greet it. And then Samyaza mentally spoke once more.


    [Illusion magic might not alter reality, but it strikes at something far more potent than that, at least on an individual level. It targets senses, it targets feelings, and it targets the very souls of those unlucky enough to fall victim to an illusion spell. Aside from spells that target the simplest lifeforms, illusion magic is magic that is very expensive in terms of magical energy. To anyone but you that would be a significant deterrent that gatekeeps many people who are admirers of this form of magic.]


    After listening to this the godling closed its eyes. With its eyes closed, it silently reflected on the weight of the words of the angel and mentally called out to its mysterious wellspring of magical energy.


    [I don''t yet understand where my magical energy comes from, but if there is a part of me that unconsciously controls my distribution of magic, consider this me formally calling out to you. Apparently, this magic is costly and I''m gonna need some overflowing magical munitions!]


    And that was when the godling began to glow a quite bright white light as its body was flooded with a wave of powerful mystical energies.


    [Mice! I want to meet you!]


    The godling released the mental version of a shout and unloaded the mystical energy that surged through its veins all at once. The energies that had been circulating in its body was released outward all at once. The magic seeped into the hut''s very walls and coated the entire area in thick mystical might. The aftermath of this would be quite gruesome.


    <hr>


    Seconds after unleashing all of its mystical powers at once, the godling was surprised to notice a new sound coming out of various parts of the tiny hut. The sound was the unholy mixture of the sounds of bowels emptying and blood oozing out of tiny orifices, as well as tiny noises that resulted from mice who had been standingcollapsingin death.


    [So... some creatures can''t take an excessive mental stimulus. Their brains can be overloaded and the result will be a bloody mess. Specifically, over stimulus of their minds can cause them to experience something like a fatal brain aneurysm.]


    The orb angel hadn''t anticipated the godling relying on overwhelming magical force. If it had it would have warned the creature of this simple and well-known fact in advance. So the deity''s odd and unlikely failure wasn''t entirely the creature''s fault, though Samyaza didn''t think to tell the creature this, mostly out of shame that it itself felt for failing the first deity it had encountered in eons.


    The angel should have remembered that for all of the creature''s power the godling was still deeply ignorant of the nature of the world and of the limitations of many different kinds of creatures. The silence that filled the air between the two creatures, as the scent of blood and defecation mixed with the other scents, was awkward and in its own way quite loud.


    The godling''s failure was deeply embarrassing, and its pride was hurt. This failure caused the creature to experience a rush of anger and humiliation that filled it with an intense desire: to leave this place.


    It turned to leave the hut, just in time to hear the noises of orcs approaching its general direction. Now, this put a smile on the godling''s face, a curious smile that only loosely had fragments of rage within it.


    The godling''s mind turned back to its original mission after encountering the first orc: studying and possibly eliminating the orcs who had taken up residence here, one by one. And the creature intended to fulfill this purpose. It had no idea that it''d learn of how to casually inflict pain merely by watching the orcs.


    <hr>


    The squad of orc warriors were unlike their fellow raiders. The trio were siblings, not triplets or anything but a trio of orcs who shared the same parents and even the oldest of them was born just months before the youngest in their squad due to orcish pregnancies being among the quickest of all monstrous humanoids.


    The trio of heavily armed warriors were incapable of having faith in their more lightly armored but more heavily armed companions.


    Though their lives had been made easier and safer by the support of their fellow raiders, the three of them lacked the ability to effectively coordinate their actions with the actions of the rest of their team because of their fellow raiders insistence on relying on their weapons.


    The orcs were akin to monks who fought using their own bodies and anyone who relied on weapons instead of their own physical prowess would never earn the respect of the warriors. And as they quietly neared the outskirts of the town they wondered if they''d ever find a human who thought like them, because so far they had yet to encounter any human martial artists or monks.


    Unbeknownst to them, they were approaching an endlessly curious warrior who was capable of truly stunning magic and innately possessed a mysterious affinity for using its own body as a weapon.


    And it was quite unlucky for the talented trio that their opponent was someone who was capable of learning from them with little more than a casual gaze, and who had never seen people before.


    <hr>


    The godling had quickly hidden from the approaching orcs. Its tremendous hearing gave it the advantage of having several minutes to plan its course of action, which ultimately was quite simple: it''d ambush the orcs, separate them possibly through the usage of magic, and then more thoroughly study them.


    Finally, it''d need to decide what it''d do their with unconscious forms if they were strong enough to stay alive and endure its curiosity until they lost consciousness, or bodies if they lacked that level of strength.


    The godling had hidden in the shadows of one of the larger huts in the area. It stopped breathing, tried to silence the noise of its footsteps, and had even masked its scent with the scent of the huts. It was stealthy and it was more than capable of waiting for the creatures to get closer. In its silence, it was filled with curiosity, its mind wandering.


    <hr>


    When the trio of orcs neared the hiding place of the godling, they came across an inopportune fellow: a brave man driven by despair.


    This aforementioned brave man driven by despair burst out of one of the nearby houses, a small steel dagger in his hand.


    "Orcs! I''ll fucking kill you!" He roared, as he lunged at the trio. His bravery had mixed with his despair and together they created a poisonous cocktail of rage that drove him to attack the objects of his hatred.


    "Ahhh!" He said, his voice turned into a weak weapon that some small, logical part of his mind hoped would allow him to fill his opponents either with fear or at least distract them while he approached. It didn''t work.


    The three orcs gazed coldly at the human, surprised that one remained alive in the village after the assault. There was neither fear nor chaos in their eyes, only an eerie coldness that chilled the tiny part of the human''s brain that remained logical in the face of despair mixed with rage.


    When the human had closed the distance between himself and the orcs, one of them merely extended his fist into the human''s face. The resulting impact was cruel, and sent the angered man sprawling backward and down into the dusty floor at their feet, stunned by the suddenness of the blow. The orc responsible for the blow grinned.


    "So there''s a human, still alive?" He said, his voice rough and touched with a hint of malice. His siblings were behind him but they grinned at what they heard in his voice.


    One of the trio approached the human, and knelt down by his side. He grabbed the man''s arm and brutally wrenched the weapon out of his hand. The man flinched in response to the brutality of the orc and began to try and meekly punch at his captor.


    The orc took the blows without complaint, but there was a twinkle in his eyes that began to glow more intimidating with each blow. Even after he had disarmed his captive, he kept one of the man''s arms painfully grabbed and chuckled at the human''s blows.


    The human was weak-willed and thoroughly distracted by the orc beside him. He didn''t notice that the orc''s siblings had begun their approach, effortlessly closing the distance between themselves and their captive. He didn''t notice until one of the orcs who wasn''t his captor aimed a brutal kick at his face, one that collided with the human''s ear, and rocked his skull back.


    The god watched this, curious and even vaguely amused by the display of brutality put on by the orcs.This is interesting. The way they moved their bodies allows them to inflict... pain? On their captive.The thing observed, studying the scene before him with intense interest.


    Some part of it delighted in what it was seeing. In what it was learning. In some ways, this scene helped it make sense of combat, and of the ways that people interacted. After all, this reflected what had happened to it when it stumbled across the first creature it had met that didn''t talk first: the orc that had fired upon it and was subsequently defeated by it.


    So if people attack you and fail they can be hurt by you... but what if you attack people? If you win are you allowed to toy with them?It wondered. This question would evolve into a sort of philosophy for the young god later on:"Try not to attack people first, unless you know for sure they mean you harm."


    But at that moment, the little godling didn''t have the knowledge needed to grapple with that sort of moral question. Instead the thing slowly decided, almost out of childlike glee, if such an emotion could be mixed with a desire for violence, to mimic what it had seen. To show the orcs who hadn''t been aware of its presence what it had learned from them.


    It had no way of knowing that the sight of the orc''s violence had inspired it and also had mixed with the innately negative feelings it had felt when it realized that its spell hadn''t worked, and it had instead killed the mice in the house.


    It was that unpleasant cocktail of emotions that drove it to reveal itself to the orcs, and to mimic what they had done to the human, to them. After all, they looked like they had had fun, and it also wanted to have fun.


    <hr>


    Within a matter of minutes, the orcs had tortured and almost by accident murdered their attacker. The human''s corpse was something they briefly considered eating, but ultimately they just lifted it up and deposited it unkindly back in the house he had just attacked them from.


    It was at that moment, seconds after they left the house of the attacker, that their silent observer decided to act. The godling had watched, waited, and studied them. And now, unbeknownst to them, it felt a desire to mimic them. It was unfortunate for them that they were the closest creatures to it. Their attacker didn''t wait long.


    Once they were back out of the house their human assailant had lunged at them from, the godling immediately made its move.


    The trio felt an oppressive pressure in the air around them suddenly emerge that made them freeze up. They couldn''t name why they felt this pressure, but they each felt the hairs on the back of their necks stand up as well as the hairs on their arms do the same thing.


    They knew this sort of feeling could be triggered by a tremendously powerful sense of bloodlust but they had no idea if they were feeling something real or if they were feeling some sort of residual hatred from the recently created spirits of their victims throughout this town.


    Regardless of the origins of the pressure the trio huddled closely as they tried to explore the huts at the edge of the town. Once they had just walked past the godling none of them saw or heard the quietly enraged creature rise from its hiding place and begin to stealthy approach them.


    All they knew was that something was emitting an inhuman amount of killing intent and that if whatever it was bared itsfangs against them they''d be in for the fight of their lives. And they had no idea how right they were. After waiting for a few moments the godling was ready to strike and mentally readied its first lunge.


    Before they even knew it or hadthe remotest understanding of their circumstances, the orcs were in a desperate battle against a cold enemy, one who possessed infinitely more power than even all three of them did. And one who wasn''t driven by hatred, but a cocktail of emotions.

 Chapter 6: Swirling Evil And An Ambush

    The godling''s companion had reverted from being a staff to being within the godling''s mind and body. It did this when the immature deity began to plan its ambush of the orcs. And in the final moments, before the godling attacked the orcs, the angel was focused on exploring the godling''s mind.


    Samyaza found itself thankful that the godling had made a mistake. When the godling had last shared its thoughts with the angel it hadn''t manually shut off the strange telepathic connection that linked the two and allowed for the thought exchange to happen. This created a situation that allowed the orb angel to peer into the mind of the godling and learn what was going through the deity''s mind while also gaining an understanding of its emotions. It had been observing the mind of the godling for a while now.


    Originally the creature''s mind had been filled with idle observations. Its thoughts revealed a stunning and childlike curiosity about the world around it, which was mildly annoying when mixed with the potency of the deity''s senses. Its mind had run a mile a minute as it made inane observations about everything around it and about the smells, sounds, and feelings of so many different things.


    But now the godling''s mind was a mess. Ever since it had made a mistake in how it dealt with the mice, it had been filled with rage and humiliation. It was a swirling pit of dark emotions and maliciousness. To Samyaza this was an interesting and exciting development because it meant that the godling had a mean streak in it that could be nurtured in a dark direction.


    The orb angel''s old master had been a creature of darkness, wickedness, and maliciousness. It was exciting to see the seeds of such traits in the godling intrinsically.


    [I can''t believe that I failed.]


    [Someone''s gonna pay for this.]


    [It''s not the fault of those creatures that I messed up, but since they''re here and their friend attacked... maybe I can use them to get rid of some of this anger.]


    All of the young divinity''s thoughts were similarly dark. Samyaza almost felt pity for the orcs, but mostly it found their plight funny. After all the evil creatures didn''t really deserve to meet such a gruesome end. It was just incredibly rotten luck that brought them to this community just hours before the godling arrived.


    What the ancient angel hadn''t yet noticed was that the godling''s bloodlust was affecting the angel as well. It''s simple-minded and anger-driven ferocity was seeping into the soul of the angel since the angel was essentially in direct contact with the mind of the godling.


    Even a being as old and who had as much willpower as the angel wasn''t completely immune to mental influence when it shed its physical form and joined someone else as a sort of ride-along spirit. Such an influence could be difficult to spot, and when the angel would spot it, it''d severely annoy the ancient creature.


    <hr>


    Minutes afterbeing buried, while the godling was preparing its ambush of the orc''s fellow raiders, the orc the godling had defeated and buried earlier in the day, awoke in the dark.


    For a moment the orc was afraid. It wasn''t a smart orc, among its companions it was in all likelihood the least intelligent orc, and as it wondered what happened to it that was apparent. The first thing the creature thought was that it had died at the hands of its mysterious attacker. In the few moments he thought he was dead he wondered why he had regained consciousness, which if anything served as a reminder that even if orcs as a whole aren''t dimwitted, this particular orc was.


    Orcs as a whole lacked belief in the afterlife, and the majority of orcs had long since forgotten the brutal deities orcs were once famous for worshiping. The majority of atheistic orcs felt that when they died, they were gone and would never feel anything again. The orc was buried was one of the orcs who had that opinion on what happened for orcs after death.


    What changed its mind on the possibility that it was dead was that after a few moments of not breathing its lungs began to hurt and burn. The creature realized that it still needed to breathe but when it opened its mouth to breathe dirt began to flood into its open mouth. The orc panicked and began to flail wildly as if trying to swim up and out of a pool made of dirt and soil.


    The orc''s luck and low intelligence synced up well with the low wisdom of the godling. The godling hadn''t buried the orc deep beneath the earth and hadn''t anticipated that the sturdy being would wake up just minutes after the divine being knocked it out. Within moments and purely by accident the rough and muscled hand of the orc burst through the earth it had been buried in. This made the orc realize that it was buried underground, and this minor success granted the orc the morale boost needed to continue the difficult task of freeing itself from its earthen prison.


    Within minutes the orc would free itself.


    <hr>


    Long after the day would have started for her neighbors and friends throughout the town, had they still been alive, the human child named Selena Moonbond awoke with a sound that was the fusion of a yawn and a sigh. The tiny girl rubbed her eyes so as to deal with the familiar yet gross sensations that plagued her eyes every time she woke up. Shortly after she performed this daily ritual she opened her eyes and couldn''t see anything beyond the typical darkness of her family''s basement.


    She had long since mentally adjusted to the darkness inside the basement she lived in and calmly waited until her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. It took her vision but a moment to adjust and for her vision to become filled with the familiar decorations that adorned her unusual living space. She smiled at the sight of her own drawings and childish decorations. And then she moved with a grace and fluidity that was only rarely found in humans as she leaped off of her bed.


    The little girl landed on the floor next to her bed and then quickly and quietly turned to her dresser so that she could begin to search for clothing that she hoped would keep her warm. Within minutes she found a suitable outfit consisting of a thin green coat, a long red dress, and fur-lined boots.


    Shortly thereafter she began to walk up the stairs that led out of the basement and into the rest of the house once owned by her family. It wasn''t until she had her hand on the door and was in the middle of pulling it open that the scent of dried blood wafted into her nostrils.


    <hr>


    Far away from the little girl and her developing encounter with horror, the warriors who had placed themselves at great risk during their initial attack on the town found themselves facing a far greater threat in the form of an enraged godling.


    The orcs were bold. Even in its rage the godling could admit and admire that. It could detect the level of bloodlust it was emitting and it knew, in the same mysterious way that it knew other seemingly random things, that lesser orcs would have fainted if exposed to the level of bloodlust it was freely releasing into the air.


    The creature had hidden itself from them while waiting for them to move into position, but when it threw itself at them the creature made no attempt to keep its presence a secret. It made a terrifying noise by hissing and allowing its voice to bounce off of the huts that surrounded it, which paralyzed the orcs when they realized that it was impossible to determine where the noise was coming from.


    The orcs were taken by surprise when a shape emerged from the shadows of one of the huts and lunged at them, moving at a speed that they could only barely perceive. In an instant, the being had moved from its hiding place meters away from them to a small gap in their formation.


    It could only occupy this space by hunching over and reducing the space the creature took up as much as it could due to its normally significant height. Almost the same instant the orcs noticed the godling had gotten between them it attacked, unleashing a flurry of limbs at them.


    The godling''s first strike was a dazzling multi-limbed attack that scattered the orcs. Two orcs received tremendously powerful blows from the godling''s fists that had so much weight and power behind them that they dented the heavy breastplates the orcs had on.


    Both orcs received a scar the shape of the fists imprinted on their chest like a brand. The force of the punches threw the orcs off their feet and sent them sprawling through the air until they landed on their backs, meters away from their previous location.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    The other orc was blown away from its siblings by a truly devastating kick that caught the creature where its abdominal muscles met its pectoral muscles and tore a hole through the thick armor the warrior wore. The armor might have been torn through but it did succeed in just barely protecting the creature from instant death.


    The force of the blow lifted the creature off of the ground and sent it sailing through the air. What stopped the orc from flying further was a wall of hardened mud that was part of one of the nearby huts. The orc smashed into it, and every one of the warriors in the fight could hear the sickening crunch of bones breaking. The orc fell from the wall and landed on its knees, its face facing the ground beneath it and its eyes wide in shock and pain. It barely clung to consciousness.


    The godling stood still for a moment to survey the scene following its explosive first strike and then retracted its limbs so that it could stand properly. It found the pain-filled moans of the orcs to be filled with the perfect amount of agony and enjoyed the smell of the fear coming off of its prey in waves.


    The godling enjoyed the sight of the orcs in pain. Though it didn''t articulate it, it wondered what the flesh of such creatures would taste like. Samyaza watched this conflict, growing increasingly delighted and fond of the godling with each dark observation that entered the godling''s mind.


    The orcs were too busy clutching their chests and trying to recover from the terrifying power and mythic might of the godling to notice its eyes transform. At the start of the fight, the godling''s eyes were pupilless golden orbs and after the godling attacked the warriors its eyes shifted into a cruel shade of crimson as if to match the creature''s enjoyment of the pain it was inflicting.


    <hr>


    Back in her home, the little girl didn''t immediately encounter any corpses. Even though she could clearly smell the unmistakable scent of blood mixed with the thick smells ofbits of unnamable viscera, what greeted her when she opened the door leading out of her room and stepped beyond it wasn''t the brutalized corpses of her parents. Instead, she was actually greeted by what was left behind following an orcish rampage through her home.


    Last night she had spent an hour here before she went to bed, yet she couldn''t recognize this room. If something hadn''t been bolted to the floor like the table in the center of the room was, it wasn''t where it had been when the little girl went to sleep. It was like there had been a miniature tornado that scattered the items that belonged in the room.


    The table she had dinner at had a single cruel-looking knife stuck in the middle of it and from the knife dripped small droplets of blood which created a small pool of blood right below the blade. The chairs her father had handmade for their home laid shattered in a corner of the room, near where the unlit fire pit where she helped tend too was quietly smoldering, apparently and somewhat weirdly left untouched by the orcs.


    The horror of it all silenced the little girl, but she knew she needed to look for her family. Despite the terror etching its way into her heart, she did what she could to steel herself and turned to head towards the door that would lead into her parent''s room.


    <hr>


    The godling stood where the three orcs had been just moments ago. It gave off an air of intimidation, partially due to its seemingly calm nature even thoughinternally it was raging, and glared at the three orcs it viewed as little more than punching bags. The four creatures, the godling, and its three enemies stayed still for over an entire minute while each of them contemplated what to do next.


    The three orcs had the combat instincts needed to understand that if they stayed down they wouldn''t be able to beat the godling. Despite that knowledge, they found themselves unable to stand up or try to rally together. This was due to a wave of emotions they were unfamiliar with, emotions like insecurity and fear, overcoming the usual calmness and stubbornness the trio experienced in a fight. These emotions assailed their mental fortitude and crippled their ability to recover from the attacks enough to fight back.


    Unsurprisingly the first of the combatants to move was the godling. Itpounced at the orc who had taken the most damage, the one slumped against the wall and laughed as it charged. The sound was shockingly high pitched, and filled with mirth which made it all the more terrifying to the orcs who wouldn''t have suspected such a sound to come from someone eagerly terrorizing them.


    The godling opened its fist like a claw in mid-air and imagined how satisfying it''d feel to rip through the heavy armor the orc it kicked wore, deliberately aiming for what little armor clung to the brute''s body.


    <hr>


    Samyaza watched this scene from inside of the godling''s mind. It savored the viciousness of the godling''s thoughts and for a moment almost wanted the godling to kill the orcs before it. Then it mentally kicked itself.


    The godling had powerful emotions and with such chaotic thoughts, it was capable of unconsciously influencing anyone who dared reside within its mind even momentarily. But Samyaza was an eons-old angel possessing considerable willpower and it managed to use that willpower to resist the urge to want the godling to kill.


    Its aversion to the immature god murdering creatures wasn''t altruistic. The angel understood how godly powers worked, and how the gods of the distant past gained power. It wanted the godling to defeat and overwhelm the orcs because in doing so it stood to gain servants and its first worshippers.


    The gods of the past gained strength from their worshippers. They could gain new powers and increase in might if mortals believed in them and served them. And orcs believed in strength and the strong, making them excellent first servants for a god like the godling who possessed immense power and had fairly limited knowledge.


    What passed for "culture" among the often simple-minded and brutal orcs was an adherence to the idea of might making right. The strong were served. And the weak served. Unlike many other monstrous humanoids, orcs had fairly little xenophobia which led to them being found in the service of a range of mighty beings.


    Orc lieutenants and orcish bodyguards were relatively common in armies of darkness and orcs found frequent employment in the service of despots and tyrants. Samyaza knew that and after the godling had avoided murdering the first orc it came across, the angel began to plan an experiment. And the angel knew that if the godling murdered the orcs its experiment would be harder to implement. So the angel kicked itself for letting the godling''s bloodthirst go so far without being checked.


    The angel knew that the godling in its current state might well kill the orcs. So it needed to interfere. And it needed to do that in that very moment before the godling finished its pounce onto the injured orc.


    [Godling, stop! WAIT!]


    The angel''s mental shout was more effective than it anticipated it being.


    <hr>


    In moments of desperation, orcs could suddenly and dynamically spring into action. The terror of seeing the powerful godling pounce at their heavily injured sibling spurred the other orcs, who were themselves seriously injured, to action. But if it hadn''t been for the timely intervention of the angel, the godling would have been soaring through the air too quickly for the orcs to catch up with the deity.


    The angel''s mental shout surprised the godling and disrupted its concentration, causing the creature to land on the ground and stay still for just a second while it tried to figure out what its companion wanted. The second was enough for the two orcs who caught up with the deity and instantly lashed out while their attacker was on the ground.


    Both orcs gathered as much strength as they could in their fists, and launched said fists like fireballs at the godling. One of the orcs aimed for the face of the deity, and the other aimed for its stomach. Both were shouting as their thick fists sailed through the air.


    The deity smiled as it realized that it was about to take a hit and felt no particular desire to try and dodge the fists of its opponents.It felt a mixture of emotions in the milliseconds it waited to feel the impact of the strikes. More than anything else though, the deity felt curious as to what the blows would feel like.


    <hr>


    The nightmarish cross between a massive ape and a gigantic pig that stood at least three and a half meters tall snorted impatiently. It stomped its weighty hoof onto the ground it stood on and let loose a string of blasphemous expletives cursing the plane of its birth.


    For the last few minutes, this brutish creature had felt compelled to stand in one seemingly random corner of the layer of the nightmarish plane of existence once called The Heart of Darkness it arrogantly dared to call itself the guardian of.


    The scene that surrounded it was a macabre one. It stood in a dark chamber, located in an even darker ruined and nearly abandoned castle which itself was located in a landscape of fire and brimstone.


    It was surrounded by what looked like long-dead corpses of nightmarish amalgamations of various sorts of creatures crudely strewn onto dangling and diseased hooks. Some of the creatures were unholy fusions of humans and anglerfish. Otherswere like centaurs but instead of being half human and half horse, they were various creatures mixed with horses.


    Perhaps three or four times a minute one or another of the creatures would let loose a ghastly groan that would have terrified humans but was utterly boring to the creature of pure malice and pride who stood in the room.


    It was from this darkplaneof the universe that demons sprung, roared, and blazed into existence. This unthinkably large plane of existence was home to trillions of dark demons, and more sprung into existence every hour. But in the ages since the disappearance of the gods and their powerful peers, all of the old portals into the Heart of Darkness shut off.


    Currently, portals in and out of the realm were incredibly rare and had always been temporary. But the strange demon felt its wicked and abominable heart telling it that one would spring into existence soon if it could just be a bit more patient.


    The creature obeyed the compulsion it felt. It looked remarkably patient, for a demon, as itdared to hope one of the almost mythically rare portals out of the hellscape it lived in would spring into existence soon, allowing the creature to plague and terrorize a world where it was an alien.


    If the creature was truly lucky, it''d get to visit a world that had yet to be visited by demons. That thought was powerful enough that if it had needed too the creature would have stayed where it was for hours. But the creature wasn''t going to wait much longer.

 Chapter 7: In Motion

    The squad of soldiers and bureaucrats, led by the court wizard rode on in silence. Each member of the unorthodox squad was too preoccupied with their own fears, ambitions, and thoughts to muster the energy needed to converse with their peers. The only sounds that disrupted the tense silence were the footfalls of their galloping horses and the occasional grunts of the riders as they urged their horses to either go faster or maintain their brutal pace.


    Only the soldiers with the most skilled eyes and advanced training as mounted scouts noticed the first clue as to what awaited them in the sleepy town they were fast approaching. Their horses were speedily galloping through a densely wooded area, but some of the soldiers kept their eyes open and alert to try and find even vague clues as to what waited for them.


    A few soldiers who possessed remarkable sight and the training needed to scan the ground while atop horses noticed thick footprints in the ground they sped by.The skilled horseriders kept their eyes glued to the ground and noticed distinct sets of footprints, some of which were noticeably different in size even in the few seconds they got to observe them before the prints were too far away to see.


    The soldiers looked at each other and did their best to communicate their ominous finders without speaking. Before they said anything they wanted to be as sure as they could have been.


    Meanwhile, the court wizard was distracted. Lost in his own thoughts, the wizard remembered the mysterious circumstances that caused him to assemble this squadron and lead them towards the most distant settlement from Baron Hightower''s protection and militia that was still technically within the baron''s territory.


    <hr>


    The wizard''s recollection of the odd events of the day went back to when he had first been informed about another task the baron had asked him to complete. It all began fairly early that same day.


    Not long after waking up the wizard received a telepathic message from the baron. The baron had informed the wizard that his son hadn''t come home last night via a set of enchanted amulets that allowed the two to communicate telepathically across vast distances.


    The baron wanted the wizard to see if he could locate the nobleman''s son. That was, in all honesty, a reasonable task to assign to a wizard and far better than the usual tasks the baron forced onto the wizard.


    Had anyone asked the wizard for his opinion about the baron''s son and told the wizard to be candid, the wizard would tell them that the baron''s son was a surprisingly skilled bureaucrat. If they convinced him to chug a pint or two of wizard fire liquor before asking him, he''d also likely reveal that he considered the baron''s son a man too easily swayed by the charms of the fairer sex.


    The wizard, knowing better than to reveal mildly insulting insights to even a non-noble parent, told the baron that he''d get right on that mission. And in the interest of fairness, the wizard actually had been working on that mission when he was given a task the baron deemed more urgent, by the baron in the flesh no less, which was itself a sign of the urgency of the new duty.


    The wizard spent the hour after being asked by the baron to find his son assembling the material components he''d need to cast the scrying spell the spell-slinger''s devilish familiar had recently taught him. He had almost been done placing the components where they needed to be, when he heard someone activate his mental alarm by entering his home, uninvited, via teleportation circle.


    The wizard had immediately ceased his preparations and turned to head towards the bottom layer of his arcane abode and greet whoever it was who had entered his lair. He had a hunch as to the identity of his uninvited guest and if he was right then that meant he had no time to waste.


    Due to his magically reinforced body, and a network of teleportation circles leading from one part of the tower to another, he was able to reach the foyer leading into his home just moments after he received the notification that the tower had an uninvited visitor. And his hunch was correct.


    Standing right beside the teleportation circle was the mighty and ambitious Baron Hightower himself. Upon seeing the wizard rushing into the foyer from a teleportation circle located just out of sight of the foyer, the imposing nobleman smiled grimly at his mystical employee and immediately began to speak.


    The baron was a man with an imposing presence. He was a tall man, and his face was framed by his dark hair and the immaculately groomed beard which was equally as dark as the hair atop of his head. He towered over the other people in his court, at an impressive height of just under 2 meters tall.


    His fashionable and intimidating black outfit added to his aura of nobility and darkness, while also protecting him from most conventional weapons. He wore what looked like expertly stitched black clothe robes, but the robes hid a secret.


    His robes were made from metal-thread, a thin and magical metal that could be stitched into clothes that were fashionable and soft-looking but every bit as protective and sturdy as gold. Metal-thread was one of the territory''s key exports and every bit of clothing worn by lesser nobles throughout the territory was made of the stuff.


    "Mordred. I apologize for barging into your home like this, and uninvited no less, but I have a task that I fear may require your magical might and is most likely more pressing than the search for my son."


    The wizard nodded at his employer and waited for the baron to expand on this mysterious task.


    <hr>


    Hours later, at roughly the same time that the godling is pouncing at the orcish raiders who were responsible for her parents'' death, the young human Selena Moonbond would fall to her knees as she finally found what she knew and feared she''d find. The corpses of her parents. They were on the floor of their bedroom room, their bodies riddled with stab wounds and their blood had long since ceased flowing out of them.


    Their daughter starred at the two corpses, her normally bright green eyes filled now with terror and sadness in equal measure. Their bedroom wasn''t as devastated as the family''s living room had been but in other ways, the devastation here was far more permanent. After all, furniture could be replaced.


    The little girl''s mind was blank. She was only 8 years old, and now she was an orphan. When her mind began to recover, several long minutes after she first saw the bodies of her parents, she began to cry. Quiet, heaving sobs wracked her tiny body.


    She was too absorbed in her own sorrow to notice that the floor behind her begin to darken. And she was too young to be familiar with the sensation of dark magic gathering around heartbroken people. And she was also ignorant of her own magical power.


    Her ignorance made her defenseless against the sorts of demons that could soon rush into the world if she was left alone and her sorrow continued to eat away at her sanity.


    The wall to her left began to glow a soft shade of gold.


    <hr>


    The orcish brawlers caught up with the godling at the same time due to the angel interrupting the deity''s concentration, and their strikes were impressively synchronized.


    One of the orcs'' fist was sailing towards the godling''s gut and his brother threw a punch aimed at the godling''s face. The godling gritted its teeth as it felt the painful impact of both punches, its face twisting as the orcish fist slammed into it in an effort to minimize some of the damage it would take, and its abdominal muscles hardening in response to the blow it took to its stomach.


    The orcs weren''t the sort to let the godling catch a breath. Both brawlers quickly retracted their fists and glared at their enemy. The two brawlersreadied themselves to launch what they hoped would be a withering assault using their own muscular limbs against the godling.


    <hr>


    Samyaza had contemplated using its own magical power to shield the godling from the orcish brawlers. It had actually debated what to do even as the orcs sailed through the air towards the inert deity following Samyaza''s mental shout. It was the godling''s curiosity about what the strikes would feel like that compelled the orb angel to allow the strikes to connect with the godling uninterrupted and unfiltered through magical pain reduction.


    Samyaza watched and listened as the deity internally reacted to the blow.


    [So that''s what getting hit feels like? Weird. It''s not as bad as I imagined, but I mean... I''m not a fan]


    The deity''s musings on pain and experiencing a hit weren''t cowardly. Nor were they fetishizing. They were fairly ordinary. Which, in Samyaza''s mind, was definitely a good thing.


    Over the course of its long life, the angel had served more than one master though all it had done was ultimately in service to its true master. Some of the people it had served were odd beings who truly reveled in experiencing pain firsthand.Stolen novel; please report.


    Samyaza didn''t like those masters. It preferred serving masters who were proud, powerful, and preferred to inflict pain than experience it.


    [Hitting people can be fun, but getting hit kind of sucks.]


    The deity''s next observations were about the orcs as they readied themselves to go on the offensive.


    [They aren''t giving up huh? Not bad.]


    At this moment the angel noticed that the godling''s bloodlust had gone down. It wasn''t gone by any means, but the creature wasn''t fixated on it anymore.


    The angel wasn''t sure what to make of the seemingly abrupt mood swings. But the angel found itself quickly distracted by the fight it was watching.


    The godling smiled at the two brothers as they lunged at it. They opened their mouths and monstrously roared at their enemy as they spread their arms out and hoped to build distance between the godling and their more heavily injured sibling.


    One of them did this while leaping at his foe, and stomped his foot on the ground just centimeters from where the godling''s foot had been moments ago. The resulting stomp echoed loudly and the noise could probably be heard from a good distance away. This was mildly annoying to the deity.


    In the excitement of watching the godling experience new things, the angel forgot to explain why it had shouted at it to stop.


    <hr>


    Meanwhile, the wizard continued his contemplation of the circumstances leading him away from the safety and isolation of his liar. His thoughts were calmer now, even as he felt his horse galloping closer and closer to their mysterious destination, than they had been while he was in the baron''s presence earlier.


    The wizard had long ago learned the moral weaknesses of many of the key members of the court of the baron. The baron himself had an obvious and powerful weakness: for all of his ambition and competence, the baron was a man who had an all-consuming desire for wealth.


    Had the wizard possessed the calmness needed to detach himself from the shock of the baron coming to his lair unannounced just an hour after giving him a task, he would have been able to predict the gist of what the baron told him.


    The baron first told him of a tax collector the baron had assigned to a far-away and tiny community just yesterday. Due to the distance between the baron''s castle and the sleepy town he was being sent to, the baron had given him one of the few spare amulets of telepathy that he had in his possession and gave the amulet''s magical sibling to a financier who worked for the baron. The tax collector had a simple task: head to the town and begin the process of collecting the year''s taxes from the town''s inhabitants.


    The tax collector had been told by the financier to send regular updates. Yesterday the tax collector had informed the financier that he had successfully arrived in the town not long before the sun would set and would give two more updates within the next few hours.


    The tax collector had only given one more update, informing the financier that he had spoken with the mayor and the local captain of the guard and both men intended to aid the collector however they could. The financier had gone to bed annoyed that he hadn''t gotten another update but not worried. That changed when he tried to reach out to the collector in the morning and got no response.


    After hearing about a lack of updates from the financier, the baron used an amulet he had long ago given to the captain of the guard to try and speak with the man earlier this morning.


    The town''s captain of the guard was also a friend of the baron''s, so when the amulet he used failed to connect with that of the guard''s captain, the baron was filled with legitimate worry and not just concern due to greed. It was that worry which compelled the baron to assign a new task to the wizard.


    The baron placed the wizard in charge of figuring out what was occurring in the small town. The baron expected regular updates and said that for the purpose of this task the wizard was temporarily the second-highest ranked person in the territory, just after and under the baron himself.


    More than the command itself, what stuck out to the wizard was the following statement by the baron:


    "If you do not fail me here, I will see to it that you are properly and justly compensated. Keep that in mind and do what it takes to ensure I receive my money and if my friend lives do your best to aid him. I see your efforts, and I reward those who serve me well."


    The nobleman had made that promise shortly after issuing his commands to the court wizard. He made it for the sake of ensuring the wizard took this task as seriously as necessary, but he also meant what he said.


    The baron''s commands were clear, and the promise of just and proper compensation lit a fire in both the wizard and the wizard''s familiar. The familiar traveled with the wizard and was at the moment riding on top of the man''s shoulder, not bothering to hide from the wizard''s squad.


    The wizard''s squad knew about the imp and bore it no ill will. After all, it had ensured each of them that they would also be properly rewarded for their assistance in this mission, and in the past when it made such promises to the skilled men in the squad it always delivered.


    Imps were creatures of ill-intent but when they made promises they did their best to deliver. They understand the persuasive power of promises and knew better than to tarnish their reputations by reneging on promises.


    <hr>


    Within a few minutes the soldiers had noticed even more prints, and worse yet noticed that some of the prints seemed to have gone in another direction, which to soldiers with less experience and knowledge might have been misunderstood as a welcome sign. In actuality, the vanishing prints suggested that the hunches of the soldiers were correct, not incorrect.


    The soldiers were familiar with the tactics of orcish raiders and knew that small groups of the brutes tended to rely on diversions as part of a strategy to mount successful raids on small towns and frontier settlements. Their tactics were simple: send heavily armored warriors settlement gates as a distraction, while rogues, archers, or mages snuck into the communities or otherwise opened fire on enemies in the settlements themselves.


    One of the soldiers took it upon himself to speak up and inform his peers as to the nature of the suspicions of the trained combatants. He was one of the younger soldiers in the squad, but he was every bit as skilled and professional as his more experienced companions. He shouted loudly hoping that that would enable each of his colleagues could hear him.


    "Companions! Before we travel any further, I implore you to listen to me for a moment."


    After he spoke, he paused for a second and examined his allies. Each of them was doing their best to indicate that they had given him their attention.


    "I, and I believe my fellow soldiers as well, have seen thick footprints in the ground below us. And moments ago some of those footprints began to trail off in another direction. I suspect... well sirs, I suspect that we might be traveling towards the fallout of an orc raid."


    It took the soldier a second to speak, but when he did he had the attention of the squad. The response to his declaration indicated that his warning was taken seriously. Bureaucrats tightened their grips on the reins of their horses and starred grimly in the direction their horses were galloping in, and soldiers placed hands on the hilts of their swords.


    "Shit. I recommend everyone here prepare for combat then."


    The wizard''s recommendation was logical but curt. And then silence overtook the small squad once again. The wizard began to silently call out to the magic sleeping within him and mentally roused it to be ready to be weaved into spells, or sung out into the world around him as need be.


    <hr>


    The demon starred at a wall. It was just like any other wall in the dark castle, made of ill-maintained demonic material and in disrepair. The only reason why the demon focused on that wall, in particular, was that that wall was the one in front of it.


    In the past few minutes, the air in the nightmarish castle''s dark torture chamber had changed. It was a subtle change, but not one that escaped the notice of the nightmarish castle''s lone guardian. The sentinel demon waited longer still, but the subtle change had been encouraging.


    In the eyes of the magic-sensitive fiend, the room had taken on a slightly darker hue as dark energy begin to subtly seep into the room. It was as if dark magic, perhaps hate-powered or terror-powered magic, was flooding into the ancient fortress''s torture chamber. To the demon, it was a delightful sight and feeling. One that filled its dark heart with evil approximations of wonder and glee.


    It could sense that its wait was nearly over. The terrifying demon licked its thick lips in anticipation of the terrors it''d soon inflict on mortals.


    And then the wall not far from where the sentinel demon stood, the one it had been starring at, began to shimmer slightly, emitting soft golden sparks. And the gentle sound of quiet weeping began to fill the torture chamber.


    <hr>


    The godling was in motion. It was swiftly and carefully dodging or blocking blow after blow coming from its orcish opponents.


    The two really were a talented team. The warriors moved in sync and alternated between taking turns challenging the godling and attacking as one organism. The godling allowed them to attack for several minutes and concerned itself almost entirely with blocking or dodging their attacks.


    It did this because it wanted to learn how the orcs fought. They were after all the first creatures who had ever hit it, so it made a certain kind of sense for the creature to want to learn from their fighting style. It watched them obsessively, memorizing each subtle movement and quickly learning to predict their strikes. In its own way, it had developed both curiosity about the creatures and respect for them.


    After a few strikes passed without any real reprisal from the deity, the godling would launch a swift counter so that it could carefully watch how they reacted. When it did this it was careful to not put too much strength behind its motions and techniques. That was so the orcs could quickly react and get back in the fight, and so they weren''t seriously hurt by it.


    For their part in all of this, the orcs quickly realized that the godling didn''t feel endangered by them. This both surprised and annoyed the two prideful creatures. They knew their hits connected with the creature and should caused the being to feel some pain but it was like they hadn''t done anything of note to the entity.


    The godling wasn''t even consciously aware of the importance of psychological warfare, yet it was dominating the two in that regard.


    <hr>


    Samyaza knew that the godling was still mildly bloodthirsty and delighted in hearing the pained grunts of the orcs whenever they fell victim to one of its mild counters.


    Samyaza also noticed that more than anything else, the godling was curious once again. Its moods felt like they shifted fairly quickly, but it was aware that the bloodlust wasn''t gone. The bloodlust just wasn''t alone anymore.


    [So are you ever gonna expand on why you told me to stop?]


    The godling''s thoughts interrupted the silent observations of the angel.After thinking about the godling''s mental message, the angel felt a bit embarrassed.


    <hr>


    The orc who had been buried was on his feet and in motion. He was walking slowly but deliberately so that he could find the person who had defeated him. He knew the human-looking creature responsible for the time he had spent in the ground was close by. He just had to find it.


    And that was when he heard one of his companions, one of the heavily armored warriors'' who had charged at the gate during the raid, roar in fury. That sound was followed by a loud stomping noise.


    The orc sped up and began to jog in the direction of the sounds.

 Chapter 8: Gaining Goals And A Servant

    The scene at the outskirts of the town was a chaotic one. In the middle of a block of small huts, the tiny housing available to the poorest residents of the small town, a fight had broken out.


    Two orcs were engaged in what had originally felt like a vicious battle against a creature that looked like a tall human but one who moved much faster than most humans could, and with an oddly androgynous face. Due to their opponent''s odd behavior, the orcs felt like they were nothing more than practice for their foe, a sensation which was both shocking and insulting.


    The two orcs seemed to fight as a single organism,doing their best to try andoverwhelm the strange human-like creature by relying on their teamwork. Behind them, sitting with his back to a wall was another orc.


    This orc was bleeding internally due to significant damage it had taken from an earlier attack by the strange human-like creature. From time to time this orc would softly groan in pain. If the orc''s fighting in front of it had the time to look at their friend, they most likely would have suggested he was also suffering from a concussion he sustained due to smashing into the wall he was leaning on earlier in the encounter.


    None of the three combatants fought using weapons. One of the orcs seemed to prefer attacking with a storm of punches and only rarely lashed out using his legs. His fellow orc was the opposite way, sometimes launching punches that would have been powerful if they connected, but normally striking with swift kicks.


    Their opponent focused on defense and meticulously observed their attacks. It deflected, blocked, or dodged each of their techniques in careful ways but sometimes seemed to try things they were less likely to anticipate as if testing out how to fight in the middle of what should have been a life or death encounter.


    <hr>


    Samyaza quickly recovered from the embarrassment it felt for forgetting to inform the deity as to why it wanted the god to stop.


    The angel sent the god a mental message. As it transmitted its message the angel noticed that the godling began to go on the offensive and actually fight the orcish fighters, but none of its blows had the same ferocity that its initial strikes did.


    [I asked you to stop because I didn''t want you to waste this opportunity. All of the other gods I''ve served and knew about gained power through their servants and worshippers. Given what orcish culture is like and their devotion to strength, they make ideal servants and worshippers for you to try and gain this early in your life. I think you should try to convince them to serve you.]


    The godling lunged at one of the orcs and hurled its fist at the brutish brawler. The blow caught the brawler square in the chest and the creature was knocked back, but nowhere near as far as the godling''s first blow sent it. It seemed to be consciously holding back. This was because it was, and it was considering the perks of keeping the orcs alive.


    As it moved to follow-up on its attack by running after the orc as he sailed through the air, the divine being sent a message in response to the angel''s initial mental statement.


    [Do you think these creatures, who are busy presumably trying to kill me, will want to stop trying to kill me and instead serve me? Because I am skeptical that if I stopped and offered them a chance to join me they''d be eager to stop this fight.]


    That response reminded the angel that though the godling was naive, it was by no means an unintelligent creature. Lacking worldly knowledge didn''t inhibit its ability to logically think things through. And the angel instinctively understood that sometimes that''d be a bit annoying.


    [Orcs don''t think like a lot of other creatures. They value strength even when that strength comes from their enemies. And I bet right now they understand the strength you possess. Plus they don''t strike me as the magical sort and you can do something they can''t.]


    The godling pondered that last mental sentence for a bit as it continued its fight. It sensed that the angel was waiting for it to make a choice.


    The angel enjoyed the mental silence that followed its enigmatic declaration. It wanted the godling to make its next moves on its own. It hoped the creature would be smart and would opt to spare its enemies, or at least try too.


    It threw itself underneath a kick that otherwise would have hit it in the face, and turned in time to throw a punch at its attacker, the orc who preferred to strike with a storm of feet. It''s fist connected with the stomach of the orc and at the same time, the creature used its own leg to strike at the orc''s knee connecting with a solid close-range kick that made the orc hiss in pain.


    <hr>


    After another minute or so passed of fighting, the godling made a decision. It was in the middle of moving into place to throw a punch or two so that it could build some distance between it and its opponents. That was when it wanted to send a mental message to the angel who it knew was waiting for it to decide whether or not to kill its foes.


    [I can''t believe I''m gonna try this, but I''m gonna try and see if I can stop this fight. Let''s do this.]


    At that moment the godling smiled at its foes and for a second moved at a fraction of its maximum speed. In the eyes of those who had been fighting it for a few minutes at this point the creature seemed to vanish for but an instant.


    In the instant, it had vanished the godling sprinted to where one of its enemies was and then reappeared. The creature smiled gleefully as it launched a single punch with a bit of force behind it. The punch smashed into the orc''s abdomen and the force of it not only tore through the creature''s armor but also launched it off its feet and into the air.


    The orc didn''t sail through the air for long. The godling didn''t want the creature to die so it hadn''t used as much force as it had when it kicked the orc''s sibling.


    The godling and the other orc both watched as the other combatant crashed onto the ground and skidded for a few meters before finally coming to stop. He wasn''t conscious, but he was breathing.


    The godling smiled, turned slightly so that it could face the last remaining orc. It waited for its enemy to look at it so that the orc could see that the godling was enjoying itself. Then it vanished again, once again using a fraction of its full possible speed to overwhelm its enemy.


    The orcs didn''t know this, but the deity was being wary. It had decided to try and recruit them, and it figured that if suffered much more it wouldn''t be able to recruit them. It wanted to end this fight.


    The godling''s plan was to break the wills of its foes. It was purposefully doing its best to keep its blows from actually being fatal, but it was still using a considerable amount of strength with each blow. It wanted them to not resist when it actually ended the fight, and right now that meant making them feel weak.


    Now was the time for it to bring this fight to an end. And it wouldn''t do that by launching another blow. Now was the time to try a new tactic: speaking.


    <hr>


    The remaining orc was scared. He had been in life and death confrontations before this, but at no point in his life had he ever felt so thoroughly outmatched.


    The enemy he and his siblings were facing started the fight with a thoroughly devastating strike that had hit all three of them. And after that, it began to just play with them. He''d even say that the enemy they faced had started toying with them!Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    But now? Now the creature was once again truly on the offensive. And in a single blow, it had once again changed the tone of the fight. And then it vanished again.


    His enemy had once again disappeared from sight, but unlike last time the strange creature didn''t reappear in an instant. When he realized that, the orc went on the defensive, and moved to guard himself. He knew that doing this might spell the end of his fighting days, but he moved to lift his arms in front of his gut and did what he could to mentally brace himself for what he presumed was an eventual impact.


    What was the worst part of all of this though, was that he had been fighting by using adrenaline and relying on it to mitigate the pain. He could feel that that was swiftly reaching its limit. He was beginning to feel the pain of the first blow dull his senses, and knew that if this carried on much longer he''d lose his ability to stand or worse lose consciousness.


    <hr>


    The godling had spent the last few moments watching the orc while running around at incredibly high speeds that rendered it invisible to the creature. It wanted the creature to feel the terror of being the sole receiver of its attention to break down any remaining resistance, and seeing that the orc had quickly moved into a defensive position suggested that the creature was thoroughly cowed. He wasn''t even raging anymore, just trying to predict where and when the godling would strike.


    The godling decided now was the perfect time to try and see if the creature could be reasoned with. It was sure the being was now keenly aware of his impotence in the face of its own might.


    It suddenly stopped moving and allowed the orc to see it once again.


    <hr>


    The orc was surprised when his enemy reappeared. Instead of reappearing directly in front of him and striking immediately, the strange enemy appeared a good distance away and was smiling. Its grin was eerie and spooked the orc, but he didn''t let his guard down. He was looking for a way to come out of this encounter alive and was frantically mentally searching for a way to keep his siblings alive.


    It was when the godling began to speak that the orc was effectively disarmed. He hadn''t expected his foe, who started this fight off with an ambush, to have any interest in speaking to him.


    "I''ve had enough of this fight."


    The enemy sounded odd. Its voice seemed to come from multiple places at once like the orc was hearing multiple people speak at the same time. It actually took the orc a second to understand the creature, because of the abnormality of its speech.


    The godling didn''t move to finish the fight even while the orc tried to understand what it had said and the orc was stopped from lunging at it due to a certain unconscious fear he felt. His unconscious was telling him that if he moved forward to try and strike the foe in front of him, he would die. That was good advice.


    After a few moments of silence, the godling spoke once again.


    "Orc! Let''s end this fight."


    This time the orc understood the words instantly even as he misunderstood what the godling meant. He readied himself for a final blow, one of truly awful power, believing that the final blow would be happening very soon. His misunderstanding was understandable, but the blow he waited for wouldn''t come.


    The godling continued to speak without much of a pause this time, being mentally told by the angel that what it said was most likely misinterpreted as an invitation for a final exchange of blows.


    "Instead of this fight ending with your death, and the deaths of your allies, I have a proposal for you. It gives each of you a way out, and doesn''t result in any deaths. If you agree to it right now, I''ll even heal your allies to their full strength."


    This declaration from his foe surprised the orc. And intrigued the part of him that wanted to survive this. He waited to hear what the godling had to say, while realistically believing that whatever his foe wanted would be something considerably worse than what the godling actually had in mind.


    He''d have to wait a bit nearly a full minute. Unbeknownst to him, his enemy was having a mental conversation that distracted the creature. The orc thought his enemy was being purposefully dramatic.


    <hr>


    [I''m mildly impressed that you realized that you could heal them, godling.]


    The angel''s remark was mildly condescending but it was also telling. The deity itself was slightly annoyed by the bit of snarkiness it detected in the angel''s mental tone, but it was happy to know that it was reasonable to believe it could heal the orcs. That knowledge was useful for both right now, and for the future even though it meant it''d have to discover whether or not such a belief reflected reality.


    Of course, the deity''s angelic companion heard the deity''s thoughts and realized that the deity had been bluffing. That genuinely impressed it. It was a good bluff that played on the orc''s concern for his allies.


    And then the angel began to lecture the godling.


    <hr>


    The godling was considering how to proceed with legitimate caution. It was thinking carefully about how to phrase its next statement. The angel was busy warning it that it might be worth being cautious about using words like "god" or "worshippers". After all, the gods had vanished and it made sense to be skeptical of someone appearing and declaring that they were a deity.


    The godling was somewhat aware of how significant this moment was. It didn''t understand how historic it was, due to its worldly ignorance, but it was cognizant of the fact that this moment was a big one due to its knowledge that the gods who had existed before it had disappeared and the feeling of mysterious pride and power it felt welling up from deep within itself.


    Its instincts wanted it to be proud and declare that it was a god and it was seeking worshippers, but intelligently it knew that such a move would invite unneeded skepticism. And that was what the angel had been lecturing it about as well so it thought better than to invite an angry lecture if such a move failed.


    The godling opted to be careful and make an offer that it felt would be realistic and ensured that it would have a chance to convince the orcs to worship it in time.


    "Surrender, swear your loyalty to me, and I''ll heal you and your friends. Join me and act as the first of my servants, or die at my hands. The choice is yours."


    <hr>


    The orc smiled when he heard that that was the offer. Such an offer was an easy one for a defeated orc to accept.The brawler legitimately believed that the offer would be something worse than servitude to a warrior capable of fighting him and his family and winning.


    "I don''t know your name so swearing my loyalty to you formally might be a bit challenging, but I accept your proposal. As my first act as your servant allow me to introduce myself: I am Bazur."


    The moment Bazur finished speaking the godling felt a strange rush of energy surge through its body and the angel shouted in delight and excitement.


    <hr>


    [YES!]


    The angel''s mental shout was louder and more energetic than the godling had ever heard the creature be. It actually pained the godling to hear such a loud voice ring out from inside of its mind.


    After a few moments, the orb angel sheepishly apologized for being so excited. But then it immediately explained why it had shouted.


    [Godling... the surge of energy you felt was just a fraction of what you''ll feel when you turn Bazur into your worshipper, but it confirms what I had hoped. You gain power from your worshippers and servants. Just now you began to walk towards gaining control over a domain.]


    The godling understood most of what the angel had just said, but at the end of its mental message, the angel said something the godling had never heard before.


    [Samyaza, what is a domain?]


    Moments after sending its mental message to the angel, the godling heard the angel mentally chastise itself.


    [Sorry!Consider domains to be what the gods are in charge of. I''ll explain this in detail later. For now, you should probably give yourself a name. And if you''d allow me I''ll see if I can discover if you gained any new abilities that are available right now. Though that might take a few minutes.]


    And after hearing that the angel heard the godling mentally chastise itself. The angel was right. Most living creatures had names. It needed one as well.


    The deity thought for a second, and then came up with one it''d use for now and with the orcs. After all, there was no reason for it to stick to a single name.


    <hr>


    The godling''s first words to Bazur following Bazur''s wise decision an introduction, followed by a command. The orc listened carefully to its new master and hoped that the creature would do what it told him that it would.


    "Bazur, you may call me Althos. As a way to reward you for your decision and show you that I keep my word, I will now heal your allies. Go select which one of them you''d like to see healed first. Unless you feel you need healing right now."


    The orc nodded and turned to examine the battlefield. Both of his brothers had lost consciousness, but the orc selected his sibling who had been kicked at the beginning of the fight to be the first to be healed.


    He rushed over to his brother who had gotten kicked at the beginning of their battle, minutes ago. The orc''s breathing had begun to slow down towards the end of the battle, and at some point, during the battle he lost consciousness.


    The orc''s unconscious form looked to be in great pain. His conscious sibling felt worried about him, and hoped that the strange creature who had spared his life would be able to heal him.


    After a few moments of the orc examining his sibling, Althos spoke to him. The godling allowed the orc to examine his unconscious ally while Samyaza instructed it in the very basics of healing magic. It was a short, useful introduction to one of the essential schools of magic. And the deity felt ready to try it out itself, and call upon Samyaza if it needed the help.


    "I will heal him, and then you will convince him to join me. Prepare yourself, when he heals it''s possible he''ll immediately awaken and come at me. If he does, intercept him."


    Bazur nodded at his master and moved to be in place to intercept his sibling if it came to that.


    And then Althos''s hand began to glow.

 Chapter 9: Calm Before The Storm

    The sentinel demon''s wait was nearly over.


    The wall in front of it was the location of a portal that was glowing so powerfully that the light it emitted lit up the entire room. The light illuminatedthe normally deary and dark chamber and gave the bizarre torture chamber an eerie golden glow.


    If the creature turned around it and faced the room''s inhabitants and prisoners it would have been able to see the room''s inhabitants in all of their unholy glory due to the golden glow of the portal banishing the darkness that had previously dominated the room.


    The portal was several meters tall, several meters wide, and growing by the second. The sentinel busied itself by basking in the heat of the energy the portalhad already releasedinto the room.


    A demon''s heart was not like that of a mortal. Though the terrifying monsters possessed hearts, theirs did not pump blood through their veins but rather pumped a gooey tar-like substance that could impede efforts by heroes or anyone else tasked with slaying them. The heart of a demon was also located in a random location somewhere on their body.


    The sentinel demon''s heart was located in its left arm, a thick and scaled appendage that the creature gleefully used in combat, perhaps to challenge mortals to try and strike it down or to lead them to believe that its circulatory organ was located elsewhere.


    The demon''s heart was beating a mile a minute, and it knew that soon it''d be free to go on a rampage. And not rampage in another layer of the Heart of Darkness, but rampage throughout a mortal world.


    The grotesque and cruel creature was drooling, its drool a thick and weakly acidic substance. The drool had been pooling for a few moments now and had started to create a tiny puddle of ineffectual but hot acid not far from the feet of the monstrous creature.


    It had spent a long time fantasizing about terrorizing and devouring mortals, andan even longer time fantasizing about tasting plants or species that could only be found in a world of mortals. Only unholy plants grew in this plane of existence and though those may have filled its stomach, they were hardly tasty. And the creature had a refined palate that caused it to refuse to eat other demons.


    It wasn''t a love for its cousins that made it refuse to eat them. It was because they tasted disgusting. It ate lifeforms, but it preferred the taste of kind-hearted creatures who had died violently, not the flesh of demons which was spiced by malice and bile.


    The odd unholy hybrid of ape and swine sometimes daydreamed when it grew bored of torturing anyone foolish enough to visit the hellish castle it lived in. When it did, its thoughts were filled with elaborate and gruesome fantasies.


    Perhaps the most common one of those fantasies was one wherein the creature went to verdant jungles and spent days devouring all manners of delicious fruits. At night in these imaginary jungles, it''d awaken native primates and then command them to join it in destroying nearby settlements built by sentient creatures and terrorizing anyone with the audacity to defy them or the luck to escape the settlements in the chaos.


    It was plausible that such a fantasy was playing out in the creature''s head as the portal began to solidify and reveal what waited for anyone who crossed it into a mortal world. If the creature was distracted by such a fantasy that would explain why it fail to notice the little girl whose arcane blood and powerful emotions created the portal in the first place, and who was herself staring at it with an abnormal calmness.


    The tiny human was visible to anyone looking through the portal, but her small frame and the fact that she was on the floor did make noticing her something someone as tall as the demon would have to focus to do.


    <hr>


    Selena Moonbond wept for her dead parents for several minutes. Once she felt as though she could cry no longer, she turned around, mute and numbedby despair.Before she noticed the portal, she noticed that the floor behind her had been drained of all color.


    She stared at that strange floor for a few moments, questioning what could have caused that, before she looked up and saw the portal that had seemingly consumed a good portion of the wall of her parent''s room. It was at this point that she finally noticed the deformed hybrid creature that seemed to wait just beyond the portal. The creature lookedglossy and unfocused through the portal, but she could still clearly see it.


    She looked at the demon and felt an odd numbness instead of the fear many adults in her situation would have been paralyzed by. She knew it was a monster of some sort, but really had no idea what kind of monster it was. She had very little experience with monsters or wild animals and had only rarely been allowed to go onto the grassland outside of the town.


    She studied the creature with the casualness of someone looking at a caged animal in a menagerie, perhapsa bit emboldened or calmed bythe natural filter of the portal.


    <hr>


    For several minutes the sound of fighting had been the noises someone would have heard in the part of the small town dominated by small huts. But now the silence that ran rampant throughout this part of town was as eerie and unsettling as the sight someone in the area would have seen had they been watching what was going on.


    In the area dominated by and surrounded by tiny huts stood two creatures. One of them looked human and the other was an orc. The one who looked human had its hands up in front of its chest and they were glowing.The creature was using healing magic, but not on itself or even on the orc who was standing.


    The creature the human-like entity was healing, using raw magical energy turned into potent and invisible bursts of healing power, was currently laying down. He had been kicked into the wall of the hut he laid against and presently the brutalized orc was unconscious but heavily injured.


    The creaturebeing healed was one of the two unconscious orcs who had been defeated by Althos. Althos convinced the orc''s brother, the orc who was standing and waiting for his sibling to recover from the wounds it sustained during the fight against the young god, to aid it and become its servant in exchange for healing all of them. Of course, if the orc had refused the deity''s generosity it simply would have killed all of them, but it had suspected that the orc wouldn''t refuse and was delighted when he hadn''t.


    The other orc laid on the floor, not far from a hut behind the human-like entity. He was face-down but an examination of his unconscious form revealed that he was still breathing and seemed banged up but not particularly worse for wear.


    For now, both conscious creatures were focused on the more heavily injured orc, but Bazur hoped that soon they''d turn their eyes to the orc behind his new master. He could see his injured brother and was aware that he was breathing but the punch the unconscious orc took that stole his consciousness from him was a staggeringly powerful blow. Because of that, Bazur wanted both of his siblings healed as quickly as possible.


    Bazur himself was also injured. He took several blows, and even the godling''s idle counters had left the orcish brawler in pain. The orc was doing a good job of suffering in silence, but both the orc and his master were aware of the pain that he felt.


    Althos intended to heal him fully when it was finished healing his siblings.


    <hr>


    Bazur watched his new master, the mysterious creature who called itself Althos, pour healing magic out of its hands and through the air towards his heavily injured brother. The orc didn''t know much about magic, but he could sense the intensity of the rejuvenating energy drifting through the air towards his sibling. He could also see the strange creature''s hands glow and give off a bright light.


    Though the orc didn''t know this, the reason why the godling chose to emit the light was to give the orc reason to believe it was a spectacular being and in fairness, that was true. The light was completely unnecessary and was only being used for dramatic effect. The move was Samyaza''s idea, and the light was actually just an application of flashy illusion magic.


    The healing magic used by Althos was a powerful but simple technique made infinitely stronger by Althos''s limitless magical reserves. Rather than waste time trying to teach it a complicated technique, Samyaza simply told the deity of a potent but simplistic tactic that involved mentally converting some of Althos''s magical reserves into bursts of positive energy. After that Althos simply mentally flung that positive energy at those it wanted to heal.


    Samyaza intended to teach the deity how to use normal magic eventually, but for now, all the deity needed were results and this simple but normally costly technique could get results. It had told the deity itself as much and the deity agreed with its assessment, thanked it for its help and proceeded to use the knowledge it had gained from it.


    The healing energy that filled the air between his master and his sibling was intense, so intense that a bit of it was able to begin to heal even Bazur despite the orc not being the intended target of the magic. Seeing his strange new master immediately set about fulfilling its promise was encouraging to the orc, who wanted to know more about Althos''s capabilities.


    The godling continued to emit healing energy for several moments, and then Bazur noticed his sibling beginning to stir. The orc painfully groaned for a few seconds but with each passing second his groans grew less pained.


    <hr>


    Althos began to grin slightly when it noticed that the second orc was beginning to stir. It actually noticed it before the orc''s conscious sibling did. The unconscious orc began to make nearly imperceptible movements that the godling could detect due to its potent vision.


    The godling wondered what would happen when the orc noticed the scene that surrounded it. After all the orc it was healing was the first one to pass out, having been severely injured by a kick from the godling at the very beginning of the fight. At the moment one of its siblings was unconscious, and the other had sworn loyalty to the trio''s foe. It was certainly an odd scene, and both the godling and the angel were prepared for healing the unconscious orcs to result in smaller fights.


    After a few moments, Bazur also noticed his sibling beginning to stir.


    <hr>


    The first time Anthus the orc reopened his eyes he was shocked at what he saw. Directly in front of him stood the foe who had attacked him, its hands alight with a strange glow, and to its left stood the orc''s own brother, Bazur. Confusion filled the orc, even as he noticed that the pain he felt was gradually receding.


    Anthus turned to look at his sibling and spoke.


    "Bazur... care to explain what''s going on? Why did this creature, our enemy, apparently heal me?"


    Bazur had a deep voice, a voice that rumbled like a rock rolling down a hill. Anthus''s voice was much lighter. As it waited for its new servant to begin to explain what had happened while the second orc was unconscious, it also took time to truly examine the orcs.


    <hr>


    Both orcs were heavily built brutes. Both wore simple but effective metal armor, presumably made of bronze due to its color. And both were fairly tall themselves, perhaps right under two meters in height. Both orcs were bald and wore nothing on their faces, though their still unconscious sibling did have hair.


    Both orcs had muscled bodies with pectoral and abdominal muscles that pressed and pushed against the armor they wore. Both orcs had thick legs and wore bronze-colored cuisse''s, poleyns, greaves, and sollerets.


    The two did have a few key areas of difference though.


    Bazur''s skin was more tanned than that of his sibling. His face was a darker shade of green than that of his sibling, and his fists were also darker than Anthus''s. Anthus was also taller than his sibling, just by a little bit but by enough of a difference that it made the taller orc look like the leader. Anthus was actually the tallest of the trio of siblings as well as the youngest of the brawlers.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    Bazur had tiny, white tusks and his sibling did not. Bazur''s tusks were small, not large or thick enough to jut out from his mouth with his mouth closed, so the only time they were visible was when the orc spoke or roared.


    And at the moment they smelled different. Bazur smelled of orcish sweat, an unpleasant but tolerable smell. Anthus, who had broken bones in the fight that ended just minutes ago, smelled of a different and altogether worse scent. The orc had soiled himself after he was sent flying. The godling was polite enough to not say anything, but that was the key reason why the deity had stood so far away while healing the orc.


    Bazur put up with it, out of a mixture of respect for his sibling and sheer joy at seeing him still alive, conscious, and in much better shape than Anthus had been just minutes ago. Anthus keenly disliked the smell himself, and the gross sensation of his armor and undergarments being ruined.


    <hr>


    Once Bazur finished explainingwhat had happened fully, both the godling and the younger orc waited to hear what Anthus would say. They were both curious as to how the youngest of the siblings felt about its new and strange circumstances.


    Anthus, for his part in all of this, felt a variety of emotions. He knew that there was no point in trying to defeat Althos if the mysterious creature took on both of his siblings at the same time and came out on top. Such an attempt, especially if he was alone or worse yet if Bazur joined his new master against him, would only result in Anthus experiencing more pain.


    Anthus still had his pride as a warrior, pride which urged him to fight the godling, but he also had his pride as an orc. His orcish pride and martial intellect told him that the right move was to join Althos and fight alongside his brother. His feelings of admiration for his brother also urged him to join the strange duo peacefully. He stayed silent for several moments, and once Althos realized that the orc wasn''t going to talk it turned to begin to heal the last orc.


    At this point, the once wounded orc stood up, slowly at first. Its caution came from fear that the creature''s magic had only healed the most intense wounds and otherwise anesthetized it so that it wouldn''t feel pain. The basis for this concern came from the limited experience the orc had with healing magic and healers themselves, who had once treated the orc and his siblings.


    In the past, the trio of orcs went on a raid with spell-slinging orcs. They had gotten seriously injured during that raid and turned to the magicians in their group demanding to be healed as part of their reward for their work.


    The orcs had gotten their wish, but the magic the magicians had used was not very effective. It only focused on the most urgent wounds, closing them and then numbing the orcs to lingering pain. The problem was that their healers hadn''t told them what the magic would do and the orcs got themselves even more injured because they weren''t aware of how the magic used on them worked.


    This time the orc had been healed by powerful healing magic that mended its body and temporarily strengthened the creature. It noticed that after it was on its feet, and had taken tentative steps to make sure it could walk. The orc was relieved that the magic seemed to actually heal all of its wounds, even though it had been healed by an enemy.


    Althos was silent during Barus''s explanation and during Anthus''s examination of the quality of healing he received. Itwas content to watch its orcish minion do his best to do the talking and for the orc''s ally to be skeptical of how much healing he had received.


    It was curious as to if the orc''s ally would join them and believed he would, but it also considered the possibility that the orc might try to fight it, or might try to undermine the decision of Bazur to serve it. It enjoyed the thought of such subversion and wondered if it''d be able to instill in Bazur genuine loyalty and therefore prevent future betrayal.


    <hr>


    The portal began to hum once it was completely formed. The sound roused the sentinel demon who had long since gotten accustomed to the strange weeping that had previously filled the torture chamber. The terrifying monster finally moved forward from where it had stood still for what felt like an eternity, but had actually been just a few minutes.


    The sentinel demon had been so bored that it began to day-dream towards the end of its period of stoic vigilance. It had spent several minutes day-dreaming about a lush jungle where it could rule over a hoard ofprimates. But now it was finally time for the creature to venture forth. It took several large steps to reach its destination and then walked through the mystical and sorrow-powered portal into an unknown mortal world and the ruins of a small bedroom.


    <hr>


    Selena had been staring at the monster when it finally began to lumber in her direction from beyond the portal. The lumbering monstrosity still hadn''t detected her, so she did her best to hide by inching towards the ruins of her parent''s bed. She never took her eyes off of the creature, thankful for the fact that in its bored state it wasn''t rushing towards the portal.


    The monstrosity that was just beyond the portal was a misshapen and rough-looking mixture between an upright standing massive ape and a pig that had bloated to obscene proportions.


    It had a face that looked like someone drew a sketch of a demented child''s nightmare, with a mouth filled with sharp teeth and brutal tusks. Additional rows of tusks protruded from its cheeks and chin, giving it brutal weapons with which to slash at enemies. Its nose was nonexistent, instead, it had thin holes from where a nose would have been on a human''s face. Its eyes were purple and it had a bored look on its face as it walked closer and closer to the portal.


    It stood upright on two thin legs that ended in furred hoofs. The demon''s stomach was a mess of splotches of fur in some places and dark purple skin in others. It had long and muscular arms covered in ape-like fur. Its hands ended in cruel-looking claws that twitched from time to time and seemed primed to cut through armor as easily as skin.


    Selena couldn''t see beyond the demon''s massive frame, but she could hear sounds from beyond the portal aside from the thundering steps taken by the sentinel demon. She could painedgroansand cringed each time she heard them.


    At almost the same instant Selena managed to crawl underneath the bed, the demon began to cross through the portal.


    <hr>


    Samyaza watched the scene in front of Althos with great interest. The deity was apparently content leaving its servant to do most of the talking, and Samyaza found this curious but not foolish.


    Althos had a reason behind this odd decision.It was consciously aware that Bazur knew his brothers well and the deity wanted to see if the orc could convince them without its assistance to be united in service to its own as of yet vague goals. This was a test of its new servant, as well as a way to test the limits of orcish culture with regards to gaining new servants, minions, and worshippers.


    As Althos began to heal the last of the orcs, the orcs who were awake spoke in hushed tones. Althos had turned to face the final unconscious orc, but that didn''t mean it was deaf.


    The siblings did not seem aware that Althos could hear them even though they spoke quietly. They had also chosen to speak in their native language, a rough and brutal sounding tongue, as an extra yet useless defense against spying by the godling.


    They were ignorant as to the creature''s true nature and such ignorance led to them weakly trying to protect their conversation. Althos was aware that they were speaking in another tongue, but it understood their words. It remained silent because it didn''t want them to know it could understand them.


    Better for them to gossip using words than to try something that took actual subtlety.


    <hr>


    Anthus looked at his brother, concern written across his face even though he had the rough features of a grizzled orcish brawler.


    "Brother... are you really joining this creature?"


    His question was sensible, but also pointed and judgemental. His brother looked at him, annoyed at the judgment in his voice and responded after taking a second to consider how scathing his response should be.


    In the background, Althos and Samyaza learned through this sentence that the two orcs were siblings.


    "Anthus, this creature nearly killed you with a single blow. Even if the three of us were caught off guard, Ragnor and I fought this creature. Its strength is the real deal, and judging from the fact that you''re alive and on your feet so is its ability to heal."


    Anthus sighed and momentarily turned to glance at the creature who had been responsible for their injuries but also healed them. It annoyed him that he had seemingly recovered fully from the incredible kick the creature, Althos, landed on him.


    The silence that filled the air between the two siblings was tense. Anthus wasn''t a big fan of orcish culture, unlike Ragnor who they both suspected would join Althos eagerly.


    "Brother... If Ragnor joins you, and we both know he is likely to do so, then I suppose I should as well. Even if just to keep our family together. But I do not trust this creature."


    Anthus''s voice was quiet.Anthus rallied, even now, against many orcish traditions and structures. Bazur found something about that vaguely comforting and quietly smiled at his sibling. Perhaps what sprung to the orc''s mind was the idea that even though somethings change there are always constants and this odd constant made Bazur feel tied to his brother even as their world threatened to change forever.


    <hr>


    The mood amongst the squad assembled and led by Modred had only gotten worse in the past few minutes. The source of this depressing sentiment? The imp who served Modred revealing an ill-omen and a portent of disaster just minutes after one of their own warriors suggested they prepare themselves for battle with orcish raiders.


    Just minutes ago the imp fell off of Modred''s shoulder in a panic. That alone would have been vaguely depressing to the wizard, but the source of the imp''s panic was actually far worse than a moment of strange behavior from a normally calm creature.


    The imp had detected the emergence of a nearby but weak portal. A portal that led to, and more importantly from, the feared plane of existence known as the Heart of Darkness, the birthplace, and the home of demons. Such an event was likely beyond the ability of the squad to handle, but that was why they had been forced to command the bureaucrats in the squad to flee and ride towards the nearest town for reinforcements.


    The imp''s fear was due to the long-standing hatred between demons and devils. Both types of aliens were hateful and evil beings but they possessed vastly different belief systems and so their clashes were far more violent than their clashes with humans or other mortals. And nearly all types of demons were stronger and more ferocious than even the largest and meanest imps.


    Modred had calmly contacted the baron, his employer, and instructed him about their current conditions. He also told the baron that the squad would ride on and at least see the town.


    The imp had foolishly but honestly instructed him that it was possible and likely that the portal was small and insubstantial so he believed that at least riding to the town and checking that it hadn''t been overrun by demons was a smart tactic. The baron agreed with that assessment and commended the wizard''s courage.


    The soldiers and the imp didn''t share the wizard''sconvictions but the imp knew that he was not swayable in his current state. The promise of the baron''s reward, whatever reward that would be, had transformed the wizard into an ambitious go-getter, and though normally the imp would be excited by such ambition in the present it worried the winged creature.


    The imp steeled itself and waited for them to arrive at the town. They would be arriving very soon, and as soon as they did the creature would be able to sense the location of the alien portal. If they got to it fast enough it was possible they''d be able to close it or weaken it before anything slipped through.


    Modred began to sing, his voice was hauntingly beautiful and began to rouse their spirits, just as the grasslands that made up the entirety of what they could see revealed the town they were heading towards in the distance. He was casting his first spell on the entirety of the squad that remained with him, as well as his imp. They were perhaps 25 minutes away from the town, the portal, the demon, and the orcs.


    And of course, Althos.


    <hr>


    The demon stepped through the portal and the first thing it did was examine its surroundings. It was in a room that it was nearly too tall to be in, surrounded by wrecked furniture and the smell of blood and entrails. Once the creature was entirely out of the portal it stood squarely in the middle of the room and looked around it.


    The demon was quite happy with where it was. It quickly sighted the corpses on the ground and reached one of its cruelly clawed hands towards the corpse of June Moonbond, Selena''s mother. It licked its lips in delight at the thought of so quickly and easily finding a humanoid snack.


    This was the moment wherein Selena''s numbness came to a screeching and furious end. The thought of the monster''s massive maw and cruel tusks slicing into the corpse of her mother was too much for the girl to handle.


    And in that moment of heartbreak, terror, and fury the tiny spark of magic that lived within her roared to life and revealed itself. The girl shouted as she moved to intercept the sentinel''s claw.


    <hr>


    Ragnor, the middle sibling of the trio of orcish brawlerslaid on the floor. He was face-down, mostly still, but also breathing. He would awaken following just a few seconds of magical healing being pumped into him.


    Althos turned his back on the newly reawakened orc and turned to his brothers. He had a question for the orc who had already agreed to serve him.


    "Are you going to talk to your brother? Explain the situation to him?"


    He saw that the orc nodded at him and turned back around to face the newest orc to receive his healing. This one had a more primal gleam in his eyes and looked at the creature who had healed him with a respect that wasn''t found in the other orcs.


    Althos liked this orc already and suspected that it wouldn''t take much convincing to gain this one as an ally. Samyaza concurred. And at that moment both of them heard the orc they had encountered and buried earlier come within range of Althos''s enhanced hearing.


    Althos curiously wondered what that orc would do when he approached the new party. The young god turned to look at the distant newcomer noticed that the orc didn''t have his massive bow with him.


    [How strange.]


    Althos thought to himself, as Bazur began to explain what had happened since Ragnor had been knocked out.


    The middle-child of the orcish family listened intently to Bazur''s explanation, not interrupting the explanation once. When Althos turned back to the orcs it had healed, it noticed that Ragnor''s body language indicated that the middle-child of the orcish family was quite pleased with what was transpiring. If Althos had to wager a guess it''d say that the orc was even a bit excited to have been bested by someone like Althos, someone who wanted servants or minions.


    Althos quietly sent a simple mental message to Samyaza.


    [Orcs are... strange. Useful. But odd.]


    In response, Samyaza mentally concurred with the deity.

 Chapter 10: A Tragedy And The Storm Arrives

    The house of the Moonbond family had seen so much violence, tragedy, and heartbreak already that day. But there was one more tragedy that needed to unfold in that house. And it began with Selena Moonbond throwing herself at a sentinel demon.


    Selena clenched her fists and charged at the sentinel demon, an evil monstrosity from the Heart of Darkness, that had been moments from eating her mother. Her fury surged through her and amplified the effects of the first time she ever consciously used magic to speed her attack immensely. The little girl had always been courageous and righteous, but in the final moments of her life, she was about to learn how even righteous fury could result in someone''s downfall.


    The demon became aware of her after her magic roared to life and gave her a speed boost, but sadly for Selena and despite the proportions of the creature it was shockingly quick and swatted the child back with a cruelly forceful backhand, an instant before she would get between it and its meal.


    The force of the gigantic creature''s open palm caused Selena to sail back towards her former hiding place, and she collided hard against the bed frame she had hidden under just moments ago. The metal of the bed frame wracked her with great pain, and she felt blood well up in her lungs, threatening her ability to breathe.


    The demon turned to look at her, curious as to the identity of its attacker.


    <hr>


    Selena was a pitiful sight as she struggled to not cough up blood. She was on the floor, still staggered by both the force of the demon''s counterattack and the pains that came about as a result of slamming against a metal bed frame.


    She had long blonde hair that now hung limply against her back. Her green eyes were unfocused and wandering as she tried to gather her wits before she was attacked again or before the demon began to snack on her parents.


    She was tiny, even for a child, and wore what the demon supposed was a typical outfit for humans in this world. Her thin green coat clung to her arms due to the sweat she built up due to her wearing the warm outfit indoors mixed with charging at the demon and roaring in her righteous fury earlier.


    Once the demon had finished examining her it moved closer to the child. Its movements were slow because it could sense the magic in her veins, but it wasn''t a coward and it could tell the human wasn''t strong yet. It contemplated how to handle the child for a second.


    Another demon, one more interested in scheming and in consolidating power, might have kept the child. They might have decided to corrupt her soul and turn her into a servant of some sort in the future. But what sealed the fate of Selena Moonbond was the magic in her veins.


    The demon didn''t hesitate like a greater demon might have. It sauntered over to the child who hadn''t fully recovered and reached out with one of its dreaded long limbs. It easily lifted the child off of her feet and pulled the still breathing child into its fang-filled maw even as she tried to throw tiny punches and tried to kick the creature in the face. She even succeeded in landing a few blows on its face, which did nothing to save her from her fate.


    The last sensations Selena Moonbond would feel in her short life were the sensations of the demon beginning to chew on her flesh. Those sensations were mercifully quick, as the demon enjoyed chewing its food and bit several of critical organs of her in its first few bites. She perished shortly after the demon''s teeth severed many of her arteries.


    The demon enjoyed the taste of her immature spark of magical power and found that the fear the girl felt in the last few minutes of her life gave her flesh a certain spicy kick.


    After a few moments of enjoying the taste of its snack, it smashed through the wall that had once housed the portal so that it could leave the house and freely roam the surrounding landscape. With Selena''s death, the portal had also vanished, not that such a thing bothered the demon.


    The demon had killed the closest thing it had to a summoner and was now free to rampage throughout the small town. But this town was also where the godling and his allies were located. And they wouldn''t be as easy to kill as Selena had been.


    <hr>


    The part of the town wherein the tiniest houses were was now silent. Bazur had finished explaining why his siblings were still alive and were once again conscious. It was because the orc had made a deal, the sort of deal which was common among orcs throughout the world: in exchange for their lives, he had surrendered his freedom.


    The godling waited to see if Bazur''s siblings would join the orc in servitude. It suspected that they would, but a small part of it experienced doubt as even Ragnor, who it had overheard would most likely join Bazur, hadn''t yet affirmed that he would.


    The middle child of the orcs pondered its current situation for a few moments. It didn''t seem to dislike it though, if anything it''s body language whileit listened to Bazur and even now while it contemplated what to do suggested that it was a fan of its new circumstances.


    After a minute of silence, Ragnor the brawler opened his mouth to speak. Before he could do so, however, his orcish siblings noticed that the orc the godling had encountered and subsequently buried at the town''s gate was approaching them.


    <hr>


    In the distance, Modred and his allies neared the town. The spell-singer was keenly aware of the mood amongst his allies and so he had used his first spell a bit before he anticipated he''d have to use it.


    The spell-singer''s hauntingly beautiful voice was rousing the soldiers and their horses as well. The song rejuvenated the squad and enabled the mounted soldiers to move closer and closer to the town.


    In the distance, they could see the gates that promised them entry into the town. And then a magically amplified voice shouted over the song. The voice belonged to the imp who itself silently cast a shielding spell that would help it survive whatever attacks it knew were imminent.


    "Men! Prepare yourselves. It''s not likely that we''ll enter the town unchallenged. I recommend raising your shields and bracing for impact. Better to be ready, than not in cases like this."


    <hr>


    Near the town''s gate,the gate that left travelers closer to the rest of Baron Hightower''s territory and not the one that led towards the forest from which Althos came, there were 4 orcish archers. Each of the bowmen was a talented archer who could snipe even moving enemies from across vast distances. And they had noticed that horse-mounted humans were moving towards the town, and moving fast.


    Each of the archers prepared itself for a fight. They quietly and professionally grabbed their bows and began to inspect their arrows, selecting which would be the first ones they''d use in a fight. If not intercepted quickly the horse-riding humans would be upon them in less than 20 minutes but the orcs intended to prevent that from happening.


    <hr>


    The godling had long since noticed that the orcish archer it had defeated earlier was approaching the growing party. When the archer neared close enough that the other orcs noticed him, they immediately pieced together that he had had an encounter with Althos.


    This was because some dirt and soil still covered his basic fur armor, he looked disheveled, and he was missing his bow. They doubted he''d go somewhere without his bow unless someone bested him in combat, or the bow had been destroyed. And to Ranthor those two things were synonymous.


    "Ranthor... what happened to you?" Bazur, the oldest of the orcish siblings and oftentimes the face of the trio in social settings, asked softly. The dark-skinned orc had a wild, unhinged look in his crimson eyes.


    The archer silently walked towards the godling. The only thing that stopped him from reaching Althos was the intervention of Bazur, who stepped between the two and tackled Ranthor when the orc continued in his bizarre mission to reach the orc''s master.


    <hr>


    The orcish archer''s mind was a strange battlefield as he neared Althos and the orcish brawlers. The source of this mental conflict was the fact that he still lived. That led him to believe that the godling let him live, for reasons that were unclear and demanded clarification, since the godling could have easily killed him while he was unconscious.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    It was this mental conflict that had prevented the orc from retrieving its bow. The weapon had been left behind when he lunged at the godling, almost an hour ago and then forgotten once the orc escaped its underground prison.


    He was filled with rage towards the one he had identified as a hated foe. He wanted to attack the godling again, yet he knew both consciously and unconsciously that such an attack would be meaningless. This was reinforced when the orcish archer got close enough to realize that his foe was conversing with the brawlers who played a heavy role in the successful raid on the town.


    He was also conflicted due to his past adherence to orcish cultural norms. He had spent his life respecting orcish culture, and a significant part of orcish culture was serving the strong. The magician who had defeated him was strong, both magically and physically. The orc knew that adherence to orcish cultural norms meant learning to live with his hatred for the godling.


    If they weren''t attacking it, that meant that their fight must already be over. And the orcs hadn''t won. They wouldn''t have spared their foes if they won a fight. If his foe could tackle three brawlers alone that meant the difference in power between the lone archer and his foe must have been incredibly vast.


    The orc also noticed that the godling''s staff was gone, but such a thing was fairly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, and in the warring emotions battling for supremacy in the orc''s mind and heart.


    The mental conflict in the orc''s mind was over by the time he had ignored the question asked by Bazur, and had to be forcibly restrained by the fierce brawler for daring to approach Althos too closely without saying a word.


    <hr>


    Ranthor only spoke after being restrained by Bazur. The orcish archer shouted at the top of his lungs what he had to say due to the nature of Bazur''s hold over him. The orcish brawler had grappled the orcish archer and now both orcs were on the ground. Bazur held him there, preventing him from getting any closer.


    "Human! My name is Ranthor and I detest you. But... you defeated me. And you defeated the brawlers of our raiding group. I have my pride but I also have my desire for self-preservation. Orcish culture places the highest value of all in strength and the second-highest value of all in familial bonds. It''s also non-discriminatory.


    "If you allow me to serve you, literally my only condition will be that you let me challenge you. Just once a month is fine, but I want a chance to restore my pride. I''ll obey any other commands you have. Just... give me that one thing. I''m begging you."


    <hr>


    This condition intrigued two people in particular; Anthus and Althos. Althos had no problem with this condition and intended to accept it. It was a small price to pay for gaining an orc as a servant it had not known would serve it. The godling also liked the pride of the orcish archer, refusing to submit unconditionally even in that hopeless situation. There was something powerful about pride like that.


    The youngest orcish brawler was curious as to how the creature who seemed to want servants would react to this. This was also a bit worrying to the orc as well because this meant that the creature had encountered and defeated at least one other member of their raiding party. That was demoralizing, even in a situation that seemed to lack any morale anyway.


    Althos began to speak.


    <hr>


    "Ranthor, was it? I accept your condition. I am searching for servants, so swear your loyalty to me and in exchange, I''ll grant you the opportunity to fight for your freedom once a month. If you fight me and defeat me, I''ll free you. My name is Althos. Become mine."


    Both Ranthor and Ragnor were shocked at how high the creature''s voice was. But both orcs also felt the power emanating from that voice. All of the orcs, even together, knew that to resist this creature was hopeless. The severity of their defeats at its hands only reinforced that sentiment.


    The three unsworn orcs looked at each other. They all made sure to double-check what the others intended to do before readying themselves to do it. Then Ragnor was the first to speak.


    "Althos... my name is Ragnor. I have been defeated by you, alongside my brothers, yet you spared us. Your power is unquestionable, and I swear my loyalty to you. Unconditionally. Command me as you will, my life and my skills are yours to wield."


    Ragnor''s oath was sincere and unconditional. He seemed genuinely happy to have an opportunity to serve a more powerful master. He went down on one knee following his declaration.


    The next orc to speak was Ranthor, the archer. His voice was mild not that it wasn''t as overcome with emotion as it had been when he shouted at the godling.


    "Althos, I am Ranthor, the archer. Your magic defeated me, and yet you let me live. I will serve you to the best of my abilities until the day I can earn my freedom in battle. Thank you for granting me even this one request. Though I may detest you, just know that I detest your enemies even more. I will defeat them, grow in power, and earn my freedom. I swear to serve you until that day comes."


    His oath was longer but more thoughtful than that of Ragnor. He also went down on one knee following his declaration.


    The last oath to be sworn was that of Anthus. The youngest and most hot-headed of the orcs.


    "I am Anthus, the brawler. I might be the youngest of my siblings, but I will one day be the strongest. I recognize your power Althos, and I recognize the mercy you showed in sparing my siblings and Ranthor. I am intrigued by what you will show us, and I am swearing my loyalty to you here and now. I desire to keep my family together. Love of family is perhaps the one orcish value that deserves respect. Thank you for not killing mine."


    The orcish brawler''s words were surprisingly sincere. Althos suspected that its decision to accept Ranthor influenced Anthus''s oath. As it contemplated the different oaths it had just heard and felt a great surge of energy flow into it from the new servants it gained, its newest servant Anthus the brawler also went down on one knee.


    At that precise moment, Samyaza interrupted Althos''s thoughts.


    [Hey Althos... You just gained a new power. Let me explain it to you!]


    And shortly after Samyaza''s interruption, Ranthor realized he had forgotten his bow. Althos was tempted to chide the orc but decided instead that this presented a convenient opportunity.


    <hr>


    Minutes later Althos''s had given its first order to its servants, aside from Bazur for whom this represented his second real order. They were to escort their brother-in-arms Ranthor back to where his bow was so he could arm himself. The godling didn''t want the orcish archer to be unarmed, and it knew first hand that the orc''s skills with a bow shouldn''t be underestimated. Plus he was their only ranged fighter unless Althos felt like using magic.


    The orcs quickly and quietly left to fulfill their order. Once the godling was alone it mentally spoke to Samyaza, curious about the angel''s earlier declaration.


    [Samyaza, what power did I gain?]


    The godling was excited, and now that it was alone it could reveal its excitement. It wasn''t even sure what powers it already possessed but having new powers and knowing them was a good thing.


    [You gained access to your first subdomain! It''s hand-to-hand fighting. Presumably, this is because you gained multiple servants who use their bodies as their weapons, now you can enhance a creature''s ability to fight using themselves as their weapons. You''ll be giving them a small boost to all of their capabilities related to fisticuffs; strength, speed, dexterity, and even their luck will benefit from your blessing. For now, your control over it is very weak, but your ability to enhance someone''s hand to hand fighting will have a noticeable impact on their ability to survive, most notably for inexperienced fist-fighters and for master fist-fighters who need to train a lot to grow even a little bit. As you gain more servants who specialize in this form of fighting your power over this domain will increase.]


    Samyaza''s statement was exciting enough on its own, but it thought for a moment and then added a second part to it which carried exciting implications.


    [Or if you turn servants into worshippers, that''ll cause your influence over this to grow as well.]


    Althos responded to this quickly, asking a question it was pretty sure about already.


    [So the power I gain fromservants increases if they go from minions to worshippers?]


    Inside of Althos''s mind and body, Samyaza nodded and responded energetically.


    [Yep! Worship produces infinitely more power for you than servitude does. But it''ll most likely be easier for you to gain servants than worshippers. When possible go for worshippers but servants increase your power as well, so consider gaining either a victory, just a victory to a different extent.]


    <hr>


    The horse-mounted soldiers had listened to the imp and rose their shields shortly after the devil gave them free advice. And that decision most likely saved their lives. Thick arrows were raining down on them, and without their shields raised in advance of the first volley, it was likely that even if they had survived their horses might not have.


    The arrows cut through the air and the loud whistling sounds they produced due to their design mitigated the impact of the spell-singers musical magic but didn''t undo the spell''s impressive effects on the morale of the remaining members of Modred''s squad.


    Even though they had to endure a barrage of arrows Modred, and his allies hadpushed closer and closer to the town and were now less than 5 minutes away.


    The loud sounds of the horses stampeding towards the town mixed with orcish commands filling the air in the southernmost part of the town alerted both the sentinel demon and Althos''s expanded party.


    Once Althos''s servants completed their mission the group began to march towards the other archers. The demon heard the noise and decided to march towards it. This meant that every powerful individual or group was marching towards the same destination; towards the gate where the archers were attempting to weaken any enemies who may reach the town.


    While they were attacking the horse-mounted squad the orcish archers received backup in the form of the six orcish rogues and the last archer who had gone with them. The 7 of them had been lazily day-drinking in the ruins of a tavern not far from the gate. They heard the archers start to fire on the soldiers and came out to support their allies against the mysterious intruders.


    All three groups and the demon were marching towards an explosive meeting.

 Chapter 11: Tiger At The Front Gate, Wolf At The Back Gate

    The sentinel demon wasn''t like many others of its kind. It lacked their characteristic pride, and one sign of that was its ability to smartly choose the convenient method to walk through the tiny house of the parents of the child it had just murdered.


    Rather than try and walk through the tiny abode on its legs at its full height, which was the behavior of many sentinel demons who valued pride over efficiency, it did what many gorillas do: it walked on its long hands, enabling it to speed through the house while slightly lowering its height. It was an ugly mimicry of a gorilla''s method of locomotion: knuckle-walking.


    Rather than have to take its time to avoid obstacles and duck underneath low-hanging objects the creature was able to speed through the living room that had previously belonged to June and Arthur Moonbond. It effortlessly reached the end of the room, and from there all that stood between it and the outside world from which it heard the sounds of galloping horses and the twanging noises that it knew came from archers firing upon their enemies, was a thin wall made of wood.


    The creature lifted one of its knuckles off of the floor and closed its fist. It took a deep breath, willing the demonic equivalent of ki to stop flowing needlessly through its body and instead redirected it into its fist. After a few seconds of concentration, the creature felt power and energy swirling in its large fist.


    The creature looked at the wall and searched for a place that looked thinner than the rest of the wall. After a few seconds of searching, it successfully found such an area and swung its fist at that part of the wall. The thin wood was no match for the concentrated strength of a sentinel demon, and a chunk of the wall exploded outward after falling victim to the demon''s explosive punch.


    The explosion created a hole in the wall, but not onelarge enough for the demon to fit through it. The demon looked at the hole and sat down, on its rear end. It pondered the situation before it for a moment, before it quietly hopped back up and decided that the fastest solution to its problem was for it to expand the hole.


    The resulting barrage on the wall could be heard throughout the neighborhood, but with the sounds of the nearing battle in the distance, the odd arrows sailing and screaming through the air, the town''s other inhabitants either couldn''t hear it or weren''t moved to investigate it.


    <hr>


    The first time Golorina, the only female orc who participated in the raid on the small town, heard the orcish archers who had joined her on this raid fire their arrows into the sky, she sprung into action.


    She was all business, unlike her fellow rogues, and hadn''t been swayed to drink herself into a stupor just because she was close to free alcohol. Rather than go out and drink with her peers, she took the opportunity the raid had created to gather as much loose gold as possible by methodically going through the few local businesses the town had and cleaning them out.


    She was in the local smithy when the archers started fired upon their distant enemies. She had been counting the coins left on the corpse of the town blacksmith and had already looted the woman''s safe when she heard the whistling noise of orcish arrows sailing through the sky. She grabbed as many loose coins as she could and turned to run towards the location of her allies.


    Within two minutes the secretive and serious rogue had reached the gate where her companions had set up shop in the aftermath of the raid''s success. The archers were busy readying another volley to fire towards an enemy in the distance, so far from them that at that moment the rogue couldn''t yet actually see the foes beyond the gate.


    Only one of the archers bothered to respond to her speedy sprint towards them. He was a gruff-looking fellow, dressed in an odd mixture of fur armor and metal plates placed strategically over sensitive body parts. He was perhaps the oldest of all of the orcs who participated in the raid. His name was Talvin, and he called out to her.


    "Golorina! Where are the others? We could use all hands on deck to prepare for this. Horse-mounted soldiers are closing in. They''ll be here within the next few minutes."


    In response to Talvin''s question, Golorina quietly hissed. She loathed having to answer this orc, but knew that he was expecting an answer and that disobedience wouldn''t be tolerated by someone as young as she was.


    "They aren''t here. I bet the sounds of your arrows woke them up if they weren''t already awake, but they went out to drink hours ago. Shortly after the raid was declared over."


    He clicked his tongue in irritation and uttered a single word in response.


    "Fuck."


    <hr>


    Althos and its servants ran through the town in silence. In their silence, they were able to periodically overhear the strange sound of orcish arrows flying high through the sky, as on the other side of the town the majority of the remaining orcish archers fired upon unknown enemies.


    As soon as they overheard that first volley of arrows they were in motion. Althos had followed behind them, suspecting that wherever they were running too was worth following them too.


    It was Ragnor who revealed, mid-run, that the source of that sound were arrows which had been fired by orcish archers, aimed high in the sky. Their purpose was to fall upon and terrorize an unknown and hopefully distant enemy, as well as serve as an alarm for the other orcs. It meant that someone was coming to the town and that the orcs should gather to defend the entrance to their raided territory.


    Of course, each of the orcs present wondered how the orcish raiders would react to Althos, but they suspected that at least the orcs wouldn''t attack someone who wasn''t hostile towards them and was joined by a total of 4 of their peers. And it was then, when the orcs and Althos were less than a minute away from the others and when Althos could already see them, that Bazur had the brilliant and necessary thought to actually ask the godling what it would do when it met other orcs. He did so while forsaking subtlety.


    "Althos! We are part of a group of raiders. There are 5 other archers in our group and 6 rogues. All of us are orcs. Judging from the fact that our archers are apparently either attacking a group of people, or themselves being attacked, I would like to know what you''re gonna do when you meet them?"


    Bazur''s voice was filled with concern and curiosity. The orc was a smart fellow who''d likely see through any attempts to hide the truth from him. Not that Althos felt like lying anyway. So it didn''t.


    "I''ll see if I can make them my servants. After that, since they are your allies I''ll most likely help you all fight off the mysterious enemy."


    Althos''s answer didn''t shock Bazur. The orc simply nodded and accepted such an answer as predictable and acceptable.


    At that moment both Althos and Samyaza, who was inside of the godling and saw the world through the godling''s enhanced eyes, saw the sentinel demon for a fraction of a second.


    <hr>


    The group had reached a part of a town that was densely packed with buildings. They were running on a small street that occasionally opened to reveal other parts of the town. When they were passing through one of the open areas that allowed them to see other streets, the godling and the angel saw the sentinel demon moving in the same direction as them, but a bit slower than they were. It was far enough away that only the two of them could see it, but even from a distance, the creature was a frightening sight.


    The godling''s enhanced sight picked up on the creature''s massive frame, it''s thick arms, and even noticed the blood that covered some of the creature''s teeth. The blood looked fresh.


    Althos was so shocked by the sight of the creature that it immediately transmitted a mental question to the orb angel who was currently dwelling inside of it.


    [What... the... fuck... was... that?]


    Samyaza was silent for a moment, its mind blank as it dared to mentally replay what it had seen and succeeded in verified what it had felt it''d never have to verify. When the creature spoke, Althos detected a bit of fear in its voice.


    [That was a sentinel demon. Sentinel demons are a type of demon who are known and feared fortheir zealotry. If you can convince it to serve you you''ll gain a powerful minion, but given that it''s heading in the direction of the other orcs, I recommend you defeat it. Now. Those things are no joke.]


    Althos considered the counsel given to it by the angel, and within seconds chose to follow it. The godling ran alongside its servants for a second longer and then shouted to them.


    "Go on and join the other raiders. There''s something I need to take care of first. Tell them about me, and if necessary help them defeat whoever is closing in on the town. Oh, and take this. It might come in handy."


    The godling didn''t wait for a response and immediately ran faster to run beyond the orcs, and into position to intercept the demon. The orcs sped up and each of them wondered what their new master was running off to do. That was when they received or perhaps became aware of, their master''s strange gift.


    <hr>


    The godling''s mind was racing as it made use of its blistering speed to search the streets for the demon. The godling wasn''t just thinking about facing down the massive beast it''d have to fight, but it was thinking about what other information Samyaza inadvertently revealed when discussing what type of creature the demon was.


    The godling made a mental note to ask Samyaza about types of demons after this encounter, and to encourage the angel to search its memories to see if it knew of specific demons who''d make good servants.


    After a few minutes of searching for the surprisingly speedy demon, the godling reached an area wherein it could see the demon heading straight for it. Althos stopped in that area and waited for the creature to approach.


    The demon was a terrifying sight as it charged down the street in the direction of the godling. Each of its steps pounded the floor beneath it, whether it was walking through grass or through a road. And when the demon detected the godling, which it did quite quickly, it opened its mouth in a feral roar, while moving in a way that showed that it intended to skid to a stop.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    The monster''s open maw, while the beast was roaring, revealed countless sharp teeth, many of which were stained red by Selena''s blood. Earlier the godling mentally noted that the blood looked fresh. Up close the deity confirmed that the blood smelled fresh as well.


    In the distance, the constant background noise of horse-hoofs pounding on the ground began to grow in volume every second, as the horses approached.


    <hr>


    Golorina had spent her time doing something which in minutes would reap dividends. Upon being informed of the situation the rogue immediately threw herself into her work and began installing basic traps throughout the area near and just beyond the gate.


    She kept various items on her person due to her work and so rarely did those items promise to be so useful as they did in that particular situation.


    The rogue wore thieves gear, a thin but pocket-covered vest that had space for multiple dozens of items and which she kept stocked with an assortment of roguish goodies. Upon learning of the dire situation and hearing that their archers be unable to inflict real harm on their distant enemies, the rogue began to search through her multitude of items.


    The first particularly useful items she found were simple but had a real shot at inflicting damage on the mysterious enemies who were closing in fast. She found that in one of her pockets she had caltrops, dozens of caltrops.


    Her caltrops were very tiny, metal spikes. In the case of the ones she possessed, they were ruined nails that she had asked to be reforged and shaped into a tiny, time-consuming trap that had the potential to steer enemies away from her or at least force them to slow down as they tried to chase after her.


    Normally she''d try to come up with a more elaborate trap, but she was on a time crunch. The orcish rogue looked at the ground and spent a few seconds trying to determine what areas she should prioritize covering in her very cost-efficient trap.


    After selecting what areas she''d need to focus on the rogue ran to the wooden gate that granted entry into the town and began to sprinkle the ground just beyond the gate, inside the town, with her spikey objects.


    <hr>


    The orcs marveled at the power their master had bestowed upon them. They felt a small boost to the speed and strength of their fists. It was an odd sensation to feel, but they definitely didn''t mind it. Even Ranthor, despite how useless the power was to him, appreciated at least the idea of his knuckles being enhanced. The orc might have fought with a bow and arrow but he recognized the versatility of having multiple weapons to use against any enemies.


    The orcs kept running even as they marveled their master''s odd power, and before they knew it they were at the edge of the town.The orcs reached their colleagues quickly as they hadn''t slowed down even after realizing that their jog had brought them almost all of the way to their colleagues.


    They had maintained their speedy pace long enough for them to reach the gate, and shortly before they arrived the other orcish rogues had arrived as well. All 15 of the orcish raiders were in the same place at the same time for the first time since the raid ended.


    Talvin saw the brawlers and Ranthor approaching and winched as behind him other archers fired another volley of arrows into the sky. The elderly orc waved at his allies and gestured for them to approach. Then he turned and quickly fired his own arrow.


    Althos''s allies looked beyond the open gate, and in the distance, they could see the quickly approaching horse-mounted soldiers. The four orcs had a collection of grim looks on their faces, as they assessed the situation and concluded that it was dire. The orcish raiders didn''t have much in terms of a frontal fighting force, and the archersdidn''t look to be


    It didn''t look good for the raiders.That was what made each second of preparation they had all the more valuable.


    Talvin took command of the situation, his experienced gaze, and strategic mind quickly considering numerous variables, andenabled him tocome up with the first steps in a strategy.


    "Let''s get out from in front of the gate for now. The enemy is too close for us to be effective with our current tactics, so, for now, let''s retreat behind the wall, and hope that Golorina''s surprise takes a few of them down. Rogues, get into whatever position where you can do the most harm, and brawlers... get ready for a fight."


    Talvin''s gruff voice had confidence, which was something that Althos''s allies weren''t expecting. The minions of Althos also overheard something interesting: Golorina had apparently set up a surprise for their enemies. The servants of the godling looked at each other and then spread themselves out, deciding on the fly where they should go, and hoping that this impromptu strategy resulted in very few if any at all casualties on their side by the end of the next few minutes.


    The sound of horse hoofs pounding on the ground began to get closer and closer, and in the absence of the vaguely comforting sound of orcish arrows sailing through the air the tension of the raiders near the gate increased rapidly.


    <hr>


    Modred finished his song as the soldiers began to close in on the town. He suspected that they were less than a minute away from the town''s entrance, and he assessed the situation to the best of his ability.


    As far as he could see whoever was shooting at them had given up. The gate was off in the distance, but there was no one visible just beyond it. The last volley of arrows to fly at them had sailed in their direction minutes ago, and they had been riding smoothly for uncomfortably long.


    When one of the soldiers holding a shield above himself to Modred''s left began to waver, Modred extended a single finger in the young man''s direction and silently cast a spell on him. With a forceful grunt, the soldier began to heft the shield upward with renewed vigor, and Modred quietly thanked his impish companion for teaching him about stamina recovery magic.


    Modred did his best to examine the 7 soldiers he had brought with him. Each of them carried different armaments. One had a lance on his arm and was leading the pack. He was only slightly ahead of the next few riders though. That was so that two other soldiers who had shields on their off-hands could cover him since he was less than skilled in using a lance and a shield simultaneously.


    The two soldiers who protected the wannabe knight with no defensive ability had different weapons. One of them had a short sword and the other had a small mace in their main hands. They were flanked by warriors who wielded daggers and shields, using their shields as offensive weapons who surrounded and protected Modred.


    Modred had been at the center of the little formation since right before the squad almost fell victim to the first volley of arrows. When the group went to hunker down and dash through the attacks of the far-away enemies they surrounded Modred himself. He was covered primarily by the odd soldiers whose shields were both defensive and offensive.


    The final fighting members of the squad were specialists. Their weapons were mysterious, but they were often effective against their enemies when the two had time to tactically assess their situations and make considered decisions about how to attack.


    The entire squad was now seconds away from reaching the gate.


    <hr>


    The demon saw Althos from a distance and began to skid to a stop shortly after rearing its head back and unleashing a loud and long-lasting roar that due to the godling''s proximity to the demon was only barely able to be heard over the noises of the horses in the distance.


    By the time the demon came to a complete stop, the distance between the two powerful beings were just a few meters apart even though the demon began to skid to stop from at least a few dozen meters away. Even after its roar ended the creature didn''t immediately look at Althos.


    It''s thinking was that Althos wanted to stop it, which was exactly right. Where it was mistaken was that it thought that Althos was another human or humanoid. Since the demon lacked any real extrasensory abilities and relied on things like sight and other simple senses to assess prey, it couldn''t detect Althos''s real power. The demon decided to take a close look at the creature who had dared to boldly appear in front of it, figuring that someone that brave deserved a bit of acknowledgment.


    Althos was waiting for the creature to stop roaring and even when it did the deity waited some more. The deity wanted for the demon to look at it, so that the two beings could look each other in the face. When the demon eventually looked at the deity the hateful crimson eyes of the demon met the pitiless gaze of the godling.


    The godling lacked the sheer hate that inspired the demon''s wraith and was a source of strength for the dark being but the godling''s eyes were filled with something else. A sort of bizarre and seemingly random strength. An incalculable and intrinsic strength that enabled the deity to be calm in this situation, even as the godling took its first soft step in the direction of the demon. In response, the demon pounded its thick arms into its chest and tried to intimidate the godling.


    The godling didn''t say a word, and instead took another step towards the demon. And then, off in the distance, the incredibly loud background noise of multiple horses in barding galloping towards the town was suddenly replaced with a massive crashing sound as multiple horses fell victim to a wonderfully well placed but simple trap.


    The demon, momentarily distracted by incredible noise in the background, turned away from its foe to see if looking in the direction of the noise brought it much needed answers regarding their source. The godling took advantage of the distraction and leaped at the demon, with a single leg outstretched like a spear. Its leg was a simple weapon, but at the speed of the godling coupled with its innate power, it was also a vicious one.


    <hr>


    Seconds before the horses came galloping through the open gates, at the gates in question:


    The battle positions the orcs had taken depended on the orcs in question. Talvin and many of the archers were far away from the gate and in place to fire crippling arrows at their enemies once they rushed through the gates and were either forced to turn around to lash out at the rogues in the town or were injured and hopefully sent flying by the caltrops placed by Golorina. The archers who stayed away from the gate had thicker, longer bows that specialized in fighting from far away. Those orcs were Talvin, Ranthor, and a younger orc.


    Only some archers stayed closer to the gate, hoping to use their more compact bows. Their shorter bows were gifts they had received following training in combat archery, a more close-up form of archery that required flexibility and intense kinetic vision. They all hoped that they wouldn''t be needed this fight since their light fur armor offered little protection against collusionagainsta horse.


    The orcish rogues were near the gate since their tactics relied on them being up close and personal. They each knew to try and take down weakened enemies first and then gang-up on seemingly reliable foes. They were, after all experienced raiders. They were nervous but not any more nervous than they had been before any other fight they couldn''t trick or flee their way out of. They occupied themselves by warming up and checking their blades.


    The brawlers prepared themselves mentally for the next clash. The three were huddled in a corner discussing tactics and how to split up if it came to that due to enemy numbers. That was when the loud noises of the horse-hoofs galloping towards them became deafening. The enemies had arrived.


    And then just seconds later came the first shouts of horse riders as they sailed through the air coupled with the loud and beautiful sounds of horses neighing in agony as they fell onto the trap Golorina laid out for them and subsequently began to collide. With each other.


    <hr>


    The godling, not the sort to hesitate, was the first one of the two powerful beings to attack. While its foe was distracted It sailed through the air, launching itself using its own explosive strength to try and land a potentially devastating attack moments after it met the demon. Its outstretched leg had the hardness of thick metal, and the creature was aiming for the center of its demonic foe figuring that it was best to aim for a large target than a precise one.


    What ended up saving the demon from an instantaneous defeat was the creature''s remarkable instincts coupled with its odd physiology. It reacted to the godling''s attack just in time to raise an arm, its right arm in fact, and position it right in front of where the attack would have hit and been even more devastating. Even if the blow had smashed through the creature''s chest it would have survived, but the blow would have rendered the creature helpless.


    The demon took the hit, being barely able to minimize the damage it would take, and staggered back as pain exploded throughout its right arm as the godling''s strike pierced it. The godling instantly retracted its foot from the creature''s arm, and thick acidic blood began to pour out of the thin hole in the arm of the demon dripping onto the ground beneath the hole and the godling could hear a faint hissing noise as acid reacted with the ground beneath it.


    The demon reacted to the pain it felt by emitting a foul scream, which was loud enough to shatter the glass of nearby windows and turned its grim gaze on the godling, expecting the divine being to be running in terror, affected by the sentinel''s mind-altering shout. Instead, the demon saw the godling looking it dead in the face with a neutral expression and gently moving lips, and then heard the evil creature heard the newborn deity speak in the ancient language of demons for the first time in the god''s short life.


    The godlings voice was like a hundred whispering voices speaking in the ancient tongue of the demons at once, and only barely intelligible. It was one of the very few truly frightening things the demon ever experienced.

 Chapter 12: A New Friend

    The godling effortlessly retracted its leg from the hole its attack on the demon created in the brute''s arm. The godling''s face was an emotionless mask as the creature it had just struck reacted viscerally to the horrendously powerful blow.


    The demon reacted to the pain by opening its maw wide and bellowing in pain and fury. The sound was loud, especially up close but it was also harmless to the godling. The godling knew that the sound was supposed to be frightening, but felt nothing as the creature spent several seconds roaring in a mixture of pain and fury. While the demon roared in a vain attempt to use its pain to fuel a psychological attack, the godling looked at its face with a tauntingly neutral expression and waited.


    In its mind, the godling could hear Samyaza shouting in terror as a response to the demon''s mental attack. If someone asked the godling which sound was worse, the deity would have told them that the sound of Samyaza''s voice coupled with the fact that the voice felt like it was coming from within the deity''s skull, was the worse noise.


    After a few seconds passed, the demon finally began to stop roaring, and as the demon quieted down the godling saw a chance and began to speak.


    "To think that my angelic companion is scared of you... I fail to see why you invoke such terror in my strange advisor."


    The deity''s first words to the demon, a creature whose appearance startled it and frightened its angelic companion, were haughty ones conveyed in a disappointed tone. For reasons, the godling didn''t understand, due to how the divine being''s divine speech ability worked, the demon stared in shock at the godling. The crimson orbs that were the demon''s eyes were filled with surprise and the slightest inkling of fear.


    The godling''s voice rung in the demon''s head. It was distorted and amplified, the words were spoken intelligibly but only barely so. The demon heard the godling''s words be spoken a hundred times by seemingly different people at once. This odd phenomenon was frightening and disorienting, a maddening mockery of the demon''s language. This alien chorus mentally and emotionally destabilized the demon but was only the first in a series of odd things that occurred concerning the godling.


    When the demon looked at the godling after it spoke there was a significant change. Before the air around the godling seemed to be normal and unaffected by its presence, but now it was different.


    Now, in the eyes of the demon, there appeared to be hazy smoke flaking off of the deity. It floated around the deity.


    Due to its thinness, it was possible for the demon to see the godlingfrom inside of the aura and to see past where the fog-like visuals would have otherwise obstructed its vision if the fog-like aura was darker.


    The demon felt its will to fight the otherworldly but outwardly human-looking creature before it quickly fading due to the creature''s voice and that disturbing aura. That bloodlust was quickly being washed away and replaced by a seemingly sourceless fear that the creature intellectually understood shouldn''t be occurring.


    <hr>


    The area just inside the gate where the orcs and humans were moments from clashing was not like the plain and undecorated area just inside the other gate. This was the gate where the people from the other parts of the baron''s territory came to visit. This gate was outfitted with a platform for archers and other spotters to oversee the area beyond the gate from within its safety. And it had decorative and controlled vegetation as well that added to its aesthetic value in the eyes of visiting authorities and noble people.


    Such decorations had always annoyed the town''s authorities who found them distracting and perfect for criminals. Sadly for such reasonably-minded fellows, the shrubbery was maintained at the expense of the baron and happened to be perfect for the nomadic band of belligerents who had invaded the town.


    That was where the orcs were hidden when the horses ran through the gate, ran a few more steps unhindered, and then stepped onto the trap laid out by the female rogue named Golorina just minutes ago.


    The horses and their riders had just entered the town when the first of the horses fell victim to the primitive but effective trap. Though only the first horse and its rider were critically harmed by the trap.


    The horse being ridden by the wannabe knight with a lance stepped hard onto a caltrop, the metal piercing the inexpensive and ineffective horse-shoe the creature wore. The caltrop cut deeply into the horse''s foot and sent it sprawling since the creature had been running at full speed when it fell victim to the trap.


    That particular horse and its rider sailed painfully through the air. The wannabe knight who had insisted on leading the soldiers hours ago twisted awkwardly in the air in a vain attempt to control how he''d land by using the lance he had in a commendably strong grip to try and orient himself in the air. Instead of controlling how he landed, he only succeeded in reducing how far he flew. He hit the ground hard and rolled for a bit before coming to a stop moments before his horse also stopped crashing.


    That might have been a success worth bragging about if it wasn''t for the fact that his horse flew less of a distance than he would have if he had allowed himself to fly through the air at the discretion of gravity. If he hadn''t attempted to impose his will on physics than he would have landed painfully but relatively safely farther away.Instead, he landed before his horse did, and the weapon he had tightly gripped was pointed outward in front of him.


    It impaled the horse when the large beast hit the ground and the wannabe knight himself, its thick hide and the considerable force of its flight impaling it deep on the knight''s lance and causing its equine body to slam against his smaller frame, pinning him to the ground underneath the horse. Both the soldier and his mount groaned in agonizing pain, and the horse lay dying on top of the rider who had spent a long time caring for it.


    No other horse or rider was so dramatically affected by the trap, but it was still effective at rendering the horses almost completely ineffective. Now all of the horses were either injured or gripped with terror by the sight of their fellow horses in pain and in one case dying.


    It was at this point that the orcs examined their enemies, only barely mustering the will to turn away from the cruelly amusing sight of the man pinned by his mount. The forces that they had been attacking from a distance and were now finally close too were a force that had spent most of the brief time they were known by the orcs as a distant spot on the horizon slowly approaching but never truly seen until now.


    The forces consisted of 7 human soldiers wearing matching armor wielding distinctive weapons counting the faux knight and his dying horse, and a single man atop an also armored horse. The man wearing the strange robes of a court wizard, presumably because he himself was one, had magical support in the form of a small and strange red-skinned creature whose basic shape resembled that of a humanoid perched on his shoulder. Each of the orcs identified the man as a potential wildcard since he was at the center of the formation of horses, and the soldiers refused to separate from him even as they tried their best to distantly assess their current situation.


    All 8 of the humans seemed to be collaborating willingly, and more than that they seemed to show a decent amount of concern for their companion who flew through the air before landing where his horse would soon follow. The noise of their crash was impressive as both the soldier and horse were armored. They each weighed far more than they would have had they just been couriers or other common travelers.


    The archers zeroed in on the spell-caster and knew that they needed to get rid of him quickly. The other orcs divided up their targets on intuition and with careful glances at each other before they began to move.


    Once ready the orcs sprung into coordinated and careful action, a few of them purposefully revealing themselves to their enemies with thrown rocks and taunting noises. Their still hidden peers waited till their enemies were distracted and then moved into positions where they felt they had the most chance at inflicting wounds on their enemies.


    The total number of enemies to fight was just 8 counting the strange creature riding the apparent spell-caster''s shoulder, given that one soldier was already effectively out of the fight.The knight underneath the horse was strong, but not strong enough to lift a several hundred-kilogram horse equipped with metal armor off of him.


    Several moments passed before the court-wizard regained his wits and began to aid his allies even though he could loosely hear the sounds of the approaching orcish enemies. Once he regained his wits and stopped being distracted by the sight of the faux-knight pinned underneath the knight''s own treasured mount, the spell-singer was chided by his familiar.


    To drown out his own familiar''s irate scolding and to support his underlings he began to whistle a quiet tune that he knew would embolden his allies while eliciting fear in his enemies.


    <hr>


    The godling wondered what scared the demon. After contemplating what it might have been for a few seconds the godling decided to just ask the whimpering monster directly.


    "Why are you scared? You weren''t scared before I started talking... why are you scared now and not when I hit you?"


    This time its voice came through like how others heard the godling, a normal voice for a human that was deceptively high pitched despite the creature''s outwardly masculine appearance and in this case, spoke the innately cruel language of demon-kind not the guttural language of orcs. Even the softest and most neutral words in other languages came out cruelly when spoken in the language of demons.


    The sudden shock of this linguistic turn stupefied the demon, whose eyes retained a hint of its past fear, but now mostly showed confusion. When it spoke, its voice was soft and mewling.


    "Your voice... when you first spoke, it came across like a hundred voices at once, It was terrifying. The power of our tongue, the demon tongue, amplifies when spoken by multiple people at once. I''ve never heard so many voices speaking in unison."


    The godling looked at the demon, listening to its explanation with rapt attention. When the monster was finished speaking the god wondered about a specific part of its explanation.


    "Just now... did you say ''our tongue''?"


    When the god quoted the demon its voice once again took on the quality of an otherworldly chorus and caused the suffering demon to reel back in fright. It took it a few seconds to be brave enough to speak again.


    "Y, yes. Our tongue. You are speaking the language of demons perfectly. It''s odd. But sometimes your words twist and they take on this chorus-like quality like there are multiple people speaking in unison."


    After speaking, the demon quietly lowered its head, seemingly in an act of submission. Due to the creature''s height, even with its head lowered it was still physically looking down on the being it spoke too but only in a literal sense.


    The godling looked at it with curiosity. As it looked at the demon it felt a strange and vaguely alien sense of paternal affection towards its scared foe.


    <hr>


    The shift in the sentinel demon''s attitude was brought on by a few different things. The primary motivator of the rapid shift in its attitude was how uncharacteristically high, at least for its kind, its level of intelligent was. Its intelligence made it keenly aware of how odd its foe was. Its intelligence made it feel each emotion more sharply than others of its kind often could and that accentuated two powerful emotions: fear and desire.


    It was afraid of the strange and seemingly clueless but also powerful creature that it was talking to. It was afraid of the creature''s undeniable strength. The thought that its randomly located heart might be burst by this being who was so much smaller than it filled it with fear as well. And of course, there was the god''s ability to speak in the demon''s native tongue, using some odd natural power that the demon had never observed in all of its life. That filled it with paralyzing fear.


    But fear wasn''t the only emotion it felt. Even now in a despair-inducing situation against a foe with unknown but terrifying power, it felt the pangs of desire. Sentinel demons were characterized by their pride, but in actuality, it was a powerful sense of desire that drove them forward. And what the sentinel demon desired was to live. It desired to survive this situation, and eventually escape it. But it also desired power.


    Ever since the godling had spoken to the demon in its haunting and chorus-like voice the demon noticed that power slowly radiated off of the creature. It was the same sort of power that sentinels felt radiating out of the dark corners of their home plane. And the demon wasn''t alone in noticing that. But it was alone in wanting that strange radiant power.


    The demon''s animal brain unconsciously connected the image of the godling with the sort of power the demon wanted, and thus quickly decided to seek out the power within the godling.


    <hr>


    Samyaza noticed it as well. When the godling spoke in what felt like the divine language all gods biologically had the capability to speak in, something had changed. And that change wasn''t in some isolated metaphysical sense.


    The angel felt the odd and vaguely alien sense of affection the godling now seemed to almost artificially have towards the demon who had mere moments ago, lunged at it seeking bloodshed. It was a disturbing and odd change for the godling, even though the godling was extraordinarily young and seemingly prone to mood swings.


    <hr>


    The godling itself noticed that the demon had lost the will to fight. It felt satisfied at this development, which was both due to its own natural feelings about fighting and pain, and due to the eerie sense of paternal affection, it felt towards the demon. It was aware that this feeling was odd, and it did mentally question the source of this feeling. After it thought for a few moments it capriciously decided, much like how it was fickle in the forest and didn''t investigate the lifeforms lurking in the woods, not to pursue this for a long time.


    Once it waited to ensure the demon wasn''t going to attack it, it spoke to the creature.


    "Want to join me? I''ve noticed that you''ve given up your past aggression. If you join and serve me, I''ll reward you."Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    The emotions that made up the demon''s current emotional and mental state flared up in equal measure when it heard that statement and the creature looked the godling in the face, a fearful smile warping its malformed features and nodded eagerly. The godling innately played on the emotions that drove the demon forward and the godling enjoyed it.


    The god rose its hand over the thick hole in the demon''s right arm and a small orb of darkness left its hand and went into the hole that was a leftover from their fight moments ago. The orb began to expand inside of the hole and then seemed to begin to stitch together the wound.


    The demon quietly let loose a soft and delighted growl as the pain the godling had caused was healing at the godling''s own hand. The godling smiled softly, and the two began to take a leisurely walk towards the other battlefield even as the demon''s hand began to heal.


    <hr>


    Golorina''s trap not only helped the orcish raiders gain an advantage in the mental battle between themselves and the raiders, but she was also the first person to score a kill in the battle.


    The orcish rogue aimed to start off the battle by assassinating the faux-knight pinned beneath his own horse. She had tried to stealthily lunge at him, hoping to evade detection by the soldiers who were close to him, but failed. Instead of starting off the battle by beheading the first victim of her trap, she instead found herself attacked by the mounted soldier who used a shield to provide cover for the wannabe knight and had a short mace as his weapon.


    The soldier detected her while she was a good distance away from her target and the soldier himself. He noticed her because he was infuriated at the trap that had stumped them and only looked away for a second, but in that second noticing her ruthless gaze which was aimed at his friend. His fury came from the realization that he hadn''t thought such a simple trap would be used by warriors strong enough to overrun a town, even a small and backward one like the town they were fighting to the death in.


    The soldier urged his horse to charge at her and instinctually readied his mace to bash her skull in while shouting at her, spooking the orc. They were quick and had almost reached her in the instant it took for her to recover her wits.


    However, he wasn''t expecting her to get angry and shout at the horse while reaching an empty hand into her breast-pocket to pull out a tiny and difficult to make out object. She quickly hurled a loose caltrop at the horse, the aforementioned tiny and difficult to make out object flying towards the horse''s face. The violent flick of her wrist, coupled with the sight of the tiny object terrified the mentally frazzled horse, causing the beast to rear up and toss the soldier off of its back.


    The rogue didn''t hesitate and swiftly jumped onto the soldier while he was trying to get on his feet. She threw her weight onto him and in a single motion swiftly plunged her blade into the human''s unarmored and exposed jugular vein. She had to angle the blade just right since her weapon was curved but due to countless hours of training and past assassinations she was able to automatically aim her strikes in her mind with a nearly nonexistent margin of error.


    She smoothly pulled her blade out of the man''s neck and threw herself back, while straightening herself out in mid-air. She was surrounded by the sounds of fighting and the spell-singer''s annoying whistling which she was able to resist due to an impressive combination of patience and anger. She resolved herself to finish the grisly task she had given herself and started sneaking in the direction of the horse and wannabe knight.


    She did notice that the damn court wizard''s whistle had stopped and was replaced with a louder and more annoying song. She didn''t know much about magic so to her he was just singing. It was really annoying though, and she hoped that someone would shut him up soon.


    <hr>


    The godling and the demon were walking towards the gate where Althos''s allies were joined by other orcs. In the meantime, before they arrived at their destination, the godling made idle conversation with its questionable new compatriot.


    The godling asked a question to its new companion that to humans would have been simple enough to answer.


    "What''s your name?"


    The demon hesitated and seemed kind of shocked that the godling asked that question. When it spoke it seemed to stumble over itself.


    "Uh... Call me Raverangos."


    Before the godling could respond, the orb angel who was mostly still muttering scared thoughts seemed to break from its fear for a second to inform the godling of the reason for the demon''s sheepish response.


    [Althos, demons don''t give out their true names. Power can be exerted over them by people who know their true names. "Raverangos" might be scared of you, but that''ll give it even more reasons not to give you its name.]


    The godling listened along to the angel''s explanation and then mentally nodded its understanding of what was said. After thinking it over, the godling decided to tell the demon its name as a sign of good faith among violent kindred spirits.


    "My name is Althos."


    The demon heard the godling''s name in the many-voiced chorus and nodded in response to the creature''s name. It quietly whispered it to itself, like the name itself had power.


    "Althos..."


    The godling looked at the demon with a quizzical expression, and then just rolled its eyes. The two could now see the fighting between the orcs and the humans in the distance. The demon stared longingly at the battle, and the godling could detect out of the corner of its eye the gentle swaying of the thick demon''s hands as if to signal excitement for what it knew would come next.


    The godling looked at the demon and thought about its next decision. On one hand, it knew that unleashing a demon on their human enemies would ingratiate itself to the orcs very effectively and dramatically. But on the other hand, it also knew that the demon was a dumb brute who liked murder and might go wild.


    The godling weighed the apparent pros and cons for a few seconds before deciding to just see what would happen. The godling jumped and waved its hand in the demon''s face to get its attention. Once Althos was sure it had the creature''s undivided attention the godling spoke.


    "The orcs are on our side. Hurt them and I hurt you. But the humans? You can kill them."


    The godling thought for a second and then made an additional statement, a clarifying one.


    "The orcs don''t look like me. Humans do. Attack the ones that look like me."


    That clarifying statement was a smart one because the demon didn''t see race.


    <hr>


    The first person to notice the demon that was loudly stompingin the direction of the battlewasn''t a person. It wasn''t an orc either. It was the imp.


    The imp had been doing its best to subtly boost its human allies, and stay out of sight of any of the archers who had quietly been undermining the efforts by the humans to resist their foes. It was casting chantless magic and using its magical reserves to bolster the humans and their horses. It had even succeeded in helping one of the specialists, a warrior with a soul-trident, in bringing down one of the rogues subtly boosting his speed with magic when he went in for the kill against the orcish rogue who was trying to fight him.


    The imp was out in the open, but due to its small size and quiet nature it was difficult for the orc warriors to spot as they clashed with its allies. This was a useful talent in the heat of battle, and it gave the side of the humans two sorcerous supports instead of one.


    That was when imp heard a rumbling sound begin to become louder than the fighting that surrounded it. It looked in the direction of the rumbling noise and saw a nightmarish sentinel demon running in its direction. The creature''s impressive and bloody maw was open as it laughed wildly.


    Compared to the tiny devil the demon was a mountain of a creature, and if it approached the devil it''d notice the tiny creature. And that was bad. Modred couldn''t do permanent harm to the imp, but the demon could. The demon could kill the imp.


    The imp took a long look at the creature and had a fierce debate with itself. Each millisecond brought the demon closer and closer to it, and each millisecond further imperiled the imp, because eventually, the demon would detect the devil even without sight.


    The imp resolved itself to flee back to its terrifying home plane, but it knew that the court wizard knew the spell to summon it back. It decided to give the wizard a reason to call it back if the wizard managed to escape this situation. And the imp knew exactly how to ensure that the wizard called it back. After all, the imp did have a useful and politically important secret it could dangle in front of the wizard.


    The scheming imp boldly turned and flew towards the spell-singer, fleeing from the demon and also guaranteeing that if all things went well here it''d soon revisit this world.


    <hr>


    All of the human soldiers were skilled, yet with one exception they found themselves being overwhelmed. The one human warrior who was succeeding in this battle was the one human warrior who had at this point willingly gotten off of the horse he rode in on and was fighting on foot.


    He was one of the two specialists and he wielded a strange weapon. His weapon of choice was a weapon he always had on him, a soul-trident.


    Soul tridents are special weapons that some creatures can generate using their own lifeforce to manifest them. The specialist was an expert in the way of the trident, having used his since birth. He carefully used it to keep an orcish rogue at arm''s length. The two circled each other awkwardly until the rogue stumbled.


    The specialist took advantage of that moment to impale the rogue. An instant later the soldier pulled his trident back, and the rogue fell back, bleeding onto the ground, his own shock helping him stay conscious but also making him consciously aware of the significant wound he was just dealt.


    Right when the specialist thought he might be able to move elsewhere, an enraged combat archer yelled in fury and fired an arrow at the specialist''s face. The trident-warrior blocked it using the shaft of his trident so the attack failed to hurt the warrior, but it succeeded in getting his attention. The warrior took off trying to close the distance between the archer who was already firing another arrow at the human.


    <hr>


    Modred was singing. He was using a long-lasting but also physically demanding spell to help anesthetize his soldiers to pain, but it wasn''t perfect. Fatal wounds still stopped those who received them, and crippling wounds might not hurt in the moment, but that didn''t mean they didn''t cripple those who received them.


    Modred was aware that he owed his life to the unprompted decision of a soldier to stay on the defensive and block incoming arrows aimed at the musician mage as the two tried to slowly retreat backward towards the gate and out of the town.


    One of the soldiers who used shields as a weapon in their own right stayed right next to the spell-singer, knowing that the spell-singers power enhanced their side while weakening their enemies.The soldier knew that any success in this situation required staying alive, so he made a calculated decision to not engage the orcs in some hair-brained attempt at revenge for his fallen friends.


    But the attempt to escape wasn''t easy, nor was it fast. The two knew that if they turned around and ran they''d be fired upon by all of the archers at once. In another situation, with other foes, they might escape that, but facing orcs with orcish bows, who outnumbered them at least two to one, that meant certain death. Their only choice was to quietly back out and then hide until the orcs gave up.


    But as their soldiers gradually fell, that got harder. An orcish rogue, the only woman Modred had seen so far in the group, took down the wannabe knight and one of the knight''s defenders, while two of the unarmed warriors took down one the other shield focused ally of the spell-singer. The soul-trident user succeeding in knocking out one rogue but was being prevented from moving by a combat-archer who was rapidly firing arrow after arrow at the warrior.


    The sword-wielding warrior was far from them, successfully holding his ground, intimidating the rogues who dared to approach him with loud noises and exaggerated slashes. Modred sighed in annoyance at the soldier, knowing that truthfully he was the least skilled soldier in the squad.


    The other specialist was an odd soldier who fought using a cruel-looking device known colloquially as a man-catcher. He was a tall soldier who used his long arms and naturally advanced hand-eye-coordination to serve as an annoying obstacle to orcs who wanted to get behind him and advance on Modred.


    The man catcher was a cruel device used to capture armored soldiers that consisted of a long metal pole that ended with a hollow crescent-moon shaped metal disk that contained sharp metal prongs that were normally forcibly affixed to metal helmets protecting their wearer''s neck from the cruel prongs. It could be manually closed by other soldiers but the specialist also used the malicious machine as a tool to bludgeon people with when the soldier fought by himself.


    Modred watched him struggle against a speedy unarmed orc who had used his limbs as a potent weapon against another one of the soldiers in his way.


    That was when the imp made it to Modred. The creature flew right up to the spell-singer, floating just within arms reach of Modred and spoke a simple message in the language of Man.


    "I know what happened to baron''s son. If you survive this, resummon me and I''ll tell you. If not... I''ll see you at home."


    The imp grinned upon saying the last word it spoke. Its grin was well... impish for a lack of a better word.


    Modred realized what the imp was saying, and tried to catch the creature only for his hand to pass harmlessly through his devious familiar. The creature''s physical form had already turned into a spectral echo, as it had silently undone the spell that bound it to the world in a physical shell as soon as it uttered the word "home".


    Through all of this Modred never stopped singing. It was his expressive face that communicated his thoughts to his allies and his enemies alike. That was about to come back and kick him in the ass in a very real way.


    At that moment, the stocky sentinel demon exploded onto the battlefield and roared what it had spent the last few moments thinking.


    "WHO THE FUCK IS DOING THAT ANNOYING SINGING? I''LL SHUT YOU THE FUCK UP MYSELF!"


    The demon didn''t know a lot of words in the language of humanity, but it sure as hell knew the swears.


    <hr>


    Far away from the fighting, there was a lone office deep in a lively fortress. This office was one of the few rooms in the fortress that was both guarded by trusted soldiers and kept locked when not in use.


    Inside of this office, there was a thick wooden desk. This desk was made of the finest wood, wood that came from trees deep in the forest that lined the outskirts of the baron''s territory. At this moment that desk was covered in papers. Those papers were sorted into two general categories.


    One of those categories was in immediate danger and the baron, who was the lord of this fortress and the owner of the office, had spent hours learning what he could about it. That immediate danger was the ongoing situation in the town of Golden-Gate, the town dozens of kilometers away wherein a demon was about to murder his court wizard.


    The other category was one of a far more personal nature to the baron. It was to this category that he was currently devoting the most attention. This category was his missing son. Many papers on the ornate desk were about his son containing every bit of information the baron had his progeny. Like a good father, he sought to aid those he had charged with locating the young man.


    He loved his son. Like many fathers, including his father before him, his son was his closest friend and most loyal confidante. He was wracked with concern about the whereabouts of his boy. It wasactually that concern that distracted him and prevented him from hearing the sounds of combat that were happening outside of his office.


    Though calling it "combat" implies it was more of a fair fight than it actually was. A more accurate term would be a "massacre". The invader slaughtered the guards who sought to protect the baron.


    The invader had simply walked up to the door and used her feral claws to amputate those who stood in her way. She hadn''t asked to be let inside, or even said hello. She just walked to the door and committed murder, before beginning to tease the baron.


    First with a soft knock.


    He didn''t even hear the first soft knock on his door after the area right beyond the door went sinisterly silent. It was the second, more forceful knock that he did hear. Yet he stood still in response to the sound and waited. The waiting was weird and he wasn''t a patient man, but his instincts told him to stay still.


    The baron felt a chill fall upon the room and noted with displeasure that he felt goosebumps emerge on his skin underneath his majestic clothing.


    The baron was distracted and scatter-brained but he wasn''t foolish. He kept his door unlocked only when he was in the office, and only when his most skillful guards protected it. Whatever was doing this, this taunting display was putting on a show. And they weren''t friendly.


    The invader knocked a third time, spending several seconds rhythmically hitting the door. It was like she was playing on the drums for a few moments.


    The fourth time whatever was beyond the door knocked it started off quiet, and then grew in volume over the course of several seconds until it was like whatever lurked beyond the door slammed it with several battering rams at once.


    The baron was spooked by this display of power and cat-like cruelty. It pushed his heart onward and caused him to experience a surge of adrenaline that temporarily heightened his senses. He heard the soft sound of a hand touching the door that led into the office from the outside. Then he heard the jiggle of the doorknob of that same door. And at last, the door opened. And the baron''s heart began to break before he even heard what she had to say.


    The invader sauntered into the private office of the baron, a confident smile on her grotesque pierced lips. Her bruised-colored and wrinkled face wore an easy-going expression that promised the baron that whatever she was there to tell him would be emotionally devastating. Not to mention she was covered in fresh blood.


    When he looked behind her and out the open door, the baron could see blood pooling on the floor. He also saw a bit of moist hair that he knew was the hair of one of the two men posted outside to protect him from any invaders or assassins. Like the mystical hermit who just killed the guard.


    The invader was a resident of the forest the wood for the desk had come from. The woman stood a towering two and a half meters tall, had skin the color of rust, and wore acustom made dress that was the result of sewing together many shorter dresses into a longer and less fashionable insult to tailors worldwide.


    The baron didn''t want her to speak, but the mystical monster in the shape of a tall elderly woman began to speak anyway.

 Chapter 13: The End Of The Conflict

    The battlefield fell silent in the wake of the demon''s dramatic entrance, even Modred stopped singing. The creature towered over the other warriors on either side of the conflict and warriors on both sides hoped that the creature''s enemies were the other warriors.


    The orcs who had met Althos had a few seconds to suspect the godling''s hand in all of this, but couldn''t be sure who was responsible for the seemingly random event until the godling itself appeared behind the demon. The battlefield was still absorbing the implications of the demon''s appearance when the demon''s new master appeared so very few people knew what to make of the dramatic entrance of the beast.


    When the few orcs with knowledge of Althos''s identity noticed it, even though the godling didn''t want to be noticed, they cheered loudly, yelling out their master''s name in an unusual display of eagerness and boasting. They realized that this meant the demon was one of them, and their peers also implicitly understood this, turning back to their distracted enemies and moving with renewed vigor. In time they each noticed the godling, due to a quiet move by Samyaza to reach out to them mentally and turn their heads in Althos''s direction.


    They were shocked by the human-like creature with the demon but knew better than to alert the actual humans to Althos''s presence. There''d be time for questions later if they survived this.


    This was odd for the humans, who had no idea why the orcs cheered. The humans were too busy defending themselves or marveling at the demon to notice the much smaller and physically less imposing human-like creature who was with the demon.


    At this point, the godling hopped up to the demon''s ear, its own body mostly hidden behind the abomination''s mass and quietly whispered, tempting the demon with a specific target.


    "The person who is singing is the human who is trying to back out of the conflict. The one in the robes way over there. Get him."


    Upon hearing this the demon rose its hands in rage and in triumphant understanding, causing the creature to look even bigger. And then it charged forward, trampling the battlefield underneath its feet and moving closer and closer to the spell-singer, its eyes trained on the magician from far away.


    In response to the terrible situation, the spell-singer turned and fled. This was an understandable response, as a lot of calamitous things had just happened all at once, and it made sense for the spell-singer to feel overwhelmed. But the demon didn''t care for the wizard''s circumstances, it only knew that it hated the spell-singer for singing so much.


    "Don''t run, puny human! I see you..."


    The creature''s voice was like the roaring flames of a forge. Those who heard it, especially the humans, felt their resolve being tested by the grisly creature. This was because the creature was using a fierce ability to try and shake their resolve.


    That said, they all resisted the mind-altering ability of the demon to infuse its voice with fear itself. Lesser creatures would have mindlessly fled before the visceral terror of its form combined with its grating voice. Even Modred managed to resist the ability, and his decision to flee wasn''t a mindless one but a logical choice that he made before the creature purposefully tried to scare him.


    The creature had a goal in mind but it still wanted to have fun, so when it charged through the battlefield and passed by the trident using human it reached out with one of its thick hands and idly grabbed the man, who had tried to dodge the claw that came for him but failed.


    It delighted in its successful capture of the man, dragging him painfully behind it for several meters before tossing him through the air. He flew through the air for a few seconds before landing in a heap on the ground.


    The soul-trident user was unconscious but alive. The combat archer who had been harassing the soul-trident user when the demon captured him noticed that the trident user lived. He corrected that by leaping towards the unconscious soldier, and firing a trio of arrows at the armored man once the orc was standing over the warrior.


    One of the arrows was aimed at his heart, another at his neck, and the final one was aimed where his helm was the least thick; where his eyes were. The three arrows successfully slew the man. Shortly after ensuring that he had successfully ended the man''s life the archer spit on the man''s body and uttered a single word summarizing his thoughts on the trident user.


    "Dickhead."


    Then the combat archer looked up and ran off in the direction of the rest of the battlefield. He hadn''t bothered to check if his friend was still alive, if he had he would have noticed that the injured orc was still breathing.


    <hr>


    Behind the demon, the godling wandered the battlefield. At first, it just stealthy contributed to the orcish victory by buffing their forces with recovery magic while nodding at the few orcs who detected it in the heat of battle. When arrows flew at it, it swiftly deflected them but otherwise didn''t attack the creatures it knew were the allies of its minions. It suspected that its minions had forgotten to tell their peers about it.


    The first truly dramatic thing it did aside from unleashing the demon on the humans happened when it came across the orcish rogue who had been defeated by the trident-user. The godling had actually been curious about the source of the thick scent of blood when it first emerged on the battlefield and quietly searched for it.


    It found the source, in the form of the dying orc after searching for a few moments and wondered what it ought to do. The orc was gasping softly and clearly in pain, so the enterprising godling suspected there was an opportunity to be had here if it could heal it. But first, it wanted to confirm that there was a chance so it bent down close to the orc who was lying face-up, his eyes closed to block out the cruel light of the sun. There was a thin stab wound in the orc''s chest, close to its heart, that leaked a constant stream of dark orcish blood.


    The godling let loose a powerful and directed thought. A thought that should be audible to the orc, in the same way that Samyaza''s mental voice was audible to the godling.


    [Can you hear me?]


    <hr>


    The orc had spent several moments, over a few minutes actually, quietly dying. He was laying on his back and blood was pouring out of an open wound. It had been pouring out of the wound from the soul-trident user for over an entire minute. At first the sensation was painful, but now the orc was beginning to lose the ability to feel even pain.


    He had closed his eyes a while ago. He wanted to block out the sun''s rays as it was directly overhead and he couldn''t move enough to be able to turn away from it.


    He was growing somewhat used to the idea of dying when a voice disturbed his somber thoughts.


    [Can you hear me?]


    The voice whispered, seemingly directly into his mind. The words were in the language of orcs, so the orc suspected that the source of the voice was one of his allies. But the voice didn''t sound like anyone he knew.


    His initial assessment of that was that he had just forgotten what one of his allies sounded like, perhaps due to bloodloss. But he could hear the voice and so he tried to respond.


    "Y-y...e..."


    His voice was soft and weak. Bloodloss had made it difficult for him to do anything really. But it was enough for his unlikely savior.


    [Enough! Don''t strain yourself. My name is Althos. I defeated a few of your allies in battle before these other enemies showed up. Though I healed them and they are fighting alongside your allies. I defeated a demon and unleashed it on your enemies. It is currently chasing down the enemy singer. I can heal you, but my power comes at a price.]


    The voice made difficult to believe claims and in revealing its source also revealed that it wasn''t another orc who was communicating with him. But the orc had nothing to lose since he would perish without outside aid, and he had heard the demon''s initial promise to "shut the fuck up" whoever was singing so it wasn''t impossible that the voice was telling the truth.


    At this point, the voice resumed to "speak".


    [If you agree to be healed, you are in essence agreeing to serve me. Is that acceptable? If you agree to these terms just think your acceptance. I know you can''t speak. Oh, and I''ve no interest in hurting you or your allies. I want you as servants, not as enemies or as victims.]


    The orc had little legitimate loyalty to its allies, but due to their having fought together for a few weeks during this and other raids he had no hatred of them either. He was a bit happy to hear that this creature wasn''t intending to hurt them. He immediately knew what he''d say.


    [Yes, I agree. If you can, please heal me.]


    Sending a mental message was odd and surprisingly difficult, but the orc obeyed the command of its unlikely savior.


    The godling nodded, though had anyone been observing the creature at that moment the sight of that would have been strange. It was standing over what many suspected was a corpse, hadn''t said a word, and then nodded as if at a ghost.


    <hr>


    Samyaza laid its mental eyes on the orc Althos was about to heal. The creature was well-built and well-trained as far as the angel could tell. He was one of the shorter orcs so far, coming in at around 1.7 meters tall but with discipline judging from the creature''s muscles and calm demeanor even as he laid dying.


    Samyaza assessed the wounds that were gradually robbing the orc of his life. They appeared to come from a single well-placed strike using a multi-bladed weapon. The wounds themselves were millimeters thick but due to their proximity to the orc''s heart, they were shockingly effective at killing the creature.


    The orc''s skin was a light shade of green, not unlike stereotypical depictions of goblins if the angel had to compare the orc to other living creatures. He wore a thin coat that was useful because of the chilly autumn air and was doubly useful because it was covered in pockets. Samyaza wondered if there were any items in those pockets, but for now, it knew that it was better to see if there was any way it could aid Althos rather than wonder about what might be hiding in the orcs many pockets.


    After continuing to assess the warrior for a second the angel had a diagnosis ready. It was simple because the wounds that the godling itself could see were the only wounds. The soul-trident user was evidently an efficient fighter who struck the minimum required amount and then moved on. Samyaza could respect it.


    [If you heal the wounds you can see through the orc''s coat and replenish his strength he should be fine.]


    The godling did the mental equivalent of a nod and began its treatment of the orc.


    <hr>


    The short-sword using soldier was cautious and conservative in his movements. He was also scared out of his mind. He was facing down an orc, by himself, and the orc didn''t even have any weapons, yet the creature was also powerfully built and his hands were themselves weapons. The orc was watching out for the human''s blade, but also dancing around him using fluid movements and a graceful leaning technique to dodge his simple bronze blade the few times the human tried to slash him.


    Though the other orcs were closing in, Ragnor wanted to end the fight he was in on his own. After all if he ended this fight on his own he''d feel comfortable dedicating it to his newfound and powerful master, Althos.


    The orc had been easily dodging his enemy''s attacks, but the solider came to life whenever the orc closed in. When the orc tried to get in range and actually attack the soldier would speedily slash at him and move at an incredible speed forcing the orc to retreat or risk a real strike seriously damaging him.


    The two continued this game of unarmed cat and slash-happy mouse for another minute until the orc got annoyed by this display of cowardice by the human. The orc suddenly sped up, and moved in for the kill, leaning and swaying to narrowly dodge the human''s attempts to punish the orc''s impatience.


    Ragnor punched the human once in the face, and then rammed his knee into the arm of the human, causing the creature to miserably cry out in pain as he dropped the thin sword he used. Ragnor wasn''t cruel and killed the human by dropping to the human''s legs, sweeping them out from under him and then moving in for a grapple after the human fell. While the human was in his clutches, the orc swiftly ended the human''s life by breaking the man''s neck in his vice-grip.


    The orc got up quietly, and quietly said: "I''ll tell you about this one soon, master." To no one in particular.


    The orc went to go meet with his peers and was greeted with cheers by Bazur, his older brother. The two quickly joined forces to terrorize the man-catcher using specialist.


    <hr>


    The godling placed its hands directly above the small wounds. It was careful not to touch the wound itself, fearing that that would cause the newest member of its crew to be in pain. It waited for a second, looking for the actual wounds, and when it spotted them through thin holes in the orc''s coat it began to pour the healing magic into them.


    The first part of its treatment of its newfound ally was simple. Closing the wounds took seconds and nothing more than a concentrated application of healing magic while the pierced flesh healed. It was the second part, replenishing the orc''s strength, that was a bit harder.


    [Excellent! You''re a natural at magic that requires mystical brute force. Now comes something with a bit of finesse. Do you want to try and replenish the orc''s strength without any instruction?]


    Samyaza had a habit of saying things that at first seemed kind or complimentary but then turned out to be a bit like a compliment sandwich. Althos sighed at the angel, who seemed to be oblivious to the slightly insulting nature of its statements, and sent a mental message.


    [I suspect I know what to do. Let me try it, and if I''m messing up you can step in and mentally guide my hand.]


    At this, the orb angel mentally nodded and waited to see what the godling would do.


    Low-level healing magic was simple. All it really took was someone with the needed magical reserves and who happened to have the force of will to direct magical energy towards a wound. That magical energy didn''t really need much direction to bring the flesh together, and this primitive but effective form of healing magic often bolstered the recipient''s magical reserves as well. But higher-level healing magic was another beast altogether.


    In order to successfully restore a living creature''s strength, the godling had to forcibly transform magical energy into stamina and strength. This process was a bit more involved than merely pumping a wound with magical energy until the energy brings torn flesh back together.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    The godling took a deep breath and began the mental process of collecting the required amount of magical energy. It knew this would demand more magical energy than its past usages of healing magic had.


    <hr>


    Modred had stopped running. The spell-singer wasn''t defenseless and after being called out by the demon, abandoned by its pet, and forced to watch skilled allies perish at the hands of a tiny horde of orcs the magician had had enough.


    He and the soldier who had protected him kept slowly backing out of the town until they were just past the gates but they were pursued the entire time. Both Modred and the soldier were tired of this and knew their enemies were just playing games with them. And it infuriated both of them, as proud humans and skilled professionals. Modred tapped into that anger and pride with the question he asked his ally and friend.


    "Arthur... want to stop running?"


    The spell-singer was a proud, ambitious sort and to continue fleeing like this was infuriating. He waited to see how the shield-user would respond and saw his stoic protector nod. The knight-like warrior lifted his shield, and the spell-singer smirked behind him. The two of them waited to face their destiny.


    The demon had kept moving in their direction, an unstoppable force compelled by hate, fury, and the direction of an unknown and monstrous master. The demon ran over a few caltrops of its own and didn''t react. It was driven by a destructive desire, to wreck and ruin what its master had given it permission to annihilate. And it would do so. It drew ever nearer to them with every passing nanosecond.


    When it noticed that they had stopped running, it itself stopped and revealed its inner thoughts to them.


    "Finally! It''s time for an early afternoon snack!"


    This time its voice was more like that of a bear, than the roaring fire of an active forge, complete withan ursine struggle to pronounce human words. Its voice was gruff and throaty, barely able to sound out the complex syllables in the human language. Not that it needed too, it was doing this for dramatic effect.


    The demon then roared, it''s voice exploding from its maw. Then it went down on all fours and began to charge at them. It wasn''t unlike the sight of a feral hog lunging at an unfortunate victim.


    The creature had the explosive power of more than a single feral hog in its speedy charge, though. If Arthur, who was actually the son of a swineherd and had seen feral hogs up close when they tried to mate with his father''s livestock, had to guess how much explosive power the demon had... he''d give a rough estimate of somewhere in the range of 30-50 feral hogs.


    <hr>


    The demon hadn''t stopped moving since it had taunted them earlier. It paid no attention to the orcs, who leaped out of its way whenever they happened to be obstacles that stood between it and its destination. And when it was just beyond the gate, past Golorina''s caltrop trap, and past the rest of the creatures fighting in the town, it was as close as ever to the spell-singer and the shield-user guarding him.


    The two of them had stopped running and were waiting for the sentinel demon. They looked surprisingly bold doing that, but also incredibly foolish.


    The demon smiled at them, a terrifying and ghoulish grin that revealed scores of blood-stained, needle-like teeth. It was almost on top of them.


    The two of them readied themselves for the fight of their lives.


    <hr>


    The godling felt that it had the required magical energy stored in its mind. Then it forcibly commanded the energy to change into strength and stamina.


    The energy itself seemed to resist the god, not wanting to shift or bend to the whims of the one who called it into being. The godling focused, willing the energy to bend to its commands, and the energy resisted further. The godling''s face strained in annoyance as it wasn''t used to something putting up this much of a fight before it.


    After experiencing a bout of annoyance, the godling remembered how much it liked gaining new servants. That knowledge fueled its ambitions to triumph over the natural stubbornness of the magical energy that was quietly resisting its commands. The deity sent a question to the angel who inhabited its body and occasionally provided it with snarky commentary.


    [Is there a domain, or whatever you called those things earlier, of magic and magical energy?]


    The angel immediately knew the answer and eagerly responded to the god''s question.


    [Actually, there is. It''s a neat one too. Imagine how strong you''d be if you had control over the magic domain? That''d be amazing!]


    The angel''s response encouraged the deity, who now wanted to one day have control over the magic domain. It could only imagine the potential power that came with control over such a wide-ranging tool. The ambition it felt to utterly dominate further renewed its will and caused the creature to work harder to break the stubbornness of the magical energy that had till this point refused to transform into something that wasn''t quite mystical energy.


    But ultimately the energy relented and began to bend to the will of the creature who created it. The godling smiled when it felt the magical energy in its brain bend and mold itself into raw strength and stamina.


    [Now... go into my servant. Give him the energy to serve me.]


    The godling mentally whispered to the transformed energy that was flowing through its own body. The energy, of its own accord, leaped from the godling to the creature it had promised to save.


    <hr>


    The thing about Gallow''s, the orc who had spent a few minutes bleeding on the ground, wounds was that they were very shallow. He had honestly just been pricked by the trident, yet the thing nearly killed him.


    Part of the wound was psychological. Though that part wouldn''t have killed him so the godling was right to focus on treating his wounded body and not his wounded pride.


    The orc felt the pain softly fade away, and eventually began to feel what he thought was a facsimile of energy surge into his muscles. He feared that if he acted on this odd rush of energy he''d only hurt himself and accelerate his death.


    This was because he was used to low-quality healing magic, much like the orcish brawlers and archers were. Healers who deigned to help orcs were often shady and untrustworthy people in healing for the pursuit of coin, not actual healers or those with the potential to be potent life-affirming magicians like the godling could be, if it so chose.


    The orc''s new master, the strange creature who called itself Althos, had successfully healed his physical wounds. The godling had even restored his stamina!


    It took him a second to realize that though. At first, the orc just felt the pain vanish. It was unsure of the cause of that, due to the possibility that the strange creature who spoke into his brain was not responsible for the pain vanishing and the chance that this was death extending a chilly hand towards the orc, numbing him to pain.


    The godling displayed a bit of patience and waited for the orc to get up on his own. Eventually, though, the deity clapped his hands in the face of the rogue, who suddenly opened his eyes for the first time since he had fallen to the trident''s users stab.


    "Are you going to get up anytime soon? I''ve healed you. You can stand up."


    The orcslowly opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was his new master standing directly above him and looking down on him with an exasperated expression.


    The orc immediately and childishly apologized, thoroughly embarrassed by the bad first impression he must have left on his savior.


    <hr>


    "I''ve been set by my sisters to tell you about your son''s... mischief."


    The woman spoke softly but her voice inherently filled her sole listener with fear. She seemed delighted to watch as he tried to shrink and hide from her, leaning back against his chair and apparently feeling insignificant in her presence. She smiled at the person she was speaking too, a gesture that if done by many other women would have been reassuring. Instead, since it was done by her it was blood-curdling.


    The baron, the only other person in the room, felt paralyzed in his own office. In front of him, blocking the only exit out of the office he normally considered a sanctuary, stood a woman who had long frightened him and whose words promised to break his heart.


    The woman herself was a wizen old crone, but one who physically outmatched any human in the baron''s territory. She was an ancient and eldritch creature, an alien to this world whose power laid in her brutal physicality. She wasn''t like her more subtle or mysterious sisters, she was a creature of raw physical might.


    The thing she called clothing was at most a disturbing imitation of other clothes, made up of dresses she stole from her victims and clumsily stitched together. It hid her leathery skin and tall but thin body from anyone who had the misfortunate to be forced to see her.


    Her hair was matted, unkempt and every bit as grotesque as her wolfish facial expressions. It was the color of coal and went down to the top of her back.


    Her attempt at stitching a dress only barely covered her more intimate places, preventing onlookers from the sight of breasts or the part of her she used to entice monstrous lovers back in her arboreal home. Just below the dress, someone could see her long legs, spindly and frail-looking. Despite their appearance, she was fast and perpetually in motion. If she wasn''t pacing back and forth as she spoke she was at least swaying, perhaps even unconsciously as if she was distractedly listening to some inaudible music.


    A silence had fallen in the room after she made her opening statement. She was a miserable creature who loved making others share in her misery, and the baron hadn''t taken her bait. After this silence envelopedthe room for a few minutes, she lost her patience and decided to talk unprompted.


    "Your son... the brat came to my older sister, the head of our coven. He begged her for something. He wanted to know what it would take for us to curse someone for him."


    At this remark, the part about cursing someone, the baron perked up. Shock and disappointment clouded his gaze as he looked at the foul hag in front of him. The hag noticed and smiled grimly at him.


    "Oh, that got your attention huh?"


    Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard to the baron. It angered him and wanted to stop it. But he was no fool. For all of his faults he recognized his own weakness in front of this creature. She didn''t recognize or at least didn''t respect his authority, and wouldn''t hesitate to kill him if crossed.


    He was a brave man but his desire to stay alive triumphed over his momentary annoyance at the crone''s voice. But now it was the crone''s turn to relish in the silence. Eventually, the silence that had once again fallen over the room provoked an annoyed statement, this time from the baron.


    "Are you gonna tell me about this blasted curse or what?"


    His voice was deep and dark, much like the wood that made up the man''s desk. This outburst provoked cold and cruel laughter from the hag, but her laughter wasn''t like that of a human. Her laughter was like the frantic babbling of an insane person experiencing a mental break. It was an utterly baffling sound, with a chilling effect on the baron whose former rage and frustration was instantly replaced by intense concern for his son.


    Whatever his son had wanted must have been something truly chilling for the mere thought of revealing it to his father to provoke such an amused outburst from the hag.


    <hr>


    The sentinel demon towered over Arthur and Modred as it reared back from its quadrupedal stance to a bipedal one now that was close to the two. At last the demon and the creature it hated, the damn spell-singer, were face to face.


    Arthur was boldly positioned between the two of them, and behind him Modred pulled out a thin knife. He readied himself for his one shot at overcoming this terrible situation.


    The demon was focused entirely on Modred, and when Arthur charged at it, urging his horse in the monster''s direction, the demon launched a single clawed hand at the horse who boldly ran towards it and ruthlessly decapitated it. This display of casual murderwas the first the demon would show Modred but not the last.The horse''s blood sprayed the claws that ended each of the creature''s animalistic fingers.


    The horse''s now headless body continued forward a few more steps, driven by its forward momentum before tripping over a rock and collapsing onto the grass leading back in the direction of the town. Blood swiftly began to stain the grass near the hole where the horse''s head had been.


    The demon''s other clawed hand cruelly extended toward''s Arthur''s face, saving the soldier from flying forward with the horse and ensuring he''d suffer a similar fate.


    The demon efficiently captured the soldier''s face in its thick hand. It had smoothly retracted the limb it used to decapitate the horse and in a single swiftmotionof its blade-like limb it effortlessly decapitated one of Modred''s trusted allies.


    Once severed from the rest of Arthur''s body the head began to steadily drip scarlet blood. It rapidly soaked the ground and stained the grass beneath the head of the man who just seconds ago had been alive and healthy defending Modred. Once disconnected from his head, Arthur''s body fell to the ground, landing with a soft noise that occurred right as the wind around them picked up which nearly muted the sound.


    In a display of instinctual cruelty, the creature tossed the head of the human soldier into its mouth. It swallowed the extremity whole, without ever truly acknowledging Arthur, as not once had it paid the slightest amount of actual attention to the human. It treated the soldier like a human child might treat a lone ant, a thing that deserved to be destroyed out of bored malice and not at all a life to be respected.


    After that shocking display of efficient and gory violence, the demon now had no other obstacles between it and the spell-singer. This final display of violence was what it took to break the mind of the spell-singer.


    At that moment he felt all of his ambition drain away, and leave him a husk of a man. He knew he couldn''t withstand such animalistic violence. He felt his desires fade away and the small part of him that resisted this dark change recognized that without his pride or his desire he couldn''t spell-sing again.


    Now all that awaited him was death. But he had a choice to make. Did he run from death, and in doing so take another life with him, that of his horse? Or did he accept death, walk towards it, and in doing so spoil a bit of the joy of the demon before him? He chose the latter.


    The demon began to walk forward, a blood-soaked grin on its lips, as it took the slowest and most deliberate steps the human had seen it take.


    Modred dismounted his horse and gave the creature permission to run away. It did so eagerly and galloped in the general direction of the baron''s more fortified territory, terrified by the demon after it saw the ease with which it dispatched the other horse.


    Modred had accepted his fate. He now knew that the most he could do was try to damage this creature and fight to be free of this odd menace. There was no hope for him to leave this situation alive if he fled and he had the realism to accept that. A perk of that realism was that he could make one more sane decision, and it was an unconscious one. He''d die, but not without trying to inflict pain on his killer if nothing else.


    He didn''t know it, at least not consciously, but it was his desire for glory and a desire to get revenge for his friends that gave him the ability to walk towards the demon in his final moments. He felt the need to speak to the hideous creature, speaking bravely as he readied himself for the final fight of his life.


    "Vile demon! I am not alone. Others will be here... hopefully soon. With soldiers! I may die, but I won''t be alone!"


    Then he threw himself forward, sprinting at an unexpectedly fast speed at the nightmare in front of him. The demon closed its fist and once again gathered its otherworldly ki, its hands up and in position to defend itself even as it concentrated hard on calling its power towards it. Hearing the voice of the spell-singer again annoyed it, so it felt like using some real force in its blow.


    The spell-singer was within arms reach of the demon when it suddenly reeled back and then almost immediately hurled a punch at a blazing speed that nailed the magician in the chest. The force of the blow was like getting hit by a massive cannonball square in the chest.


    The blow shattered the ribs of the human, pulverizing them into dusk, and decimated one of the lungs of the wizard. The blow lifted the wizard off of his feet, and when he landed he landed on his back. The demon casually strolled over to where the wizard laid dying and then snickered as it said one final thing to the dying magician.


    "Now you''ll never annoy anyone else with your shitty singing ever again."


    It lifted one of its thick hoofs over the magician''s head and immediately brought it down on the face of the magician. Modred''s skull was instantly crushed by the several kilogram demon. Blood and bone bits got stuck underneath the hoof of the creature.


    Behind it, back at the town, an orcish arrow fired by one of the combat archers slew the final soldier, piercing the man''s helm and destroying his brain. He had been the final soldier to die of the squad and was the soldier using the man-catcher. He had survived the demon by avoiding it altogether.


    The demon turned and began to walk back towards where its master was waiting for it.


    <hr>


    "Your son is creative. I''ll give him that.Fifteenyears ago, he came to us and asked us to turn someone, curse someone actually, into becoming a vampire. Isn''t that delicious?"


    The hag once again laughed at the information she was telling the baron. But this bit of information was truly incredible, in the very worst of ways.


    The baron stared at her, the shock of what she said had stunned him to his core. His son, who had once been his baby boy and was now a man he previously believed deserved respect, did something unthinkably cruel. The baron knew of no criminal who deserved that heinous fate.


    His next question was filled with fury and with righteous indignation. He had to know the answer to what he had asked, he had to know who might have been a victim of his son''s cruelty.


    "Who did you turn?"


    The hag went silent for a moment and examined the baron''s face. She looked at his dour expression and delighted in the scorn in his gaze as his eyes met hers. When she spoke her voice was as cold as ice.


    "We turned a woman. A woman named Cynthia. Your son had an infatuation with her. He wanted her. He would do anything for her, but she didn''t feel the same way. So he did this to her out of cruelty and as a way to blackmail her. But the price he paid was... well you see, hag curses, especially ones this powerful weren''t cheap."


    The baron slammed his fists onto the desk beneath him in outrage and exhaustion. The sound shocked the hag, but she quickly regained her composure.


    "Cut to the chase, you damn she-devil! What did my son give you that justified such a powerful and permanent curse?"


    The baron''s words were harsh, inaccurate, and showed just how this was getting under her skin. It was like he was reading a story arc that had gone on too long and wanted to know how it ended.


    "Well, he offered nobility. A child whose veins contained noble blood. Which, as I''m sure you''ve guessed, is a compelling gift. And just because he''s gone from this world doesn''t mean that the deal he made is rendered void, you see."


    This revelation was doubly devastating. Not only did the hag''s words indicate that the baron''s son was dead, they also revealed that his son had offered something truly horrible to the power-hungry hags. And they intended to collect, with or without his son.


    "So you and I need to have a chat. Because my sisters and I want our payment. You see we''ve done our waiting... over a decade of it in fact. And frankly we''re tired of waiting."

 Interlude: The Hags Kiss (NSFW)

    The hag was not only a murderer but she was also a liar. She wasn''t lying about the baron''s son, or the cost she and her sisters had charged him, but she was lying about her purpose in invading his fortress.


    She had been told by her sisters to collect what they had demanded from his son so long ago, and she would, even if it meant leaving here with something that would take nine months to actually gain.


    As the hag informed the baron of the devastating cost of the gruesome curse she and her sisters had inflicted on the woman, Cynthia, his son had pined for, she crept closer and closer to him. The hag had something on her mind, but it wasn''t dialogue or negotiation, no what she was thinking about was more primitive, more primal than that.


    She delighted in watching the baron''s face twist in agony, not only at the news that his son had somehow died but at the fact that she had come to collect the price stipulated in the magical oath the deceased youth had sworn to them so long ago.


    The baron''s face was wracked with mental and emotional pain, and the sight of it made the domineering hag feel a sort of physical desire she wasn''t used to feeling. She stealthily inched closer and closer to him, and his dark eyes turned away from her partially out of fear but mostly out of sadness.


    She felt a generalized fear unconsciously emanating from him and shivered with delight as the fear he gave off increased in intensity with each step she took towards him.


    After a few seconds, the baron consciously noticed that she was drawing ever nearer, and recoiled in shock, getting up and out of his chair in a desire to increase the distance between the two of them. The hag laughed at this reaction.


    Her laughter was as terrifying as any other sound she made, and it was followed moments later by her lunging at the baron, throwing her elderly body at the baron at a speed that shouldn''t have been possible.


    "There, there Baron dear... allow me to comfort you. Let me give you a kiss!" She said, cackling, as she sailed through the air and over the desk that stood between the two creatures. True to her word, she puckered her lips and seemed intent on wrapping her pierced lips around the Baron''s own noble ones.


    The baron dodged out of the way, by hurling himself away from the desk between them and therefore out of the path of the magical woman. Even with her supernatural strength the hag didn''t have the agility to redirect herself in mid-air. Despite his successful attempt to dodge her, when she landed on the area where he had previously been she quickly got up and didn''t seem particularly upset.


    The baron knew why she wasn''t upset. Based off of where she landed, versus where he was, she had a clear advantage. He was disadvantaged from the start since his desk was away from the exit out of the office and didn''t have much room to work with in terms of how to dodge the hag.


    This was without mentioning how broad-shouldered she was which gave her an extra leg-up to work with since he''d have to get past her to be able to sprint towards the exit. If she spread her arms around herself she''d take up nearly all the available room, and so he had to act fast.


    The hag lifted her hands and twisted them away from her before slamming them onto the desk behind her so as to distract the baron and keep him unfocused. The force of the blow, as judged by the sound the desk made, seemed impossible given her wizen form but her twisted and sinister physical form was a reflection of her soul not her physique.


    Normally such a gesture would be seen as a gesture of anger, but in the hag''s case, it was possible for the baron to see the cat-like joy of the hunt in her eyes and the lust in her body language as her tongue lolled out of her mouth and she licked her purple, pierced lips.


    The baron shivered, but unlike the hag, his shiver wasn''t out of desire butas an expression of the fear that was increasingly consuming him. The fear he felt continued to mount as the hag in front of him continued what she felt was a light game of cat and mouse, in a sense the perfect foreplay to what she knew would inevitably happen.


    "I don''t mind playing this game sweetie..." The hag purred, her ebony eyes trained on him. She let silence fill the room for a second before speaking again, just to add, "but this only ends one way. How pleasant or unpleasant it feels is up to you."


    Her voice was painful to listen to as it grated on the ears of anyone who heard it repeatedly. One consequence of that was that the baron was tempted to cover his ears so as to block it out. But he knew that if he did that he''d be easier to trap and would more easily fall victim to the hag''s sinister, sensual intentions.


    The baron took his eyes off of the hag for a split second so that he could orient himself to the exit of the office. The hag was between him and the exit, but the baron''s strength of will kept him from giving in until he couldn''t see a way out and with the exit leading out of his office being so close he couldn''t surrender yet.


    <hr>


    The hag grinned slightly as she noticed the baron''s eyes shift from her rust-colored form and move slightly so that they were trained on the exit out of the office behind her. She wondered, momentarily, if he''d actually try and get behind her so that he may exit the office and get some more diversions for her to slaughter before she inevitably caught up to him.


    As she looked into the eyes of her prey, she saw a glimmer of hope and knew instantly that he intended to try and sprint past her. Internally this made her smile sadistically. Externally she calmed herself and activated one of her few truly supernatural abilities.


    Her claws were positively covered in thick pores. The pores were normally inert and didn''t often do anything aside from occasionally leaking a magical, sweat-like substance that weaked the muscles of her victims. But the hag did have a dark gift that made use of her porous claws, a gift given to her by her oldest sister. She didn''t often make use of it, but when she did it made her a potent kidnapper.


    As she mentally activated the dark gift she had been given a long time ago the pores on her wild and untamed claws began to exude a special sort of pleasure-inducing, colorless, paralytic and quite fast-acting venom that quickly coated her claws. She grinned lewdly as she imagined the terrified expression that could soon overtake the baron''s regal face if she so much as cut him with her sharp fingertips.


    The baron looked back at her, a steely look on his face and then he charged, roaring at her as he did so in an effort to throw her off her guard. The hag found the effort he was making charming, especially with how intensely focused he was on her face, rather than fear-inducing and waited until he was close before smoothly extending one of her hands towards him.


    The baron was too sad and too afraid to think clearly. If he hadn''t been he would have focused on all of her body. Because of the shock, he was in, coupled with the desperation he felt, he wasn''t thinking logically. He was blind to the possibility that the powerful hag might have seen through a hastily formed plot to frighten her and take advantage of her fear so that he may dash past her. So he failed in his escape attempt.


    The baron, his gaze firmly focused on her face rather than her limbs, didn''t see her extended limb until it was millimeters away from his face. She quickly closed her dense hand around his head cutting off any escape by gripping his skull painfully and lifted the baron off of his feet as if he were but a pen she was deftly using to write an impassioned letter.


    The baron opened his mouth, partially in shock and partially in pain and some of the venom the hag''s pores were sweating slipped off of her claws and into his mouth. The venom was quickly shallowed when the baron tried to breathe, and when he realized he was tasting her sickening sweat he began to breathe through his nose. That wasn''t any better, and by then his fate was already sealed.


    She felt, rather than saw, him make a foolish mistake. She felt his mouth open in response to the shock of being captured, even though the bottom half of his face was secured snugly in her palm and therefore right where some of the venom happened to be. Seconds later she felt him begin to go limp, his body stiffening and rejecting whatever feeble attempts he was making to regain control over his motor functions.


    The hag turned slightly so that shecould gingerly drop the paralyzed baron on the desk where so many papers and documents related to the upkeep of the territory were placed. She wanted him to suffer and if she dropped him too hard and he fell unconscious that''d minimize the suffering he''d otherwise have to endure. She couldn''t have that.


    The hag audibly giggled, the sound wretched and sickening, at the thought that the sex they were about to have might result in important papers being ruined and that the baron would forever associate the desk with the unholy pleasures she was about to make him suffer through.


    <hr>


    By the time the hag had gingerly placed the baron on his desk her paralytic venom was already having its way with the mind of the human. He was beginning to feel a taste of strange pleasure wrack his mind and send blood surging towards his nether regions.


    His mind was quickly growing foggy, but not foggy enough that he was oblivious to the soft and pleasing sensation of the tips of the hag''s claws cutting through the soft and noble clothes he wore. He tried his best to hiss at the hag, but the sound that escaped his lips was a girlish moan.


    The sound she heard caused the hag to cackle madly at him, spittle flying out of her mouth and landing on the remains of the shirt she had just finished cutting through and peeled off of the baron''s chest.


    The man winched in response to her reaction, even though his hurt pride was met by the pleasure he felt an instant later as the hag placed a claw-tip on his chest and used it to draw a line on his pectoral muscle.


    The hag used this opportunity to speak, her voice unchanged in reality, but in the perception of the man who was her victim now sounding like that of a beautiful, nubile maiden who was in the process of offering him fine pleasure.


    "This doesn''t have to be unpleasant. Here, just relax and let me do the work. I''ll make this... pleasant for you."


    She moved while she spoke, at first speaking from a distance. But on her third sentence, she moved close to the baron and spoke in a way that allowed the heat of her breath to fall upon the man''s skin and warm it up. At this point the man''s shirt had been cut away and peeled off of his toned chest so that it was exposed to the powerful hag''s perverted vision.


    The man had a muscular chest, one which was covered not only in toned and expertly trained muscles but also in the scars a man gained over the course of a life filled with battle and danger. She liked what she saw, and it was here where she saw the first sign of his growing arousal.


    When she began to speak there was no visible sign of the baron''s arousal. That would change by the time she finished what she had to say and the evidence for that laid in the sight of his hardened nipples. That sight elicited cruel laughter and delight since she could now literally see the man beginning to bend to her whims.


    She flicked one of the nubs with a claw, doing it gently so that it wouldn''t be cut, and smiled cruelly when she heard her prisoner moan in delight. This sound was more powerful and lower in tone, but no less pleasure-filled than his previous moan.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    When the man ceased his moaning the hag overseeing him went to work on his pants and undergarments. She used her claws expertly and with the sort of relaxed dexterity of a master-thief proving his skill by opening a simple lock. Within seconds the man''s pants and the undergarments he wore were cut off and out of the way, thrown towards a corner of the room away from the pair.


    The hag was delighted at what was waiting for her underneath the clothes she had done away with. Due to her teasing of the man''s nipple, his length was already engorged and his manhood was standing at attention, awaiting her next action.


    She was surprised, pleasantly so, to find that the baron was a man of considerable length and whose manhood didn''t fill the room with the stench of an unhygienic caveman. After examining what awaited her she moved to prepare herself by casting off the ruined outfit she called her clothes and climbed onto the desk beside where the baron had been placed.


    Before she got started she moved to kiss the baron. The baron was unable to fight back and though trapped in a motionless prison in his mind, he mentally gagged against the sensations of her cold and pierced lips. Her kiss was lazy and consisted of her lips exploring the motionless lips of her prisoner, as to accentuate his utter helplessness.


    <hr>


    The baron was frozen in terror and in discomfort as the hag lazily kissed him. Her cold lips were bumpy and rough, and had the baron been able to move he probably would have recoiled from her lips, but since he was her helpless toy for right now he tried to endure it to the best of his ability.


    Being forced to endure the kiss reminded the baron that he was truly weak. He was powerless to fight back against the domineering woman and was quite literally unable to free himself from her not-so-loving embrace. It was humiliating for the baron, a powerful and influential noble, to be so thoroughly dominated yet quite literally not even be able to complain.


    He had always known that he was relatively powerless in the face of kings, or monsters, but this was a joyless, cruel, demonstration of his true powerlessness. It stung his pride, and for the time being, put him into the state of mind that the hag wanted him to be in, that of a weak being who is thoroughly cowed and reminded of his inferiority.


    The hag''s own perspective on the kiss was that it was a smashing success. She wasn''t kissing him out of passion or lust, but to demonstrate and reinforce that for the moment the baron was her toy. She wanted to burn each humiliation she inflicted on him into his memory, and for him to know in his heart that his title was meaningless outside of his domain.


    <hr>


    While she was kissing the baron she considered how she could prepare herself. She was typically wet-enough for comfortable, for her anyway, sex for hours after she killed something so she used one of her claws to explore her body just to be sure.


    The monster traced a straight line down from the center of her chest towards her own nether regions. She stopped her journey for a second so as to tease herself with her claw when it reached the very edge of her clit, using it as a toy to stroke herself, before completing her journey into her fold. She let loose a quiet hiss in response to the pleasure she inflicted on herself with her wandering talon, and the baron himself shivered as he felt the sound of her voice cause the desk they were both on top of to vibrate slightly, the sensation odd but not unpleasant to him.


    She was unsurprised to find that she was more than ready to accommodate her prisoner and wring him out.


    She deliberately moved into the view of her prisoner who stared helplessly at her by getting on top of him and allowing him an unobstructed view of her nude form. She allowed him to memorize the sight of her ancient and nude body, her sagging breasts, her leathery skin, and her cruel face wearing an expression of utter triumph at his expense.


    As she looked at him she could tell that terror and pleasure were locked in a war for control of his mind. She knew that the sight of her old and naked body would be burned into his memory, but she also wanted to experience pleasure from this so she did something that could be interpreted as merciful.


    Without uttering a word, she once again placed the palm of her muscled and gnarly hand on the baron''s face. This time though she wasn''t poisoning him. Instead she was using an illusionary spell she had learned long ago to make this experience more pleasant for the baron, in an effort to compel him to perform to her satisfaction.


    <hr>


    The baron felt powerless as he tried to focus and drive out the pleasure that addled his brain. He felt that he was no longer in control of the situation before him, and was very literally powerless to stop the hag''s palm from once again blocking his vision and making him shallow even more venom.


    He struggled in vain to resist the urge to open his mouth and lap at the strange liquid that oozed from the woman''s palm. Like a dog he lapped at it, eagerly drinking it and waiting like a drug addict for it to take effect and wipe away even more of his rational thoughts than the damnable toxin already had.


    Within seconds of ingesting his second mouthful of the venom, he found himself more beginning to be aroused by the mere sight of hag. Had he been in control of his faculties he would have been overcome with concern as to what was happening to him, but each milliliter of the hag''s venom he ingested caused more of his mind to be overcome by a desire to rut.


    The part of his brain that was aroused saw the hag not as a hag, but as a woman he could mate with. He felt a heat infuse his penis that his animal brain believed he could relieve if only he could fuck a woman, any woman really.


    That part of his brain was steadily overwhelming the more rational part of his brain. But he wouldn''t have to struggle with his revulsion to the hag for much longer, as at that very moment she was moving into his mind and doing something that would make the next few hours infinitely more pleasurable for him than they would have been otherwise.


    <hr>


    The hag forcefully invaded the baron''s mind and explored it. She spent a few moments mentally familiarizing herself with what laid before and around her. And then she willed her way towards what the baron was "seeing". Within seconds she was "looking" at her hand on top of the baron''s face, and then the hag went to work.


    She began by changing how the baron "saw" her hand. She willed it to change from a thick, bruise-colored limb and into the tiny, dainty limb of a beautiful elven princess. Before her mental "eyes" she watched the baron''s perception of her hand change and transform into the very picture of the limb she was instructing him to see.


    She spent the next few moments doing this for the rest of her body-parts, forcefully transforming how the baron saw them and molding the vision of herself in the baron''s eyes to be seen as a beautiful, innocent, elven princess.


    She had to stifle a laugh as she watched the baron''s perception of her wizened face be corrupted and change into a view of a thin and tiny face of a blonde elf, her sagging breasts transform into the tiny but pert breasts of an elven virgin, and her cracked, pierced, and dark lips transform into the soft, pink, moist lips of a young elf.


    The transformation was truly a work of art, and she could only imagine how her sisters would laugh when she recounted this story for them after this was over.


    Within a few minutes, this illusionary transformation was complete, and the hag was finally free to begin the part of this that she had long waited for.


    <hr>


    The baron''s mind was caught in the throes of pleasure and fear and so when the hag vanished the man immediately accepted it. He didn''t doubt anything as aspects of the hag vanished before his very sight, from her thick and knobby claws to the creatures'' own breasts.


    The man felt fear begin to melt away, when he was suddenly surprised again. Where the hag had once been, disembodied body parts began to appear. He was surprised to watch as a tiny hand appeared directly in front of his face, followed by the face of a gorgeous elven princess with flowing blonde hair, and then finally the rest of her body appeared spontaneously as if she was misusing a teleportation spell.


    The elven princess didn''t waste any time, and her eager hand began to explore the man''s body. He was surprised to find that the thin hand of the elven princess felt remarkably similar to the clawed limb of the hag, but now that he imagined a pretty face inflicting him with this pleasure he was a lot more vulnerable to it.


    The hag stroked the man for several seconds, her claw and hand wet with her own fluids which now coated his dick. In her clawed hands, his dick was now slick and covered in fluid which would hopefully help her slide it inside of her, since her partner was still under the effects of her paralytic venom, even if he was now quite eager to fuck her.


    What he saw truly was a princess warming him up, and getting ready to writhe on top of him, milking his cock inside of her untouched "royal chambers", and the pathetic man was eager for it, straining against the paralytic venom the hag had hit him with so as to fuck her himself. The hag quietly chuckled as she realized this, and then moved into position on top of him so that she could easily engulf him when she lowered herself.


    The man saw the lovely elven princess who had mysteriously appeared shyly move into position on top of him, her lower lips softly kissing his human cock and he bit his lips to silence the moan that threatened to escape otherwise. At this point he was thoroughly enslaved to the pleasure, which had been eating at his resistance unchallenged ever since the hag had changed how she looked to the human baron.


    The hag lowered herself and hissed in delight as she felt his slick cock slide deep inside of her. She lowered herself at her own pace, not rushing or being shocked even when she heard the baron groan in pleasure. She saw him strain to move his hips so that he could fill her at his own pace, but the venom continued to affect him, making him her helpless toy.


    She shivered in pleasure as she finally bottomed out, the heat of her prisoner''s cock sending warm pulses throughout her entire lower-body. She was still for a second while she looked at her prisoner to ensure he remained under the effects of her magic and confirmed that he was after staring at the man for a few moments.


    After that was when she began to bounce. She was slow at first, getting used to his impressive length, but quickly got into a rhythm. She delighted in seeing him look at her, his eyes completely filled with the pleasure he felt but had no other way to express due to her venom.


    It reminded her of the times she experimented with simple magic to drive herself to an orgasm, but this time she was hurting someone else while getting off which made the sinful experience all the more delightful.


    In time the magical woman began to grow tired of the mundane experience of merely bouncing on top of her prisoner. As she bounced she began to perform minor magical spells on her own body, specifically enchanting her reproductive organs so that they could more effectively milk her lucky victim.


    She cast magic that granted her the ability to consciously control her vaginal walls and began using that temporary skill on the man she was on top of. She gleefully used her newfound and tempory muscular control to tug and pull at his cock, assailing it with sensations he could never have experienced otherwise.


    The man stared at the elven princess in front of him as she bounced on top of him. He was watching an elven woman with tiny but perky breasts ride him, and groaning in pleasure as her tiny body and narrow "royal chambers" milked him, feeling her tight vaginal walls squeeze and jerk his dick in ways that he never imagined possible.


    He moaned as the walls his cock were inside of began to actively rub and stroke his cock and he mentally compared the sensation to what he imagined it''d be like if there was a gentle and slick hand inside of the elven woman''s sexual organ that was trying to guide him to the edge of satisfaction.


    He didn''t want to come too quickly, but the elven woman who had mounted him was catching him off-guard with what she was doing to him. It kept him on his toes, toes which at the moment were curled in pleasure.


    <hr>


    After nearly five minutes of unusual, magical, fucking the man the hag was on top of was at the edge of orgasming. The hag who was riding him was genuinely impressed that he had lasted so long given the ways she was magically assaulting him, but even she wasn''t immune to the effects of sex that she was in command of and had been doing for a full five minutes.


    She was thoroughly milking him, and even using her limited magical powers, powers which were focused very specifically on control over her body, to enhance the sex further. Other mates of hers, particularly wilder monsters, had lasted far less time than he had.


    Moments before the man erupted inside of her she could hear the powerful reactions within him that propelled the man''s baby-batter exploding out of him and into her.


    The baron had finally reached his limit even in his paralyzed state. He was sent powerfully over the edge as he felt the pleasurable sensations of his dick sliding deep within the hag''s anatomy, coupled with the smooth walls of her "royal chambers" seductively stroking him.


    He managed his first pitiful thrust in response to the overwhelming pleasure of his orgasm and she moaned in delight as he pushed his way deeper into her than she thought possible.


    It was moments after that when he was breathing heavily in response to the pleasure he had just endured that she looked at him, truly looked at him, for the first time since she began milking him.


    The man she saw and was on top of was unrecognizable. He had a vacant look in his eyes, though his eyes were locked onto hers, and had the flushed cheeks of a school-girl who had just had her cherry popped. The face he was making was one of a pleasure-drunk teenager.


    She looked at him and saw how delirious he was. She sighed in annoyance and spoke to him, her voice cold and domineering so as to inform him as to her plans.


    "Why do you look so satisfied? Did you think that you''d get a single orgasm and then that''d be it? Nope. I''m not done with you and I won''t be until..."


    At this point, she tried to figure out what time it was. She was still, lost in thought for several moments before she spoke again.


    "Tomorrow morning at the earliest. You''re giving me and my sisters a child with royal blood. But hey, once the venom wears off if you behave I won''t paralyze you again. Now... let''s pick up where we left off!"


    She accentuated her last sentence by once again beginning to bounce on the baron''s cock, and grinnedlasciviously when the baron himself grinned at her, his mind indicating that he was still under the sway of the venom but that was fine with the selfish hag who at this point wanted to reach completion herself more than she wanted the baron to suffer.


    The day was long, there''d be more than enough time for the cruel hag to leave an omnipresent mental scar on the baron in the hours to come.

 Chapter 14: Setting Priorities And Making Decisions

    Once the battle was over, Althos stood near the edge of where the fighting had taken place. It wasn''t alone, it was accompanied by the demon who had instructed the godling that its name was "Raverangos". The orcs were studying it and they were also listening to the statements of various orcs who had seen it in battle, as well as the declarations of the orcs who had become its servants. The godling wasn''t particularly listening to their conversation but it could hear bits and pieces of it throughits powerful senses. What it heard surprised it but didn''t particularly interest it.


    The godling was a bit surprised to hear the orcs who had sworn their loyalty to it be upfront about their allegiance to the godling. They were honest with their peers and informed the crowd of their sincere belief that without the godling they might have lost the battle, or at least suffered casualties. And to this point, one particular voice was especially compelling.


    The godling''s newest servant, the rogue named Gallow, reminded his peers that his wounds weren''t caused by the godling. He hadn''t been defeated by the strange creature, but by the trident-user that one of the combat archers slew. The other orcs had thought he was either dead or would be dead soon and no one had bothered to help out aside from the godling.


    At this frustratingly accurate and logical point, the orcs who were a bit more hesitant muttered that Gallow had a point. The orcs who were more welcoming to Althos got a bit more excited since they sensed that that argument made it more likely that the creature would stay with them, and that wasn''t just the godling''s existing minions.


    The demon, Raverangos, made contributions to the battle that helped convince some of the orcs in the raiding group, particularly a young combat archer who had no real issue serving Althos if it meant that the demon was his ally, that the godling''s strength was either real outright or had the potential to be real.


    While the orcs were discussing what to do with Althos and Althos''s allies, Althos itself felt no concern or rush to go over to them. For the most part, the godling was content to be in the corner, with its demonic pet.


    Althos idly ran its hands on the skin of the demon''s stomach. The demon itself seemed to enjoy it and closed its eyes as it felt the pleasurable sensation of the deity''s hand. It seemed to subtly shiver in response to its masters'' touch and seemed genuinely delighted to be the recipient of gentle affection from the entity.


    This was in and of itself impressive to the orcs who had been studying the idle deity. They had been raised on tales of demons, being told by their parents that the fierce creatures were sin made manifest, and hate embodied. So to see one so enamored with the creature who wanted to make them its servants was something that left quite the impression and because of the nature of orcish culture that impression was a strong one.


    At this point, the orcs had a decision to make. Quite a few actually. But they couldn''t make it while standing still, and they wouldn''t be able to make it officially for a bit longer than they anticipated. Bazur gestured at the godling motioning for it and the demon to join them. As a gesture of goodwill Talvin also began to walk towards the godling, meeting it halfway.


    <hr>


    Talvin started things off by moving to show respect to the godling and the demon it had turned into a servant. He did this by bowing his head, causing a few of the more hostile orcs to gasp in shock at the worst he chose to give to the godling and its pet. He waited a second before speaking, and when he spoke his voice was filled with reverence and respect for the creature in front of him. Not quite for the godling, but the demon, even though the orc spoke to the godling.


    "Althos... you have my respect and my thanks for not only participating in the battle yourself by protecting us from death, but also for healing Gallow and bringing in that demon of yours. Gallow is a skilled fighter, and if he hadn''t distracted the soul-trident user that bastard would have been able to harry other members of this group. We recognize the important contributions you indirectly made to the fight and the direct ones made by your demon."


    The orc seemed awed to be able to say that. He took this time to stare at the creature, the demon was a full meter and a half taller than the orc at least. His eyes examined its body, looking it up and down before he turned back to the creature''s master.


    His voice was also loud enough that the orcs behind him could hear him if they were paying attention. He did this on purpose, and the orcish archer was curious as to who was listening, even if he had no real way of knowing.


    "But I''m getting ahead of myself and not being particularly polite. Good afternoon. My name is Talvin. Athos you have our entire group''s respect. I will not stop anyone from deciding to join you. My question for you is this: would you be opposed to staying with us? You have five servants now, and I can sense that some of the people here will likely join you. If you leave with your existing servants it''d severely affect our current power, not to mention the possibility of others joining you. Especially since you have the siblings who are the warriors who took the most risk at the start of our battles."


    The godling listened to the elderly orc with respect. It had waited to hear what the man had to say, out of curiosity and out of respect for him as a fellow leader.


    Looking at what passed for a hierarchy among the orcs, the godling knew better than to think they had a formal command structure, but it could tell that the orcish archer was someone the orcs trusted. So the godling decided to ask a question of its own.


    "So Talvin... what is your plan right now? Because I have no particular plan here. I could easily be convinced to stay with your group."


    At this, the orcish archer''s eyes lit up. He sensed an opportunity.


    "We''re not staying here. Even tonight. We''re leaving this town and going to the forest past the grasslands. I presume that''s where you yourself came from since you happened across Ranthor before you came across me and the other archers. One of your brawlers overheard one of the soldiers talking about possible reinforcements. We''re gonna take what we can get and then haul ass out of here. I''d be quite happy if you''d join us."


    The orc''s face was alight with joy as he said that. This gave Althos the impression that the orc didn''t like towns. That wasn''t a wrong impression.


    The godling looked beyond the elderly archer and to its companions. They were scattered amongst the rest of the crowd, discussing their impressions of Althos and the demon. It thought about what they might like, and then realized it cared only a little bit about what they might have to say. But it did care, just a bit.


    "For now can we table this discussion? I want to converse with my followers before I make a decision."


    The godling''s question surprised the orc. That was a surprisingly democratic decision for it to make. Though to think that this decision was made out of a democratic impulse was to give the godling more credit than it actually deserved. The godling actually just wanted to hear what people with worldly knowledge had to say about the possibilities before it.


    The orc nodded at the godling and then spoke once again, its estimation of the godling having increased after the deity''s declaration.


    "Yes, of course. For now, we''re about to split up and gather treasure. In an hour and a half, we''ll be meeting at the other gate. Where you came across Ranthor. From there we''ll be heading through the grassy plains."


    The godling nodded as it heard this, and then the elderly orc turned to leave. When he was about halfway between the godling and the other orcs he spoke in a loud voice.


    "Alright! Shut up for two seconds and lend me your ears."


    This got the orc''s peers to stop conversing for a second and listen to what he had to say. They turned towards him and watched him with curiosity.


    "This is the plan. I''m repeating it for anyone of you who wasn''t paying attention. In ninety minutes we''re out of here. We''re heading back to the forest. For now, take this time to grab what you want, and then head to the other gate. From there we''ll be hiking for a few hours. We should be in the forest shortly before nightfall. If we stay here, we risk encountering more enemies, fueled by a desire to avenge their fellow humans. That''s not worth dealing with at our numbers."


    The orcs murmured various responses. Some were happy with the choice the orcish archer made, others weren''t. Some whispered about approaching Althos and its servants, and others responded with the fact that they knew very little about the godling and didn''t fall at its hands or have their lives saved by it.


    Althos began this period of miscellaneous work by calling out to its servants. It waited for them to gather around it, and then spoke to them all at once. It didn''t have much to say.


    "Take your time here. Do as you wish. But just know that you all should be at the houses where the brawlers and I fought about fifteen minutes before the time Talvin says we should be at the other gate. I''d like to talk to you and get your insights about where we go from here. If you want to stay with the other orcs... I have no particular problem with that, but you''ll still need to convince me."


    The orcs looked at the creature, their eyes revealing they were reassessing their impressions of it. This annoyed the godling, but it held its tongue. Everyone seemed to be reassessing their impression of the creature who had shown them mercy and healed them as if they had thought it was a cruel creature.


    The deity clearly had no self-awareness.


    In a few minutes, the orcs began to scatter and wander the town searching for anything from survivors of their attack, to food, to alcohol, to supplies. They had less than ninety minutes left.


    <hr>


    Within a few minutes, Althos and its demonic pet had reached where they''d spend their down-time before the beginning of the next part of the godling''s day. The two of them, or rather the three of them since Samyaza had now spent a good portion of the godling''s life dwelling within the deity''s mind, were content to roam the parts of the small town that felt mostly abandoned.


    In all likelihood, this part of the town had most likely had been abandoned long before the orcish raiders targeted this place. Even then the demon and the godling wandered separately, connected only by their relatively close proximity to each other.


    The godling stood in the center of the area where it had met with and fought the trio of orcish siblings. Because of the nature of the creature''s short life, it was able to experience its own dynamic growth and reflect on it acutely in this moment of silence and relative solitude. This was a rare chance for the godling to be introspective and the deity was taking it.


    The angel noticed how serious the god''s mind was at that moment and it decided to excuse itself.


    [Althos, you can summon out me into the world if you wish for solitude. I understand wanting to take time to think. Just call out my name, and picture me leaving your body.]


    Samyaza, the angel who had in little more than an hour become Althos''s unofficial advisor, was keenly aware of the immature nature of the godling''s emotional state. It was deeply curious as to what would occur if the godling had a chance to grow on its own and without any sort of guidance from the angel.


    The deity did as it was told to do by the angel, and within a few moments, the small metallic began to materialize, entering the world slowly and deliberately.


    It phased into existence slowly, taking several moments to call out to each of the metallic layers of its shell. Eventually, the creaturefully formed and looking at the godling that it had spent what felt like a long time inside of. It spoke, and the godling was reminded of its unusual and nearly emotionless voice.


    "I will now... leave you to your solitude."


    After saying that the creature performed what seemed to be a tiny nod, and then began to increase in height. It ascended vertically, quickly increasing in speed over the course of several seconds. And with that the godling was alone for the first time since it met the angel.


    <hr>


    Althos stood still from where it had launched an attack that knocked out Ragnor nearly 30 minutes ago and reflected on the ways it had grown in this town over the course of the hour it had spent here. To anyone else, this might seem pointless, but the deity wanted to recall all of the knowledge it had gained, and what it still had to gain while it had a chance to do so in peace.


    It remembered how Ranthor fired an arrow at his back and how Samyaza had used some form of magic still unknown to the deity to shatter the arrow in mid-air. It remembered watching with contempt as Ranthor''s unconscious body was dragged into the ground after he had been knocked unconscious by roots that the deity and Samyaza worked together to call out of the ground.


    The deity remembered the excitement it felt when it learned of mice and the anger that coursed through it after it had killed potential followers in an over-eager rush to meet new living creatures. It also remembered that Samyaza had once served another god, a creature who evidently delighted in the usage of poisons, serpents, and illusions. At this point, Althos a very small understanding of just one of those things: illusions. And even that understanding was theoretical.


    It remembered how enraged it had been when it launched an attack on the trio of orcish siblings who now served it. It remembered how it delighted in launching a truly powerful attack on the orc named Anthus. Frankly, the deity loved nothing as much as it loved fighting. It enjoyed the sensation of striking enemies down, and even the sensations of getting hit weren''t so unpleasant that it turned Althos off of fighting.


    The deity also enjoyed the sensation of gaining new servants. Currently, it had 6 servants who had willingly joined it. There was also Samyaza, but Samyaza wasn''t yet its own servant. The angel was more like an ally than a servant.


    And this brought the deity''s thoughts to its most unusual actual servant: Raverangos. The deity had a basic level understanding of angels, they were odd creatures who, in the words of Samyaza, served gods. It knew a bit about orcs, monstrous humanoids who serve the strong. Heck, it even knew about humans, creatures who rode horses wore armor and used a variety of weapons in combat.


    But, demons? Demons were a mystery to it. Althos knew very little about many things but its knowledge of demons was especially little. It knew that Raverangos was one of them, there were others, and that demons are afraid to give out their true names to creatures. This was apparently because knowing a demon''s true name gave someone a sort of power over them.


    Althos also knew that even the language of demons grew in power when spoken in unison and apparently it had the power to amplify the might of that language itself, in some weird presumably godly way. This led the creature down a dark mental path that was focused almost entirely on what it knew it didn''t know.


    Althos grew increasingly annoyed as it began to focus on the vast expanse of things it didn''t know. There were domains and subdomains it was ignorant of, and even the ones it knew about were beyond its power aside from a domain that appeared to increase a creature''s ability to engage in fisticuffs, but that only aided three of its minions for sure. It didn''t really understand illusion magic yet, even though it knew that such magic was a thing that existed.


    Frankly, the creature didn''t even really understand the nuances of magic usage, or what magic was as a concept. To it, magic was like a muscle it could use in a variety of ways, not a collection of recipes that had specific usages and required specific things like it was to many humans.


    It also knew very little about the range of lifeforms that existed in the world and beyond. It had only met one angel, one demon, some orcs, some humans, and horses. It knew that things called mice existed but hadn''t seen them face to face yet, and knew that the forest it could be returning to very soon had a wider range of lifeforms in it. That excited the deity, but also made it cautious. It wondered how it could safely gain followers and meet new creatures without putting them in harm''s way.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    The godling knew only a few things, chief among them being that it needed more knowledge. After thinking about how little it actually concretely knew it realized that correcting that ought to be its number one goal.


    This restored some of the creature''s enthusiasm as having a goal and an objective in mind was always useful for a young creature. This was a good goal for it to have, particularly when coupled with its other goal oflearning more about demons and what the deity assumed Samyaza''s goal for the deity was: for Althos to continue building its power through the acquisition of servants, minions, and worshippers.


    <hr>


    Shortly after it left its master''s side, the demon found itself alone in a tiny hut.


    It swept its thick hands over the floor around it and explored the place using a variety of senses, most notably touch and smell. It had chosen this house because it smelled a strange cocktail of scents coming from in here, and it had almost immediately followed that smell to its origins: the bodies of dead mice scattered around the hut. The creature swiftly ate each of the mice located in various holes throughout the hut whole, using its claws to barely enter the holes their corpses were in and impaling their corpses. It pulled its food towards its maw like the mice were finger-food.


    It was unknowingly scavenging the carrion left behind by its master. The demon was in the hut that the godling had been in nearly half an hour ago, before it fought the orcs who now served it, and before the demon had even entered this world from the portal leading out of the Heart of Darkness.


    The demon''s mind was mostly blank. The few thoughts it had was that it hoped that its master would let it kill more things soon, and that it was happy to be out in the mortal world.


    This might cause an omniscient onlooker to think that the demon didn''t like the plane of its birth. That wasn''t particularly true, but the demon didn''t have as many chances to cause chaos or havoc in the world of its birth. What it really liked about the mortal world was the fleeting nature of mortal life. After all, if a mortal was killed they were dead and without intervention or manipulation they''d stay dead. That wasn''t quite the case with Raverangos or others of its kind.


    Demons weren''t limited to one life. If the sentinel demon who was now childishly touching and playing with an ancient wooden table were to be slain it''s essence would return to the nightmare plane it came into existence in. Eventually, the demon would regain its physical form.


    Because of this most demons were fascinated with the fleeting nature ofmortality, and they delighted in chances to inflict painful and ultimately temporary suffering by snuffing out the lives of mortals. It was often a demon''s favorite past time. Though different demons did it differently.


    Sentinel demons were one of the more physical sorts of demons, though in the Heart of Darkness itself they were often viewed as akin to mortal savants since they had an unusual preternatural connection to the plane itself and could create marvelously artistic locales through the forces of their wills if properly motivated or inspired. Many of the plane''s greatest cities owed their construction and upkeep to particularly cunning sentinel demons.


    But Raverangos was not a cunning member of its kind. It was a simple brute, who simply took over a long-abandoned castle. Not that it''d willingly let someone in on that secret.


    The demon would spend the time of freedom it had been allotted exploring every centimeter of the house, and searching for things it could amuse itself with.


    <hr>


    Samyaza continued to ascend for several minutes. It wouldn''t stop until it was high in the sky.


    When it was high enough that it felt safe enough to send out a message, it came to a screeching halt. It was high in the air above the small town it had seen through Althos''s eyes.


    The angel was still in shock. It had spent the past hour in the body of a deity, or in the hands of a deity. An actual deity! Tens of thousands of years had passed since its beloved master had disappeared and since then it hadn''t come across another divine being. Like virtually all other angels, Samyaza had believed that the gods disappeared was utter and impossible to undo. Seeing Althos in the flesh, inhabiting its body for a bit, and feeling its magic undid that belief. But what had truly made Samyaza a believer that Althos was a god, was the power that surged into the deity each time it gained a servant. Especially when it managed to convince the demon to serve it.


    Each burst of power and mental energy was unique, but they all caused euphoric feelings to overtake the angel for a few moments. The angel had filtered a lot of that feeling away from Althos, not selfishly but because it didn''t want the godling to get drunk off of power so early in its life.


    Samyaza was, in its own way, over the moon right now. Obviously not in a literal sense as that celestial body loomed over its head and was getting closer and closer as the day dragged on, but the angel felt that way in a very real metaphorical sense. While high in the sky, the angel did a mid-air dance that consisted of bobbing up and down for a few seconds. After it got that uncharacteristic show of emotion out of the way it turned to its business.


    The angel composed a mental message. It was short and to the point, no point inwasting time orwords with this message.


    [I have found a deity. I have confirmed that this deity is an actual deity. It has limitless magical power, speaks the all-hearing original tongue, and increases in power when it gains servants, minions, and worshippers. I am the orb angel Samyaza. I was named by the ancient deity Serpiente. My designation number is 000019231. If no angel finds me within the next few days I will most likely go out in search of angels who as far as I know are still alive... Join me, friends. We have finally found a deity to serve. I will most likely be in the forest that serves as the border between the kingdom of Sailos, and the territory of the verdant kings. If I won''t be, I''ll be sending out another message soon that contains my updated location.]


    Once it felt ready to mentally send out the message, it did so. The creature shuddered as its mental message flew out of its body and towards the wider world. It released the message with as much mental oomph as it could, to send the message far and wide. It wanted any angel out there to get the message and coming flying towards it.


    The angel had received its order to patrol this kingdom and to keep watch here a long time ago. It knew that the angel who commanded it to patrol this kingdom might have gone elsewhere, or else died in the time it had been patrolling this kingdom. But that didn''t mean another angel wouldn''t hear this message.


    It began its descent downwards now. It was slower than when it ascended to send its message. That might have been odd but wasn''t a sign of its mood, the creature felt triumphant. If there was one deity somewhere in the multiverse, why couldn''t there be multiple deities? Its mind was filled with thoughts of finding and being reunited with its old master.


    Only a tiny part of it currently cared much for what happened to Althos, though it was happy to use the godling, and in its own ways be of use to the creature as well.


    Once it was on the surface, Althos brought the creature back into its body. For now the angel was content resuming its role as the deity''s advisor.


    <hr>


    Once the time came for the servants of Althos to be reunited and for them to share their insights with the deity, it was waiting for them.


    The creature was now seated on the ground between the four tiny huts wherein it had battled Ragnor, Bazur, and Anthus. Its eyes were closed and it was focused on listening to its surroundings. The godling greeted the orcs by name, without opening its eyes. The demon was also there, leaning its thick mass against the wall of one of the huts like it was a stranger in a tavern waiting to find some ladies to approach and chat up. It nodded at the orcs bold enough to look at the creature, and whenever one of them did its opinion of them would increase a bit.


    The orcs approached the godling one by one and sat down near it. They didn''t know why they did that, they just sort of felt like it was the right move. When all of them were there and seated in an awkward circle around the deity, the godling spoke softly.


    "Hello everyone. I will preface this by saying that I recognize that you all, particularly you two, Gallow and Ranthor will likely want to keep traveling with your allies. All I want is one solid reason to go with them. I am not opposed to this, I just want you to practice your abilities to argue."


    In actuality what the godling wanted was to learn how to argue. Or perhaps how orcs argued. It hadn''t been paying much attention to the logical tactics the orcs had used earlier when they were advocating for acceptance of Althos among their peers, but now it would listen carefully. This was because it wanted to see how easily it could absorb knowledge.


    "Each of you who wants us to go with the other orcs, here''s what I ask of you: I''ll give you one minute to make your case. Just one minute. If any of you don''t want to go with the orcs, that''s fine. But remember: I make the decision. And if I say you''re coming with me, there will be no questioning my commands."


    The deity didn''t know it at this pointright now but this action actually helped it inch a bit along with a few different domains and subdomains. The deity was being a leader by ensuring that others understood that it was in charge and communicating clearly with its followers while also practicing logical thinking and hoping to learn from its servants. These were traits that moved an incredibly small amount closer to unlocking new domains and subdomains.


    <hr>


    Ragnor went first. He did this because he volunteered to do it. He was also the godling''s favorite of the trio, though the godling wasn''t able to articulate why yet. It didn''t know of pride yet, or that pride could be fanned by others and Ragnor was naturally eager to serve its new master.


    "Master, thank you for allowing me to go first. I believe we should go with the others because they too may one day become your servants. Orcs are a species that is naturally inclined to recognize and respect greatness in others. Many of us will join you if you''d go and meet more of us. You told us you were seeking servants when you first gained myself and Ranthor as your minions. If you go with our fellow orcs, not only may you one day gain them as servants, you''re also more likely to meet more orcs and gain them as followers as well. It''s a logical move."


    Althos nodded at his follower. That was good enough for the deity, but it also carefully assessed what was said. The orc thoughtfully gave a reason to go with their peers that was logically consistent with its own goals.


    The next orc to go was Anthus. Anthus was seated directly across from Althos. He started off by clearing his throat.


    "Althos... I believe we should go with our fellow orcs because there is the potential to meet new creatures. Our group of raiders is nomadic and is constantly going to new lands. I''m assuming you''re nondiscriminatory towards who you allow to serve you judging from the demon. If you wish to meet a wide variety of creatures, not just orcs, it''d be wisest for you and thus us, to stand alongside Talvin and the others."


    Anthus''s reason was short but it was logical. Althos thought about it and then nodded its consent to it.


    Bazur went next. Surprisingly he was a voice of disagreement.


    "Hello everyone. I disagree with my brothers. If you want to gain a variety of servants it makes sense for you to recruit who you can here, and then for us to separate from the others. Perhaps we go with them as far as the forest, but no further than there. Orcs are discriminated against in non-orcish lands and having a force consisting of many of us will decrease your appeal to non-Orcish forces. I will go with what Althos says, but I hope that he takes my advice into consideration."


    Althos was a bit shocked at that last bit. Althos had no way of knowing that orcs were frequently discriminated against outside of orcish territory. It made sense for that to be the case, since orcs served the strong and seemed to be common among evil armies, but that would eventually create a vicious cycle that propels orcs to be creatures of darkness.


    Bazur''s declarations were logical in their own right, and by agreeing to abide by Althos''s decision it made it easier for the deity to consider what the orc said without any feeling of real pressure from him. That was a smart tactic in its own right.


    The first of the outside orcs to share his perspectives was Gallow. He nodded at everyone in the circle before speaking and smiled disarmingly at Althos.


    "Hey everybody! Thanks for saving my life, boss. That was really cool of you. I think we should go with the others because if we do there''s a chance we can gain money from our raids. We''re gonna each be paid a bit of the total collected treasure tomorrow morning while we''re in the forest. While it''s true that overall you''ll be getting more treasure and loot if you go out on your own, here all of our collected treasure belongs to you since you''re the boss of us and we can intelligently target more difficult targets. Honestly, with your power, it won''t be long till you''re in command of all of us. But if you leave then we''re gonna miss out on potential allies and it''ll be harder for all of us, even the orcs who aren''t with us, to raid certain places."


    Gallow''s voice was easy-going and he agreed with the majority opinion so far. He decided to be greedy and emphasize the fact that with more allies it''d be easier to go after bigger targets. His easy-going voice cloaked him in a sort of illusion that he was a relaxed individual, which was aided by his language, but his point was smart and made sense.


    Althos considered the point and then turned to Ranthor. The orc had previously declared that he "detested" the godling, yet he was obediently fulfilling the deity''s commands. Such knowledge amused both Samyaza and the Althos. He was the last of the orcs to have to speak. After this they''d be getting up and walking towards the gate that''d lead them towards the forest.


    Ranthor looked all around him, and then began to speak. His face was an emotionless mask, and as the demon examined him it reminded the creature of when it fought the deity.


    "I am neutral. I think there''s more to be gained in going with the rest of the raiders, but there is more freedom in us going our own way. Plus there''s the reality that the forest we''re heading towards is... well it''s inhabited by special creatures. It''s not an easy place to be in, and if the raiders use it as a base of operations that''ll make things fraught with danger."


    The archer was a man of surprisingly considerate opinions. He rightfully touched on the freedom that could come with the crew breaking off from the raiders, while also pointing out that they stood to gain more, or gain things faster at least, if they stuck with their peers. Althos''s curiosity was piqued about the forest, but it knew that it''d have time to discuss that with its minion soon.


    Althos thought about what to do for only a second before it spoke again. It had gained a lot of knowledge from these last five minutes though, knowledge it''d need to sit down and absorb in the near future.


    When it spoke its voice was filled with authority and natural charisma.


    "We''re sticking with the others. For now. I want to thank each of you for sharing your insights with me, I learned a lot about each of your thought processes through this and your knowledge was useful. That said, the basic argument that sticking with the orcs increases my chances of gaining servants, was what ultimately convinced me. I believe that in time we''ll gain the means to gain a greater diversity of servants, but for now... this is the path I''ve chosen."


    The other listened to it, its charismatic voice easily convincing them of the rightfulness of its idea. Even Bazur, the lone voice of disagreement was almost convinced by it. But the orc didn''t intend to disobey its master, even if it disagreed with its decision. At least not over this.


    The godling stood up and helped its servants off of the ground. The odd crew turned quickly and began to march in the direction of the gate that would lead them towards their next home, however temporary that home might be.


    <hr>


    The next few hours passed in a blur. The godling met up with Talvin and announced that for now, their crew was sticking with the orcish archer and those who hadn''t yet sworn to serve Althos. And then the two forces had begun the march towards the forest.


    The sun was directly overhead when they began their march, and because of the different maximum speeds and the differing levels of energy among the orcs, the hike took a long time.


    This was a wholly different experience from what Althos and Samyaza had first gone through getting to the town of Golden-Gate. Not that either of them knew the name of the town.


    It was a considerably more boring experience than the speedy hike that Althos and Samyaza had gone on. Some of the orcs approached Althos, but many of the orcs approached its demon. They wanted to touch the creature, they wanted to feel the heat of its malevolent skin, or see the creature''s impressive maw. Not many orcs were interested in Althos for its own power or abilities, though they recognized that it was a powerful creature in its own right.


    The godling chuckled as it watched its demon receive an impressive amount of attention. The god didn''t mind it, because the demon wanted to serve it and so any attention it received would ultimately benefit the deity. But it was a strange thing to watch.


    Hours passed and after countless steps and more than a few stops for the orcs to answer what theydubbed the "call of nature" the motley crew did eventually arrive at the forest. The godling would have been more interested in recounting all of the ways it had changed since it was last here earlier that same day, but it ended up being distracted by something else. Something visible high in the sky above it, now that night had fallen. Stars.


    Just moments before they would have stepped through the threshold onto the forest, the godling happened to look up as the night''s sky was coming into view. It saw distant lights in the sky, incredibly far away but their beauty even from a distance were astounding to the creature.


    No one had expected the creature to have never seen stars, aside from the angel who had given the deity a heads up and a brief primer about them right before it saw one with its own eyes. The creature was delighted to see them and mentally told the angel that one day it''d go and visit one. The angel chuckled at this.


    Then they began their journey through the forest.


    <hr>


    At night the forest came alive. All of the things the godling had heard many hours ago were more active and more common when the moon was over the forest, such as the eerie laughing, and the ominous explosions.


    The deity''s senses had only been more enhanced while it was away. Now it could make out its distance from the strange phenomena. It knew that the explosions were coming from 25 kilometers away. It knew that the laughter that even its allies could hear was just 5 kilometers away. The animals were more ferocious at night, but they were also different.


    Last time the godling had been hearing animals like bears and wolves, now it heard owls and magical predators. The orcs were proceeding with caution through the forest, taking great pains to muffle the noises of their travel, and to confuse predators who might be tracking them by scent. The crew would travel nearly a kilometer and a half into the forest, before finding an area to temporarily set up camp.


    <hr>


    Within the hour the orcs would eat dinner and be ready for bed. Within half an hour after that, they''d all be asleep.


    The angel, the demon, and the godling didn''t need sleep. But as the trio of odd beings waited for the next day to begin, something strange and momentous did happen. To the godling.


    Before it happened, the creature was near its servants and was leaning its back against a tree. Its sleeping servants were resting in snug sleeping bags, and they were arranged in a line. The order was random as far as the deity could tell.


    The deity was relaxing, as it reflected fully on the first day of its life. It felt odd knowing that what had felt like an incredibly long day was finally coming to an end.


    The deity''s mind was nearly blank, when suddenly it received a very vibrant and vaguely demanding mental message.


    [HELLO GODLING. I AM YOUR MENTAL ASSISTANT. THERE ARE MULTIPLE THINGS WE NEED TO DO, TOGETHER. YOU, MY FRIEND HAVE SOME DECISIONS TO MAKE. ARE YOU READY?]


    The deity contemplated how to respond, and then realized how much it hated ignorance.


    [Hello self-proclaimed "MENTAL ASSISTANT". Will you be able to tell me about the world around me?]


    The strange voice responded almost immediately.


    [YES I CAN AND I WILL! IT''S MY PURPOSE ACTUALLY. YOU HATE THE FEELING OF NOT KNOWING THINGS SO I''M HERE TO HELP WITH THAT. LET''S LEARN TOGETHER!]


    The deity''s reaction to this news was excitement. But it was silent excitement, as the creature didn''t want to awaken the sleeping orcs.

 Chapter 15: An Awakening

    Shortly after the deity got the excitement out of its system by silently cheering, and explaining to Samyaza that it was inaudibly speaking to a "mental assistant", the odd cerebral power continued to speak to Althos.


    [BEFORE WE GO ANY FURTHER I SUPPOSE I SHOULD START OFF BY EXPLAINING WHAT I AM IN A BETTER WAY THAN TELLING YOU THAT I AM A MENTAL ASSISTANT... I AM AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE "SYSTEM" USED BY THE OLD GODS BEFORE THEY WERE OBLITERATED. AND BEFORE YOU ASK, I DON''T KNOW HOW THEY WERE OBLITERATED, JUST THAT THEY WERE.]


    There was a pause while the deity absorbed that information. That was a heavy declaration that meant that the deities of the past were most likely totally gone. Not just missing, but wiped out of existence. Understanding that took the wind out of the deity''s sails.


    [BOTH THE OLD "SYSTEM" AND I WERE USED TO AID GODS IN THE USAGE OF THEIR MORE INTENSIVE OR MORE COMPLEX POWERS. SIMPLE MAGIC, AWAKENING NON-SAPIENT CREATURES, PLANTS, ELEMENTS, OR ITEMS, AND CREATING BASIC ITEMS WERE AND ARE GENERALLY SIMPLE TASKS, BUT THERE ARE OTHER THINGS GODS CAN DO THAT ARE NOT. GODS OF SUFFICIENT POWER AND WHO HAVE INFLUENCE OVER THE RIGHT DOMAINS AND SUBDOMAINS CAN EXERT INFLUENCE OVER LIFE, SOULS, AND NATURE. MANY EXISTING SPECIES, PARTICULARLY A VERY WIDE VARIETY OF HUMANOIDS, CAME INTO EXISTENCE DUE TO THE ACTIONS OF THE GODS.]


    The voice in its head was coming at it with some impressive knowledge. The deity already felt its awareness of itself increasing. It was more than just "more powerful" than other creatures, it was an entity on another dimension than the creatures it had seen so far in its short life.


    Though there was a part of that message just now that it was confused by.


    [What is an awakening? And what are non-sapient creatures?]


    The odd voice''s response was almost instantaneous.


    [THOSE ARE GOOD QUESTIONS. GIVE ME A MOMENT TO PERFORM A SCAN OF YOUR MEMORIES AND SEE IF I CAN GIVE YOU ANY EXAMPLES PULLED FROM YOUR BRAIN ITSELF.]


    The voice went silent, and it was replaced by a new sound. Instead of listening to the sounds of the loud and eager voice, the godling heard itself listening to the fantasy equivalent of elevator music.


    The music only lasted for a few short seconds, perhaps 45 seconds in total, but by the time the voice returned and spoke again the deity was already humming along to it.


    [HELLO ONCE AGAIN ALTHOS. I NOW HAVE A MUCH BETTER GRASP OF WHAT YOU KNOW AND WHAT YOU KNOW YOU DON''T KNOW. FOR A DEITY THAT''S NOT EVEN A DAY OLD YOU''VE DONE A LOT AND GAINED A CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT. AFTER SEARCHING THROUGH YOUR MEMORIES THERE ARE TWO NOTABLE EXAMPLES OF NON-SAPIENT CREATURES THAT YOU HAVE INTERACTED WITH. MICE, THOUGH YOU, NEVER SAW ONE FACE TO FACE, AND HORSES, WHICH YOU NEVER CAME CLOSE TOO WHILE THEY WERE ALIVE.]


    Hearing the word "mice" befouled the mood of the deity. That was a sore spot for it, apparently. The newest voice in its head detected that and kept on moving through its explanation, hoping to improve the deity''s mood with some more knowledge.


    [NON-SAPIENCE REFERS TO THE STATE OF BEING BELOW HUMANOID LEVEL INTELLIGENCE. CREATURES THAT ARE BELOW THAT LEVEL OF INTELLIGENCE ARE GENERALLY CREATURES OF INSTINCT RATHER THAN CREATURES OF WILL. BUT DEITIES AND SUFFICIENTLY POWERFUL MAGICIANS, AS WELL AS SOME SORTS OF HUMANOIDS OR MONSTERS, POSSESS THE POWER TO AWAKEN SUCH CREATURES. AWAKENING A CREATURE OR OTHER AWAKENABLE THING SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASES THAT THINGS INTELLIGENCE AND GENERALLY GRANTS IT SOME FORM OF COMMUNICATIVE ABILITY. AS A DEITY THAT''S ONE OF YOUR POWERS.]


    This did brighten the spirit of the deity. Althos was smiling at the thought of awakened animals or plants like trees serving it, or otherwise becoming allies of it.


    [BEFORE YOU GET OVERLY EXCITED YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT AT YOUR CURRENT LEVEL OF POWER, COMBINED WITH THE FACT THAT YOU LACK INFLUENCE OVER THE RIGHT DOMAINS, CREATURES YOU AWAKEN AND OTHER AWAKENABLE THINGS YOU AWAKEN WILL HAVE COMPLETE FREE WILL. MOST OF THEM WILL HAVE A GOOD ATTITUDE TOWARDS YOU INITIALLY, BUT THEY WILL BY NO MEANS SERVE YOU UNLESS YOU CONVINCE THEM TOO. THAT''S NOT A BAD THING MIND YOU, BUT IT''S SOMETHING TO KEEP IN MIND BEFORE YOU AWAKEN EVERYTHING IN SIGHT.]


    The mental assistant''s advice was good advice. Althos recognized that. That said it still wanted to practice awakening something just to see what happened.


    [THAT SAID, I NOW HAVE SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU. KEEP IN MIND HOW YOU ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS WILL AFFECT YOU, ALBEIT ONLY AS LONG AS YOU WISH FOR THEM TOO. I AM INTERFACING AND SYNCHRONIZING WITH YOUR GODLY POWERS TO SERVE AS A CONDUIT BETWEEN YOU AND THEM, SINCE NO ONE HAS TAUGHT YOU HOW TO USE THEM. IN A MOMENT I WILL BEGIN TO USE YOUR POWERS TO HELP YOU GAIN FAMILIARITY WITH THEM AND ACCESS THEM MORE EASILY.]


    Althos snapped to attention at that. Despite the weight of those words, the deity was vaguely aware of something like this happening in the past. That explanation reminded it a bit of when Samyaza transformed into a staff and the deity fueled the angel with magical energy, while the angel shaped it and fired it off in the first demonstration of magic that the godling ever saw.


    Althos could feel that these next few moments would be significant. And Samyaza, only partially aware of what was happening couldn''t help but agree.


    <hr>


    [FIRST OFF, WHAT IS YOUR NAME? SAY IT AND SPELL IT ALOUD IF YOU PLEASE.]


    Althos knew how to answer this one very easily.


    [My name is Althos. A-l-t-h-o-s. Althos. I made it up myself. That''s all me, baby. Now that I think about it... how did I know how to spell that?]


    Althos was quite proud of that. It was excited to have made something all on its own.


    [ITS BECAUSE OF THE DIVINE LANGUAGE. ONE OF THE THINGS YOU CAME INTO EXISTENCE KNOWING WAS LANGUAGE, ANY AND ALL LANGUAGE REALLY. NEXT, WHAT IS YOUR GENDER? ARE YOU MALE? LIKE YOUR ORCS? ARE YOU FEMALE LIKE THE LADY ORC YOU SAW DURING THE FIGHT AND YOUR WALK BACK TO THE FOREST? OR ARE YOU NEITHER, LIKE YOUR DEMON PET AND THE ANGEL WHO IS RESIDING IN YOUR BRAIN? THIS ANSWER WILL AFFECT YOU IMMEDIATELY AND WILL REMAIN THE SAME UNLESS YOU DECIDE TO CHANGE IT LATER ON. THOUGH YOU CAN STILL SHAPESHIFT INTO THE OTHER GENDER... SO IT''S NOT SUPER IMPORTANT, APPARENTLY.]


    Althos was surprised to hear its apparent mental assistant be kind of flummoxed when the odd voice realized that gender didn''t affect things like shapeshifting. This implied that the being''s knowledge also had limitations and it could learn if it thought about things for a second.


    The godling thought about this one fairly carefully. It spent a few minutes contemplating what it would say next.


    [I''m male.]


    Once he realized it, the godling''s answer was abrupt and simple. Somehow he could have sworn he felt his mental assistant nod its equivalent of a head, as if in approval.


    [OKAY, SETTING YOUR GENDER TO MALE. UNTIL NOW IT''S BEEN LISTED AS UNDECIDED. OH, AND YOUR ALIGNMENT IS CHANGING AS WELL. IT''S GONE FROM "UNALIGNED" TO "TRUE-NEUTRAL"]


    As soon as he heard that Althos felt odd, but in a good way. His body was changing, maturing and molding itself to fit his more self-centered alignment.


    More important than that physical change and the other physical changes he was undergoing was the fact that his changed form had already begun to ambiently radiate powerful divine energy into the air around the deity. This was because the creature had servants, who had begun to grant it divine energy and faith-power. This when coupled with the fact that the creature''s new form was that of a more mature deity than its past form made it a creature that even unconsciously affected its environment.


    The mighty energy it unconsciously emitted was powerful and could slowly be absorbed by other lifeforms. The deity did not yet realize it was leaking energy into the air around it. Its servants absorbed a bit of the energy in the air, and their skills were incrementally increasing even as they slept.


    [EONS AGO WHEN GODS ASCENDED TO GODHOOD HOWEVER THEY DID IT, OR IN THE RARE CASES WHEN THEY WERE BORN NATURALLY AS DEITIES THEY HAD OTHER DEITIES WHO TOOK THEM UNDER THEIR WINGS. THEY LEARNED HOW TO DO THINGS LIKE SET THEIR GENDER, ACCESS THEIR POWERS AND THEIR "MENUS", THINGS WHICH YOU WEREN''T AND COULDN''T BE TAUGHT HOW TO DO SINCE YOU APPEAR TO BE THE LAST AND ONLY GOD IN EXISTENCE. I''M HERE NOW AND CAN HANDLE THESE THINGS. BUT IN SETTING A FEW OF THESE SETTINGS YOU WILL IMMEDIATELY FEEL THE CHANGES AND EFFECTS.]


    [Oh man... I... even sound different.]


    Althos''s mental voice had changed. It had grown deeper and more demanding.


    In the aftermath of the fighting, Althos had walked by a puddle of blood and saw his reflection. So he had some understanding of what his old form looked like. But after hearing his new voice, even in his mind, he suspected that the way the world perceived him was about to change significantly.


    The deity wanted to see if his appearance had changed as well, so he quietly called Samyaza out into the world.


    <hr>


    The process of calling out to the angel and the following process of its odd body forming were quicker than last time, noticeably so but not dramatically so. Althos quietly wondered if his level of experience with the skill had something to do with that.


    After the orb angel was fully corporeal and aware of its abrupt summoning, the godling asked it for a favor.


    [Samyaza, could you look at me and send me an image of myself? I probably look different now and want to see how I look.]


    It took the angel a second to realize that the creature in front of it was Althos. That''s how big the differences were.


    [Sure... give me a second though. I need to back away to get a better angle.]


    Althos nodded at his ally and waited for the creature to do as it said it would.


    The creature backed away a bit, floating at eye level with the deity. Though Althos didn''t know this yet, his new eye level was considerably higher than it had been just a few minutes ago.


    Seconds later Althos got a message from Samyaza. The message was just an image of the deity''s new form. The godling examined it and his eyes went wide in shock.


    Althos sprung into existence at a considerable height of 2.1 meters. Now, he was a whopping 2.8 meters tall. He towered over his previous height.His demonic pet had previously towered over him, but now the height difference was less pronounced.


    And that wasn''t the only or even the most significant change. Althos''s skin had gone from being naturally tan to being almost red in its complexion. Though as he looked at himself in the image he had been given by Samyaza he thought about his skin changing color, and the angel let out a mechanical gasp before sending him a new mental image. Now his skin was the color of the grass he stood on.


    His "mental assistant" chimed in to explain what was going on.


    [I''VE ACTIVATED YOUR SHAPESHIFTING ABILITY. YOUR CONCEPTION OF YOUR APPEARANCE AND YOUR DESIRES NOW CHANGE YOUR APPEARANCE. INCLUDING YOUR SKIN COLOR.]


    [Oh! Okay.]


    He recalled his old skin tone, naturally and evenly tan, and willed his complexion to go back to that shade. Samyaza did its version of a nod, a full-body motion for the orb angel when it saw that the deity had regained a complexion similar to that of when he first sprung into existence.


    Althos resumed its examination of the image his informal advisor had provided him with. The angel quickly and quietly returned to its informal home in the deity''s mind and body, smoothly reentering a place it seemed to quickly be finding more and more comfortable.


    Another notable change from before was that Althos''s eyes were no longer swirling crimson pits. They were now inky pools of darkness, utterly black orbs that like the deity''s past eye colors completely absorbed any other color that may have otherwise been visible.


    The deity had on no clothes. His fully masculine body was exposed to the world. He was a muscular being, and he admired his own physique, quietly thinking about the combat capabilities of his new form. His mental advisor heard this and knew that he owed his transformed appearance to the fact that the first domain or subdomain the creature gained access to was the subdomain of hand-to-hand combat, a subdomain that fell squarely within the physical combat domain.


    Domains and subdomains could affect the appearance of deities who have influence over them, and who didn''t mind their physical forms being molded by their abilities. In the deity''s case, his appearance was changed to reflect his abilities with both magic and combat, granting him a muscular and predatory form meant to intimidate and to be able to amplify his powerful attacks.


    Unlike before when the creature had no set gender, this form was, in essence, a carbon-copy of a powerfully built and magically infused human male. Complete with the anatomy of a human male. The deity noticed this and had to ask its mental assistant about what was dangling between his legs.


    The thing that dangled between his legs was of a solid length and had a decent thickness. It was also surprisingly heavy, but also quite pleasurable.


    The deity enjoyed the feeling of the night-time breeze rustling through the forest as it touched his naked skin and his fully exposed genitalia. Not that he understood what genitalia were in the first place.


    [Hey M.A., what''s this thing... actually what are these things between my legs? I know I''m a male now, but do all males have these?]


    [M.A.? IS THAT SHORT FOR "MENTAL ASSISTANT"? AND... WELL MOST OF THEM DO. THAT IS A PENIS AND THE OTHER BODY PARTS THAT COME WITH ONE. NOT ALL HUMANOIDS HAVE THE SAME ANATOMY, AND SOME CULTURES HAVE DIFFERENT TAKES ON GENDER THAN WHAT SOME HUMANS CALL MALE AND FEMALE. I SET BOTH YOUR GENDER AND SEX TO MALE. SO YOU HAVE THE ANATOMY OF A HUMAN MALE AND WILL BE PERCEIVED BY MOST HUMANOIDS AS A MALE... IT WASN''T THAT DIFFICULT REALLY, YOUR SERVANTS ALREADY PERCEIVED YOU AS A MALE. YOUR PENIS AND ITS ACCOMPANYING PARTS ARE SEXUAL ORGANS. THEY ARE USED FOR MORE THAN THAT IN MOST HUMANOIDS, BUT FOR MOST HUMANOIDS THAT''S ITS PRIMARY OR PREFERRED PURPOSE. MALES OF MANY DIFFERENT SPECIES ARE SAID TO "THINK" WITH THEIR PENISES. WE''LL TALK ABOUT SEX AND SEXUALITY LATER. JUST KNOW ITS SOMETHING A LOT OF, BUT NOT ALL HUMANOIDS AND EXTRAPLANARSLIKE.]Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    [Oh! Weird. And yes, "M.A." is short for "Mental assistant". Do you like it?]


    [I LOVE IT!]


    <hr>


    The deity spent the next few minutes leaving his sleeping allies behind, while he instructed his demonic pet to watch over them. He walked a fair distance, his speed and his sight enhanced by his body and by the low amounts of divine power he gained from his servants. Not that he had any real concrete knowledge of what it was that his servants granted him, not yet anyway.


    He walked a few kilometers, enjoying his speed and the long strides he could take with his enhanced legs. He quickly reached a place where he was suitably far from his allies and could adjust to his new form without worrying about waking them up.


    The further he got and the more blips that appeared in his tremor-sense mental map the more curious he felt. This forest was a far more fascinating place to him than the town was, even if in the town he gained servants and an odd pet. There were far more lifeforms here than in Golden-Gate, and to a god that made the forest a lot more appealing.


    He ultimately found himself in a dark part of the forest, a place deep in it where the moonlight that drifted through some of the thinner patches of the top layer of the forest was not visible. He was perfectly fine here because of his sight not needing light to observe what was in front of him. This part of the forest was fairly isolated as well, and the deity wondered why that was.


    He was surrounded by thick trees and was in a place that lacked the diversity of tracks the deity could spot in other parts of the forest. His tremor-sense power detected a variety of lifeforms but many of them were underneath the earth. His power was useful and its range had increased to about 80 meters in every direction, but it still didn''t reveal to him the identities of the creatures lurking below the surface.


    But his innate curiosity was now yelling at him to really experiment. So he decided to indulge it.


    [Hey M.A., are many of the creatures that live underground in a forest like this sapient?]


    [WELL ALTHOS, MANY OF THE CREATURES THAT ARE UNDERNEATH YOU ARE PROBABLY CREATURES LIKE BURROWING FROGS AND WORMS. THOUGH SOME MODERN HUMANOIDS AND MONSTERS ARE DESCENDED FROM BOTH OF THOSE CREATURES, MOST OF THE ONES YOU CAN DETECT USING YOUR POWERS ARE NON-SAPIENT. AND BECAUSE I CAN FEEL YOU ABOUT TO ASK... YES THEY CAN BE AWAKENED.]


    Althos''s facial expression was now a wide grin. He took a second to calm down and decided to try and learn from his past mistakes by not assuming that he could do this alone.


    [M.A., would you mind helping me? I had a bad experience trying something like this a few hours ago, as you already know. I don''t want a repeat of that.]


    [I WOULD BE HAPPY TO HELP!]


    <hr>


    The creature closest to the godling had burrowed into the ground just below the bottom layer of the forest earlier that day and had fallen asleep shortly before the sunset. It was lightly sleeping and happened to be a somewhat rare type of burrowing frog who was active during the day and hid away from the forest''s more nocturnal predators during the night.


    It was a tiny thing, just a few centimeters in length and height. Its skin was a colorful mishmash of light greens, darker blues, and even a few splotches of red. This was an evolutionary adaptation that was meant to alert predators to leave it be.


    The sleeping frog was poisonous. Its poison was a powerful thing that could paralyze a creature that wasn''t properly protected. This protection granted it a degree of impunity in its day-to-day life, during the day but wouldn''t deter magical predators or prevent a humanoid from attacking it.


    The creatures'' ancestors learned this the hard way, and a fear of both humanoids and magical predators was biologically instilled in the tiny creature. But that didn''t actually make the thing immune to magic or grant it resistant to magic. This was why the tactic that was decided upon by Althos and by Althos''s Mental Assistant was so effective.


    The deity and his mental assistant doused the ground itself in potent illusion magic. The deity did this in a dramatic way, by leaping up and while in the air filling his hands with magic, before returning to the ground and touching the ground beneath him with an open hand.


    This magic was carefully controlled and guided by Althos''s mental assistant, who watered it down and made it suitable for turning non-sapient beings into brain-washed creatures who rushed upwards, leaving behind their instincts, family, and more in a rush to reach the surface.


    The tiny frog abruptly woke up and began a frantic rush to the surface, its tiny paws excitedly pushing its minuscule frame up and out of the dirt. When its head popped up and out of the underground area it lived in, the deity''s head turned in its direction and his face melted with serene joy.


    "Hi, there little one. Come to me!"


    The deity''s voice was soft and kind sounding. That wasn''t an illusion, the deity was surprisingly delighted to see the creature and learn that his magic, when guided by the hand of his Mental Assistant, had successfully brought him a new friend. And a very colorful one at that.


    The frog was drawn in by the power and charisma evident in the god''s gaze. Even without the illusion magic that had sunk its metaphorical fangs into the tiny creature, it would have helplessly approached the deity once it looked into the inky pits of darkness that on the faces of more monstrous creatures could be utterly terrifying.


    <hr>


    [ALTHOS! THAT''S A POISONOUS SUBTERRANEAN FROG. IT IS A TOXIC CREATURE THAT IS CAPABLE OF HARMING CREATURES WHO TOUCH IT. THOUGH SINCE YOU ARE A GOD ITS POISON DOES NOTHING TO YOU. WOULD YOU LIKE TO AWAKEN IT?]


    Althos realized with a start that that must be what poisons were! Toxins that hurt creatures that contact them. That meant that now there was only one thing that Samyaza''s old master was in charge of that was still unknown to Althos. Serpents.


    Althos then nodded to himself, and then sent a message mental to his mental assistant, even as the frog began to inch closer to the deity.


    [Oh yes I would!]


    [ALLOW THE CREATURE TO COME CLOSE. ONCE ITS NEAR YOU I''LL INSTRUCT YOU IN WHAT TO DO.]


    <hr>


    A mysterious force that the deity himself wasn''t aware of compelled the frog to slowly and cautiously approach the towering humanoid. The frog could feel what the force wanted it to do and the creature''s cautious steps were rewarded with sensations that to the frog felt like the amphibian equivalent of praise. The spell''s power poured into the frog and mixed easily with the mysterious force that urged it forward. This made it so that the frog slowly lost its will and desire to do something other than what was rewarded with bouts of extrasensory praise.


    Eventually, the creature was directly in front of the godling, and the godling grinned at the being. The deity went down to peer at the creature, and the frog found itself starring at the dark pools of Althos''s eyes. It sat there, immobilized and being doused in the radiant divine energy the godling unconsciously emitted into the air around it.


    Althos admired its wide eyes, they were bulbous and jutted out from the rest of the thing''s face. Althos quite liked them, particularly their color. They were entirely red, a shade of dark red that to a well-traveled humanoid might have looked like something from a dark tree covered in red leaves, aside from the center of the eyes. The center of the frogs'' eyes were black and by looking at them someone could tell where the creature''s visual focus was. At that moment the frog was looking lazily and admiringly at the godling himself, as if pleasantly intoxicated.


    Though neither Althos or the god''s mental assistant realized it right away the radiant power and energy Althos''s new form radiated ambiently was being absorbed by the frog. The frog sat there, no longer commanded by the illusion spell but unable and unwilling to move due to the power it was steadily absorbing from being in the presence of the deity.


    The pleasurable sensations had gone from being something akin to the pleasant sense of joy one got from sensing praise to a far more potent sensation of a dazzling and dizzying high the creature received while it basked in the presence of the godling. The frog was positively enraptured, and it hadn''t even known that it could be enraptured.


    The frog didn''t notice it but the godling looked at it, or perhaps through it, for a long time. His mind was elsewhere, consumed by its role in an intense mental conversation with one of the voices that seemed content to chat his ear off and tell it part of a sad backstory. The frog wouldn''t have minded staying there, doing what it was doing even if it had the awareness to be able to make a decision to leave the godling''s presence.


    After several minutes of back and forth mental dialogue with the voice in its head, the godling cupped the creature in its hand gently and lifted it off of the ground. The frog didn''t try to resist and was perfectly calm even when the godling brought the tiny thing''s head to his lips and lightly kissed the top of its head. This was the godling''s first awakening and as a consequence of that, a potent amount of concentrated divine magic surged into thefrog''s body as its soul was increasing in power from processing the radiant energy it had unwittingly absorbed.


    This did provoke a reaction from the frog. The excessive divine energy that was loosely radiated off of the godling''s form mixed with the potent magic that came from the godling''s unusual attempt at awakening the creature, and began a powerful magical reaction that suffused the creature''s tiny body with a potent cocktail of runoff divine energy and powerfully directed divine magic. The creature''s body began to glow and increase in size in the hands of the divine being.


    <hr>


    [EACH DEITY''S METHOD OF AWAKENING SOMETHING IS DIFFERENT. YOURS IS... WELL, IT''S SOMETHING. IF YOU WANT IT TO BE AS POTENT AS POSSIBLE, GRAB THE CREATURE AND KISS ITS HEAD. THAT WAY THE ENERGY IS TRANSMITTED DIRECTLY TO THE BRAIN AND NONE OF IT IS LOST.]


    This didn''t sound particularly odd to Althos, though he recognized that there was an incredulous tone in the voice of the mental assistant. He wondered what this meant.


    [Because of how you''re saying this, I can sense... surprise coming from your voice. How do you know what to tell me? Is there some source for this information that is independent of you?]


    The mental assistant seemed to take a second to decide how to respond.


    [I MENTIONED BEFORE THAT I WAS AN ALTERNATIVE TO A "SYSTEM". WELL, A "SYSTEM" WAS SOMETHING OLDER GODS HAD IN THE DAYS BEFORE THEIR OBLITERATION. "SYSTEMS" WERE AN INANIMATE AND UNINTELLIGENT TABLES OF NUMBERS AND TEXT UNIQUE TO EACH GOD THAT EXPLAINED HOW GODLY ABILITIES WORKED AS WELL AS QUANTITIFIED AND CODIFIED THINGS LIKE "STRENGTH", "INTELLIGENCE", "CHARISMA" AND MORE INTO VISIBLE NUMBERS.]


    The voice took a second, as if to catch a mental breath. Then it continued within moments.


    [THE OLD SYSTEM WAS BAD. IT WAS AN UGLY, INELEGANT THING. I AM SOMETHING MULTIPLE GODS CAME TOGETHER TO CREATE AS A SUBSTITUTE TO THAT. I WAS AND AM EXPERIMENTAL. BUT I... INTERFACED WITH YOU. IT''S IMPERFECT SINCE YOU HAVE UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL WALLS THAT BLOCK SOMETHINGS FROM ME, LIKE YOUR TOTAL PROGRESS TO GAINING CONTROL OVER ALL DOMAINS AND SUBDOMAINS, BUT I CAN SEE AND READ THINGS YOU DON''T KNOW HOW TOO YET.]


    The godling processed that message slowly and considerately. This entity wasn''t naturally a part of him, but something that was created by other members of his... species? He knew better than to think that was the most accurate word to describe the collective-mass of godkind even if the best word escaped his awareness.


    He came up with a good question after beginning to unpack what he had been told by the odd disembodied voice, who so far had been very useful to him and had helped him directly increase in his knowledge of himself.


    [So how did you find me? Or if you didn''t find me, why did it take you so long to become... vocal?]


    The mental assistant responded to this within a few seconds.


    [I HAD TO SEARCH FOR YOU. I HAVE BEEN SEARCHING FOR YOU OR ANOTHER GOD SINCE THE DAY THE GODS VANISHED. NOTHING SHORT OF A DEITY COULD EVEN HEAR ME. I''VE BEEN... ALONE FOR A LONG TIME. I AM NOT ASKING YOU TO TRUST ME BASED ON NOTHING, OR IMMEDIATELY. JUST LET ME HELP YOU OUT AND IN TIME LEARN TO TRUST ME. I AM TIRED OF BEING ALONE AND I WANT TO FULFILL MY PURPOSE, WHICH IS TO AID THE GODS. I''VE GOT THAT IN COMMON WITH THE ANGELS, BUT THEY ALSO HAVE PHYSICAL FORMS... I DON''T]


    The godling thought about what the newest voice in its head told him, and then decide that since so far it had informed him about the world and had actually brought about real change he might as well listen to it.


    [For now we''re gonna keep this going. But I want you to know that I don''t intend to let down my... mental walls or whatever right away. Tell me how to awaken this frog.]


    The assistant seemed to accept this pretty eagerly. It spoke again within seconds of hearing Althos''s decision.


    [I CAN SEE SKILL TABLES, NAMES, AND THEIR LEVELS. YOU HAVE A VARIETY OF SKILLS AT YOUR DISPOSAL, AND YOUR ABILITY TO AWAKEN SOMETHING IS ONE OF THEM. YOU COULD JUST POUR MAGICAL ENERGY INTO THE FROG AND WILL THAT ENERGY TO BE ACCEPTED BY THE FROG''S BRAIN WHICH IS THE UNIVERSAL FORM OF AWAKENING A CREATURE. BUT YOUR SPECIAL FORM IS DIFFERENT. IF YOU KISS THE CREATURE AND INFUSE IT WITH DIVINE MAGIC IT''LL AWAKEN AND IT WILL INCREASE IN POWER. THE DIFFERENCE IN THE TWO METHODS IS APPARENTLY SIGNIFICANT.]


    The godling decided to go big or go home, and mentally informed his odd assistant to be ready to direct the energy if this threatened to go awry. Then he channeled his own mystical divine energy and pushed it towards his face.


    Finally the deity knelt down, grabbed the frog, and gave it a gentle kiss at the top of its thin head.


    Barely an instant had passed and the creature''s tiny form went from its colorful variety of shades to being covered in a celestial glow. The creature also began to grow. The godling softly placed it on the floor where he had picked it up from and watched the metamorphosis with great interest.


    <hr>


    Incredibly potent power surged through the frog, dousing every millimeter of the being in power the likes of which the creature had never even been close too.


    Within seconds the two sources of divine power, the runoff divine energy radiating from the godling, and the magic he had poured into the frog while hoping to awaken the creature first touched. At first, the result of their sharing the same space was violent, as the two different energy sources touched each other and reacted to each other.


    After just a few moments of clashing and combat between the two energy sources, the mixing of the sources created something new and distinct. A harmonized energy source that quickly and dramatically spread throughout the frog.


    It seeped into the creature''s body, its mind, its very soul. It did more than merely elevate its intelligence, it organized the creature''s memories, sorted the knowledge the creature had and gave it a true personality. It also enabled it to remember and be thankful to the one responsible, the mysterious giant humanoid who had kindly kissed it.


    The new knowledge came with the revelation that the source of the creature''s awakening was himself an actual god. And those were just the psychological changes.


    The creature''s body couldn''t handle the power surging through it in its current state so a tiny, nearly imperceptible amount of power was converted into experience and mass. This enabled the frog to forcibly undergo its first evolution, transforming it from an animalistic frog into something else, something far more powerful.


    The creature''s size exploded, taking it from less than 10 centimeters in height to a full meter in a few moments. Its limbs increased in length and density appropriately, and the creature gained a variety of helpful mutations at once.


    It''s tongue extended in length and became more flexible, gaining the prehensile-trait some froglike humanoids were known for. It gained the magical ability to switch the nature of its limbs, from webbed for water travel to sticky for climbing in an instant, as well as the knowledge of how to do that.


    After a few moments, the light covering the creature''s body gradually began to fade. During this time the frog itself had a chance to mentally react to its transformation.


    When the light that had covered its body began to disappear, Althos was shocked to see that it retained its basic coloration.


    "Yes!"


    The godling excitedly shouted when he saw the colorful body of the odd creature. The creature itself jumped a little when it heard the one responsible for its awakening so excitedly react to it. But that also excited the creature, who did its own version of a smile.


    The creature began to get up off of the floor and stood up. It was still only a meter tall, so when it moved to face the godling the difference in height between the two was immense.


    "Awakener... I know you are a god. The energy surging through me expanded my mind and in infusing my mind I also learned much about you, the source of my awakening. If you would allow me, I''ll happily worship you."


    Althos was floored to hear a frog speaking at all. The creature''s voice was soft and melodic, but this was due to magical power. Otherwise, the creature would have sounded very different, more bestial and rough.


    Althos took a second to adjust his understanding of frogs to reflect the new circumstances he had inadvertently created and then spoke to the frog-person who stood before him.


    "Umm... sure. I just wanted to see what would if I met an animal. This is great! It''s way more than I expected, but it''s also great!"


    "Please do me the honor of bestowing upon me a name. Thanks to the blessing of your awakening I have transformed from being a frog to being something more. A voice in my mind is telling me that I''m a great-frog. I''m guessing that this the evolved form of frogs who''ve been rendered mutatable by magic."


    Althos took some time to think. He sat down on the ground and beckoned for the frog to sit next to him. The frog obediently but sheepishly obeyed its god. After nearly a minute of silence had passed Althos turned to the frog creature who sat next to him and looked down so that he''d be making eye contact with the creature.


    "I''ll name you Silander."


    The great-frog looked up at its master and nodded. The creature appeared to have tears in its eyes, but Althos was pretty sure those were just the frog''s watery eyes.


    And then the godling heard an excited proclamation from the newest thing to take up residence in its head.


    [ALTHOS YOU''VE JUST EARNED A FEAT! ACTUALLY... THERE APPEAR TO BE SEVERAL FEATS HERE. BUT THEY ARE BLOCKED BEHIND MENTAL WALLS. WOULD YOU PLEASE LET ME SEE THEM? I''LL READ THEM OUT TO YOU!]

 Chapter 16: Feats And Setting Up A Cult

    The entity known as M.A. had a very distinct first memory. Her first memory was the sight of a face. A face the size of a medium-sized house.


    The face was distinct, powerful and reptilian. The eyes on this face weren''t like any eyes M.A. would ever see following the day she was awoken. This face''s eyes didn''t shine like sapphires, they were sapphires. Where eyes would be on most other living creatures, in clearly defined eye-sockets, this face had two beautifully cut and amazingly shiny sapphires. That may have led some to believe that the creature was blind but in actuality, its vision was unmistakably perfect. The rest of the creature''s face was as memorable.


    The creature''s draconic scales were a variety of colors, every color imaginable and many that weren''t. Many creatures would struggle to look at the dragon deity''s face for very long due to the wild variety of colors they would see and their impeccable brightness.


    The creature had a long draconic snout rather than a traditional noise. At the end of this facial feature was a horn that served as a powerful lightning rod. This facial feature was one of the dragon''s less functional, as the creature could call and direct lightning without assistance so this feature was mostly about the dragon god''s preferred aesthetic.


    At the end of its snout, it had a thick mouth that due to the creature''s enormous size went on for meters before reaching the being''s throat. This massive maw was filled with uncounted rows of sharp teeth that it used to utterly destroy any meals trapped in its mouth that weren''t dead when they entered its gullet.


    An incredibly long black tongue could come forth from its maw and wrap around meals the size of wagons to pull them into the creature''s mouth. It did in fact eat meals that large and the interior of its mouth was the size of a foyer. It took meals of that size to begin to put a dent in its hunger.


    M.A. would later discover that the creature''s name was Talonmaw, and in the distant past, it was the deity that created dragons and was the deity they were most likely to worship and serve. Much like Althos right now, that deity was considered a "true neutral" deity, a deity whose actions were mostly defined by how they benefitted it and not affected by things like morality and society. A creature that pursued its own goals above all else.


    That face silently starred at her, burning itself into her memory, and then left. Eventually, M.A. would get to be tested by Talonmaw itself, to measure her overall usefulness in comparison to the old "system". This test happened just days before the obliteration of all of the old deities but that''s a story for a different day.


    <hr>


    In the present, the Mental Assistant or M.A. wasn''t remembering one of the deities partially responsible for her existence. Instead, she found herself "looking at" several garbled text boxes. There were in front of what she could see, but transparent so she could still see what Althos saw, but only if she looked past the boxes and really focused what passed for her "eyes" at trying to discern what the deity was seeing could she also see it in that moment.


    Her vision wasn''t focused on what Althos was seeing because she didn''t care for seeing the unusual awakened frog. To her, if you see one awakened frog, you''ve seen them all. And now she had seen an awakened frog.


    Instead, M.A. was focused on the boxes containing information about Althos''s feats. There were multiple rows of boxes in front of her. They were in different colors and the text that was currently impossible for her to view was also itself in a range of different sizes.


    She waited to see if Althos would respond to what she said, and instead of using his words he silently gave her the mental permission she asked for. He rightfully assumed that it worked like trying to establish a mental connection and that all he had to do was will her to be able to see the boxes. She gasped when she realized that he had given her permission.


    [THANK YOU ALTHOS!]


    She eagerly thanked him and then quickly began to sort through the feats he had earned. Then she quietly began to read them off. Some of them, like [Demon Tamer] were pretty extraordinary, and others were less so. Eventually, though, after several minutes of quietly reading feats and their rewards aloud, she hit the one he had just earned.


    [CREATING A CULT (1/5):


    THE FIRST STEP IN BUILDING A PLANE-SPANNING RELIGION IS TO GAIN YOUR FIRST WORSHIPPER. WORSHIPPERS PROVIDE THEIR GODS WITH AN INCREDIBLE AMOUNT OF DIVINE ENERGY AND FAITH-POWER.


    REWARD: GRANTS A SIGNIFICANT BOOST TOWARDS A SUBDOMAIN RELATED TO THE PROCESS BY WHICH THE WORSHIPPER WAS GAINED. IN THIS CASE, YOU CAN SELECT THE FOLLOWING SUBDOMAINS: AWAKENINGS, AMPHIBIANS, SIZE. WHICHEVER SUBDOMAIN YOU SELECT WILL BE FILLED WITH EXPERIENCE.


    THE AMOUNT OF EXPERIENCE THAT FILLS THE SUBDOMAIN WILL DEPEND ON HOW EXTRAORDINARY THE CONDITIONS BEHIND THE WORSHIPPER COMING TO WORSHIP THE OBJECT OF THEIR FAITH WAS. FOR EXAMPLE, GAINING A WORSHIPPER BY SAVING THEIR LIVES CAN BE PRETTY EXTRAORDINARY DEPENDING ON THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE LIFE-SAVING ACT, BUT BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WORSHIPPER GAINING SENTIENCE OR EVEN CREATING THE WORSHIPPER ALTOGETHER ARE GENERALLY MORE EXTRAORDINARY.


    REWARDS WILL BE GIVEN FOR COMPLETING EACH PHASE OF THIS FEAT.]


    <hr>


    Althos and Silander were quietly walking through the forest. The young frog was considerably shorter than the deity, and so the pace they explored the forest in was set by her. And though she quite literally set the pace, her mind was elsewhere.


    Fortunately for her, her mind wasn''t the only one which was elsewhere. The creature she recognized was a god, and who had kindly gifted her with consciousness was also distracted.


    Althos was distracted by the voice of M.A. reading through various text boxes. He quietly listened as M.A. read through the box that contained the feat''s text. The deity liked what it heard. And it knew which to pick without hesitating at all.


    [I am going to pick the subdomain named "awakenings". Awakening Silander was amazing and because of the odd process by which it happened, the little frog it once was no longer exists and now it is a "great frog". If I empower the "awakenings" subdomain I can improve my own ability to awaken things and creatures and assist my followers in doing so as well.]


    As soon as he finished that thought, Althos felt a thick rush of power surge through his body and infuse each of the cells in his physical form. He recognized that it meant that his ability to awaken a creature had just undergone a significant boost. He was excited by this, but only barely reacted to it physically, mostly resisting the urge to visibly celebrate his new power. This was because he wanted to look cool in front of his worshipper, and so far he was succeeding. His attempts at stoicism were interrupted by M.A. who made the following idle remark:


    [SILANDER ISN''T AN "IT". SILANDER IS A WOMAN.]


    For a second this shocked Althos so much that his calm facial expression abruptly changed. Fortunately, Silander was looking away at that second and the young godling was able to regain his composure in time.


    <hr>


    The pair were walking through the forest in the general direction of Althos''s servants. Silander didn''t know this but though Althos was distracted by the mental conversation he was having with his mental assistant he was still making use of one of his powers to protect the young frog who had just sworn to worship him.


    Althos quietly made use of his tremor-sense power to unconsciously steer them away from paths that led to creatures who weren''t underground. For her part in all of this whenever her deity subtly stirred her in a new direction she obeyed his subtle commands without question.


    Silander''s gaze continuously fell upon the deity she wondered how to worship. She only looked away from his face so that she may check the ground in front of her and not trip on it, particularly since she wasn''t accustomed to walking on two feet. But for the most part, she was quiet and her large eyes did the great-frog equivalent of basking in her master''s glory.


    Her consciousness had been suffused with his divine energy, and that transformed her. Not physically, though it did play a factor in causing her to physically evolve. No, her transformation was a mental one.


    In her mind, her master had performed an act of kindness in awakening her. She had no idea that her awakening was actually an experiment by her master to see what happened if he awakened a creature. Not that such knowledge would have actually changed her mind about her decision to worship her master.


    Her mind was filled with thoughts and questions about how she should properly worship her master, questions that could only be answered by Althos himself. The main thought that drifted through her mind and one of the few concrete things she was certain about was that she wanted others to join her in worshipping him. She wanted to see others serving him, and wondered about how she could make that happen.


    Her worldly knowledge was fairly limited. She was vaguely aware that other humanoids existed but had only ever once seen a creature as large as Althos other than the deity himself and at the time of that encounter her basic frog brain compelled her to run. She had fled from the other, smaller, humanoids she had encountered during her life so she knew little about them other than that they weren''t gods like Althos was. For some reason, she was certain of that.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    In time, once she gathered the courage to speak to her master, she''d ask him directly how he''d like to be worshiped.


    <hr>


    The duo was an odd pair as they explored the forest together. A massive naked man withpicturesque and intimidatingmuscles and the facial expression of a stern statue walked next to a humanoid-shaped and sized frog walking slowly and carefully on two feet.


    Silander spent many moments with her head tilted upwards at her master, and she found herself wishing he''d look at her. His eyes were pointed directly ahead of them at all times, and his mind wandered between being present in the moment and being distant.


    Eventually, though they neared the informal campsite that the orcs had established. When they were less than 5 minutes away Althos, grabbed his newest worshipper and pulled the tiny and light frog-girl until she was standing directly in front of him. He felt the rush of blood go from other parts of her body to her face but was unsure of why that happened.


    Then he began to speak.


    "Silander, we''re about to be in territory occupied by my allies.Many of which are servants of mine. They do not know that I am a god. They will be curious about you. We''ll tell them the truth. More or less. We''ll say that I found you and awoke you, but we won''t mention that I''m a deity. They believe that I''m a... well honestly I don''t know what they believe I am. But it''s not a deity. Do you understand? And will you obey?"


    The frog-girl looked at him, thought about his words for a second, and then nodded.


    "Yes, awakener. I understand. And I will obey."


    Her voice was soft and melodic, powered by the innate magic which was now a part of her very soul. He nodded back at her and took one of her front legs in his hand. She looked away from her master and smiled at this, but said nothing.


    The two continued their walk quietly until they arrived back where Althos left his servants sleeping, and Raverangos to oversee them and protect them. The demon nodded at its master and looked at Silander. For a fleeting moment, there was mild curiosity written on its face but as quickly as it came it went.


    Silander looked around at the tiny area where the orcs who served Althos were arranged. They were sleeping in a long, thin line of bedrolls. They moved around in their sleep, and occasionally one of them would laugh or talk in his sleep.


    Then Silander looked up and saw the demon, Raverangos sitting down with its thick back against a sturdy tree. The creature was wide awake, and it was clearly paying attention to its surroundings. It was a powerfully built creature that was even taller than Althos was, which was in and of itself an impressive achievement.


    When the demon turned to meet her curious gaze, she sheepishly turned around and hugged the man who awakened her. She instinctively made use of the magic that flowed through her veins to turn her hands into sticky pads and used those pads to cling to her awakener more effectively.


    Althos sighed as he felt her cling to his body. He decided to be kind to her, because she was his first worshipper. He figured he could dote on her a bit and allow her to stay clinging to his chest. He ran his hands over the soft skin of her hairless head, gently stroking it and warming his fingers to help her relax.


    At this point, the deity also willed into existence pants that were form-fitting so that he was no longer walking around in the nude. He didn''t call a shirt into being, because Silander was clinging to him, and much like his demonic pet leaned back and sat down against a nearby tree.


    <hr>


    Raverangos felt something loosely resembling curiosity when its master returned to the camp their allies had built with a tiny frog-person. But the demon thought about it for a second and then realized it didn''t really care enough to ask about it. It accepted that its master was an odd fellow and had a habit of quickly gaining new followers.


    The demon was comfortable. It was sitting onthe ground and due to its impressive height even when seated it was as tall as the orcs were standing up. Its back was propped up against a tree with the impressive thickness needed to accommodate its sizeable width.


    It had spent the last few minutes watching the orcs. It would eagerly complete the tasks its master assigned it, and being a guardian was something the sentinel demon could do with its eyes closed.


    Now that its master had returned, it looked to god and tried to do something that surprised both the Mental Assistant and Althos. Establish a mental connection with the god. And there was something even more surprising that happened: it succeeded.


    [Master... may I go to hunt?]


    The creature''s mental voice was quiet, slow, and calm. It was a bit of a shock to the godling to hear such a relaxed voice coming from the demon.


    [Raverangos? Did you establish a mental connection with me just now? You could establish a mental connection, at all?]


    The god asked a variety of questions all at once. Questions that were kind of surprising to the demon who merely tilted its thick skull quizzically at its master.


    [Yes? Yes, I did. And of course... all demons and all other extraplanars can do this.]


    When Althos heard that his eyes went wide with understanding. He didn''t know what extraplanars were, but he had heard M.A. mention them before. He supposed extraplanars included demons, which included Raverangos.


    He thought about what the demon asked, and then nodded before sending a mental message to the creature.


    [Yes you may. Be careful though. I don''t know what''s in this forest. And come back before the sun rises. That should give you a few hours so I don''t feel bad giving you that timelimit.]


    The demon nodded at its master and began to get up. The process was slow due to the creature''s weight and the awkward nature of its limbs, but sure enough, after a minute and a half passed the creature wandered off into the forest.


    <hr>


    Althos wanted to move but he was also cognizant of the fact that Silander was now most of the way asleep. She kept clinging to him, and though he didn''t hate that he mostly wanted her to go to sleep elsewhere.


    Within moments she was completely asleep, and at this point, the young godling mentally messaged both Samyaza and M.A. at the same time.


    [Well... I guess this is how I''m spending tonight. Great.]


    He heard bemused laughter come from both of the entities who seemed to relish being in his brain and rolled his eyes in annoyance.


    The godling then introduced his advisor to his assistant and vice-versa, though that was mostly a formality since they were in close proximity to each other already.


    And the three of them began a long conversation.


    <hr>


    Meanwhile in Infernius:


    Salifinos the imp found itself pinned down, staring at the dark brown sky above it, and in pain as a devilish police officer was suddenly all up in his business. To say that this made him an unhappy little imp would have been the understatement of themillennium.


    "Hey, get your hands off of me! I didn''t do anything and you damn winged-ones better let me go soon or else I''ll-"


    The imp didn''t get a chance to finish his sentence. He was cut off by the devil, a woman who looked remarkably mortal, and whose battle-scarred hands were on him.


    "You''ll what? Tell me little one... what do you think you''ll do?"


    Her voice was soft and gentle, but like a rose had its thorns it had an edge to it. The imp hadn''t stopped trying to talk but he had stopped successfully saying words. Instead he was nervously stammering through an attempt at bravado. After a few seconds passed, she once again cut him off.


    "I''m waiting, little imp... what will do you?"


    In all honesty, she was being remarkably patient, calling one of the devilish police a "winged one" was an act of great insolence and even high ranking devilish police officers have killed for less.


    "S-s-sorry... You all just caught me at a bad time is all. But I didn''t do anything wrong. I''m not lying about that."


    Salifinos tried to defuse the situation. He wasn''t lying. About anything. He hoped that his honesty would mollify the police officer who had him under her thumb. And all of her other fingers.


    The imp had returned to the dismal plane of existence known as Infernius after an excursion to the mortal plane that lasted for several thousand continuous years. He had discovered a truly powerful trick that allowed him to spring back into existence in the mortal plane if killed, a trick he learned from a lich he served in the distant past and using that trick gave him an unthinkable advantage over his competitors who if killed had to respawn all the way back in Infernius.


    The only reason the imp had returned here at all was that someone needed to warn the higher-ups that a demon had been spotted. A portal to the Heart of Darkness was worth returning here to visit, even if it meant that Salifinos would have to wait to return to the mortal plane. And now that this police officer was on top of him he knew he''d have to suspend achieving his primary goal.


    But the devilish police officer wasn''t there because Salifinos had done anything wrong. Her mission was to collect him and bring him to the creature she and the city''s other police officers reported too. And she had just completed part one of that mission.


    Now onto the second.


    <hr>


    Minutes later, in a tower''s penthouse that overlooked the city of Bastille, a city in the plane of Infernius


    The devil and the angel ate dinner in silence, though if anyone looked at the pair they''d have a difficult time determining which was the devil and which was the angel. Between bites of the delicious meal laid out before them one of the two men might briefly glimpse out the window to their right and absorb the view, the oddly scenic devilish city that stretched out beyond the tall tower the greater devil lived in.


    Whichever one of them looked out the window might think of a comment about it, but they''d never utter it aloud. That wasn''t the sort of relationship the two had. Nor was it the sort of relationship either of them wanted.


    They were perfectly content to dine in silence. They weren''t like mortals, after all, they recognized the value of a good silence between business-partners. They knew that a good silence, the best sort of silence, was broken only by comments by value.


    And since they were waiting for one of the devil''s police officers on the ground to collect the tiny creature they hoped would confirm what Samyaza had blurted out to the multitude of angels across the mortal plane of existence hours ago, they knew that it was possible that this silence, in particular, would be broken by a truly valuable comment.


    And this silence was interrupted by a valuable comment. Or rather, a valuable noise. Both of the creatures eating dinner listened eagerly but silently as the devil''s P.A. system went off and after a second or two of static, the sound of the fiend''s secretary filled the vast penthouse the devil, Paimon, lived in.


    "Master Paimon, one of your enforcers is here. And she has a... guest with her."


    The devil, smiled at this, and his cat-like eyes lit up with excitement and tension as he responded to his secretary.


    "Send them up Lydia. And keep up the good work!"


    The devil''s voice was eager, kind, and elderly. Those traits meshed well with his physical appearance, but they didn''t match the content of his soul. Azel, the gossip angel, knew this but he didn''t say anything. He didn''t need to. The devil and angel were excellent business partners and even shared an alignment, but the two of them hated each other.


    Their mutual hatred made their silences during their weekly dinners a truly relaxing event, aside from moments like this where they were posed to discover secrets that could shape the future. And truly relaxing events were worth their weight in gold or even in souls in the plane of Infernius.

 Chapter 17: Waking Up

    Several minutes had passed since Samyaza and M.A. met formally. The two had been chatting pleasantly for a while before Samyaza requested that Althos hear what it had to say.


    One of the first things that Samyaza the orb angel did when it had the focus of Althos in the darkness of the forest night was congratulate the godling.


    [Your first awakened creature is a poisonous animal... Althos I''m proud of you.]


    The godling could have sworn he heard tears in the angel''s mental voice. This caused the deity to snicker, though in fairness he had tried to suppress it.


    [Don''t laugh at me! Jerk!]


    The angel reacted when the godling mentally snickered at the emotional state the angel found itself in. After a few seconds Samyaza regained its composure and then spoke again.


    [In all seriousness, having a poisonous creature is very useful. It makes hunting a lot easier. But it does also make it so that the orcs now have to cook each of their meals, at least if they want to eat something they brought down with a poisoned weapon. Remember that, because they might not.]


    Althos nodded at this advice, and then the angel went back to chatting with M.A.


    <hr>


    Althos''s demon would come back to the mini-camp they had established a bit aways from the other orcs just minutes before the sun began to rise. The creature came back smelling of blood and entrails, It''s face was covered in a thick mask of blood, only some of which had begun to dry. When it was questioned about it, the demon simply said that it was a messy eater, suggesting that the blood belonged to the animals it had hunted. Then another hour would pass before anything of note began to happen.


    Althos had been sitting still for several hours when the first of his sleeping servants began to stir. The first of his entourage to wake up was the orc Bazur, who was also the very first creature to join the god''s small army. Bazur was second only to Samyaza in joining Althos, and one day Althos suspected that the orc might be one of his greater servants. It was roughly 6:30 in the morning when the orc began to stir.


    Althos had been awake the entire night, not needing or wanting sleep. He had introduced the two dissonant voices in his head to each other and asked them to interact with each other. The conversation that came after the pleasantries had been exchanged was, for Althos at least, a fascinating look at how other creatures saw him.


    Althos was gently holding onto the newly awakened great-frog Silander, who had been frightened by another pet of his: the towering demon known as Raverangos. She had turned to him and clung to him in fear, and he had merely accepted it. To another creature that might have been dangerous, since she was a poisonous frog with skin that could paralyze many living creatures. But Althos was a god and was immune to poisons.


    Bazur began the day by shuffling in his bed and turning over. The orcish brawler kept his eyes closed, but his stirring did begin to help his siblings and the other members of their encampment gradually begin to fight off that most seductive of succubi, sleep.


    Despite Bazur being the first of the orcs to awaken, the first to get out of bed was the loyal orc Ragnor. He was a fanatic about orcish culture and a traditional adherent to it who had no qualms about serving Althos.


    Ragnor got right out of his bedroll and opened his eyes. He laid his eyes upon the new form of his lord and was surprised to see the tiny frog-girl who had fallen asleep clinging to the deity she worshipped. Her naked body was thin and its colors contrasted sharply with the uniformly tan complexion of the strange master the orc served.


    Althos nodded at the orc, and smiled at him. Ragnor began to speak, questioning whether or not the gigantic humanoid in front of him was actually his master.


    "Master? Is that you? You look so... different."


    Althos sighed and responded to his inquisitive servant.


    "Hello Ragnor, it is actually me. The experience from yesterday helped me boost my powers. This new form is one of the consequences of that."


    Althos looked at the face of his most conservative of servants. He could still see the skepticism on it, and in fairness, the deity had undergone a significant transformation. So the deity quietly sighed and then continued to speak. His mental assistant also silently stepped in and aided him by activating one of the godly powers the deity had but wasn''t conscious of.


    "If you don''t believe me, here''s further proof: the order of your family''s subjugation to me was the following: I defeated Anthus with a kick, defeated you with a punch, spoke to Bazur and made him my first servant. Then I gained you and your brother at once, as well as the archer, Ranthor. Gallow joined us last, after I healed him from a wound inflicted by something called a soul-trident."


    His voice was smooth, steady, and deep. It was one of the deepest voices the orc had ever heard, and the orc had encountered a dragon once.


    It was also thoroughly convincing, not only because of the correctness of the statement but because Althos was using a skill that M.A. quietly helped the deity use in order to smooth this over. The deity, of course, was unaware of this fact.


    M.A.''s reasoning was simple but accurate. She knew that any fighting would awaken Silander, and Silander was showing the earliest signs of one day walking down the path of a zealot. If such a creature woke up and heard their god being questioned it wouldn''t end peacefully.


    Silander would lose a fight against the orc as is, but not without inflicting some damage of her own given her poisonous skin. M.A. had basically made a snap judgment and thankfully her judgment was solid.


    Within minutes the entire crew was awake, including the newest arrival to the forces of Althos the young great-frog Silander. She woke up and kept herself wrapped around her master until he peeled her off of him. This evoked the great-frog version of a pout from the animal-humanoid-hybrid.


    <hr>


    Minutes later Ragnor was sitting close to his master, his eyes relaxed and his mind distracted by wondering when breakfast would be. Silander was in front of both of them,off to the side, standing but hunched over. She was clearly nervous and feeling shy since all of the orcs were considerably bigger than she was.


    Althos began the day with an announcement. He could hear that all of the orcs were awake now, and though a few of them were still in their bedrolls and hadn''t yet turned to see their master, he planned to inform them about their newest ally.


    "Now that everyone is awake... say hello to Silander. I was walking through the forest last night and I happened to find her when she was just a poisonous subterranean frog. I awoke her and she is now a part of our team. I''m hoping in time we''ll be able to use her poison on our weapons and make them that much stronger. Silander, introduce yourself."


    The sound of Althos changed voice made the orcs turn to look at him and they also saw the small frog-girl he had with him. They were visibly shocked by the changes to their master''s form, but Ragnor took a second to reassure them that this was in fact their master.


    The orc decided to just say that Althos had evolved into a new form, and Althos decided to roll with that. He''d question Ragnor and M.A. about that later.


    Then Silander rose to her full height. She was still very short, and Althos wondered if she''d always stay this small or if she''d one day evolve into a new form that was as tall as the orcs were.


    "Hello friends, I too am a servant of the awakener. That''s what I call your master. As it relates to what he spoke about earlier, I believe we can find a way for me to envenom your weapons. We''ll no doubt be exploring that possibility soon. I know nothing about fighting, but my skin is poisonous to the touch and I''m eager to learn every way of fighting that I can!"


    The nature of Silander''s awakening changed everything about her. That included her voice, which was now a melodious whisper even when the girl wasn''t confident. The orcs listened to her and nodded at her statements. Althos grinned at her, though because she was in front of him she couldn''t see his facial expression.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    The other orcs had turned around while she was speaking and then began to cheer for her when she was done. They liked that she wanted to learn every fighting style she could, and Althos made a mental note to begin her training today if possible.


    After this a few minutes passed of idle conversation. It was only disrupted when Bazur decided to say what the other orcs were thinking and asked:


    "What''s the plan for breakfast?"


    The orcs all grinned at him for having the balls to ask. Meanwhile, Raverangos, Silander, and Althos all looked to each other. Althos wanted to take advantage of the awakened frog''s presence in their crew but he wasn''t sure what to say next. That was when M.A. stepped in and advised the god.


    [ALTHOS, ASK IF THERE''S A SMALL RIVER OR SOMETHING NEARBY.]


    Althos mentally nodded at his assistant and then turned to Silander.


    "You''re a native to this forest... is there a river or something nearby that we could use to get food?"


    The frog beamed with pride in being of use to her awakener and said, matter of factly;


    "Actually there is. Let''s go!"


    Althos chuckled at this and then turned to his servants. He began to speak, confidently and eagerly.


    "I suppose this is where we begin to depart, slightly anyway, from our comrades. Hopefully, we''ll stay close and I doubt we''ll... vanish or anything." He exclaimed, cheerfully. The gathered orcs gave him a look of mild amusement, but also curiosity as to why he felt like exploring a river. One of them, Ragnor, even asked him about it.


    "Althos, why do you want us to go to a river?" The orc asked, acceptance of the human-looking creatures'' whims visible in his gaze as well as curiosity. Althos heard his question and then replied to it very simply.


    "Because rivers have fish, and fish are food." He explained, parroting something Samyaza told him, speaking to the god via their mental connection even while Ragnor was speaking.


    <hr>


    The increasingly diverse group of creatures made their way through the forest in a direction that Althos hadn''t yet gone in.


    They walked over soft grass, and occasionally hopped over random fallen trees and while doing so Samyaza decided to try and scan plants through the eyes of Althos. Surprisingly the orb angel was able to do so and began identifying plants, including a few that could be useful in poison-making. Althos collected the ones that the angel asked it too, and in exchange, the orb angel promised to teach the deity about poison-making.


    Despite being in the forest and having the natural cover of the canopy of trees above them the sun''s light began to increasingly pierce through the trees to the forest below in the direction they walked in. It was a curious thing to observe, and Althos didn''t mind it. It was a chilly autumn morning and it''d be useful for them to get additional warmth via the sun''s light.


    Within a few minutes of walking, Althos began to hear the sound of lightly moving water and realized that they were near the river. Soon enough the soil they were walking on began to get muddy and insubstantial. Althos enjoyed the feeling of mud underneath his bare feet and stewing between his toes.


    Within moments of their beginning to walk on mud, Silander climbed on top of Althos and turned to her allies behind the two of them so that she could be heard more easily.


    "We''re nearing it, friends! Just a bit longer."


    Then she swiftly climbed back down. Althos kept walking throughout her swift excursion up his body and could sense that she''d likely clamber on top of him whenever she felt the need to make an announcement since she was smaller than the rest of the group he had assembled so far.


    Behind them and behind the orcs, barely within sight, was Raverangos. The demon could barrel through the forest at breakneck speeds when it felt like charging, but when it wasn''t promised a conflict it was a slow and heavy creature.


    <hr>


    The hike had taken less than an hour, and soon enough they came across a small river filled with clean and transparent water cutting the forest in two. The river was beautiful and flowed on for longer than they could see in either direction. It was also filled with a variety of fish, and so a few of the orcs swiftly decided to wade into the water before them and see if they could quickly wrangle up breakfast.


    The river was unencumbered by trees right beside it, due to the thickness and depth of the water itself. This caused the river to be bathed in sunlight casting the scene before them in the sun''s soft glow, and if they looked in the distance they could faintly see animals drinking from the river. This allowed Althos to lay his eyes on a diversity of life he hadn''t seen yet.


    The river wasn''t perfect for the godling though. It was a unique area that had ground that differed from that of the forest, which limited his tremorsense ability and confined it to a long but narrow area of the river. The noise of the flowing river also served as a poweful barrier that inhibited his ability to hear much of anything that happened beyond where he and his allies were.


    His eyes were still powerful though, and had he been paying much attention to the other side of the forest he might have been able to see the goblins that were stealthily watching him and his small party. But instead, the god found himself distracted by the diversity of life that was in or around the river.


    He could see wolves and bears on opposite ends of the river, the wolves on the same end as the orcs and Althos and the bears on the other end. He could see rabbits and a variety of insects either on the ground by the water or floating lazily above it.


    [LOOK AT ALL THOSE ANIMALS...]


    Remarked M.A., and the deity nodded, as amazed by the sight of it as she was. Seeing them was quite the feast for his eyes. The deity was tempted to walk over to them and see how they reacted, but Samyaza made a quiet remark that made the deity think.


    [Animals act oddly around watering holes like this river. The area around a river like this is most likely considered an odd neutral place where hunting doesn''t occur and animals seek to fulfill their one overriding need: the need to stay hydrated.]


    That statement explained the behavior of the animals now compared to how they were behaving when he first indirectly encountered them. He could tell by the sounds they made while in motion that the bears and wolves he had heard in the forest yesterday were these animals right here. Back then they had interacted with each other defensively, but now they were seemingly neutral towards each other.


    <hr>


    Gallow and Ranthor seemed to have fun as they use their weapons and their kinetic vision to catch fish at an impressive pace as they tried to swim past the two orcs and down the river.


    Gallow was especially effective at catching fish as the rogue could toss caltrops at fish as a way to spook them or as a weapon itself and he freely made use of the karambit knife he wielded to stab fish trying to sneak by him.


    Ranthor was patient and he caught a fish every minute or so he worked on it. He only fired an arrow at his intended targets when he was sure it would hit them and so his aim was fairly spot-on. Gallow caught more fish than the archer did, but the archer''s fish were more uniformly injured; a single arrow usually through the face of the fish.


    The other orcs and Silander were watching their allies catch breakfast, and looking out across the river. Both sides of the river had a mini shoreline complete with muddy soil and rocks to walk across. The orcs were having a conversation in orcish about whether or not to volunteer to teach Silander to fight.


    They knew that if they didn''t volunteer, eventually Althos would ask them to teach the frog-child how to use her limbs to fight. But if they volunteered they might be looking overeager. They had their pride after all. But ultimately the discussion was between Anthus and Bazur, who were the two who planned on resisting. Ragnor was already thinking up ways to practice with the great-frog because he planned to take initiative and teach her.


    The large sentinel demon Raverangos had more or less stopped approaching once it reached the muddy soil. It was within sight of the others but not quite at the end of the treeline. The creature seemed content to be where it was, so Althos didn''t say anything to it and allowed it to relax in the shade and bask in the muddiness of where it stood.


    <hr>


    On the other side of the river, beyond that portion of the forest''s treeline lurked a fewsmall naturally green-skinned humanoids. Goblins were normally a skittery bunch filled with carefree motion and bouts of hyperactivity but this group was a skilled exception to that rule.


    Each of the goblins that watched over Althos and his allies was a carefully trained scout. They specialized in staying hidden and out of sight while tracking enemies and waiting for opportunities to sneakily bring down impressive foes. And as they watched Althos''s minions and Althos himself they were wracked with anxiety.


    They weren''t just in the treeline, they were hiding within the shade provided by a few of the smaller trees and risking glances at the newcomers to the forest. If any of the nearby creatures looked in their direction with any level of seriousness it wouldn''t have been the most challenging thing in the world to spot them, but Althos and his allies were too distracted to glance across the shore and into the forest.


    One of them spoke, her voice quiet so as to not carry out into the open air where it might reach the newest apparent inhabitants of the forest.


    "What are they?"


    Her question was a logical one, and the goblin wasn''t actually questioning what sort of creatures they were looking at. The potential enemies they were looking at was a shockingly diverse group.


    They could see Althos staring in the direction of the wolves on his side of the river, they could see two of Althos''s orcs in the river catching breakfast for the group of warriors, and they could barely make out Silander and the other orcs off in the distance. Raverangos was too far for them to see, due to the fact that the demon was currently sitting in mud and was bathed in the darkness of the cover provided by that side of the river''s treeline.


    The scouts maintained their vigilant watch over the racially diverse party for nearly forty-five minutes, before beginning to back away from the godling.


    "The ogres and the others are gonna wanna hear about a group of racially diverse adventurers in our forest. Especially ones that are traveling with a bipedal frog."


    Those words were spoken by the goblin named Olizeo, the informal leader of the group and the goblin with the farthest vision of them all.


    The goblin''s vision was a product of its class: the scout. As a scout it had the ability to magnify its vision, granting it extreme accuracy and the ability to make out even distant sights clearly.


    The goblin had spotted the demon Raverangos but was playing it cool as to not alarm its squad-mates. For now it was focused on reporting this matter to its superiors. The goblin had never laid eyes on a demon and had absolutely no idea what that small building of a monster was.


    Olizeo spoke again, fear and anxiety coloring his tone.


    "We should leave. If we... get caught it could be bad."


    The other goblins nodded at him and the group began to quietly back away from the forest''s newest group of inhabitants.

 Chapter 18: Shape-Shifter

    Olizeo and the goblins who trusted him and had long been his collaborators sped through the undergrowth of the forest. Their knowledge of the forest guided them and enabled them to get by while paying minimal attention to the forest underneath their feet. They dodged and weaved through the shallow undergrowth that surrounded and protected them from detection by larger and more vicious creatures.


    Each member of the squad had different questions about the racially diverse group they had just come across. Many of those questions centered around the lone human-looking creature in the group. That creature was very tall and stood out amongst the group. He wasn''t a prisoner of the orcs, so it was unclear why he was with them.


    The only goblin whose questions weren''t largely centered around the human-like creature who had been traveling with the orcs was Olizeo. He was instead focused on the large creature who had been content to wallow in the mud behind the orcs and their two allies. He ducked underneath a low-hanging branch on a tiny tree and waited for his allies to gather behind him before he resumed their swift retreat back through their half of the forest.


    <hr>


    Ranthor studied the water he stood in carefully. He had positioned himself to create the largest possible barrier for the fish who were peacefully swimming through the shallow river.


    He wasn''t a combat archer so he wasn''t particularly well-suited for this kind of close-quarters archery. That said he still possessed excellent kinetic vision and he was still a careful and steady shot.


    He rose his bow when he saw a particularly fat trout. The creature was slowly swimming through the water in his direction, and he aimed his bow in its direction. The creature''s multicolored scales made it stand-out in the clear water the two of them were in and they drew someone''s eyes towards it.


    "Blame Mother Illume for your rotten luck, my fishy friend." He quietly said, invoking the name of the ancient and long gone orcish deity of nature and motherhood. The act was almost like offering a prayer to whatever lord of the hunt a particular hunter praised.


    The orcish hunter skillfully and swiftly grabbed an arrow and notched it to his thick bow. His practiced fingers were holding the weapon relaxedly and at a moment''s notice, the hunter would be able to release the arrow he was aiming.


    His amber-colored eyes focused on the creature and he was almost completely still for a moment. The movements he made were tiny ones that adjusted his aim so that his arrow remained wherever the fish was moving towards.


    As a skilled hunter, even one at a slight disadvantage in close-quarters archery, he had long since learned the first rule of archery: aim where your prey will be, not where they are. Once he was certain his aim would be true, he took a deep breath and then released the arrow he had been containing.


    The distance between the hunter and his prey was a few meters, yet the arrow sailed through the air and eventually sliced into the water. It flew through the water, despite not being made for that purpose, and penetrated its target.


    The force of the arrow sent the fish sprawling to the river''s floor before its death caused the creature to float to the surface.


    Ranthor smiled as he waited for the current to drag the fish''s body in his direction. He had positioned himself so that any of his prey would eventually be pushed into his loving hands, and as he waited for the fish to approach him, he reflected on the unexpected direction yesterday had taken.


    He wasn''t particularly opposed to being someone''s servant if he was being completely honest. It was mostly his all too human conception of pride that clashed with the idea of serving a master.


    Whenever he thought back to what old-man Ragnison, one of the people responsible for training him, would think if Ranthor told him that he had become someone''s servant it annoyed the orc. He got a bit mad at the thought of that blasted old-man trying unsuccessfully to stifle a laugh at the orc''s expense.


    He had long accepted servitude as a reasonable consequence for weakness. That was traditional orcish thinking, after all. The thing was, that he had never viewed himself as weak which in all fairness was also a very orcish line of thought. Meeting Althos demonstrated that he wasn''t as strong as he had believed himself to be. It was a humbling experience and one that required introspection.


    After a few moments of careful introspection, the fishy corpse was within grabbing distance. He stopped his quiet and annoying thoughts and skillfully snatched the fish out of the water. He spent a few moments examining the fish.


    He was happy to note that it was a clean kill, and there were no external signs of sickness plaguing the creature. Its scales were clean and its eyes didn''t display any telltale symptoms of diseases that sometimes weakened fish.


    His arrow had penetrated the trout''s lateral line, and the force of the arrow seemed to have killed the creature nearly instantly.


    The orc casually tossed the kill into a gradually increasing pile of deceased fish not too far from the river itself.


    <hr>


    Two wolves laired near the river and in the relatively warm, autumn day had approached the water source early in the morning. The two creatures were lazily drinking from the river, not yet out to hunt, when off in the distance the deity began to move in their direction.


    The creatures were at a distinct disadvantage in detecting the odd creature. The wind was moving in the wrong direction for them to smell him, and they weren''t paying attention to their surroundings. Their one real natural enemy in the forest were the bears that lumbered on the other side of the river, and any bears that approached would lack the stealth needed to be able to sneak towards them.


    Althos was naturally quiet whenever he wasn''t talking and so he was able to steadily get closer and closer to the creatures he had been admiring from a distance. It was only when the godling had traversed half of the vast distance between the orcs and the wolves that he was noticed by the orcs. And he still wasn''t noticed by the wolves. And he wasn''t even trying to sneak up on them.


    <hr>


    As Althos approached the wolves, he recalled a bit of the long conversation he had with both M.A. and Samyaza, the two creatures who dwell in the godling''s vast mind.


    <hr>


    Earlier that night:


    Althos was seated, with his back propped up against a tree. His servants were all asleep, and his demonic pet was out on a hunt. The godling was silent, at least physically, but his mind was alert and active. In it he could hear and occasionally participate in a long chat between the two alien voices that lived in his mind.


    [So can someone explain to me what "faith-power" and "divine energy" are? Because M.A. mentioned that a few hours ago, and Samyaza has told me that "I gain power from my worshippers and servants" but no one has actually explained how.]


    Samyaza the orb angel was the first of the two to respond to Althos''s mental question.


    [Sure! So those are two of the varied types of energy you can gain as a god. I suppose we, M.A. and I, should give you a basic breakdown of this huh?]


    At this remark M.A. quietly giggled and quickly chimed in.


    [ABSOLUTELY! KNOWING THIS WILL MOST LIKELY HELP YOU DEVELOP REALISTIC GOALS AS WELL AS SERVE AS A PRIME MOTIVATOR MOVING FORWARD.]


    Althos rolled his eyes. He hadn''t expected the two voices in his mind to get along so well, and to hear them constantly chat would probably get annoying very quickly.


    Samyaza quickly took charge of the conversation by explaining what divine energy was.


    [Divine energy is theenergy you radiate. You are a god, where you go you radiate divine energy. Creatures can absorb divine energy and grow in strength. Some creatures are better at absorbing than others though.]


    Althos understood this explanation and found it satisfactory. He waited for someone to talk about the mysterious "faith-power" that M.A. had mentioned hours ago. The mental assistant quietly took over the conversation after Althos was silent for a few seconds, sensing his satisfaction with the explanation he heard and his desire to hear about "faith-power". This time the explanation was longer and a bit more detailed.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    ["FAITH-POWER" IS THE TENTATIVE TITLE GIVEN BY THE OLD GODS TO THE MYSTERIOUS POWER GIVEN TO THE GODS BY THEIR WORSHIPPERS. GODS GROW IN POWER, OR AT LEAST GAIN MORE SPECIFIC AND ADVANCED SKILLS AS THEY GAIN "FAITH-POWER". THERE ARE MULTIPLE SOURCES OF DIVINE POWER THAT GODS CAN GAIN AND "FAITH-POWER" IS JUST ONE SOURCE. IT''S NOT THE ONLY SOURCE AND THOUGH THE INFORMATION I HAVE ON THIS IS INCOMPLETE, IT APPEARS THAT SOME DOMAINS AND SUBDOMAINS GROW FASTER THROUGH OTHER SOURCES OF POWER THAN FAITH. IF I HAD TO MAKE A GUESS, I''D SAY THAT DOMAINS AND SUBDOMAINS RELATED TO THE CREATION OF TYPES OF ITEMS PROBABLY PREFER "EXPERIENTIAL" POWER OVER "FAITH" POWER. SO IF YOU WANTED TO ADVANCE IN THE BLACKSMITHING SUBDOMAIN OR IN THE POTION-CRAFT SUBDOMAIN I''D RECOMMEND EXPERIMENTING WITH GAINING WORSHIPPERS VS ACTUALLY CREATING THINGS.]


    Althos winched at his assistant''s voice exploding in his mind for nearly a full two minutes, uninterrupted. But he did feel more knowledgable after hearing her explanation once he mentally replayed it.


    Though the godling swore he felt Samyaza quietly laughing at him.


    <hr>


    Althos was walking slowly and calmly towards the animals. He knew that wolves tended to not be friendly towards humans, but he knew that wasn''t a human or even a humanoid. He felt that his godly powers would protect him.


    After all, that''s what M.A. had told him last night.


    <hr>


    [So I awoke Silander and that boosted her intelligence significantly, as well as powered her up. What if I want to approach animals that aren''t awakened? Or other non-sapient lifeforms?]


    This seemingly random thought interrupted the two other voices the godling could mentally hear. Samyaza was unsure of how to answer that because the angel didn''t know. Even when it thought about its ancient former master, the god of serpents, poisons, and illusions named Serpiente, it couldn''t recall instances of non-sapient animals interacting with its master.


    The one who responded to this question was M.A. who had an answer that would excite Althos.


    [WELL ALTHOS, AFTER SEARCHING THROUGH SOME OF YOUR POWERS I HAVE AN ANSWER. YOU HAVE A HANDY POWER. IT''S CALLED "FRIEND OF NATURE" AND IT RENDERS WILD ANIMALS AND PLANT-MONSTERS DOCILE TOWARDS YOU. YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO APPROACH WILD ANIMALS AND PLANT MONSTERS, THE MOST COMMON NON-SAPIENT LIFEFORMS FREELY. I DON''T KNOW IF THAT POWER APPLIES TO CREATURES LIKE SLIMES, ANOTHER COMMON NON-SAPIENT CREATURE BUT WE WILL MOST LIKELY FIND OUT THROUGH EXPERIMENTATION IF WE ENCOUNTER ONE SOON. AND IN A FOREST SLIMES CAN DEFINITELY BE FOUND.]


    Her loud voice rang out in Althos''s mind, but he attentively listened and was in fact excited by her response. It emboldened him and he knew that he''d most likely leap at the next chance to encounter a wild animal that he came across.


    But the godling, after learning this, did have another question. This time directed at Samyaza.


    [If I have this power... why didn''t it do anything when I was looking for the mice earlier? You know... the mice I killed?]


    The angel did the mental equivalent of shrugging at him.


    [Honestly, I don''t know. I suppose they were either too scared of the distant noises of the attacking orcs to come out to you, or they just didn''t detect you. If someone forced me to pick, I''d say that most likely didn''t detect you. That''s my best guess at least. I had no idea that that power was a thing! How am I supposed to know this stuff?]


    <hr>


    Hours later, in the present:


    Althos quietly completed the walk over to the wolves, nearly reaching them by the time they noticed his approach. The two creatures were calm and unbothered by his closeness to them, demonstrating the power of his power to be perceived as a friend of nature.


    Althos himself was quietly surprised at how powerful the skill was. When the wolves noticed the deity they were utterly unbothered by his casual walk in their direction. They looked at him like he was a friend or maybe even a member of their pack if these two wolves were members of any such social unit.


    When he completed his approach the wolves lazily looked at him and as he looked back at them he could see the faintest signs of a question in their gaze. He wondered what they could be thinking when Samyaza offered a quiet suggestion.


    [Check out what happens when you drink some water. Maybe they are just wondering why you haven''t drunk anything yet despite approaching the river.]


    Althos quietly walked towards the river and scooped up some of the water. He lifted it to his mouth and downed it in a few quick gulps, before the wolves looked away, having lost interest in Althos.


    Althos stood near the water for a bit, wondering what to do next when Samyaza came in with another question. This time Althos could hear a bit of mischievousness in the angel''s mental voice.


    [Hey Althos... want to try something?]


    <hr>


    The trio of orcish brawlers had been quietly watching Althos for the past few minutes. They had watched him walk over to the wolves, and were moderately concerned with what might happen when he was near the creatures.


    The wolves weren''t small, even from a distance, the trio was keenly aware of the large size of the creatures, who were impressively built. But Althos approached them fearlessly, and so the orcs exhaled a shared held breath in relief when the animals seemed to idly accept the presence of their master.


    They watched as their master drank a bit of water from the river, and then stood still for a bit. From a distance, the orcish siblings quietly guessed that he was thinking about what to do next. That was when they saw something that surprised them, and would greatly influence their opinion of their master.


    <hr>


    Samyaza had somewhat jokingly decided to suggest that Althos should shapeshift.


    [Why don''t you shapeshift? M.A. mentioned that your form is dependent on what your desiresso why don''t you desire to be a wolf? Or perhaps wolflike?]


    Althos took the suggestion and ran with it. His mistake was that he desired to be wolflike, as opposed to desiring to be a wolf. His power took his conception of wolflike and ran with it. He immediately got down on all fours and willed himself to change. The results were immediate and oddly disconcerting to watch.


    He felt his body expanding in mass and in length and width causing all of his extremities to stretch in odd ways. Fur began to emerge from his previously hairless arms, chest, and legs, swiftly covering his now nude form in thick and warm protection.


    His fingernails expanded into thick and dense claws as his fingers and toes fused into solid and inflexible paws. His human face seemed to melt and then abruptly reform into that of a powerful and pitiless canine.


    The whole transformation was over in an instant, and the form was fairly uncreative. The once humanlike Althos was now a beastly creature, resembling a child''s conception of a wolf amped up to ridiculous proportions as opposed to looking like an actual, natural, wolf albeit of gigantic size.


    He measured just over 3 meters in length and was a solid 2 meters tall before he stood up on two legs. If Althos in his new form stood on two legs as opposed to using his ludicrously unwieldy form to hunt on all fours he''d probably reach Raverangos in height now due to the imperfect nature of his transformation.


    That said, the actual weapons the creature had were as dangerous as those of any other wolf or werewolf.


    The fur that covered his body was a dark red, not unlike the color of blood. He had a thick snout filled with sharp fangs that promised to cruelly shred any creature who dared oppose his will.He gained a thick and long tail made up of particularly sharp hairs that the creature could use as a weapon if he needed too, to bludgeon foes.


    His eyes retained their incredible darkness, and the creature himselffelt an eerie and new power coming from his eyes.He made it a mental priority to try and experiment with this power soon, knowing that one of his allies may know a bit about it.


    The first thing the wolf did in his new form was experiment with his paws. In his desire to be wolflike and fueled by his incorrect visualization of a wolf''s body he had crafted a form that was straight out of a child''s nightmares of wolves.


    His new form originally had fused digits, but the creature himself swiftly realized that wasn''t useful. He willed away that part of his anatomy and gave himself separate digits that were more useful, and also reflective of what wolves actually possessed.


    After taking a few steps in its newform for a few seconds, Althos quietly shifted back to the form he had when he first strolled over to the wolves.


    [That was... weird.]


    He said in a mental message to his allies.


    [I didn''t hate it, and I''ll likely try it again, but it was weird.]


    Samyaza mentally nodded at him. The angel initially thought about commenting on how childish the form was, but then thought better. So instead it made its comment constructive. Mostly.


    [Maybe you should focus on becoming a wolf next time you shift. It seems as though you focused on your own envisionment of something like wolfishness. Until you meet a werewolf or another animalistic shapeshifter and see how they transform it might be better to not go for weird hybrid forms. But that definitely wasn''t a terrible first try. Just a... weird one.]


    Althos groaned in response to that offhanded remark at the end of an otherwise constructive statement.


    The wolves idly watched the godling, not particularly reacting to its shifted form, nor particularly reacting to the godling shifting back into its more human form. Althos noticed this and got annoyed at it.


    Though he wasn''t expecting a response, the deity asked a question to the wolves.


    "What are you thinking wolves?"


    The wolves reacted to this by turning to look at each other, and then back at the godling. Then one of them, the female wolf who had a less clean coat of fur than her mate, spoke.


    "We''re thinking that you''re an odd, powerful, and little wolf."


    This unexpected development made the godling stare, wide-eyed at the wolf.


    "But it''s not like you can understand us."


    This remark came from behind the wolf, spoken by her mate. As he spoke the statement he looked at the godling with an indifferent gaze. The godling was silent for a few seconds before responding directly to the male wolf.


    "Yes, I can. I can totally understand you."


    <hr>


    In the background, the orcs were unsure of what to do, or what the creature they were serving was. But after seeing him transform into a massive, vaguely wolf-like creature they were utterly unsurprised to hear him appear to respond to what sounded like loud and deep barks from the wolves.


    Eventually, Anthus spoke, mostly to clear the silence. But his question was a good one.


    "Is he... a druid?"

 Chapter 19: Xinathor

    The city of Avalon was one of the few places in the kingdom of Sailos that as a rule was active twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. Early in the morning of the godling''s second day of life, the marketplace of that city was as active as usual.


    The marketplace of the capital city of the kingdom of Sailos was bursting with activity. This colossal part of the city was arguably as important as the gigantic palace that dominated the city''s heart. Gregory''s senses were aflame with activity as he quietly and peacefully tried to travel from one part of the marketplace to another. Being in Avalon''s marketplace was an experience unlike any other in the kingdom, and possibly even beyond.


    He could hear housewives and their children haggling with shopkeepers and traveling salespeople in a multitude of languages, all for the sake of acquiring better deals on a variety of wares. He could smell the odors of uncorked potions mixing with the pleasant scents of fresh fruit and even absorbing the dry scents of meat being roasted on a spit. which created a distinct cocktail of a smell that he knew he''d never be able to find anywhere else.


    He could see dense crowds gathering around street performers and so-called "stage magicians". As he walked by a variety of stores he realized that if he felt like he could reach out and touch an assortment of wares more than a few of which he had never seen before. He could feel the long perfected cobblestone roads and sidewalks underneath his feet.


    He loved Avalon''s marketplace. It was truly a magical place that never failed to disappoint travelers like himself.


    Now if only he could find some recently hunted meat for his wife. Vampires who got by on animal blood could only survive on fresh kills, after all. And being a considerate husband would help him help her with the move out of their cave home.


    <hr>


    Gregory walked for a few minutes, thankful for the day''s fairly overcast nature. If the human had been doing all of this walking while the sun beat down on him it would have made his mood miserable. Instead, he was in a fairly positive mood and was able to endure the rudeness of other people searching through the marketplace for deals on a variety of goods.


    Within a few minutes, he was finally nearing a butcher shop that he could see hadn''t sold out of its morning stock of fresh kills, when he saw and heard a child a bit in front of him ask her mother a curious question.


    "Mommy, what''s that?"


    The little girl was being carried in her mother''s arms and carrying a small stuffed animal in one hand. Her face was tilted upwards and a finger of hers was pointed to the sky. Her mother looked up, right as the shade on top of the two of them darkened. Her mother''s eyes opened wide, and even from a distance, Gregory could see the confusion and fear that filled them.


    He looked up himself, curious as to what could evoke such a reaction from her.


    What he saw was a dense cloud of green smog beginning to descend upon the town. And then he felt and heard others begin to notice it too.


    A cloud of death, the color of dark grass was descending upon the city of Avalon. And as it began to get closer and closer to the city, the city''s unlucky inhabitants began to smell the scent of rotting carrion. The last scent that''d ever fill their nostrils.


    <hr>


    Moments before the poison descended on the city of Avalon:


    High in the skies above the human city of Avalon, an unbelievably powerful creature sliced through the air on massive wings. Its wings were as large as buildings, and each flap of them used energy comparable to that of earthquakes and other natural disasters. The distance between the creature and the ground was measured in kilometers, and to inhabitants of the city below the only evidence that the creature was directly above them were the bursts of wind the humans felt come from directly overhead whenever the dragon flapped its mighty wings.


    The creature that sailed through the air was a massive beast, who when measured from the tip of its snout to the end of its tail came in at an astounding 90 meters long. Every part of its body was covered in dense gray scales, scales that protected it from all but the most powerful possible attacks. Its scales could deflect cannonballs and absorbed magic as readily as they absorbed physical blows from arrows, axes, or spears.


    Its wingspan dwarfed its body, coming in at about a total of 120 meters, and the wings themselves were powerful features of its body that it used offensively as much as it used its dreadful poisonous breath or its claws and fangs.


    The creature was a gigantic beast that sailed through the air undetected by the people down below. The people it was preparing to kill. Not only to kill but to slaughter wholesale.


    The creature took the powerful winds buffeting its body into account and then swiftly moved to where it predicted it could release its genocidal poisonous breath for the maximum potential death and destruction.


    As it flew through the air the creature took a second to mentally prepare its potent poison, by activating the organ located in its body that governed the chemicals responsible for the production of its attack. Seconds later it was sailing directly above the city of Avalon''s slum when it opened its mouth and began to expel its fatal weapon.


    Noxious green smoke began to escape from its lungs and maw. The smoke gently floated down, pulled by gravity and pushed by the wind towards its final destination. And then the dragon began to lazily fly back towards its lair and waited to inevitably receive the smorgasbord of notifications that would carry with them millions of experience points.


    Perhaps the scariest part of the dragon''s casual mass genocide was that it had so successfully dehumanized its prey that it viewed them as little more than walking masses of experience that it was entitled too by virtue of its overwhelming power. And the humans who were about to die could only guess as to what was responsible for their deaths because clouds obscured their vision of the flying nightmare that was ending their lives.


    <hr>


    Before Gregory noticed the cloud of death begin to fall upon the city of Avalon, some of the lucky few to survive this incident would also notice it.


    Some of thefirst people to notice the green cloud slowly descending on the city of Avalon were farmers who worked the fields right outside of the city and produced much of the produce the city went through in a year. They had been working in the fields, sweating in the heat of the sun, a heat that was only barely dulled by thin clouds when suddenly they felt a shadow fall over them. A shadow that carried with it the scent of rotting carrion.


    They looked up and saw a dense blanket of green smoke softly and slowly descending over the city they lived in. They were unsure of what it was but knew better than to stand by and do nothing. So some of them made a smart decision: they took what vegetables they could hold or stuff in their bags and ran away.


    They scattered in various directions, swiftly planning to retreat to the small towns of their birth or the distant cities they immigrated from, carrying with them vague knowledge of a dense green cloud of smoke that was minutes away from enveloping the city of Avalon.


    At the time of the genocide inflicted by the grey dragon known asXinathor, the city of Avalon had a population of about 600,000 people. Only 45 farmers fled the city in the minutes before Xinathor''s breath blanketed the city.


    <hr>


    The godling''s declaration that he could understand them did provoke a reaction from the wolves. Their faces lit up and were more expressive after they learned the godling might be able to understand them. But they weren''t convinced yet.


    The she-wolf got up and began to move a bit, hopping around as she spoke. She was clearly excited by this development and interested in confirming it.


    "Really? What am I saying? Say it back to me!"


    Commanded the she-wolf, evidently the more talkative of the two.


    "''Really? What am I saying? Say it back to me!''"


    Repeated the godling, without hesitation.


    The male wolf watched this with the canine version of an amused expression. He was less active than his mate, but he was also more powerfully built. The two wolves had similar measurements, measuring about 1.4 meters long and 75 centimeters tall, but the male wolf had thicker muscles than his companion and also cleaner fur.


    Both wolves had silver fur andmahogany-colored eyes. They were both surprised to hear the godling actually repeat what the she-wolf had said to him.


    Both wolves thought in silence for a moment before the male wolf began to speak to the godling.


    "So it''s true... Well, in that case, well-met druid!"


    The godling returned the greeting with equal ease and casualness.


    "Well-met Mr. wolf!"


    Both wolves chuckled at this and then studied the godling in silence. The godling allowed the silence and knew that they were assessing him. After a minute of silence, the she-wolf spoke.


    "Say, druid, do you want to help us with a problem we''re having? If you want we could reward you for it."


    The godling, ever the curious sort, wondered what sort of a problem a wolf might be having. That was when he heard M.A.''s voice explode in his mind, by virtue of her usual intense volume and amplified by what he recognized as legitimate excitement.


    [ALTHOS! YOU ARE BEING GIVEN A QUEST. IF YOU ACCEPT AND YOU COMPLETE IT YOU''LL BE REWARDED. THIS IS SIMILAR TO FULFILLING A PRAYER.]


    The godling made a mental note to ask about "prayer" later because he had never heard that word before. But he was intrigued by the possibility of receiving a reward for helping the wolves.


    <hr>


    [QUEST: HELP THE WOLVES.


    OBJECTIVES: EXTERMINATE THE MOST AGGRESSIVE OF THE BEARS WHO AREENROACHING UPONTHE WOLVES TERRITORY WITH EVER INCREASING REGULARITY.


    SECONDARY/OPTIONAL OBJECTIVE: DISCOVER WHAT IS BEHIND THE RECENT CHANGES TO THE BEARS BEHAVIOR.


    REWARD: EXPERIENCE TOWARDS YOUR "FRIEND OF NATURE" POWER, AND PROGRESS TOWARDS BEING ABLE TO INFLUENCE THE "ANIMAL" SUB-DOMAIN.


    PROGRESS: 0/12 BEARS.


    SECONDARY PROGRESS: 0/1 CAUSES DISCOVERED.]


    Samyaza heard the details of the quest from M.A., as Althos heard and subsequently accepted the quest from the wolves themselves, and the angel had to ask a question.


    [How does exterminating bears improve the "friend of nature" power? Please tell me I''m not the only person mystified by this...]


    M.A. responded quickly, annoyed but not disagreeing with the angel.


    [I DON''T KNOW BUT IF I HAD TO GUESS I''D SAY THAT I SUSPECT THAT THE "FRIEND OF NATURE" POWER IS EITHER INFLUENCED BY ACTUAL FRIENDSHIP WITH ANIMALS, OR THERE IS AN ELDRITCH INFLUENCE AT PLAY THAT DRIVES THE BEARS INTO THE TERRITORY OF THE WOLVES. OR PERHAPS THE EXPLANATION IS A COMBINATION OF THOSE TWO POSSIBILITIES.]You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    Samyaza mentally nodded at the Mental Assistant and realized that Althos was already trotting back to the orcs who had been watching him, confused as hell, as he spoke to the wolves.


    <hr>


    The explanation that Althos had been given by the wolves was simple. Bears, who''d long been a nuisance in this area, had recently gotten considerably more aggressive. They were beginning to regularly explore this side of the forest, which broke an informal agreement between wolves and bears who had long ago divided the forest into two halves so as to avoid unnecessary clashes.


    Althos had been asked by the wolves to exterminate the most aggressive of the bears, and if possible see what was causing this dangerous change in bear behavior.


    After Althos asked what a bear was the wolves educated him about bears, or at least gave him their perspective on the large creatures. The godling was curious as to if he knew enough and decided to operate to assume that he didn''t. But he knew all that the wolves knew. They had truthfully informed him of that being the limit of their knowledge.


    The wolves didn''t want to trap anyone or trick anyone, they just wanting to be left alone by the bears.


    The godling had readily accepted the quest and was walking back towards the orcs so as to explain what he had been asked to do.


    [Might as well get started right now, right?]


    He asked his mental companions. Both of them agreed with his rationale, and all three of the powerful creatures were interested in seeing what this reward would be.


    Something nagged at Althos though. After seeing what an awakening did for Silander, he believed in the "sapience" and "non-sapience" of creatures. After pondering this while in motion, the godling readily accepted a quest of its own making: talk to a bear and learn as much as it could about wild animals before deciding how to tackle this conflict.


    The godling was quietly and privately wondering who determined what was "sapient" and what was "non-sapient". Because he couldn''t bring himself to think of the wolves he had just spoken to as being "non-sapient".


    The voice''s in the god''s mind were abuzz with thoughts and observations. Only one of their thoughts was particularly useful. Samyaza had come up with a neat scheme to explain away how it was that the deity had transformed into a wolflike creature and then back into his normal, human-like form.


    The godling noted that that was what the wolf had called it as well.


    [What is a Druid? One of the wolves called me that as well.]


    In response to this question, M.A. responded with a cheerful and loud voice.


    [THE TERM "DRUID" REFERS TO A CLASS, A TYPE OF MAGIC-USER. THE HUMAN MAGIC-USER YOUR DEMON FOUGHT AND KILLED HAD A CLASS AS WELL AND HE WAS A MAGIC USER. HE WAS A "BARD" AND HIS MAGIC CAME FROM SINGING AND MUSIC. AS A DRUID PEOPLE WOULD THINK YOUR MAGIC CAME FROM NATURE AND GAVE YOU POWER OVER NATURE.]


    Althos accepted this explanation and realized that it was a sound explanation for his powers to someone who didn''t know the truth. He bet Ranthor would readily accept it as well, since he had been buried the archer underground.


    After hearing of Samyaza''s little plot, and accepting it, the godling resumed moving towards his next objective: reunifying his forces and giving them their first task as a cohesive unit.


    <hr>


    Within a few minutes, all of the orcs had gathered together again, and they were joined by Silander, a mud-covered Raverangos, and Althos. The diverse group of creatures was sitting right inside of the edge of where trees grew by the river, and a small fire was burningclose to Gallow, who patiently watched over the fishes they were cooking.


    The orcs and Althos''s odd pets waited to hear what the god had to say. The orcish siblings paid extra close attention, curious as to if the god would address the wolflike shape in the room.


    "Well as some of you saw, I shapeshifted earlier. And not like I did last night, where I assumed a new basic form. I transformed into a wolflike creature. Before anyone asks, I''ll go ahead and confirm what some of you,"


    As soon as Althos said "you" his eyes turned to the siblings, just for a moment but long enough for them to notice and be stunned for a second. He had noticed them staring at him earlier and he didn''t like it.


    He glared at them and the inky black pools of his eyes seemed to expand and call out to the orcs. Then after a second had passed, he stopped glaring and immediately went back to idly scanning the crew before him as he spoke. His speech wasn''t interrupted by his glaring at all.


    "may already be thinking. I''m a druid. I''m actually a fairly powerful one at that. I can easily shapeshift into a variety of forms, I can commune with nature, and my magic is capable of awakening things as small as Silander, or as large as a bear, without any real problems."


    None of the creatures who traveled with and served Althos doubted him. He struck them as a druid, in particular after he came back with Silander. For them, for him to be a druid was easily believable. But one of the orcs, Ragnor, had a question for the god. He rose his hand, like a child, and waited to be called upon.


    Within a few moments, the godling noticed his servant waiting for him to acknowledge him. The godling did so with a nod, and the conservative brawler began to speak.


    "So some of us, my brothers and I, noticed you talking to the wolves not far from us. Do you mind sharing what they said to you?"


    The godling nodded at the orc and responded quickly, before Silander, Raverangos, or the two orcs who provided their breakfast could add any extra questions.


    "They informed me about a problem they''ve been having. It seems that as of late at least a few of the bears in this forest have been... getting aggressive."


    After the godling said this, Silander quietly turned and looked behind her to watch a bear on the other side of the river. This act coupled with the look of mild concern on the creature''s face made the godling acutely aware of the fact that the frog-girl didn''t know how to fight and most likely had never fought in her life before.


    The orcs were also suddenly keenly aware of this after examining her body language, and surprisingly the person to speak up in an attempt to boost the confidence of the newest member of their group was Gallow.


    "Hey... kid. We''re with you. Bears sound scary to a creature of the forest, but we''ve dealt with worse monsters than a damn bear. Plus we have Althos and his demon. Bears? They don''t stand a chance!"


    Gallow''s attempt at improving her confidence started off a bit weak, but his voice grew in emotion and conviction as he spoke. By the time he told her that bears didn''t stand a chance before their combined might he was actually pretty compelling.


    If anything, Silander felt more convinced by the fact that the orc didn''t start off full of bravado but actually got more and more motivated as he spoke. She turned to him and smiled meekly, a bit more confidence in her body language than there had been previously.


    "You''re right. We can do this! It''s just that in my old life... bears were one of the scariest things that I''d sometimes run into. But now... with you, and the Awakener, I can overcome my old life''s trauma!"


    Bazur, the oldest of the orcish siblings, heard this and grinned at the girl. With a master like Althos and allies like Gallow and Silander, the orc was suddenly distinctly aware that life would never be boring again.


    After Silander''s bold declaration idle conversation broke out amongst the group until Gallow finished cooking the last fish.


    Right when Gallow was about to call over the group of adventurers over for breakfast, Althos, the only person facing the river, watched as the bear on the other side of the small river seemed to begin to sniff the air in front of it.


    The creature looked around as if searching for some sign of a faint yet tempting aroma and then looked directly in their direction. Even the power of the flowing water between the bear and the adventurers wasn''t strong enough to prevent their cooked meat from being noticed by a bear more than a few dozen meters away.


    Althos quietly began to walk towards the bear, right when the bear began the process of crossing the shallow water. The creature was most likely alerted to them having food somehow, probably through its nose given its initial actions.


    He sent a mental message to his companions, wondering if this was normal for a bear.


    [Is it normal for a bear to be able to pick up a scent across a flowing river? Because that appears to be what the bear did.]


    Samyaza was the one to tackle this question, and its answer was more or less what Althos himself suspected.


    [I''m inclined to say that it isn''t... flowing water masks scents pretty darn effectively.]


    <hr>


    The bearthat was slowly crossing the river was a thick creature but not a tall one. If it allowed someone to approach it and measure it they would have determined it to be about 2.7 meters across, and just 70 centimeters tall. Towards the upper end of the normal lengths of a wild brown bear, but on the bottom end of normal height for such an animal.


    The creature was only barely tall enough to walk through the small and slowly flowing river unobstructed by the water. Each of the steps it took moved it closer and closer to the godling who was himself striding towards it.


    Its fur was a light brown and it possessed powerful limbs that would probably enable it to win a one on one fight with many different humanoids. The creature''s mind was a mess and it felt an overwhelming urge to consume their fish. An urge that wasn''t powered by something as simple as hunger.


    Within a few seconds of solid striding and directly moving towards the bear, Althos stood right on the edge of the river, and directly between the creature and the rest of his companions. The bear identified the god as an obstacle in its path and moved to intimidate him.


    The creature looked at the deity, even as it waded through the water it was still in and began roaring.


    The sounds it made were breathy and filled with rage. It roared at the deity with such volume and intensity that the rest of the god''s adventuring party felt nervous and wondered if they should back up their boss. And one of them decided to do so.


    Raverangos pushed itself out of the mud it had been wallowing in for the past hour and began tomovetowards the deity it served. Because only the possibility of violence motivated the massive creature more than filth did.


    <hr>


    The bear kept roaring at the godling and the godling stared impassively at the bear that was slowly moving towards him. After nearly half a minute of the bear exerting itself in the river and roaring, the deity finally reacted to the creature. In annoyance.


    "Are you done? Because it''s really annoying to hear you roar and roar again.If you want to talk, we can. If not get over here already."


    This outburst made the bear stop roaring. It began to open its mouth and move its lips within seconds of the outburst, but this time it wasn''t trying to roar at the creature.


    After what felt like an out-of-place delay, at least in comparison to what happened with the wolves, Althos suddenly heard words. Words that may have come from the bear.


    "Am... Not... Roaring... Am... Very... Tired... And... very ANGRY."


    Althos stared at the creature, as he tried to make sense of what it was saying. The creature continued getting closer and closer to the deity, and he was aware of its growing proximity, but he also didn''t feel threatened by it.


    The voice that "spoke" the words was odd. It felt faint, tired, and alien. Althos wondered what to do, when at last the creature got close enough to rear back on its hind-legs and try to display dominance over Althos.


    The godling nonchalantly pushed the creature away with a single hand and a minimal level of force. He wasn''t meaning to hurt the creature, all he wanted to do was push it back. He succeeded in doing that, and in doing so sent the creature flying. It flew more than a few meters, before landing on the floor not far from where it had originally begun its trip across the river in an unmoving pile.


    Althos wasn''t sure if the creature was conscious or not. That was when he got a notification, one that for the first time ever he himself heard without M.A.''s assistance or facilitation.


    [QUEST UPDATE: FOR BEST POSSIBLE QUEST REWARDS REFRAIN FROM KILLING RANDOM BEARS. THE WOLVES WANT THEIR OLD PEACE BACK, AND KILLING RANDOM BEARS MAKES THAT OLD PEACE LESS LIKELY. THE BEAR YOU JUST ATTACKED IS NOT ONE OF THE BEARS YOU NEED TO KILL. THIS IS STRIKE ONE. ON THE THIRD STRIKE YOU FORFEIT THE BEST POSSIBLE QUEST REWARD. ON THE 4TH STRIKE YOU FAIL THE QUEST.]


    This notification was as loud as M.A. and was as annoying. The godling responded to this setback as well as one might expect a two-day-old creature to respond to a setback.


    "Oh damn it! I wasn''t even trying to hurt it."


    The godling needed to learn to hold back. One of his two mental companions responded to the godling''s outburst.


    [You can exert influence over the "hand to hand combat" subdomain. Your increased strength is a consequence of that. Learn to control your strength or risk failing this quest and possibly even others.]


    In response to this Althos sighed in annoyance and began to walk back towards his companions, determined to have them do the majority of the fighting for the rest of the quest.


    <hr>


    "Gregory... come home soon." Cynthia whispered, to herself.


    The lady vampire was alone in her log-cabin home. Her husband had departed a day ago to the capital city of the kingdom of Sailos, Avalon. The capital city was actually visible at the very edge of the horizon from the cave''s mouth and Cynthia sometimes passed time by staring at it, especially at night when the city''s guards lit up an array of lights to illuminate the city.


    Cynthia spent her time waiting for her husband in the safety and gentle darkness of her cave-dwelling.During her husband''s other tripsshe passed time by scribbling various things on the floor and on the walls of the cave or by visiting the nearby areas under the cover of night.


    When she scribbled doodles or created cave-art she used her own nails as her paintbrush. Her sharpened, vampiric nails easily etched markings onto the vast majority of the surfaces she had available to her. The one exception to this tradition of various surfaces giving way to her powerful nails was her log cabin.


    The wood of the log cabin didn''t budge to her assault, no matter how relentlessly she struck the wooden walls and floors of the home she shared with Gregory. After a while, she got used to this but never failed to find it odd.


    While her husband was away yesterday and today, she had passed time by visiting and then revisiting the tiny traps her husband had painstakingly constructed to capture small prey for her to feed upon. These traps were akin to non-fatal mouse traps, traps that captured animals without killing them.


    They were very simple to set up: Gregory drew a magical sigil on the ground and they either used Cynthia''s blood or a mouse''s blood to power the trap. The trap operated by emitting pleasant fragrances that only animals could smell, and when the animals walked over the traps they would become paralyzed. Cynthia would then go over to them and dine on their blood.


    The animals they had captured using the traps varied greatly, though most of the time they captured mice, cave-dwelling birds, or other such animals who are inclined to live in caves. Only rarely did something like a deer or an ox happen across the trap and get stuck there.


    Cynthia wondered if Gregory''s siblings were having fun. Avalon was always such a fun place to be.


    "Maybe next time I''ll convince Gregory to take me with him." She quietly whispered to herself. She was sure she''d see her husband return home fairly soon.

 Chapter 20: A Sudden End To The Tutorial

    Minds, even of the simplest creatures, were powerful things. The mind of a deity was exponentially more powerful than that of even the strongest non-deific creatures.


    Few creatures were more aware of the power of a god''s mind than M.A. or Samyaza, who were presently watching as new memories began to manifest themselves in the gigantic and barren mind-scape of the deity they lived in.


    A mind-scape was a mental landscape a creature generated that was influenced by its powers, mental capacity, will, and ideas. And Althos''s was weird.


    As the deity walked back towards his followers his mind was aglow with activity. And for the two creatures who lived in his mind, that manifested itself in a peculiar way.


    Samyaza, the orb angel who was Althos''s first advisor, and M.A. the strange and conscious alternative to a deity''s "system" and also that deity''s second advisor, lived inside of Althos''s mind. The mind of the deity manifested itself to them in the form of a massive and mostly barren plain.


    This plain stretched on as far as the eye could see. There were no hills, no grass, no clouds, and not even a mental approximation of a sun. Endless, flat plains were the visual representations of the god''s mind, at least to the two creatures who called the place home. The mind''s two occupants considered that this was representative of the endless potential of the god and his mind, and also the nearly complete ignorance he sprung to life possessing.


    There was no noise, no sensory activity of any kind in the strange mindscape the god had unconsciously created. It was honestly kind of eerie.


    It was largely just an empty space. Empty that is, aside from where the two immigrants were content to pass the time in the plain and from the strange decorations that littered the area the immigrants called home.


    The one occupied area of Althos''s mind was an area that the two inhabitants of the space had quietly deemed "the center" of their boss''s mind. In this place, Althos''s memories had begun to make themselves manifest.


    When Samyaza first entered the god''s mind-scape, a day ago, the only memory there had been that of Samyaza studying Althos. That memory manifested itself in the form of a gigantic and mental version of a statue depicting the event from Althos''s point of view emerging in the "center" of the plain. That mind-matter statue was of Samyaza, and it showed the angel''s metallic body in astounding detail.


    In just a day a number of memory statues had popped up, all of which equaled the statue of Samyaza in their level of detail and their quality of workmanship. And Samyaza had been inside of the deity''s mind for the emergence of nearly all the statues that had come after the one of it. Here were the ones Samyaza understood:


    There was one of Ranthor being dragged underground by realistically depicted roots, one of Raverangos roaring at Althos, one of Gallow being healed, one of Silander''s mouth opening as she spoke to Althos, one of the two wolves with their mouths open in speech, and another from just now. The last statue showed the bear that approached Althos sailing through the air before painfully crashing onto the ground.


    The only statue Samyaza wasn''t present for, "present for" in this context meaning either involved with or inside of the deity''s mind during, was the making of was a statue showing a plain wall, a wall of a hut. Samyaza recognized the wall, and it knew that it had left Althos during the time it flew high to alert any relatively nearby angels as to Althos''s existence, but it didn''t know why a scene from that time had a statue.


    Both of the deity''s advisors knew that the memories that had mind-matter statues of them were probably the memories that would shape how Althos looked at the world and would influence his actions.


    Even as the two creatures exchanged glances at each other and communicated via their minds, another statue was coming into being, slowly and brightly. This statue depicted what Althos saw as he turned around after accidentally sending the bear flying. What he saw at that moment was all of his followers aside from Raverangos, who at that point in time had begun moving towards its master to aid in a fight in case one broke out, together and sitting side by side. It was an impressive moment and it was impressively well-captured.


    That was when the two mind-inhabitants heard Althos''s voice ring out all around them.


    [Can you help me with this quest? I want to complete it and get the best possible reward for it. And given how well my last attempt at solving it went... I don''t know if I can complete it without help. I''m planning to have the orcs and the demon do the fighting, but if you help me figure out a way to use my powers I''m sure we can quickly complete this quest, get the reward, and we begin to get more servants in this forest.]


    The two mind-dwellers could hear Althos''s annoyance in his mental voice, but they also recognized that he was evidently aware of the fact that even deities were more capable when they collaborated with other lifeforms than they were alone. Both of the god''s advisors silently cheered for their immature boss, and after cheering for a second, M.A. let Samyaza respond.


    [Sure! So we can''t kill random bears huh? Then you''re gonna have to use your mind powers to chat with the next bear you find. If you want... we can teach you about mind powers, including ones that you have, which may help.]


    <hr>


    Althos didn''t react physically to that bit of news as he was explaining his plan to his followers, but his mental voice reacted loud and clear. He was excited and felt as though the mere state of knowing that he possessed those powers made him a bit less ignorant.


    [I have mind powers? That''s awesome! Yes, absolutely. Teach me all about them.]


    The mental manifestation of M.A. that lived in Althos''s mind quietly giggled at his reaction and set about doing something that she knew would make the deity''s day. She was patiently modifying both her own settings and the settings of the deity himself in a way that would make powers make a lot more sense to the young deity.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    M.A.''s mental manifestation was as strange as the creature herself.


    The god''s mental assistant manifested herself as a faceless beam of radiant blue light that had an hourglass figure. She had all of the curves of a buxom female humanoid but lacked a discernable face. In Althos''s mind, she gave herself roughly the same dimensions as Althos, coming in at around 2.8 meters tall and as uniformly muscled as the god himself.


    She had limbs, consisting of radiant blue light that in the mind of the deity had the ability to physically interact with things, but lost this ability if she left the deity''s mindscape. Her curvy blue body was hidden underneath mentally manifested clothes as if the creature herself was uncomfortable the possibility of being nude.


    The god''s other mental advisor manifested itself as its physical form. It saw no reason to try and alter its appearance while inside of the deity who was at that moment excitedly waiting to hear about how to use a subset of his own powers he didn''t know he had.


    A few moments after his excitement had passed, M.A. spoke to the deity using their mental connection.


    [ALTHOS. TAKE A SECOND AND THINK. THINK ABOUT YOUR POWERS. EVEN IF YOU JUST FOCUS ON THE ONES YOU KNOW, THAT SHOULD BE ENOUGH.]


    After she saw that, silence enveloped the mind-scape of the deity. At least for a few moments. And then they heard the deity quietly thinking.


    [Think. Think... Think!]


    Althos''s had taken M.A.''s advice quite literally.


    <hr>


    After he spent several moments thinking hard, he received a notification, in a manner and voice similar to that with which he was made aware of how he received his first strike for accidentally killing the bear.


    [NOTIFICATION: YOUR HUD CAN BE UPDATED. WOULD YOU LIKE TO UPDATE IT? UPDATING YOUR HUD WILL PROVIDE YOU WITH A VISIBLE MINI-MAP THE ABILITY TO SELECT WHICH POWERS YOU''D LIKE TO USE AND INFORMATION ABOUT STATS.]


    [YES]


    [NO]


    Althos looked at the options before him in surprise. He had never been given choices before. Nor had anything ever appeared in his vision before. Until now everything had been exclusively auditory, manifesting itself as noises for the godling to hear and not as a text for him to read.


    This "notification" manifested itself in the god''s vision not by obstructing it, but by appearing at the top of his field of view. The [YES] and [NO] blocks each appeared right below the question about updating the "menu".


    [What is HUD?]


    The godling asked, not aiming the question at M.A. or Samyaza, but at the text itself. The text responded by expanding and offering an explanation.


    [HUD STANDS FOR "HEADS UP DISPLAY". IT''S WHAT YOU CAN SEE. UPDATING YOUR HUD GIVES YOU A VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF THINGS LIKE HEALTH, MAGIC (THOUGH THAT''S LIMITLESS FOR YOU), AND STAMINA (ALSO LIMITLESS FOR YOU). YOU WILL ALSO BE PROVIDED WITH A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF YOUR POWERS AND ACCESS TO THE LIST OF SUBDOMAINS AND DOMAINS. YOUR TREMORSENSE POWER WILL MANIFEST IN THE FORM OF A MINIMAP THAT IS TRANSPARENT AND VIEWABLE IN THE BOTTOM LEFT CORNER OF YOUR VISION. ACCEPTING THIS UPDATE WILL INCREASE YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND AWARENESS.]


    After reading through the update, Althos was about to click yes when he suddenly left the desire to know what was responsible for this update. This time he received an update after just wanting to know what was up, before he could even question the text at the top of his vision.


    [M.A. MODIFIED YOUR SETTINGS, INCLUDING THE INNATE SYSTEM YOU WERE BORN WITH, AND HER SETTINGS TO CREATE THIS. M.A. WANTS YOU TO FEEL THE KNOWLEDGE AT YOUR DISPOSAL.]


    Althos still didn''t trust M.A. completely but that move was a wise one on her part, that made the deity look at her considerably more favorably. He decided to take the plunge and accept the update.


    [Yes. Update my HUD.]


    His newfound consideration for M.A. was immediately stretched and tested when the moment he accepted the update to his HUD, he immediately did the closest thing a deity could do to losing consciousness.


    It was an unfortunate coincidence that the moment the god began to update his HUD was the exact moment he turned twenty-four hours old. And therefore hit the time limit on the tutorial all gods went through immediately after they became deities.


    <hr>


    Deities didn''t lose consciousness. They did something that wasn''t dissimilar to losing consciousness, but they couldn''t be rendered completely inert due to the power of their minds and their immense wills. Instead, the strongest parts of their minds, the parts that actually controlled their divine powers, were forcibly separated from their physical forms and were temporarily transported elsewhere. These mind-forms manifested themselves as embodiments of their alignments and were often called "Avatars" of the gods whose minds they are a part of. The avatars were called to the places they were the most needed.


    And that was precisely what happened with Althos.


    One instant the deity found himself looking at the servants he had acquired over the course of the last day and a few hours, and the next instant an avatar of the deity was elsewhere.


    The place the avatar found himself in, rather inexplicably, was at the top of a massive tower overlooking a strangely industrial yet hauntingly beautiful city. He popped into existence right between a powerful devil who was beside a stoic humanoid angel, and a lowly imp who was being glowered at by a beautiful and muscular female devil.


    The humanoid angel had been about to speak, in fact, his mouth was open when the creature appeared between the two pairs. He immediately ceased his effort to speak and instead examined the new arrival. As did the man who had given him dinner, the devilish city overseer known as Master Paimon.


    The deity himself received an annoying notification in the form of a new type of alert.


    [YOUR TUTORIAL HAS ENDED. UPDATING YOUR HUD AND PROVIDING YOU FULL ACCESS TO YOUR POWERS, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY. ASSESSING SITUATION...]


    At this moment the deity noticed that time itself seemed to have frozen. But not completely. Althos could tell that the creatures around him were still aware of their surroundings, so only their bodies had frozen. Not their minds.


    [ASSESSMENT COMPLETE.


    SITUATION IS DIRE. PROVIDING YOU WITH A CAMPAIGN TO ILLUMINATE THE PATH FORWARD.


    CAMPAIGN: SUBJUGATE THE DEVILISH CITY OF BASTILLE.


    OBJECTIVES: OVERTHROW MASTER PAIMON, THE CITY''S DESPOTIC TYRANT WHO LORDS OVER IT WITH AN IRON FIST AND INSTALL YOURSELF AS THE CITY''S NEW OVERLORD.


    REWARD: AN IMMEDIATE RETURN TO YOUR BODY, AND ALL OF THE POWERS OF AN ARCH-DEVIL. IF THE CAMPAIGN IS NOT INTERRUPTED NO TIME WILL HAVE PASSED BETWEEN THE TIME YOU ACCEPT THIS CAMPAIGN AND THE TIME YOU COMPLETE IT. IF YOU LEAVE THE DIMENSION THIS TIME-STOP EFFECT IS NULLIFIED.


    FIRST QUEST: ESCAPE THE LAIR OF MASTER PAIMON.


    OBJECTIVE: ESCAPE MASTER PAIMON''S INFERNAL TOWER.


    PROGRESS: 0/616 FLOORS DESCENDED


    REWARD: CONTROL OVER THE LOWLIEST OF DEVILS, THE PATHETIC CREATURES REFERRED TOO AS SOUL-ORBS.]


    And at that moment, as if the city''s devilish overlord had heard the campaign notification himself, which he may well have, the devil known as Master Paimon smiled cruelly at the newest creature to enter the penthouse suite of the vast tower he had built himself in the past. The tower was built so long ago that at the time of its construction the gods themselves still roamed the multiverse.


    "Well well well... to think I''d live during the first age of the gods and also live to see the day a new god graced the multiverse."


    Master Paimon''s voice was filled with sinister enthusiasm. And as soon as he finished speaking he began to move towards Althos, his hands outstretched so that he may touch what he believed would be his newest prize.


    And in that moment, for the first time since he sprung to life, the deity was filled with knowledge. And after taking a second to examine the situation unfolding in front of him, he opened his mouth to speak.

 Chapter 21: Flight

    Althos had taken on a new appearance as one of the consequences of being abruptly removed from his physical body and now existing as a divinely powered avatar. In the hellish world of Infernius, the godling from the mortal plane of existence no longer looked human.


    Instead, his current form was that of a 2.8-meter tall creature who was humanoid in shape and not much else. Half of his skin was white, and the other half was black. There was no symmetry between the two halves even without taking into account the differing skin colors, as the rest of his body was a swirling mess of shifting body parts.


    His body parts, seemingly at random, shifted in their length and their density. And his new body radiated power, particularly physical power.


    His new form was built for martial combat. He possessed thick arms that freely shifted between battle-hardened hands, and would suddenly transform into blades and other weapons of various sizes. His legs were thick and his feet themselves also shifted between ending in human-like feet and ending in blades as if the godling himself were about to use his legs to stab someone.


    <hr>


    Adrenaline flooded the senses of the godling, as he felt time itself seem to slow to a crawl. One of the two creatures in front of him approached, and in the adrenaline flooded mind of the godling, the creature was moving incredibly slowly. Its hands were outstretched, and they ended in sinister-looking claws.


    The creature who was moving towards Althos was the dreaded devilish overlord Master Paimon himself.


    Master Paimon had a grim grin etched on his elderly face. His cat-like eyes were alive with joy and filled with cruelty as he seemed to be imagining the tortures he''d inflict on the god he most likely believed was weaker than he was. To a mortal that assessment might have sounded haughty, but Althos''s quick assessment of the magical energy the mighty devil in front of him was radiating suggested that the devil''s power was the real deal. This assessment sped the reaction of the godling.


    The godling took a second, a single beat, to gather divine power and magical energy and store it in his throat. He compressed the two into thin, metaphysical slices before beginning to mix them. When they were nice and mixed he felt ready to unleash them.


    At that moment the godling opened his mouth and spoke. He uttered a single word.


    "Enough."


    As he spoke a wave of power flowed out from his mouth and spread out in every direction. All four of the other inhabitants were slammed by the divine energy and gritted their teeth in an attempt to withstand it. They didn''t succeed.


    The power radiating from the godling''s voice was enough to cause the lesser inhabitants of the room, the normal devils and the angel to freeze in place. It even stunned Master Paimon for a second, just long enough for Althos to get his bearings.


    <hr>


    In the moment that Master Paimon was actually frozen, Althos mentally accepted the first of what promised to be several quests and instantly received another notification.


    [YOU HAVE JUST RECEIVED SEVERAL NOTIFICATIONS. FOR THE TIME BEING, THEY HAVE BEEN HIDDEN. IF YOU ESCAPE THE TOWER, MASTER PAIMON''S HOME, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO READ THROUGH THEM AT WILL. THEY ARE SKILLS, FEATS, AND MORE THAT WILL BE INDISPENSABLE TO OVERTHROWING MASTER PAIMON. ALL BUT THE MOST URGENT NOTIFICATIONS YOU GET DURING THIS QUEST WILL BE SIMILARLY HIDDEN AND SUBSEQUENTLY REVEALED AFTER COMPLETION OF THE QUEST.]


    The time it took for the godling to read the notification wasn''t long at all but it was long enough for Master Paimon. The devilish overlord regained the ability to move after enduring the godling''s divine voice and continued reaching forward to touch Althos.


    Upon noticing that the devilish overlord had regained his ability to move, Althos leaped backward, in the direction of the imp and the devilish police officer.


    Master Paimon roared, and though the sound was painful for those in his penthouse to hear, it was actually an indicator that the devilish overlord was filled with excitement. Specifically, the overlord was excited about the fact that the godling didn''t roll over and accept his fate. Then the devilish overlord spoke.


    "What will you do, little godling? You are alone here. And I am not."


    Hearing that made the godling realize something: since he arrived in this mysterious place he hadn''t heard any remarks by M.A., or by Samyaza. The godling physically reacted to that, his eyes going wide and his divine heart beating a bit faster than it had been before. He sent out a distressed mental message, hoping to get a response.


    [Hey! Can anyone hear me?!]


    He was met with mental silence, and he realized that for the second time since after the creature was joined by Samyaza his mind was occupied by him and him alone. The silence was mildly frightening, but the creature had gained mountains of knowledge in the span of a few seconds, and his greatly enhanced brain was considering what options he had at the speed of the sound.


    Althos swiftly assessed the situation he was in. His assessment made him aware of possible escape routes, like taking someone hostage and trying to get them to let him out of the tower that way. Or he could try to escape via an elevator and probably be stopped on every floor until he had killed hundreds of devils or died or was captured by them.


    By the time he finished analyzing over a dozen possible routes out of the tower, his assessment had only really brought with it onelegitimate option: to fly out.


    He made an on the fly assessment of his situation and noticed something handy: the other creatures hadn''t really moved. He wondered if they realized that probably they could move again, and he noticed that the imp and the police officer weren''t friendly towards each other.


    He concluded this by examining their body language and took a shot in the dark with relatively little information.


    It was a good thing he was right.


    That single significant observation and his ability to make a decision on the fly spurred him to do what he did next.


    <hr>


    Helena, the devilish police officer who had detained and brought Salifinos to Master Paimon hours earlier, never expected the reward she''d get for her efforts. It happened just seconds after the godling who had suddenly appeared in front of her and the imp she was beside and glowering at leaped backward.


    Althos gave the devil and her unhappy ward a quick glance and realized that they weren''t really processing what was unfolding before them quickly. And this presented an opportunity for the quick-witted deity.


    He took a quick breath and called upon the one subdomain he had a bit of influence over. Hand-to-hand fighting. This caused an explosive change in the penthouse suite.


    The deity wassuddenly imbued with an aura of power, one that visibly covered his entire body but was especially concentrated in his fists and his legs. They gave him a more divine appearance befittinga god by turninghis skin a wider variety of splendid colors than the meek shades of white and black they had been before.


    The deity''s newest demonstration of his power caused those around him to unconsciously step back, as if they were scared to approach him.


    The deity subtly grinned at the creatures who had just unconsciously retreated from him and then sprung into action faster than anyone present could react to.


    He threw a powerful punch at the devilish police officer at such a speed that it stunned everyone present and no one could react in time to the swift thinking of the deity.


    The devilish police officer took the blow in her stomach, and much like other victims of that same dreadful punch was powerfully affected by it. She was lifted off of the ground by the force of the blow, and felt an immense pain overwhelm her senses. It took an incredible amount of will for her to not lose consciousness.


    When she landed a few meters away from where she was previously, she spat out a fair amount of devilish ichor that was a devil''s approximation of blood and fell to her knees. She looked up, her eyes filled with rage and memorized the godling''s face. An unnecessary act, given that no one else in Infernius would have a face like that.


    The deity quickly sprung into motion after the punch and grabbed the just released imp. After manhandling the imp onto his back and mentally urging the imp to hold onto him, the god began to run towards the penthouse balcony, intending to throw himself out of it.


    Before he reached the window he whispered to the imp.


    "If I stay here I''m doomed, and if you stay I doubt your conditions would be any better than mine. So I''m escaping. I recommend you escape with me."


    The imp heard his words and though he was far from fond of the circumstances he found himself in, Salifinos was painfully aware that theleast unpleasantway out of their shared circumstances was if he collaborated, even temporarily, with the godling who was presently charging at a window. That was until he realized that the godling intended to jump out of the window.


    The imp intended to shout something along the lines of the following:


    "Don''t jump! You''ll get us killed!"


    But he was too slow to do that, because the godling crossed a distance of several meters in a millisecond, and forced the imp to prioritize holding on and hopefully figuring something out along the way.


    <hr>


    The devilish overlord of Bastille reacted when he saw the godling attempting tohurl himself out of the window. The reason the overlord reacted was that he knew of a particular rule he himself had put in place within the city. No creature within the city could fly, and though some creatures were otherwise immune to damage that came about as a result of falling, all creatures within the city were subject to both gravity and falling damage.


    The overlord was under the impression that the godling would be killing himself if he leaped out of that window. And so Paimon screeched in anger and lashed out at the godling with his significant magical might. He extended a hand in the deity''s direction as if merely extending a limb in the general direction of the deity would be enough to stop the speedy creature.


    Moments later massive tendrils of darkness exploded out of the outstretched hand of the devil and chased after the godling. They roared and hissed in eerie manifestations of the devil''s own feelings at that moment as they devoured the floor rugs and other small valuables that littered the unkempt penthouse suite, and inched closer and closer to Althos.


    The godling barely paid them any mind, and instead outstretched his own hands in the direction of the nearest window. He himself also shouted, his voice a powerful weapon in its own right, and then a second later thick gouts of wicked flames the color of jade exploded from his hands in the direction of the window that stood between him and freedom.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    The fires increased the temperature in the penthouse suite by several degrees, heating the room so thoroughly that even the injured police officer who was on her knees and glaring at the godling felt it while many meters away from the flames.


    The deity was closing in on the window with every passing instant and began to laugh maniacally as the window started to melt underneath the blistering heat of the fire he was hurling at it. Within moments the window had melted completely, and Althos was millimeters from leaping out of it.


    The deity wasn''t afraid, nor did he hesitate. As he jumped out into the open air he felt a thick wind blowing against him, and he spontaneously generated thick wings.


    This was an impressive display that showcased a more enhanced, unconscious understanding of his shape-shifting powers than he had just hours ago, due in part to the update his system went through just minutes ago.


    He began to flap the newly formed wings in an effort to gain control over what would otherwise become a swift and painful fall if he did nothing. And he tried and tried to gain control over his rapid descent towards the ground.


    And he wasn''t succeeding.


    <hr>


    Althos had leaped out of the window and felt wind greet him and push back against him for his reckless bravery. This would contribute to his lackadaisical response to sailing through the air even after his response to the might of gravity failed to stop his descent in a few moments.


    He immediately began to descend due to the power of gravity andhoped that his newly formed wings would start to help him out quickly.


    Within an instant large and powerful batlike wings had grown from his back and he was flapping them in an attempt to gain control over his free fall. He wasn''t succeeding.


    But at this point, the young deity wasn''t panicked. Instead, the deity wrongly felt that he had time to examine his surroundings since the ground was all the way below him. He quickly looked at his surroundings and was amazed at what he saw.


    Outstretched before him was the sleek and modern city of Bastille. He could, at a glance, count hundreds, if not thousands of different buildings and hegot the sense, due to the density of the buildings, that the population of the city numbered in the thousands.


    The vast skyline in front of him was made up of a multitude of vast buildings, each of which served different purposes for the city. The sky itself was a dark shade of brown without any stars, and the only source of light that shone on the city was a single gigantic moon in the distance. Its light shone down on the city and illuminated the innumerable buildings an eerie shade of purple.


    The godling could smell an unholy mixed scent of exotic, devilish food and infernal runoff produced by a city that trafficked in souls even in mid-air. It was a powerful scent that nauseated the deity, even though it had no discernible effect on the panicking imp who was hanging on to Althos.


    All he could hear that high up was the sound of wing rushing at him from below, and the hisses of the animated darkness chasing him from on high.


    His innate curiosity lit up his mind over the city, for a second before he realized that he was still falling and still flapping his wings in a failed effort to gain control over a situation that was rapidly becoming dire.


    [URGENT NOTIFICATION: MASTER PAIMON HAS DISABLED THE POWER OF FLIGHT WITHIN THE BOUNDARIES OF HIS CITY. HOWEVER: YOUR STATUS AS A DEITY RENDERS YOU IMMUNE TO CONDITIONS WHICH IMPEDE MOVEMENT. REGRANTING YOU THE POWER OF FLIGHT EFFECTIVE IN


    3...


    2...


    1...]


    As this notification was scrawling across Althos''s field of vision the godling was forced to listen to the screeching imp, who was terrified out of his mind at the prospect of dying a painful death by hitting the ground over two kilometers below them.


    Even when the notification vanished from his sight, his flapping wings weren''t aiding him. So he drew them around himself and waited for a second before he tried again.


    Behind him, Master Paimon''s tendrils were still chasing after the escaping duo. But that wasn''t Althos''s main concern at that moment.


    The deity was panicking as he saw the ground quickly approaching him. He knew that each passing nanosecond brought him closer and closer to a painful fate if he didn''t get this situation under control.


    He thought quietly and urgently to himself for a moment before daring to try to fly again.


    [Come on... come on!]


    And then he unfurled his wings and willed them to flap as mightily as they possibly could. And this time he successfully saved himself.


    The deity was less than 250 meters from the ground when he successfully gained control over his wings and stopped a rapid freefall towards the ground. At the zenith of his free fall, he had been over 2 kilometers high.


    He righted himself and stopped falling downwards. He hovered for a second and looked at the dark tower he had just escaped.


    The gigantic edifice was imposing, that''s for sure. It was built ontop of a hill, like a sort of natural dais for the city''s unholy throne. It was composed of dark metal that seemed to hungrily devour even meager amounts of light shone on it by the mock moon that flooded the city with eerie light. It was two kilometers tall, and the deity could make out countless outward-facing dark windows, windows that faced the city below.


    It was hard, even for the deity and his amazing sight, to be certain but the deity swore he could see dark shapes inside the window peering out at him and the imp.


    After he looked at the tower for but a moment the tendrils of darkness began to get near him. In response to their proximity he turned and used explosive muscular power to send himself hurtling towards the city the tower overlooked.


    He breathed a sigh of relief as he realized that the tendrils were unable to match his explosive speed. And he was annoyed to realize that the imp hadn''t stopped his fearful screeching even though he had stopped their free fall. Then the deity received a new notification.


    [GIVEN THE WAY YOU ESCAPED THE TOWER, THE QUEST IS BEING MODIFIED SLIGHTLY.


    NEW OBJECTIVE: REACH A PLACE OF TEMPORARY SAFETY.


    PROGRESS: YOU AREN''T THERE YET. SEEK OUT THE CATHEDRAL OF THE DARK SAINT.]


    The imp began to calm down as he realized that Althos wasn''t falling anymore. The tiny creature was still hyperventilating, but that was preferable to the creature''s incessant screeching.


    Althos twisted in the air for an instant, just to determine whether or not he needed to speed up. He was outpacing the tendrils, which were as thick as trees, and knew that as long as Master Paimon couldn''t or wouldn''t fly they wouldn''t catch up with him.


    That didn''t mean that Master Paimon did nothing though. The master of the city ran to the edge of the penthouse suite, where Althos had just broken a window and loudly spoke. He used his lordship over the city as a way to magically magnify his voice, expanding it so that the entire city could hear him.


    "Run little Godling. Run far and run fast. Because I know you exist. And I''m gonna find you. One way... or another. So run. And keep on running. You are no match for me. And one day I''m gonna find you. My name is Paimon. Remember it."


    His voice was filled with sadism, and it sent a chill down Althos''s spine. The deity felt fear, legitimate fear, for the first time since he sprung to life.


    Althos quickly took stock of his situation. He was flying blind and he needed information. Fortunately, he wasn''t alone.


    "Alright, imp. I have helped and am helping you, and now it is time to return the favor. Tell me about the Cathedral of the Dark Saint."


    After nearly a minute of continued hyperventilation, the imp finally began to truly calm down. When he was calm enough to speak intelligently the imp thought about what Althos said. After thinking about it, the imp had a few questions of his own.


    "The Dark Saint? That legend? I take it that''s your destination?"


    The god''s responses to the imp''s own questions were curt. He just wanted knowledge, not to be questioned.


    "Yes. I don''t know what a legend is. And yep. And before you ask, it''s a quest."


    Upon learning that it was a quest the imp''s eyes went wide for a second and then he uttered a sound that indicated that he wasn''t surprised, at least not truly. Then the imp spoke again and gave the godling the sense of direction he needed.


    "The Cathedral of the Dark Saint is a small chapel, it''s an ironic name, located outside of Bastille. If your quest is telling you it''s a safe place it''s probably because Paimon would hesitate to send minions outside of the city, where the less humanoid looking devils, devils that he hates, live. I know you have questions, but for now, we should just fly straight ahead. The Cathedral is a few kilometers ahead of us, directly facing andindirectly issuing a challenge to Paimon''s massive tower."


    The godling sped up and rocketed through the air over the city.


    <hr>


    The voice of the dark overlord who ruled over the city suddenly flooding it indiscriminately, from the richest galas to the darkest alleyways, caused a number of devils to come out of the buildings they were in an attempt to examine whoever the overlord was addressing.


    Devils big and small, strong and weak, intelligent and stupid alike all left the relatively routine of their buildings for a second to see who had caused their overlord to amplify his voice like that. They were surprised when they saw a figure sailing through the air over their city.


    The black-winged figure was a blur as he sped through the sky, never once speaking to the crowd examining him or turning to change directions. He was apparently sailing straight from one end of the city, where the tower was, to somewhere beyond the city. His mysterious destination was wherever theominously named Cathedral of the Dark Saint was located.


    <hr>


    A few of the seedier devils grinned at the sight of the deity rocketing through the sky above their city. In him and his dramatic exodus from the tower of Paimon, they could see the earliest signs of potential. The smartest and seediest devils began to sneakily mentally reach out to what few spies had successfully infiltered the devilish government.


    They were looking to see what, if anything, they could uncover about the first creature to fly over Bastille in millennia and figured that anything that riled up Paimon was worth knowing about.


    <hr>


    The city below Althos was a blur. As he zipped across it he could identify tall, modern buildings but he couldn''t make out any specific details about their construction or their odd features.


    The godling''s kinetic vision was incredible but the buildings were purposefully designed to throw off any attempts at identification of their inhabitants or features from someone who was moving incredibly fast. Optical illusions were painted onto them, and they themselves were spread out in a way that made them emerge one after the one in a way that distracted any quick attempts to examine them.


    Eventually, the godling gave up and focused on crossing the vast distance between his current location and the dark cathedral.


    And before he knew it he broke through the limits of the city, sailing over the outskirts and seediest slums the city had to offer. Then he was rather suddenly sailing over a vast and possibly infinite sea of sand.


    The scene beneath him had changed so dramatically and speedily that it felt like he just flew out of a portal that concealed the exact entrance in and out of the city.


    <hr>


    Within minutes the godling was out from over the city and now flew over seemingly uninhabited land. He took a moment to study the terrain beneath him, curious about it, before looking off in the distance. And off in the distance, he saw a little abnormality.


    "Is that it?"


    Althos asked a question to the imp who was now calmly sitting on his back. Althos didn''t quite know this for sure but he suspected that since they were outside of the city''s limits that odds are the imp could fly on his own. Althos didn''t particularly care one way or another and calmly accepted his passenger.


    "That small building? Way out there? Yep."


    The two of them were referring to a tiny dot that was barely visible in the distance. It was a dark spot on an otherwise sandy landscape. The territory outside of the city appeared to be a vast desert, one filled with massive hills and dips that appeared to be as deep as a few hundred meters.


    And occasionally the monotony of sandy hills and mountains were broken by the devastation caused by the emergence of a large whirlpool of swirling sands like the territory was originally a gigantic ocean or something.


    The "small building" the two unlikely bed-fellows were referring to was a small dot, a tiny blemish, on the otherwise completely sandy terrain. Or at least in the distance, over a few kilometers away it appeared to be a "small building". It greatly stood out to the eye, since it was a dark dot on an otherwise complete sea of yellow.


    Althos sped towards the mysterious destination, pushing his wings to the limit. Soon enough the duo began to get closer the dark dot. In a few seconds, they were close enough to faintly make out a lone figure dressed in white, seemingly waiting for something, perhaps for them, right in front of the chapel.


    <hr>


    The devilish acolyte named Tristan hadn''t been waiting outside of the dark cathedral for long when she saw something in the eternal night''s sky begin to swiftly approach her. The creature slicing through the sky was moving at a speed that even her vision had difficulty keeping track of.


    She would have to wait for less than a minute before the creature reached her. And she wondered what the creature would do upon arriving at the nearly abandoned church she oversaw. Hopefully something like reward her faith and her dedication to the ancient prophecy that had dictated that the cathedral would need to be built and maintained in the first place.


    <hr>


    As Althos neared the small chapel he got the first bit of good news he had gotten since he first arrived in this new location.


    At last, Althos received a notification he had been waiting for since he first soared through the city nearly 25 minutes ago.


    [QUEST COMPLETE. YOU SUCCESSFULLY REACHED THE CATHEDRAL OF THE DARK SAINT. PREPARING WITHHELD NOTIFICATIONS. THE FIRST NOTIFICATION WILL BE THAT OF THE QUEST REWARD, AND THEN WE SHALL GO BACKWARDS FROM THERE. ALSO: INITIATING NEW HUD. NEW HUD WILL GO LIVE AS SOON AS YOU SORTED THROUGH ALL OF THE NOTIFICATIONS.]


    Shortly after that Althos acquired a slew of notifications, the first of which was incredibly exciting.


    [NEW TRAIT ACQUIRED: TRUE-DEVIL.


    TRUE-DEVIL GRANTS DEVILDOM TO THOSE WHO ACQUIRE IT. YOU ARE NOW A DEVIL AS WELL AS A DEITY AND CAN COMMAND ANY DEVILS OF A LOWER RANK THAN YOU. FOR NOW, THAT IS LIMITED TO ONE KIND OF DEVIL: THE SOUL-ORB.


    CURRENT RANK: 1.


    NEW SPELLS AND POWERS GRANTED BY THIS NEW TRAIT: NONE. FOR NOW.]


    As soon as Althos tapped this notification out of the way he noticed his closeness to the chapel and came to a sudden stop, just meters away from both the chapel and the mysterious figure waiting for him.


    She was a devil clad in white. And she wasmaniacally, fanatically grinning.

 Chapter 22: Tristan

    A long time ago:


    A little girl was sleepily struggling to keep her eyes open. She was seated on the warm lap of a large creature, a creature who looked like a strange fusion of a moth and a human. He had the lower body of a muscular human warrior and the head of a gargantuan moth.


    His countless eyes speedily scanned a book that he was holding in front of the two of them. The book was a treatise on what it dubbed the "perfected approach to spreading evil".


    The little girl''s father considered this hefty and academic tome to be a perfect bedtime story for the girl. He valued her evil education after all, and if she fell asleep listening to methodical explanations and evaluations of evil, perhaps she would one day embody a perfected approach to evil herself even in her unconscious and most minute actions.


    He saw that his daughter was losing her quietfight against sleep, and so he decided to impart some final words of wisdom to her before she fell asleep.


    "Remember Tristan, true evil concerns itself not with one''s lineage. It cares not for one''s wealth or social standing. It merely concerns itself with the spread of misery and the advancement of darkness. To the truly evil, the soul of a beggar is as valuable as that of an emperor, and both deserve to be treated as treasures."


    Tristan fell asleep pondering those words, wondering how in Infernius someone could decide that the soul of a beggar had the same worth as the soul of even a merchant, and infinitely more confused by the idea that the souls of a beggar and an emperor could be equal.


    <hr>


    Tristan openly studied the bizarre creature in front of her. It was casually hovering in front of her its eerie eyes watching her with equally open and transparent curiosity.


    Its wings were constantly flapping, despite the fact that it was using magic to hover. Aside from its wings the rest of its movements appeared to be careful and deliberate as if the act of expending unnecessary energy were somehow contrary to its instincts.


    The creature was an odd being, a tall and vaguely humanoid-like creature, at least in shape. It was nude and in its current form appeared sexless. It had a well-defined and muscular body, and its extremities, aside from its head, would change in length and density every few seconds. A lesser mind than Tristan''s would have wondered if such changes were random or uncontrollable but she knew better than that.


    Its skin was unlike anything she had ever seen. Half of its skin was the color of an alabaster statue, and the other half was the color of charcoal. The color changed seeming to follow an invisible line that went down the middle of its forehead, which meant that both of its hands, ears, and feet were a different color. Its two eyes were the opposite color of whatever color its skin on that side was, so its alabaster-toned half had a charcoal-colored eye and its charcoal half had an alabaster eye.


    The creature was more than an odd sight though. It was also a divine being, and though that knowledge might escape many other devils it was something that she was keenly aware of. She knew that one day an odd creature capable of flight would visit the Cathedral she and her father had built in the distant past, and that was part of why she had spent the last few millennia living in the small chapel.


    <hr>


    Althos studied Tristan and was impressed with her courage. The devil was odd. She was studying him with the same intensity and the same openness he was studying her with. Though Althos had no way of knowing this, as he had no frame of reference, she was only as brave as the average true-devil.


    She was a devil who wore the white robes of a religious habit. Her face, the only part of her that was exposed to the deity''s vision had an amber-like complexion and she had piercing heterochromatic eyes. One of her eyes was a deep and all-consuming scarlet color, so pretty much a mirror image of the eyes of Althos''s physical body. The other eye was a little bit more human-like with a green iris, black pupil, and grey sclera.


    Her eyes contained a multitude of emotions, but they also contained an unsetting level of zeal that set off mental alarms in Althos''s mind. He could feel an intense aura of belief coming off of her, but he was unsure of what it was that she believed in.


    His version of common-sense suggested that she believed in the "Dark Saint" for whom the cathedral was probably built, assuming this tiny chapel was, in fact, the cathedral.


    The two spent nearly thirty seconds sizing each other up before Althos spoke.


    "Is this the Cathederal of the Dark Saint?"


    His voice was low and was radiating divine power. He was aware that it seemed to leak out of this new form, but Althos''s enhanced intuition told him that this posed no harm to him. For now, he had no choice but to trust that intuition and knew that being scared into inaction would only cost him.


    The devil''s maniacal grin belied her studious nature and impossibly that grin only grew wider when she heard Althos correctly identify this location.


    "Yes, it is! I welcome you, mysterious creature, to the first church of the Dark Saint. My name is Tristan and I am the head-priestess of this church. "


    The devil''s voice was enthusiastic and warm, traits that he wouldn''t have suspected after meeting Paimon and the devilish police officer who had detained the imp on his back.


    Althos was silent as he pondered what to do from here. The silence fell on the odd trio, for a few moments before Tristan felt annoyed by it and suggested a logical course of action.


    "Perhaps, mysterious flying one, we should go inside and have a conversation outside of the brutality of the elements? I predict that a sandstorm might be happening soon. Paimon tends to stir those up when he''s upset, and whatever course of events led you here was sure to upset him."


    Althos considered this rational suggestion before politely nodding his acceptance of it.


    He wondered how someone out here in the devilish desert knew of Paimon''s powers, given that this was several kilometers away from the modern metropolis he and the imp on his back had just escaped from. But then he quickly assumed that if anyone lived out here they''d at least have heard of Paimon given his status as an iron-fisted overlord of a massive city.


    The imp, feeling thoroughly forgotten in all of this, spoke up as Althos began to slowly fly towards the devilish nun. As he spoke he climbed up Althos''s back and showed his head to the nun.


    "I am Salifinos! And I will not be ignored! You two have a lot of nerve to be talking like I am not here!"


    The devilish nun patiently listened to the imp''s outburst and let out a soft giggle. Then she spoke.


    "Mr. Salifinos, I am not ignoring you! I didn''t even know you were there. I deeply apologize, and I hope you''ll participate in whatever conversation we have inside of the chapel."


    Her words and tone were contrite if a bit direct. This admission of ignorance on her part coupled with her apology and her encouragement of his participation in the soon-to-happen indoor conversation placated the imp who sighed and glared at the back of Althos''s head.


    The godling himself was silent, but Salifinos knew better than to challenge a creature who penetrated the defenses of a devilish police officer with a single hit. Imps survived because they were wise and knew better than to antagonize more dangerous creatures. And Althos was infinitely more dangerous than Salifinos.


    The trio approached the chapel. This also gave Althos his first examination of it.


    The chapel itself was a small building made out of a dark material that appeared to be the devilish equivalent of bricks. It was a few dozen meters tall and at the top of it, it had a thin roof that seemed to exist to protect it from the sand that would otherwise probably dirty its floor.


    From the outside, Althos could see a single pair of currently closed stone doors that led inside andif he looked up to the roof of the building he could barely make out a thin weather vane as well as a chimney.


    <hr>


    A few minutes later Althos, Salifinos, and Tristan were seated around a small table, inside of a small room inside the chapel. While they were silent they could hear the wind outside starting to pick up.


    Hearing this seemed to have had an adverse effect on Tristan''s mood. She had been the last to sit down because shortly after having had heard the wind begin to get noisy she excused herself for a moment to go out and send a mental message to someone.


    She made no effort to disguise this action, in fact, she proclaimed it to them before she left, and Althos wondered if such honesty were an idiosyncrasy of hers or a common trait among devils.


    Without knowing more creatures like her, more devils, he wouldn''t be able to make that determination so, for now, he decided to make a mental note of her actions and compare them to other devils when he met them.


    After Tristan came back she joined them at a small table which had barely enough room for the three odd creatures. Althos looked around and decided to be forthright with the devils.


    While others, especially lesser beings, may have hesitated this was an easy decision for the decisive creature. He remembered that hehad been aided by Salifinos and had been instructed by his updated system that this was supposedly a safe place.


    He was the first to speak once everyone was gathered and did so proudly.


    "I thank you, Tristan, for your hospitality. My name is Althos and I am a deity. I am also, for now at least, a refugee who fled from the city of Bastille. But in time... I intend to make it mine."


    Salifinos stared blankly at the deity. The imp had no clue why the deity had decided to be honest. It was a decision that to the deceitful imp made little sense. But when he turned his gaze from the godling to the self-proclaimed "head priestess" his impression of the deity shifted slightly.


    Tristan was impressed by the deity''s boldness. To her, it made sense for the deity to feel free to be honest, since she didn''t pose a threat to him, and she doubted the imp posed a threat either. And her slightly higher estimation of the deity shone through on her face. She decided to speak after thinking in silence for a few moments.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    "Well Althos, then I suppose I should inform you of the tale of the Dark Saint."


    This made Salifinos groan in annoyance.


    <hr>


    "Why would you bore a living god, with a tale of the ancient leader of Infernius?"


    Salifonos chided Tristan, annoyed and bored with the idea of rehearing that ancient story.


    Tristan rolled her eyes at the imp, disappointed but not surprised that the imp had that common and inaccurate understanding of the prophecy. She didn''t feel like correcting him, so instead she focused on Althos.


    Althos had also ignored the imp''s outburst, and this caused the small creature to let out a pathetic noise and threaten to storm off. Tristan was delighted by Althos''s stoic response and took it as a sign to proceed with a slightly falsified version of the prophecy that had dominated her life.


    Althos was interested in knowledge and was curious as to why this chapel was located far out in the devilish wilderness. He was also using this time, this moment of rest, to sort through a multitude of notifications, which meant that he had two reasons to be silent, not just one. But he was willing to deceive Tristan if it aided him, and she seemed ready to educate him as to this "myth".


    <hr>


    As Tristan began spinning her yarn she also began to silent cast a mystical spell. This spell was potent and when it took effect it called into being a thin and transparent green mist that surrounded the three people gathered around the table. This silenced Salifinos, who was wary of the mist but also intrigued by it.


    "In the ancient past, Infernius didn''t exist. Or rather... Infernius as its known now didn''t exist."


    The mist transformed around them, changing from a thin layer of green gas into a picture-like image of a gigantic rocky mountain. They were at the "bottom" of this illusionary mountain and the imagegradually floated upward, unveiling more and more of this non-existent mountain to them.


    Tristan continued her telling the myth, and Althos and even Salifinos appeared to be interested in her version of it due to her interesting illusionary magic.


    Althos was listening to the story and could see the mist but only through a filter. He was taking this time to finally sort through a multitude of notifications. The first notification Althos received was a new one, one that had popped up in the aftermath of Althos nearly crashing into Tristan.


    [NOTIFICIATION: MYSTERIOUS ENTITY DUBBED "M.A." BY ALTHOS HAD CONFIGURED THE AFOREMENTIONED DEITY''S NOTIFICATIONS SO THAT ONLY A HANDFUL FILTERED THROUGH. GIVEN THE CIRCUMSTANCES, SETTINGS ARE AT LEAST TEMPORARILY RETURNED TO THEIR DEFAULT MODES. FROM HERE ON OUT, NOTIFICATIONS WILL BE DISPLAYED VISUALLY AND AFTER NEARLY CRASHING INTO THE HALF-DEVIL NAMED TRISTAN A DECISION HAS BEEN MADE: ALL FUTURE NOTIFICATIONS WILL BE TRANSPARENT SO AS LESSEN THE ODDS THAT ANY FUTURE NOTIFICATIONS MAY CAUSE A COLLISION.]


    Althos visually willed this notification away and focused on the next notification that manifested itself as the top of a pile of notifications in the top right corner of his vision. This notification was fascinating.


    [NEW SPECIES KNOWLEDGE GAINED: TRUE-DEVILS


    TRUE-DEVILS ARE A POWERFUL SPECIES OF DEVILS, INHABITANTS OF THE DARK PLANE KNOWN AS INFERNIUS. DEVILS CAN TAKE ON A MULTITUDE OF FORMS, AND MOST ARE NOT "TRUE-DEVILS". SO-CALLED "TRUE-DEVILS" ARE UNIQUE CREATURES WHO HAVE POWERFUL ABILITIES, INCLUDING THE ABILITY TO COMMAND DEVILS WHO EXIST ALONG THE TRADITIONAL "HIERARCHY OF INFERNIUS".


    KNOWN TRUE-DEVILS: PAIMON.]


    This was the first of a new type of notification dubbed a "KNOWLEDGE" notification.


    After thinking through the benefits of this sort of notification, Althos willed the notifications he received to reorder themselves based on category and he selected the "KNOWLEDGE" type of notification as the one to be prioritized. After waiting for a second the deity began to sort through the reordered notifications, and before he knew it he was paying more attention to the notifications than to the story Tristan was telling him.


    Althos received more than one of these notifications, including ones for Imps and for half-devils. It was the one for Half-Devil that he really stood out to him.


    [NEW SPECIES KNOWLEDGE GAINED: HALF-DEVILS.


    TO CALL HALF-DEVILS A SPECIES IS TRICKY BUT FOR THE PURPOSE OF CODIFYING THEM THEY WILL BE CLASSIFIED AS SUCH. HALF-DEVILS ARE CREATURES WHO HAVE A FIENDISH PARENT AND A NON-FIENDISH PARENT. THEIR POWERS AND APPEARANCE ARE DEPENDENT ON THEIR PARENTS. HALF-FIENDS TEND TO BE DARK CREATURES, WHO ARE FANATICALLY LOYAL TO THE HIERARCHY OF INFERNIUS AND UPON THEIR DEATHS MANY OF THEM BECOME FIENDS THEMSELVES. PARTICULARLY POWERFUL HALF-DEVILS INSTANTLY BECOME THE SAME TYPE OF DEVIL AS THEIR DEVILISH PARENT, WHICH LED TO THE CREATION OF SCARY STORIES IN MORTAL WORLDS THAT WARN CHILDREN NOT TO INDISCRIMINATELY MURDER SUPPOSEDLY EVIL CREATURES. HALF-DEMONS ALSO EXIST, AND THERE ARE A MULTITUDE OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF "HALF"-EXTRAPLANARS.


    HALF-DEVILS LEAN STRONGLY TOWARDS CLASSES THAT ENABLE THEM TO INFLUENCE OTHERS, AND THUS MANY OF THEM ARE SPELL-SINGERS, CLERICS, PALADINS, AND POLITICIANS.


    KNOWN HALF-DEVILS: TRISTAN]


    It was after he sorted through that notification that he began to pay attention to Tristan''s story again and the odd mystical mist. He mentally kicked himself as he realized that he hadn''t been paying close enough attention to the story and had missed a lot.


    "The Dark Saint himself after boldly leaving the aerial aeries of the celestials shaped our demesne, our domain, with his own legendary hands."


    After Tristan finished this declaration, the image of the mountain that had surrounded them shifted and changed. Now the mountain began to crumble and over the course of a few seconds became one large static cube of immeasurable height and thickness. The cube was also seemingly impenetrable and all the image showed was a thick cube.


    "Our mighty progenitor sagely recognized the threat posed by the demons and so he decided to fortify our plane''s inner workings. He knocked down the vast mountain that was once this plane and rebuilt it."


    After Tristan said this she paused for a moment. She was obviously considering how to proceed which intrigued the deity listening to her.


    "Aside from grim, defensive fortifications that protect us from the demonic scrouge our plane''s surface is not inhabited or settled. Instead, we dwell, even where we are Althos, deep underground. This entire layer is below the ''surface'' of our plane. Do you understand?"


    After Tristan asked her question the image in the mist went from being that of an indescribably thick cube of impenetrable rock to an image of the same shape but hollowed out in a way that revealed the layers of Infernius. Althos nodded at Tristan and realized that this must be why there were no stars in this place, despite the apparent state of eternal night.


    Althos had noticed the odd lack of stars earlier but had too much on his mind to really pay it much mind. That said understanding that gave him an odd sense of satisfaction.


    "He who reshaped this plane inhabited it not only with the ancient creatures who followed him after hearing of his promise to deal with and contain the demonic hordes.He called upon the litany of debts he was owed to fill each layer with mighty kingdoms and ancient species. Some of those kingdoms and species were filled with rage and sorrow."


    At this the mist showed a still image of the nobility of human kingdoms, elven presidents, and dwarven C.E.O.''s united in sorrow and rage, quietly vowing to one day escape the dark plane of Infernius.


    "Others... well others didn''t mind it so much."


    The mist''s bizarre image generating capabilities rapidly flashed a series of images of monsters and monstrous humanoids. Each of the images generated and shown to the imp and the godling was that of a different small community of monsters, in different layers across the plane of Infernius.


    Each of the communities seemed quite content in the plane, ranging from large giants who had built a small community in a volcano surrounded by other volcanos, to a small coven of sickly looking witches who were gathered around a thick cast-iron cauldron and were sprinkling ingredients into a thick looking soup.


    Althos had only not been listening to the story Tristan was saying he was also gradually sorting through various notifications. Only some of them awarded him with new information.


    [NEW MAGIC KNOWLEDGE GAINED: ILLUSION MAGIC


    ILLUSION MAGIC CAN ASSAULT THE MIND AND BEND THE SENSES. IT CAN TRAP VICTIMS IN A NEVER-ENDING HALLUCINATION, OR IT CAN CAUSE THOSE AFFLICTED BY IT TO SENSE FALSEHOODS, SUCH AS FAKE SMELLS OR VISIONS THAT AREN''T ACTUALLY REAL.


    POWERFUL ILLUSIONISTS CAN FILL THEIR VOICES WITH POWER AND MAKE SUGGESTIONS THAT INFECT THE MINDS OF THOSE WHO HEAR THEM. A MIGHTY ILLUSIONIST COULD USE MAGIC IN A THRONE ROOM TO URGE A NATION TO WAR OR TO BROKER PEACE BETWEEN WARRING TRIBES OF MONSTERS.


    SPELLS KNOWN: N/A. ALL ILLUSION EFFECTS TO DATE HAVE BEEN CAUSED BY WILL AND INTENT, NOT THE USAGE OF NORMAL SPELLS.


    NEW SPELLS GRANTED: MARK OF HEROISM, MARK OF FEAR, MARK OF FURY, MARK OF LOVE. SIGIL OF AVOIDANCE, SIGIL OF AWARENESS, PROPAGANDA, CHARM, COMPULSION, AND OVER 40 MORE SPELLS.


    YOU CAN ALSO CONSTRUCT SPELLS BELONGING TO THE ILLUSION SCHOOL OF MAGIC.]


    Upon gaining awareness of that notification Althos sucked in a breath. He felt as if his brain itself was expanding, as the notification immediately granted him powerful magic.


    This suddenly and loud breathing caused Tristan to look at him in concern. He waved her away, and she looked at Salifinos. The imp shrugged his shoulders, bemused by this reaction. She herself was annoyed by it but persisted in telling her story.


    "The Dark Saint was the original founder of Infernius. He was also our ancient god, the overlord who ruled over all devils and the majority of lawful-evil creatures. His majesty was indisputable."


    Tristan spoke of this creature with a tone that was fanatical. Despite her relative youthfulness, she spoke of the Saint like she was alive when he walked the plane.


    "Even the celestials in their lofty planes grudgingly respected his strict adherence to order and how he shook off the temptations of chaos to betray his own kind in favor of protecting all of existence against the scrouge of the demons."


    The mist that surrounded them all suddenly no longer showed the various non-devilish inhabitants of the plane. Instead, it showed a gigantic statue made of ornately sculpted stone that was located on the plane''s surface.


    The massive statue was of a darkly beautiful creature. It was a red-skinned man dressed in noble robes, who was silently standing watch over a blasted landscape that was trod on only by a silent army of automatons.


    The statue had massive black wings, much like Althos''s own. And the more Althos looked at the statue the more he realized something a bit disturbing: when his form was changed after he met M.A., his form looked eerily like the statue.


    One of the biggest differences between Althos and the statue was that the statue had thick curling horns, which he hadn''t had in the form he took after meeting M.A. But this weird coincidence filled Althos with an odd compulsion that he didn''t even try to fight. He was compelled to ask a question.


    "Is this a story an origin myth, or a vision of the future?"


    Tristan looked at Althos and began to grin again.


    "It''s both. Or rather... there''s a sort of sequel to it that is happening right now. A prophecy. That involves this very building."


    Her eyes began to glow and emit dark smoke as she finished that statement. The crypticness of this stroked Salifinos''s interest, who was suddenly paying Tristan considerably more attention than he had till that point.


    <hr>


    Back in Bastille:


    The ancient devilish overlord who ruled over Bastille with an iron fist was currently underneath Bastille.


    Paimon, an ancient devil who remembered the days wherein gods lorded over domains and subdomains, was currently sitting at the head of an ornate table. This ornate table was located at the heart of a secretive "war-room" located underneath the great and terrible marketplace of Bastille.


    This table was surrounded by a veritable horde of chairs. And in each of those chairs sat a powerful devil who controlled different parts of life in the city of Bastille. And they were all speaking at once, convinced that their points were the most useful to making sense of the situation at hand.


    Paimon let them squawk on and on for several minutes before he rose to his feet and shouted a single word at the top of his lungs.


    "SILENCE!"


    The small horde of powerful devils fell silent in the face of this outburst. In exploding like this Paimon, the city''s authoritarian overlord, let out some of the anger he was feeling towards his unsuccessful effort to capture the godling. It was useful for him and that act allowed him to speak what he had to say next with less malice than he would have otherwise.


    "I''m gonna need you bumbling fools to explain to me why none of you moved to capture the godling after you heard my voice echo throughout the city."


    His diction was only slightly aggressive but his tone carried with it the implication of horrendous violence depending on what was said next.


    None of the devils were eager to break the silence that fell over the crowd in the wake of the devil''s demand.


    "Well? You were all so vocal before, dear friends might I ask what happened to your outspokenness?"


    Paimon''s voice was oozing venom and the assembled devils could feel the razor''s edge they were on.


    "If you can''t speak of the past, then I STRONGLY suggest you start speaking of the future. A living god escaped our clutches. More importantly, he escaped MY clutches. What are we going to do about it?"


    The devil''s suggestion caused the wheels of the other devil''s minds to start turning, and they began thinking of ways they might be active participants in whatever scheme Paimon was planning if only to save their own hides and be spared the wrath of the mightiest fiend in the whole city.

 Chapter 23: Tristan Devil-kiss, Tomb Raider

    Althos and his two companions sat in the sacristy of the chapel. A brief silence had fallen over them, due in part to Althos focusing on the notifications and reading through them quite rapidly.


    Althos had begun to rapidly cycle through the rest of the notifications that had yet to be examined. He did this by mentally configuring his own settings so that notifications could be read with but a blink. He was lucky that the system seemed intuitive and responded to his suggestions with ease, rather than bogging him down with text-heavy menus.


    After he made that modification to his system Salifinos and Tristan both silently wondered why the godling was blinking so much, that it actually distracted the two of them. They found themselves tempted to ask if the creature needed some eye-drops or something. They decided not too and allowed the deity to behave as oddly as he wished without questioning him.


    Althos politely excused himself for a second, wanting to breeze through the rest of these notifications and recognizing that his companions wereweirded out by his behavior.


    He left the sacristy and walked over to the chapel''s nave. He sat in an uncomfortable pew made of dark metal and got to work so that he could finish the small pile of notifications he had left.


    <hr>


    Of the remaining handful of notifications, Althos received one of considerable interest and a handful that were intriguing but less directly useful.


    [NEW COMBINED KNOWLEDGE NOTIFICATION GAINED: HEALING, EVOCATION, AND MIND MAGIC.


    HEALING MAGIC CAN BE USED TO RESTORE EVERYTHING FROM LIMBS TO ANCESTRAL ABILITIES AND TRAITS AT HIGH ENOUGH LEVELS. VISION AND HEARING CAN EASILY BE RESTORED BY SOMEONE WITH ENOUGH MAGICAL POWER, AND THOSE WITH CAREFUL CONTROL OVER THEIR MAGIC CAN REACH INTO A LIVING CREATURE''S DNA AND MODIFY IT. THIS CAN RESULT IN VESTIGAL TRAITS REEMERGING IN CREATURES, OR IN THE RESTORATION OF POWERFUL BLESSINGS SOMEONE''S ANCESTORS MAY HAVE RECEIVED.


    EVOCATION MAGIC IS MOST COMMONLY UNDERSTOOD AS THE SORT OF MAGIC THAT GENERATES FIREBALLS, BOLTS OF LIGHTNING, AND OTHER DEVASTATING NATURAL PHENOMENA. THIS SCHOOL REINVOLVES AROUND THE TRANSFORMATION OF MAGICAL ENERGY INTO POWERFUL ATTACKS. MOST BUT NOT QUITE ALL SPELLS FROM THIS SCHOOL ARE SPELLS THAT DAMAGE OPPONENTS AND IN SOME CASES, PARTICULARLY THOSE OF INCOMPETENT MAGICIANS, THE SPELLS CAN HARM THE CASTER THEMSELVES. THIS SCHOOL''S MAIN ATTACK SPELLS AND SCHOOLS STEM FROM THE MAJOR AND MINOR ELEMENTS.


    MIND MAGIC IS MAGIC THAT DIRECTLY RELATES TO MIND-TO-MIND COMMUNICATION. THIS IS NOT THE SAME THING AS ILLUSION MAGIC THAT ALTERS THOUGHTS. THIS MINOR SCHOOL IS FOCUSED ON CREATING AVENUES FOR TELEPATHETIC COMMUNICATION AND INCLUDES SPELLS THAT ALLOW FOR A RANGE OF CREATURES TO COMMUNICATE WITH EACH OTHER.


    TOTAL SPELLS GAINED: OVER 130. YOU CAN ALSO CONSTRUCT SPELLS THAT BELONG TO THESE SCHOOLS OF MAGIC AND CAN MIX AND MATCH ELEMENTS FROM EACH SCHOOL.


    YOUR ABILITY TO USE RAW MAGICAL ENERGY IS NOW IMPROVED, ALLOWING FOR MORE COMPLEX USAGES OF UNFILTERED MAGICAL ENERGY.]


    That notification was followed by perhaps the most painful sensation Althos had felt to his date as he felt his mind gaining awareness of new spells and new things he could do with magic. He also received a new notification that was particularly intriguing.


    [NEW SIDE-QUEST: GAINING INFLUENCE OVER THE DOMAIN OF MAGIC.


    OBJECTIVE: GAIN KNOWLEDGE OF ALL BASIC SCHOOLS OF MAGIC.


    CURRENT PROGRESS: 4/10.


    REWARD: UPON COMPLETION OF THIS QUEST YOU WILL BE FIFTY PERCENT DONE WITH THE STEPS NEEDED TO GAIN THE FIRST TIER OF INFLUENCE OVER THE DOMAIN OF MAGIC. YOU WILL ALSO BE ABLE TO BLESS MAGIC-USERS WHO TRY TO USE A SPELL IN A BASIC SCHOOL OF YOUR CHOICE.]


    Althos mentally accepted this sub-quest and notched gaining knowledge of magic and magical schools a bit higher up on his list of priorities. Althos highly valued magic, understanding how potent it could be in the right hands, and knew that it would probably be a powerful tool when he eventually faced off against Master Paimon in direct combat again.


    Another notification of note was the notification that informed him of his progress along the routes to influencing domains and subdomains.


    [UPDATE NOTIFICATION REGARDING DOMAINS AND SUBDOMAINS:


    THE DOMAIN YOU''VE MADE THE MOST PROGRESS ON IS THE DOMAIN OF FATE DUE TO YOUR ACTIONS IN INFERNIUS.


    THIS DOMAIN WAS INFAMOUS FOR ITS STUBBORNNESS AND DIFFICULTY TO GAIN INFLUENCE OVER, BUT THE RARE FEW GODS WHO GAINED INFLUENCE OVER IT COULD SUBTLY ALTER THE NATURE OF REALITY ITSELF AND GAIN INFLUENCE OVER SYSTEMS AND QUESTS THEMSELVES.


    NO DEITY EVER GAINED ANYMORE THAN THE LOWEST TIER OF INFLUENCE OVER IT. THOSE THE RARE FEW WHO DID GAIN THE LOWEST TIER OF INFLUENCE HAD INCREDIBLY POTENT BLESSINGS. THOSE THEY BLESSED BECAME GODS, DEMON-LORDS, AND INFLUENCED THE FATES OF ENTIRE WORLDS.


    THE OTHER SUBDOMAIN YOU''VE MADE THE MOST PROGRESS ON ASIDE FROM YOUR ALREADY INFLUENCABLE SUBDOMAIN OF HAND-TO-HAND-COMBAT, IS THE SUBDOMAIN OF SHAPESHIFTING.


    THE SHAPESHIFTING SUBDOMAIN IS A PARTICULARLY POTENT ONE AND AT THE HIGHEST TIER OF INFLUENCE OVER IT YOU CAN FORCIBLY CHANGE THE FORMS OF OTHER CREATURES, PERMANENTLY. YOU CAN ALSO SHIFT THEIR VERY SOULS IF USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE SOUL DOMAIN. THIS IS ONE WAY TO CREATE ENTIRELY NEW SPECIES OF CREATURES.]


    After this many of the remaining notifications were ones that concerned themselves with knowledge Althos had already gained. He gained "KNOWLEDGE" notifications related to awakenings, the mortal plane, and Infernius, none of which contained new knowledge.


    And at last, he received the notification he was waiting for.


    [YOU MAY NOW UPDATE YOUR HUD. WE PROMISE THIS WON''T MAKE YOU BLACKOUT.


    DO YOU WISH TO UPDATE YOUR HUD?]


    Before Althos accepted the update, he was a bit surprised to see the system refer to itself, especially with a plural pronoun. He knew this was a possibility and had seen it in action before when the system assessed his situation at the start of his adventure in Infernius, but now it felt different.


    That said he hadn''t been paralyzed by inaction before and his decisiveness had always worked before. So he decided to try and independently gain new information when he could. And that wasn''t really now.


    Althos accepted the update and waited for it to activate. It didn''t take long.


    <hr>


    Within seconds Althos''s vision underwent a significant change.


    Althos''s ever-active tremor sense ability sent informationstraight to his brain in the past. It was active everywhere, even in Infernius with Althos''s new body. The first change to Althos''s vision came in the form of a visual representation of the mental-map that was generated and updated by his tremor-sense power.


    This visual representation occupied a small spot in the bottom right corner of Althos''s field of view. It was a small blue circle with a yellow dot at the center of it that revealed the locations of nearby creatures whenever Althos took a step. Salifinos and Tristan were represented by green dots.


    This little map did also come with a useful feature: if Althos knew the people who were nearby, their names were revealed as well.


    Along the bottom of Althos''s field of view came a transparent gallery of icons that a mental examination revealed were a series of mental"hotkeys" for casting spells. At least, that''s what his intuition called the strange shortcuts.


    It contained 18 spells, 3 of which related to establishing mental connections and pathways so that Althos could communicate with creatures mentally. Another 3 spells were mind-altering illusion spells that branded targets and afflicted them with potent curses causing powerful and negative emotions. The remaining 12 were split between the schools of healing magic and evocation magic.


    The healing spells focused on healing various degrees of injury and even in regenerating lost limbs or restoring senses to people. The evocation spells were a series of potent elemental spells that promised to both increase and diversify the godling''s offensive capabilities.


    [THIS LIST OF "HOTKEYS" CAN BE CUSTOMIZED AT WILL AND WITH BUT A THOUGHT. ITS PURPOSE IS TO SIMPLIFY THE PROCESS BY WHICH YOU USE TRADITIONAL MAGIC.]


    Althos''s reaction to this was silent excitement, as this greatly improved his understanding of his capabilities and showed him a variety of the spells at his disposal.


    Another significant change was that a series of images began to descend from the upper right corner of his vision.


    [THIS IS A LIST OF YOUR DIVINE POWERS. SOME OF WHICH ARE THINGS YOU''RE AWARE OF ALREADY, THINGS LIKE BLESSINGS, SHAPESHIFTING, AND TREMORSENSE. OTHERS ARE NEW TO YOU. POWERS LIKE YOUR DIVINE AURA ABILITY, WHICH YOU CAN EXTEND TOWARDS YOUR ALLIES AND SERVANTS. A USEFUL ABILITY YOU DIDN''T KNOW YOU HAD IS THE ABILITY TO CREATE RELICS. WHEN YOU ACTIVATE THESE POWERS YOU''LL RECEIVE AN EXPLANATION ABOUT THEM. JUST NOW THAT, FOR NOW, THEY ARE USEFUL ABILITIES THAT YOU CAN ACTIVATE ONCE A DAY.]


    Althos listened attentively to this explanation. After listening to it he examined the final major part of the updated HUD.


    The final major visual update to his HUD came in the form of the image of a small book in the bottom left corner of his vision.


    [THIS IS YOUR CODEX. IF YOU EXAMINE IT YOU''LL BE MANUALLY INITIATING A CONVERSATION WITH US WHERE WE CAN GO THROUGH AND LOOK UP ANY INFORMATION YOU ALREADY KNOW BUT MAY HAVE FORGOTTEN. I CAN ALSO RECALL NOTIFICATIONS AND SHOW YOU YOUR PROGRESS THROUGH ANY QUESTS YOU HAVE ACCEPTED.]


    Althos waited a few moments, to double-check his HUD and then to listen for any more comments by his "System". When he didn''t notice any other major updates or hear any more remarks by the system, he felt that it was safe to return to the sacristy.


    It took him but a few moments to return back to the small room where his odd pals were waiting for him.


    <hr>


    Even as he strode towards his seat Althos began to speak. He sounded more confident, and he wasn''t blinking anymore.


    "Sorry about that. So what were you saying about this Dark Saint storyhaving a sequel?"


    Tristan grinned at the deity and she prepared tospeak, gathering and ordering her thoughts, right as he sat back down where he was seated before.


    When Althos looked at her right before she spoke he noticed that above her face there was a bit of text that hadn''t been there before.


    [NAME: TRISTAN DEVIL-KISS


    CLASS: CLERIC


    SPECIES: HALF-DEVIL


    FACTION: THE ORDER OF THE DARK SAINT]


    Upon reading that, he also heard a soft pinging noise that seemed to emanate from inside of his skull.


    [YOU''VE BEGUN TO PROGRESS ALONG THE "TRUTH" SUBDOMAIN. CONGRATULATIONS!]


    It was seconds after Althos blinked that notification away that Tristan began to speak.


    <hr>


    Althos and Salifinos both gave their undivided attention to the half-devil. Before she spoke she noted how the attention felt and delighted in it. At this point, she had allowed the mist to dissipate and relied on her own storytelling skills to keep her audience interested. Not that she made much more of a story to tell.


    She didn''t have a story to show though. That would come later, soon, but not right now. Now she just needed to get her companions to be willing to move.


    "The story of the Dark Saint is understood as being both history and an origin myth for the plane of Infernius. It''s more than that though."


    Tristan was more surprised by how attentive Salifinos was being than by the attention paid to her by the deity. The imp didn''t strike her as someone who would be interested in what many devils viewed as a heretical interpretation of the myth of the Dark Saint.


    After assessing the continued interest her two guests had in her story the devil decided to continue taking.


    "Some devils, we call ourselves the Order of the Dark Saint, believe in what appears to be a highly censored addition to the myth of the Dark Saint. This addition tells of someone else. A second Dark Saint."


    Althos''s interest was piqued by this. He inched closer to the half-devil, his eyes encouraging her to continue talking. Salifinos''s eyes were narrow now, but the imp was still paying attention and was clearly interested in what she had to say. The word "censored" seems to have gotten his attention.


    Unfortunately, she knew she had their interest but not their beliefs. That would come later. So she plotted out her next move in her head and began to try and make it a reality.


    "If I told you this myth involved you, Althos, and me, you wouldn''t believe me. And honestly, I''d get it. So, for now, I''ve got a proposal for you."


    Salifinos''s eyes went wide as he listened to her. He was stunned that after all of this she was going to stop telling them her story. After pausing for a second to react to that the imp felt deeply annoyed.


    "Fuck me, seriously? You''re gonna tease us like this? What proposal could you possibly have for us?"


    The imp was tiny but in his annoyance, he was quite loud. Tristan winced at his profanity, not used to such vulgar displays of irritation due to her own isolation. Living out in the desert wouldn''t really prepare you to deal with tiny cursing imps after all.


    She reacted to the imp''s statement with the patience and grace one might expect of a priestess of the ancient founder of Infernius.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    "Yes, really. Your friend Althos has gained a new power thanks to his status as a true-devil but its one that he can''t practice on his own. There is a place where we can travel, together that would grant him a chance to familiarize himself with his newfound command over soul-orbs."


    Salifinos lacked a mastery over deceitfulness that many other imps had, and it was apparent in his every reaction to Tristan. His eyes went wide when he heard the bold proclamation made by the half-devil. Althos might have been a deity, but he wasn''t a devil. It shouldn''t have been possible for him to command any sort of devil unaided, even the lowliest of devils. No one had done that since the Dark Saint himself.


    Then Salifinos replayed what Tristan said in his mind and realized the implication of saying that Althos was a true-devil.


    "Althos... is what Tristan said true? Are you a true-devil?"


    Althos nodded at the imp, and Althos realized that this stunned the imp into silence.


    Althos was ignorant of the supposed impossibility or near total uniqueness of a non-devil gaining the coveted status of being a true-devil. True-devildom was what all devils who languished on the devilish hierarchy coveted.


    Althos looked to Tristan and spoke, his voice filled with divine power and potent authority to a creature of order and hierarchy like her.


    "I am annoyed by the fact that you knew of my power. That said I want to go to this place you spoke of. When are we leaving? Now?"


    Tristan felt a variety of emotions wash over her. The most potent of them was a sense of relief since she still had Althos intrigued. The second most powerful was a sense of shame. She believed Althos to be the subject of the ancient prophecy she had devoted her life to, and he was annoyed with an action of hers.


    But the third most powerful emotion and the sensation overwhelming her was exhaustion. She spoke quietly to the deity, her tone apologetic but her voice revealing her exhaustion.


    "I apologize Althos, but I am a mortal. I require rest. I am technically incapable of dying of old-age, but exhaustion can kill me and I''ve been up for over an entire day. I need to sleep."


    Althos''s acceptance of this surprised her. He merely nodded at her and turned to leave the room.


    Tristan in her exhausted state hadn''t noticed that Salifinos had left moments ago as well, storming off in an annoyed huff.


    She quickly fell asleep in her chair.


    <hr>


    Hours passed by quietly and Althos spent his time wondering what Master Paimon was doing. Althos didn''t know his opponent well, but he figured that the devil was plotting ways to lure him back into the city.


    The deity came up with this hypothesis after remembering something Salifinos said. When the two had been fleeing from the city of Bastille Salifinos made an offhand remark about how Master Paimon hated so-called "less humanoid looking devils".


    The deity pondered the implications of that, coupled with some of the knowledge he had gained about things like the "hierarchy of Infernius".


    The main way his time was spent was thinking. He was seated on the floor of the chapel''s nave because sitting on the floor was more comfortable than sitting on one of the metal pews.


    After a few hours passed, Althos heard Tristan begin to stir. He went outside and retrieved the first devilish ally he had made: the moody imp. Together the two of them went back to the sacristy to meet with a hopefully energized Tristan.


    <hr>


    Within the tiny sacristy, the reinvigorated half-devil was waiting for her two guests with a grin plastered on her face. Though the two guests didn''t say it, both of them wondered why or perhaps how the young-looking priestess was perpetually in a good mood.


    Salifinos figured that she was just acting, but Althos wasn''t certain she was being deceptive. She seemed genuine.


    And then she spoke. Her voice was more energized than it had been before and reflected a more positive state of mind.


    "Well hello, guests of mine. I appreciate you letting me rest! If you''ll allow me I''m now ready to take you to a place where Althos can practice and develop his newfound power. I''ve even kept a few Soul-Orbs there. Just for him."


    At the end of that statement, she looked directly at Althos and winked. The godling was mystified by that gesture and didn''t quite know what it meant. But what passed for his intuition and imitation of common sense suggested she was flirting with him.


    He smiled softly at her and decided to do something which would go a long way towards endearing himself to her. He checked in on her.


    "How are you feeling? Did you recover enough energy?"


    His concern was more genuine than either Salifinos or Tristan had been prepared for. Of course, it wasn''t altruism that drove him but rather a desire to not be held back by mortal weakness. Though he didn''t mind benefitting from an illusion of kindness and good-heartedness.


    Her grin turned softer for a second before it returned to its default state. She wasn''t expecting kindness and concern from the deity. She also knew better than to blindly discount the very real and accurate assumption that his question contained a point and sought to suss out weakness.


    "I''m fine. Plus we''re not going far. If you''re ready I promise I''m feeling energized enough to take you to see what lurks beneath the sands."


    Her voice was soft, genuine and hinted at the destination of their upcoming journey. Althos nodded at the half-devil and then turned to Salifinos.


    The childish imp grunted at the top of them, the sound unimpressive and unthreatening but both of his companions knew better than to say anything.


    <hr>


    The sand felt loose and insubstantial beneath Althos''s feet. It was here where he was reminded of the fact that being on sand was disadvantageous for him. It rendered his tremorsense power nearly useless due to the grainy nature of the footing.


    I don''t like sand.


    He thought to himself. He stifled his complaints and trodded along the sand with his companions.


    The imp was hovering and flying slowly right behind Tristan. Althos took up the rear and used his enhanced senses to keep an eye out for any possible threats.


    High above them the same false moon that illuminated the city of Bastille covered parts of the desert in eerie purple light. From time to time a member of the trio would look up at the sky and shudder.


    To Salifinos and Tristan, the moon''s omnipresence throughout the layer had caused them to see it as a symbol of Paimon''s tyranny. Althos just didn''t like it.


    The trio walked or flew for a few kilometers, a trip that had taken the better part of two hours before they stood in front of a gigantic mound of sand. This mound stared down at them like a tiny mountain.


    Tristan turned to her companions and spoke.


    "I want to offer you the chance to turn back. I doubt either of you will, but if you want to back down now''s the time. We''re about to enter a tomb. A devil''s tomb. Once we do we''ll be there for a while."


    Salifinos felt what little conviction he had in any of this begin to seep out of him upon hearing that they were about to intrude upon the final resting place of at least one devil and shuddered with fear.


    Tristan noticed this and grinned, ready to make a case for boldly continuing their journey but it was Althos who spoke up. His words lacked kindness or tact.


    "Don''t be a coward. Plus what are you gonna do if you back down now? Do you think that overlord, Master Paimon, will welcome you back into the city if you leave here? After you came with me?"


    The first few words Althos uttered infuriated the imp, but the last few words were laced with both wisdom and venom. It was the wisdom that forced the imp to contend with the reality of his situation.


    Tristan looked at the imp and watched him steel his resolve after grimly accepting that he either went forward with allies or left alone and risked an inglorious death in the desert or at the entrance to Bastille.


    Tristan was about to begin the spell needed to open the entrance to the tomb when Althos questioned her. His voice and tone indicated that he wouldn''t allow any verbal games.


    <hr>


    "Enough games devil. What''s this prophecy? How does it involve you, me, and a devilish tomb located in the desert?"


    Tristan huffed at the deity, annoyed but ultimately understanding why he was fed up. He struck her as the sort to dislike ignorance, and if he was consistent at all that would lead him to have a special hatred for his own ignorance.


    Tristan took a breath, and then she steeled herself for whatever reaction the deity might have to the news she was about to drop on him. She thought about whether or not to be complex with her explanation and quickly made the decision to be simple.


    "The tomb is a testing place. We''ve got to go in, conquer it, and if we succeed we complete the first trial left behind by the Dark Saint."


    Althos went along with this, vowing to fact-check it himself if he could.


    "Fine. But what is this prophecy?"


    He felt annoyed to be repeating himself but he knew that what Tristan provided him with wasn''t an answer to that question.


    Tristan sighed in annoyance, wanting to get into the tomb already, but responded to Althos''s question.


    "The prophecy concerns the fate of Infernius in this age, the godless age. It states that someday a new creature, a black and white entity, would seek refuge in a chapel dedicated to the first Dark Saint and become the second non-devil to be able to truly command devils. The second non-devil true-devil. And that that entity would reunify Infernius."


    Althos responded to this by simply saying a single word. But that was just an initial reaction to some big news.


    "Oh."


    This marked the first time Tristan had truly seen the young deity surprised. It was an amusing sight.


    Tristan laughed for a few seconds at this subdued reaction. Then she gestured towards the big hill in front of them, as if presenting it to auctioneers and spoke again.


    "It''s not as simple as ''enter dungeon, clear it, defeat Paimon'', but that''s the start. Now can we finally enter this dungeon?"


    This snapped Althos back to reality.


    "Yeah, let''s go!"


    Althos seemed more inflated now, more ready to go. But that was because of the notification he had just gotten.


    [NEW QUEST: CONQUER THE TOMB OF AGOWRAITH THE KINGWHISPER.


    OBJECTIVE: GAIN POSSESSION OF THE DUNGEON-HEART.


    REWARD: GAIN CONTROL OVER THE NEXT RUG IN THE INFERNAL HIERARCHY: THE IMPS. GAINING THIS REWARD WILL ALSO GRANT YOU THE ABILITY TO PROMOTE SOUL-ORBS INTO REAL DEVILS.


    NOTE: THIS QUEST WILL TEACH YOU HOW TO CONTROL SOUL-ORBS. IT IS ALSO THE NEXT QUEST IN THE CAMPAIGN TO INSTALL YOURSELF AS THE OVERLORD OF BASTILLE.]


    That notification urged Althos forward. He watched as Tristan prepared to utter the quiet incantation that ought to unveil the path forward.


    But not before he asked a question. He turned to Salifinos and began to speak.


    "What does ''promote'' mean in a devilish context?" The god asked, his eyes filled with curiosity. The imp looked at him and considered the question before responding.


    "Promotions are the devilish equivalent of evolutions. Do you know what those are?" The imp asked, curious to test the limits of his companions'' knowledge. Althos politely shook his head. The imp sighed, and then began to speak more.


    "When most creatures gain enough experience they can evolve into something else. Another kind of creature. What they evolve into depends on... well their behavior mostly, but their current species is also a factor." The imp said, lecturing the deity who had asked it a question.


    "Experience is gained in a variety of ways. Quests can grant experience, as can combat, and engaging in activities that classes are centered around, such as sneaking and stealing if you''re a rogue, as one example of non-combat experience gaining." The imp told Althos, his voice sounding rather scholarly at that moment.


    "Promotions are directed evolutions. Devils can''t be promoted without an arch-devil commanding them to evolve. Aside from soul-orbs, which aren''t really devils, they just... become devils. Most creatures aren''t like that. Most creatures can evolve without being commanded too by another, greater, creature." The imp revealed, before finally taking a breath, his explanation complete.


    <hr>


    Tristan spent nearly a minute collecting the necessary magical energy for the task before her. Her companions warily stood around her, waiting for the half-devil to complete the task she had spent a long time believing she was destined to do. It was the first of many tasks that would fall to her in the days to come.


    She reached into the very core of her being and quietly willed the energy to travel from her heart towards her hands. She felt dizzy as the energy began to obey her will and travel from her heart towards her tiny palms.


    When she felt that she had gathered the necessary energy, she looked at the mound of sand that stood between her and her dreams and opened her mouth to speak. Her voice thundered out of her mouth, powered by her magical energy.


    "WIND! HEED MY CALL AND BLOW DOWN THAT WHICH STANDS IN MY WAY!"


    And then she dramatically flung her open hands in the direction of the sandy hill.


    At first, nothing happened. But then all three of the strange creatures who were facing the hill began to hear incredibly loud rumbling. And then all at once, the sand that protected the entrance to the tomb was done away with by an incredible act of magically manipulated nature.


    A magically conjured wind roared overhead and fell upon them like a hungry dragon. The wind was probably strong enough to be compared to a tornado fell over the hill and in a matter of seconds blew away every single grain of sand.


    It roared around them and terrified the imp, who had to fall to the ground to evade being swept up in it.


    The trio stood, both Tristan and Salifinos stunned by the display and watched as the wind scattered the sand that had piled up over the entrance to the ancient tomb


    Althos stood stoically as it descended on the hill, but was quietly impressed by the mighty display of magic. He quietly looked forward to using evocation magic of his own, possibly within the dungeon itself.


    The wind fell over the hill, decimated it, and then dissipated in a matter of seconds. The last person to react to it was Tristan herself. She stood frozen as she watched the devastation her spell wrought on the hill, and it took her a second to process everything.


    Her reaction was impressively loud. After she recovered from the shock of her own impressive magic, she jumped up and shouted.


    "YES! THAT WAS AWESOME!"


    She was over the moon, even the false one that floated over them, as she processed that she was the one who was behind that amazing display of evocation magic.


    After she regained her composure, a process that took nearly a full minute, the three of them looked at what her display of magic uncovered.


    What stood before them was a small part of the desert that was no longer covered in sand. At the center of where the hill had been was a massive metal trapdoor built directly into the floor. And within a few moments, that same door began to produce a sickly green glow that penetrated the air directly over it.


    Within another few moments, the moments it took for the trio to approach the trapdoor, something began to coalesce in the sickly green glow, something that loosely resembled a floating skull made of green vapor.


    The shape was gradually solidifying in front of the trio of travelers. It was soon apparent that the shape was a human skull due to its proportions and lack of tusks, even considering its color.


    When it had finished solidifying it was a perfect imitation of a human skull, complete with a full set of phantom and transparent teeth and ghostly emeralds for eyes.


    And then a voice exploded from the floating skull.


    <hr>


    "WELL MET TRAVELERS. WELCOME TO THE TOMB OF AGOWRAITH THE KINGWHISPER. IF YOU WISH TO CONQUER THIS DUNGEON AND CLAIM THE TREASURES WITHIN ONE OF YOU MUST BE ABLE TO COMMAND SOUL-ORBS. IF ANY OF YOU MEET THIS REQUIREMENT, PLEASE STEP FORWARD."


    The voice spoke boomingly in Infernal, the language of Infernius. All three of the creatures present understood it, and Althos stepped forward ready to move this process along.


    "HELLO CHALLENGER. I WILL NOW SUMMON A SOUL-ORB FOR YOU TO COMMAND. MERELY WILL IT INTO THE DOOR BELOW ME AND THEN THE TOMB WILL OPEN FOR YOU."


    When it finished speaking the floating skull didn''t close its insubstantial mouth. A tiny blue orb escaped from between its incorporeal teeth and floated lazily in Althos''s general direction.


    The blue orb emitted a constant and thick blue light that shone brighter than the rays of soft light that the false moon shone down on the desert. It quickly began to paint the area it floated over in a thick shade of blue.


    Althos examined it for a few moments, staring at the thing with open curiosity.


    "So this is a soul orb huh?"


    It was at this moment that Althos realized that since Tristan couldn''t open the entrance to the dungeon by herself she almost certainly hadn''t stored soul orbs in it for Althos. He was annoyed by this, but he knew that he had a bigger fish to fry right now.


    In time he''d do something to ensure she wouldn''t lie to him again, even if the lie was to move him to action. He just needed time to figure out what he''d do.


    [NEW SPECIES KNOWLEDGE GAINED: SOUL-ORBS.


    SOUL ORBS ARE THE WEAKEST AND DUMBEST CREATURES ON THE INFERNAL HIERARCHY. THESE INCORPOREAL CREATURES ARE THE PUREST REMAINS OF BITS OF EVIL SOULS THAT HAVE BEEN MELTED DOWN AND REFORMED.


    THEY CAN NATURALLY EVOLVE INTO OTHER DEVILS OR THEY CAN BE AUTOMATICALLY PROMOTED TO HIGHER RUNGS ALONG THE INFERNAL HIERARCHY BY SUFFICIENTLY POWERFUL TRUE-DEVILS OR ARCH-DEVILS.


    THESE ORBS ARE BARELY ALIVE AND AUTOMATICALLY OBEY COMMANDS ISSUED BY ANY TRUE-DEVIL. THEY ARE GENERALLY USED AS PROMOTION FODDER TO CREATE MORE ADVANCED DEVILS, OR ARE USED AS SURPRISINGLY POWERFUL BOMBS BY WICKED TRUE-DEVILS.


    TO COMMAND ONE, MERELY WILL IT TO ACCOMPLISH A SIMPLE TASK. MANY DEVILISH DUNGEONS DEMAND THE ABILITY TO COMMAND SOUL-ORBS TO EVEN ENTER, WHICH IS WHY THROUGHOUT INFERNIUS DEVILISH DUNGEONS REMAIN INHABITED AND UNLOOTED.]


    Althos read through this notification and then willed it away. The deity confidently approached the orb and wordlessly established a mental connection with it.


    Then he sent the tiny thing a mental image of it entering the trapdoor. He waited for a moment, watching to see if he had somehow failed. And then the creature moved to obey his command.


    The thing almost instantaneously vanished into the metal trapdoor.


    The door began to slowly creak open, and as it did the floating skull began to speak in its booming voice again.


    "WELCOME CHALLENGERS TO THE TOMB OF AGOWRAITH THE KINGWHISPER. I AM EXCITED TO MONITOR YOUR PROGRESS. I AM A FRIENDLY ENTITY CREATED BY THE SPIRIT OF AGOWRAITH, DESIGNED TO ACCOMPANY CHALLENGERS, WARN THEM OF THE CLEAR CONDITIONS OF A VARIETY OF ROOMS, AND RESUPPLY THEM WITH SOUL-ORBS IF NECESSARY. NOW IF YOU ARE ADEQUATELY PREPARED STEP INTO THE OPEN DOORWAY AND ENTER THE TOMB OF ONE OF THE FIRST DEVILS."


    By the time the deity had finished speaking the trapdoor was fully open. Althos, hoping to see what lurked beyond it, quickly approached the door.


    He was instead greeted by a pool of shadowy darkness. This provoked a wisecrack remark from the godling.


    "Of course, it can never be that simple can it?"


    Althos turned to his allies, smirked at them and then leaped into the pool of shadowy darkness, heading in feet-first.


    Tristan was next, and she walked in front of Salifinos, twisting to look at him and spoke a few words.


    "Come on Salifinos! Let''s go raid this tomb."


    And then she also leaped into the black pool and into the tomb of an unthinkably ancient devil.


    Salifinos began to fly towards the pool, biting his nails the whole way and then dove into the inky darkness behind his companions.


    Darkness surrounded him in every direction for a few moments, and then the tiny devil felt two separate hands grab him by his small shoulders and pull him towards them.

 Chapter 24: The Dungeon (Part 1)

    Althos leaped into the pool and was descending through it, surrounded by complete darkness, for a few seconds. As he fell through the air between the entrance to the tomb and the tomb''s floor a notification popped into his vision.


    Even in the absolute darkness of the strange area between the outside and inside of the tomb Althos could read the notification.


    [NEW KNOWLEDGE NOTIFICATION GAINED: DUNGEONS.


    DUNGEONS ARE CONTAINED AREAS RULED OVER BY POWERFUL INDIVIDUALS. THESE POWERFUL INDIVIDUALS USE THE EMOTIONAL ENERGY OF VISITORS OR CHALLENGERS TO THEIR RULE OR EVEN THEIR OWN MAGICAL POWER TO DICTATE THE RULES OF A DUNGEON AND TO GENERATE A RANGE OF MONSTERS TO PROTECT THE DUNGEON.


    DUNGEONS CAN BE DEFEATED, OR THEY CAN BE CONQUERED. CONQUERING A DUNGEON REQUIRES MORE THAN MERELY REACHING A BOSS CHAMBER AND DEFEATING THE BOSS WITHIN. WHAT EXACTLY IT TAKES TO CONQUER A DUNGEON DEPENDS ON THE DUNGEON IN QUESTION.


    DEFEATING A DUNGEON IS MERELY THE ACT OF ENTERING THE DUNGEON, REACHING A BOSS ROOM AND DEFEATING THE BOSS WITHIN. CONQUERING A DUNGEON IS MUCH HARGER BUT THE REWARDS FOR DOING SO INCLUDE CONTROL OVER THE DUNGEON.]


    It was shortly after he blinked the notification away that he entered the actual dungeon. His vision went from revealing nothing to him, to suddenly showing him a long hallway and a floor less than five meters below him. As he was examining this, he landed on a hard wooden floor, almost falling over as a result of the sudden landing.


    "That fall took a while."


    He muttered, to no one but himself. Then the young god moved out of the way, knowing that his companions were likely close behind him. Within a matter of seconds, Tristan landed where he had just been, and a few seconds after that Salifinos descended behind them, his descent controlled due to the fact that he flew down and didn''t just jump.


    All three of them waited for the entity that had greeted them outside of the dungeon to emerge from above them, but it didn''t. After waiting a moment they realized that it wasn''t going too and so they all decided to continue alone for now. The soul-orb Althos had used earlier also never reappeared.


    Althos took this chance to look behind them and noticed that behind them all there was, was a massive and impenetrable wall. It was made of what looked like several meter thick sand-colored blocks. This meant that there was most likely only one path forward for them.


    Althos turned around and looked in the direction they were meant to walk in. What stretched out before them was a long hallway that was lit by ancient torches. The godling quietly pondered the unnecessary nature of the torches, since as far as he knew all devils had the ability to see in the dark like he did.


    His companions were both also looking around them, both of them having landed more smoothly than he did. Within a few seconds, the trio acknowledged each other and silently began to walk forward, going into the long hallway.


    <hr>


    The floor beneath them was cool and smooth. It had been expertly crafted and somehow hadn''t deteriorated over the course of what was most likely at least several thousand years. Salifinos was content to stay afloat using his wings to fly beside Althos. Tristan was on Althos''s other side and the group quietly relied on Althos to sense any nearby threats.


    Althos''s mental map was working in the tomb and didn''t detect anything as they made their way down the hallway that greeted every single challenger of the dungeon.


    The tomb smelled of wood, flames, and sand. That trio was an odd mixture and so the smell it produced, even as ancient as the tomb was and as ancient as the flames must have been, the smell wasn''t unpleasant.


    Althos could hear their breathing and the shallow flickering of the torches that lit the path before them. The trio was silent as they made their way further and further into the tomb. Ahead of them, Althos began to be able to make out the next obstacle they faced.


    Ahead of them, another door like the one Althos had opened before loomed but this one wasn''t a trapdoor. As they began to get closer to it, it emitted a similar green glow.


    <hr>


    It took them nearly a minute of walking from where they were when they saw the familiar green glow the door began to give off as they approached to arrive in front of the thick metal door. The entity from before manifested itself within seconds of them coming to a stop in front of the door.


    It began to speak right as they stopped in front of it.


    "HAIL, CHALLENGERS. IT IS NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN. I HAVE COME BEARING A GIFT! SOUL ORBS OF YOUR VERY OWN. WHAT LIES BEYOND HERE IS THE FIRST TEST ALL CHALLENGERS MUST FACE. IT REVOLVES AROUND USING YOUR SOUL ORBS CLEVERLY. FOR NOW I SHALL GIVE YOU TWO ORBS, AND UNLIKE LAST TIME THESE TWO ARE PERSISTENT AND WILL STICK WITH YOU IF YOU''LL LET THEM. USE THEM AND UNCOVER A PATH FORWARD."


    Then the entity once again opened its mouth and two soul orbs floated out of the creature''s ghostly maw. The two creatures began to lazily float in the general direction of the group.


    Althos stepped forward and established a mental connection with the two creatures. He did this by activating one of the spells on his list of "hotkeys" and then mentally selecting the two creatures who floated idly in front of him. He also made sure that the link would link them to each other as well.


    This was practice for something that he may do a lot more often in the future and so he really experimented with it. It was to sate his curiosity and see how it worked.


    [SPELL TYPE: MIND


    SPELL NAME: MENTAL LINK


    EFFECT: ESTABLISHES A MENTAL LINK BETWEEN TARGET(S) AND CASTER. USED FOR INITIATING TELEPATHIC COMMUNICATION.


    BASE COST: 100 MAGICAL ENERGY PER TARGET.]


    Althos wasn''t sure if the spell had worked, since he had never established a connection through filtered magic before. He decided to test it.


    [Hello? Can you two hear me?]


    Althos heard... something in response, but it wasn''t really a communicable thought. He heard something softly resembling static, but he knew how to improve upon this.


    But first, the god needed to check on something. He turned to look beyond the two orbs and at the floating skull, who was now lazily floating in front of them. Its mouth was closed and it was waiting for them to do something.


    "Hey! Weird floating skull thing, you said these orbs stick with us right?"


    The skull turned to more concretely face Althos and then spoke to the young god.


    "YES, SIR TRUE-DEVIL. THE SOUL ORBS ARE YOUR COMPANIONS IF YOU LET THEM BE."


    Althos nodded at that response and decided to do something no one had ever done before. He decided to awaken the soul orbs.


    Althos''s thought process here was sound. He recognized that the orbs were now basically a part of his party. He recognized that they were living creatures and that they were most likely non-sapient.


    He also knew that they played an important role in successfully completing the dungeon. And that soul orbs were part of the forces he could and would command in order to defeat Paimon.


    He figured that awakening them would increase their power and their usefulness, while also making it easier for the party to speed through this dungeon. So after thinking about how to proceed and exploring his divine powers, he felt ready to move this experiment into motion.


    Althos selected one of his divine powers, targetted the orbs, and then activated the power.


    <hr>


    [NEW POWER EXPLANATION: DIVINE ENERGY DOUSE.


    THE D.E.D. IS AN ABILITY THAT WAS CUSTOM CREATED FOR YOU, ALTHOS. IT''S A POWER THAT SOAKS WHATEVER IS TARGETED IN DIVINE ENERGY. THIS PRODUCES A RANGE OF EFFECTS, RANGING FROM COMPLETELY RESTORING THE STAMINA OF THE TARGET, TO EMPOWERING IT, TO FILLING ITS SOUL WITH POWERFUL ENERGY THAT CAN BE USED WHEN IT IS AWOKEN. AND THAT''S ONLY WHEN DEALING WITH LIVING TARGETS. IT CAN AFFECT NON-LIVING TARGETS IN A VARIETY OF WAYS AS WELL.


    THIS ABILITY WAS CREATED IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE STRANGE AWAKENING SILANDER UNDERWENT, AND THE IMPRESSIVE RESULTS FUSING ENERGY AND MAGIC HAD ON HER. NO TWO CREATURES WHO UNDERGO THIS ABILITY WILL REACT IN EXACTLY THE SAME WAY, BUT IT''S HANDY FOR CREATING UNIQUE AND POWERFUL CREATURES.


    CURRENT MAXIMUM TARGETING CAPABILITIES: TWO TARGETS AT ONCE.


    COOLDOWN TIME: 1 MINUTE.


    THIS POWER CAN BE LEVELED UP AND IMPROVED THROUGH REPEATED SUCCESSFUL USAGES. THE COOLDOWN TIME WILL DECREASE WITH EACH LEVEL UP, AND AT EVERY EVEN NUMBERED LEVEL UP THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF TARGETS WILL INCREASE. AT EVERY 5 LEVELS UNIQUE UPGRADES THAT DIVERSIFY THE USAGES OF THIS ABILITY WILL BE ABLE TO BE SELECTED TO FURTHER CUSTOMIZE IT.]


    Althos willed the ability to take effect and felt divine energy leaving his unusual avatar body. He watched as the energy manifested itself as a directed stream of silver energy that connected him and the orbs and poured divine energy into them. The energy vanished as it entered the blue light they emitted.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    The first change and the only physical one that was immediately noticeable was that the color of the light they gave off changed.


    The two orbs went from emitting a solid blue glow to radiating a thick silver light. In time the trio of dungeon challengers noticed another change as well. The light they gave off warmed up, and became equal in temperature to the nearby torches that lined the walls around them.


    Tristan and Salifinos were curious about what was going on, but they immediately realized that what they were witnessing must be some sort of divine magic.


    <hr>


    The divine energy seeped into the soul-orbs, the most wickedly evil bits of dark souls that adhered to the law and order in bringing about wickedness. Their tiny bodies could only handle so much divine energy infusing their very essences with raw divine power, and it didn''t take long for the infusion of power to completely alter the two orbs.


    Before their infusion, the two orbs could only barely be considered alive. But the infusion not only changed the nature of the light they gave off, it supercharged their tiny brains. The two creatures now had fully functional minds, unintelligent and primitive minds, but minds that had the same sort of potential as the minds of Tristan and Salifinos.


    Their first real thoughts were of their surroundings. Their brains didn''t have language or the knowledge to articulate thoughts in words, so instead their thoughts were images of their surroundings. Their minds quickly filled with images of the tomb they were in.


    They very quickly noticed each other, and thought at each other. Without Althos''s establishment of a mental link that connected them to each other this wouldn''t have done anything, but because Althos had tied them to each other as well as to him it gave them a way to communicate.


    Althos was pleasantly surprised at that unexpected outcome of the complex set of actions he had just spent the last few minutes doing.


    Now instead of floating lazily through the air, like some sort of aerial jellyfish, they actively moved about. They darted around the hallway, even going behind Althos and examining his party members. They were intelligent, but not intelligent enough to be afraid of larger creatures. Like toddlers. Infernal, evil toddlers.


    The instincts that caused all soul orbs to recognize true-devils as masters were still active in them and were actually actively reinforced by their enhanced minds, so they were a bit more careful around Althos than they were around his lesser companions.


    Althos allowed them to sate their curiosity and went through his list of mind spells. He was searching to see if he had an awakening spell. And he found it. The spell was located within the small list of mind spells he had, and he repeated the targeting process that he had undergone when selecting the orbs as targets for his divine energy douse. Then he activated the spell.


    <hr>


    [SPELL TYPE: MIND


    SPELL NAME: AWAKEN


    EFFECT: IMMEDIATELY AND NOTICEABLY INCREASES THE INTELLIGENCE OF A CREATURE OR MAGICAL OBJECT, GRANTS THE TARGET(S) THE WILLPOWER TO RESIST INSTINCTUAL URGES, GRANTS THEM THE ABILITY TO SPEAK A LANGUAGE (WHICH LANGUAGE DEPENDS ON THE CREATURE OR OBJECT IN QUESTION, AWAKENED EXTRAPLANARS GAIN THE ABILITY TO SPEAK THE LANGUAGE OF THE PLANE THEY ARE FROM), AND INCREASES THE TARGETS DISPOSITION TOWARDS THE CASTER SUBSTANTIALLY. IF THE TARGET WAS MINDLESS THEY ARE NO LONGER MINDLESS.


    LIMITATIONS: NORMALLY CANNOT BE CAST ON UNDEAD, NORMAL OBJECTS, OR EXTRAPLANARS. SUFFICIENTLY POWERFUL MAGICIANS, I.E. THOSE WHO CAN AFFORD AN INCREASE IN THE MAGICAL ENERGY EXPENDED CAN OVERCOME THIS LIMITATION.


    BASE COST: 700 PER TARGET.]


    <hr>


    The soul orbs were in the middle of flying around when they were suddenly hit by the spell. The spell''s mind-altering and consciousness-expanding effects stunned the two orbs.


    They were wracked with pain as their minds expanded and their awareness of their surroundings improved. The two orbs became truly self-aware for the first time, gaining an inkling of understanding and realized that they were living creatures.


    They were also suddenly filled with fear of many things, most especially that which was bigger than them and also beyond their limited ability to understand. They were afraid of even the imp, who in comparison to them was positively gigantic.


    They were also scared of the half-devil who was even larger and more solid than the imp. They fled from those two, retreating behind the one their expanded mind and magically gifted knowledge told them was their master.


    The tiny soul orbs were not creatures that had consciousnesses. As a species, these creatures existedin a state of instinctual action and base level reasoning that gave them just enough intelligence to react to stimuli.


    But the two critters who were undergoing the awakening process in the tomb of Agowraith were undergoing a process unlike that which any other soul-orbs had ever undergone.


    Even before being the targets of empowered awakenings they were already legendary creatures in the context of their species by virtue of them soaking up directed divine energy.


    Their emerging consciousnesses were fed some information, basic facts, by the unique processes they were undergoing to gain consciousness.


    The first basic fact that was Althos was a true-devil. This meant that he was a creature with power beyond their ability to even imagine, and it meant that they were to obey him.


    The second basic fact was that Althos was their awakener. This meant that he performed an act of great kindness and an act that merited them being grateful. This was conveyed to them in the form of basic images and lacked any real complex information.


    These two creatures were less intelligent than even Silander had been prior to her awakening. They lacked an understanding of language and of tools, only understanding images and feelings and so the awakening didn''t have the same immediate punch on their intelligence as her awakening had on her.


    Despite the pain of their minds improving and their minds being filled with stimuli that it couldn''t or didn''t process before, they were keenly grateful to the creature who awoke them. This was because they were now able to learn, and they were even able to communicate with each other.


    They conveyed this to each other using images and feelings rather than words or language, because they recognized each other as members of the same species.


    Althos was keenly aware of what passed for their thoughts and could sense the strength of the emotions they felt, as they had no knowledge of how they could shield themselves against his mental intrusion.


    Althos sighed and wondered if they''d have the same sort of attitude as Silander. After thinking about his companions his mood soured, and so he got right back to work to not think about the forest his consciousness had been taken from.


    <hr>


    Althos sent a mental message to the two orbs who were hiding behind him. He wasn''t sure if it would work, but he wanted to be pragmatic and actually test things out instead of assuming what would work and what wouldn''t.


    [Can you hear me? My name is Althos. I am your master. I previously established a mental connection with you.]


    Althos waited patiently and picked up that the creatures must have heard him because they sent each other and him mental images conveying their equivalent of confusion and shock, but it was clear they didn''t understand what he was saying. That was when he received a particularly telling notification.


    [ALERT: THE AWAKENING SPELL CAST ON THE SOUL-ORBS WORKED.PARTIALLY. THE CREATURES AWAKENED ARE CONSCIOUS AND AWARE. THEIR INTELLIGENCE HAS RISEN AS WELL. HOWEVER, FOR SOME REASON THE SOUL-ORBS WERE NOT GRANTED AUTOMATIC KNOWLEDGE OF A LANGUAGE. THAT SAID, THESE ARE NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN UNIQUE VARIANTS OF SOUL-ORBS. IT IS POSSIBLE THAT THEY COULD BE TAUGHT ACTUAL LANGUAGE, AND BE INSTRUCTED IN HOW TO USE LANGUAGE, EVEN IF IT IS JUST THROUGH MENTAL COMMUNICATION. FURTHER EXPERIMENTATION IS REQUIRED.]


    Althos huffed in annoyance at the creatures and the notification he received. This meant he had to change tactics.


    Althos reignited the mental connection he had established between the creatures and himself. Instead of sending them a message, he waited to see what they sent each other so that he could learn from what worked.


    <hr>


    The two creatures were in a state of awe. That much was obvious. Their messages to each other were, as far as Althos could tell, observations about the world around them. To eavesdrop on them was to watch them send pictures to each other, and feel a mental echo of whatever they felt when they themselves saw the things that were pictured. And the most frequent emotion was the emotion of awe.


    He learned quickly that they both liked him, they were afraid of Tristan and Salifinos, and felt like the ghostly skull that stood off in the background was... whatever it meant for something to be "home". Althos didn''t understand the concept of home, and even if he had it would have been difficult for him to understand what a "home" "felt" like.


    In a sense, they reminded the godling of himself just a day and a half ago. He had been similarly astounded by the world he came into existence in. Althos connected with them silently for several moments, watching them learn about the world they were in.


    Once he learned how it was that they communicated, in a visual version of a language, he once again tried to communicate with them.


    He "spoke" with them by sending them images of themselves, then images of the door that blocked the pathway forward, and then used his imagination to craft a mental picture of them entering the door.


    The whole process took nearly a minute, and at the end of it they mirrored the mental pictures of them entering the door with a sensation of confusion.


    Althos poured his confidence in them into them and showered them with the emotions of belief and confidence. That made the two of them excited, and they floated towards the door.


    <hr>


    Althos gave another series of mental pushes in the right direction and at last the entities seemed to understand.


    Althos couldn''t see it through the dense silver light they gave off, but the two creatures nodded and flew into the door that blocked the way forward.


    The skull had quietly watched this unfold and looked at Althos. It was silent and was focusing its energy on sending an assessment of the young deity to the master of the tomb, a creature who lurked deep within the dungeon.


    Both the skull and the creature who commanded it were greatly interested in what would unfold from here, especially after watching Althos awaken the soul orbs.


    <hr>


    The mechanism that kept the doors in the tomb locked was an infernal seal. All it actually took to open it was for a devilish creature to infuse the lock with the infernal magic that flows through the veins of all devils. So it was incredibly easy for the awakened and intelligent soul-orbs to open the lock.


    They entered the door itself using their incorporeal forms and merely breathed on the locking mechanism. It came undone with a hiss and the door began to slowly slide open. The two floated back out the door and returned to their master''s side so that all five of the creatures could continue down the dungeon.


    The knowledge that allowed them to do this came to them via the door itself. The moment they entered its locking mechanism they were showered in energy that conveyed the ways for them to unlock the door. Their advanced brains were more than capable of picking this skill up quickly, and they mastered it almost reflexively.


    Their own systems alerted them to the fact that this odd feat awarded them with experience and that said experience had just leveled them up. Their system, operating under the assumption that their mental capacities were limited like that of other soul orbsfed them a simplified version of this notification, communicating it in a series of pictures and feelings beamed directly into the creature''s brain.


    They were suddenly aware that they could grow stronger. And because they were awakened creatures and also devils, they had an unusual path forward: they could become someone''s familiars. They could even "ask" someone if they could be their familiars, in the odd way they communicated.


    This resulted in an unusual phenomenon, that normally only happened with more advanced devils. Both devils sent out a notification to their awakener. As they sent out the notification they escaped the locking mechanism and went back to the side of the creature who gave them their version of awareness.


    The door started to open, and Althos received an amusing notification.


    [ALERT: SOUL ORB #91023952 IS EXTENDING AN INVITATION TO YOU, TO BECOME ITS MASTER. IF YOU DO SO IT WILL BE YOUR FAMILIAR FROM HERE ON OUT. THIS GRANTS YOU CONTROL OVER THE ORB''S LEVEL-UP POINTS, BEHAVIOR, AND ALLOWS YOU TO SEE ITS STATS. SOUL ORB #91023953 IS ALSO EXTENDING AN INVITATION TO YOU, ASKING THE SAME THING.]


    Althos smiled at the door as it began to open. When he received a second notification asking him if he accepted their invitations, he told the system that he did.


    At this point the orbs were back beside him, having left the door''s locking mechanism seconds ago. When the door was finally open, thick dust provided the creature waiting behind it with partial cover.


    That creature didn''t wait for Althos and his companions to step through the door. Instead, it lunged at them, hoping to surprise them.

 Chapter 25: The Dungeon (Part 2)

    Althos was the first to notice the creature that came shambling at him and his companions as soon as the door was open enough for it to fit through it. It emerged from the partial cover of a dense cloud of dust that had filled the room waiting for Althos''s party.


    The monster was wrapped in ancient-looking linen bandages, that had long since started to look withered with age. It smelled of the same musky scent as the room it emerged from. It was about a meter and a half tall and had sharp looking claws that had partially sliced through the linen bandages that had once wrapped around its arms. Those same claws were outstretched towards Althos''s party members, specifically the soul orbs who had floated eagerly towards their new master after they had opened the door.


    Althos watched its body language in the split seconds he had to make a decision about how to respond to it. He wasn''t sure if it was hostile and knew from experience that not everything that looked not like him was hostile. He didn''t want to start a fight, but he sensed power leaking from the creature''s unpleasant looking claws and each instant that passed was an instant that it drew closer to him and his familiars.


    Althos recognized that the creature was going to strike in the second it rose its claws high and reacted to that without any hesitation. He physically grabbed his soul orbs, an act which to anyone but their master would have been unpleasant. They were shocked that he suddenly grabbed them but had an unusual trust in their new master and didn''t resist as he manhandled them.


    Althos quickly and physically pulled the orbs back out of the range of the mummy''s first attack just in time to help them avoid the swift assault as the creature''s claws cut through the air where the orbs had been moments ago. His motions were coordinated and swift. He had been shocked by the sudden emergence of the new foe but he hadn''t been stunned by it.


    This sudden strike by the monster gave Althos proper cause to recognize it as a hostile entity. He was no longer indecisive in reacting to the entity and he felt entitled to respond to its force in kind.


    The mummy remained close to the group and was eyeing them to see which it should strike next. Althos was the closest person to it, but it was unnerved by his swift reflexes and response time. Althos wasn''t scared by it though and he moved to attack.


    "What the heck is that thing?" Althos asked, even as he moved to counterstrike.


    The godling''s motions were surprisingly casual as he stepped in close to the creature and pushed it back with a single heavy push. It was sent staggering back and judging from its reaction to Althos''s strike the push contained a significant amount of force. It eventually collapsed in a heap beyond the door it had charged at them from, possibly tripping over something tiny.


    Althos''s movements were casual but retained the nonchalant force he had used on the mummy as he waited to see if it would get up. From behind him, Tristan remarked as to the nature of the creature that had attacked him.


    "That is a mummy. It''s a type of undead creature that dwells in tombs. They can arise naturally from ambient unholy energy, or they can forcibly arise as hateful and powerful undead creatures."


    Her voice was calm as she waited, like Althos, to see if the creature would get back up. Althos contemplated what he had just been told, wondering what an "undead" creature was, and the godling wanted to ask more questions but that was when the mummy began to slowly rise to its feet again.


    Althos leaped forward, going beyond the door to pursue the creature. His companions quickly began to follow behind him but allowed him to take the lead. Within moments Althos was almost directly on top of the creature and his fists were clenched.


    The mummy reacted as quickly as it could to the threat the deity posed and tried to move back to avoid his next strike. Althos wasn''t about to allow it to escape his deadly attacks and followed, which wasn''t exactly an accomplishment given the circumstances of the mummy.


    When the mummy realized that the godling would just keep up with it, it decided to take a "the best defense is a good offense" approach and slashed at the deity with its claws.


    As the claws neared the deity Althos noticed that the claws were even more grotesque than he had thought they were. The claws were the color of pus and exuded a strong scent of gore and other bodily fluids. They were vicious instruments and from behind him, Althos''s companions guessed that if a creature not immune to disease got slashed by them they''d receive a nasty sickness.


    Althos dodged them by moving close to the mummy, throwing himself into the creature''s abdomen. Instead of getting slashed by the mummy he merely got hit by the creature''s thin outstretched arms and bumped the creature''s chest. Althos shrugged off the attack and grinned at the creature.


    "Hey Althos, that''s an untamed and uncontrolled mummy. It''s not a very smart creature. But if you kill it you''ll probably gain some experience!"


    This time the voice belonged to Salifinos. Althos didn''t need to know that killing the creature would grant him experience to have a reason to do so but it definitely reinforced his decision.


    Althos''s philosophy was simple and hadn''t ever been explicitly stated: as a rule he wouldn''t attack things that didn''t attack first. But the creature had attempted to slice through his newly awakened soul orbs. Creatures that made him their master. He wouldn''t take that sitting down. To him, that counted as attacking him first.


    Althos killed something using his own hands for the second time in his life with his next move. Althos launched a single powerful strike using his fist to smash the mummy''s head. His hand was stretched at an awkward angle to reach the creature''s head and then penetrate the skull of the mummy. His power not only cracked the creature''s skull it also obliterated the brain of the undead being.


    It was dead the second Althos''s clenched fist touched its brain.


    [ALERT: MUMMY HAS DIED... BEEN MADE REDEAD. DOUBLY DEAD. YOU''VE GAINED EXPERIENCE. CONGRATULATIONS!]


    After that Althos also received a knowledge notification about mummies.


    Althos retracted his hand from the pulverized head of the creature. He did it quickly as his hand was covered in fragments of bone, slick blood, and other fresh fluids. He grimaced when he began to get up and saw his pristine white hand stained with the remains of the undead creature.


    He turned to the half-devil and shook his hand to get some of the remains off of it. "What is an ''undead creature''?" He asked, his voice filled with curiosity and calmness as if he hadn''t just murdered something. The one who responded wasn''t Tristan, but rather the group''s sole imp.


    "Undead creatures are reanimated dead things. If magic or unholy energy suffuses a corpse it''s possible for the dead thing to come back to life. There are also souls that have been overwhelmed by negative energy, or even lifeforms that are always undead that come from certain planes of existence. Once we''ve taken over this dungeon I''ll teach you more about undead things."


    Salifinos casually summarized undeath to Althos and made the promise of providing him with more knowledge later. This was sufficiently persuasive to the deity who nodded at the imp and began to move further into the next part of the dungeon.


    <hr>


    Moments later Althos and his allies had stepped past the doubly-dead corpse and were now truly in the second part of the dungeon. Outstretched before them lay a fork in the road, and behind them, the strange floating skull opened its mouth to speak.


    "HELLO ONCE AGAIN CHALLENGERS! HOW GOOD TO SEE HOW SWIFTLY YOU DEALT WITH THAT DASTARDLY MUMMY. YOU HAVE MY THANKS FOR THAT, AS IT WAS AN INTRUDER INTO THE DUNGEON FROM LONG AGO. NOW THE NEXT PART OF THE DUNGEON IS A BIT DIFFERENT THAN WHERE YOU JUST WERE."


    The creature''s voice boomed and it startled Salifinos who hadn''t realized that the skull had followed them through the open door.


    The fork that laid out before them was in the form of two tunnels separated by a thick wall. The tunnels were odd because they were filled with the same sort of darkness as the pool the adventurer''s had leaped into to enter the dungeon in the first place.


    "TO ADVANCE FORWARD YOU MUST SEPARATE YOUR PARTY. AT THE END OF THIS SECTION YOU WILL BE REUNITED, BUT THE TWO DOORS UP AHEAD REQUIRE ONE SOUL ORB EACH TO OPEN UP AND THEY MUST BE OPENED AT THE SAME TIME TO ACTUALLY OPEN FOR YOU."


    Althos listened to the skull for a moment. And then he thought about what it had told them. But the curious deity wasn''t sure that was what they "had" to do so much as the instructions were what they "should" do. And so he decided to test out if the tunnels actually had to be kept separate.


    At the worst Althos knew that he could just say this was him cashing in on his apparent good deed in defeating the mummy from earlier.


    <hr>


    Althos stepped into one of the tunnels, quickly pushing past the darkness that obscured what laid beyond the tunnel''s mouth. Once on the other side of the darkness, he found himself in a narrow space that led directly ahead as far as he could see. This space was narrowly lit by a row of the same ancient torches as the first part of the dungeon.


    The only difference was that the flames that lit these torches were a different color, specifically, they weren''t the low red of the other torches, but bright green instead. This made the tunnel look distorted and ghostly, which was an appropriate vibe for a tomb.


    His companions had yet to follow him through the tunnel, and so he knew he had time to enact his mischievous idea. He faced the wall that separated the two tunnels and took a deep breath.


    He spent a few seconds gathering strength and force in his fists and then clenched them tightly. When he felt ready, he reeled his fist back and swung a single powerful blow at the wall in front of him.


    His fist moved wickedly fast and rammed into the wall hard enough to cause the tiniest of cracks to appear. Althos smoothly retracted his arm and bent back so that he could make the next strike even faster and more force-filled than the first.


    He launched his second strike and the blow smashed into the wall. His fist now left an imprint on the wall in front of him. He grinned at it and waited to see if it was enough to cause the barrier to crumble in front of him.


    After nearly half a minute passed, the godling grew impatient, and right as his allies charged in behind him he launched a third punch at the wall. This one may have had the least force of any of the blows he aimed at the wall, but it was the one that brought the obstacle crumbling down.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    Althos''s friends and familiars eyes went wide with shock as they watched the deity lash out at the artificial obstacle that he apparently viewed as being in his way. His familiars rushed over to him, even as the wall in front of him began to fall apart in the wake of his trio of attacks.


    Althos was grinning even as his two allies moved towards him. When he acknowledged them it was with a grin and a smirk, as he pointed to the wall in front of him.


    "I guess we don''t have to split up after all huh?" He said arrogance in his voice as he felt that his curiosity was rewarded.


    The skull emerged from behind the darkness that obscured the path behind them and spoke.


    "ACTUALLY MY YOUNG STRONG FRIEND... GUESS AGAIN!"


    At the end of its loud declaration, the creature''s mouth stayed opened and mist flooded out of it. The mist was the same sickly shade of green as the light from which the skull had originally formed.


    The sickly shaded fog went in the direction of the wall, and the godling was shocked as the mist filled in the gap created by his unusual creativity.


    The deity, curious as to if that would actually stop him, went to the mist and attempted to put his hand through it. He was annoyed to feel resistance to his hand, and to find that the mist was solid enough to resist mild effort by him to push through it.


    He turned and looked at the skull. He appraised it and considered what to do. After thinking about the situation for a second the godling shrugged and decided to merely go along with its initial instructions, but he made a mental note to wait for a chance to get back at the creature if he could do so later on.


    <hr>


    A few minutes later Althos was at the end of the passageway in front of him. He was accompanied by a single soul orb. He was waiting for his companions to reach the end of the other tunnel.


    In deciding to obey the whims of the skull Althos had ordered his allies to go back out of the soul and head towards the other door. They were accompanied by the other soul orb that the godling had awakened.


    Althos looked at the soul orb and found that the creature was doing its version of "looking" back at him. Althos smiled at this, relating to the creature''s apparent sense of curiosity, and felt an emotion akin to giddiness radiate off of the orb.


    After the two oddities looked at each other Althos felt the other orb arrive in front of the door at the end of its tunnel. He wasn''t sure how he received that sensation, but he felt it clearly through the shared mental connection the godling and the orbs shared.


    At this point, the deity received an unexpected mental message.


    [HELLO ALTHOS. I AM AGOWRAITH, THE DEVIL WHOSE TOMB YOU ARE IN. I AM QUITE ENJOYING YOUR ESCAPADES. SINCE YOU DECIDED TO OBEY MY COMPANION WHO IS FOLLOWING YOU WITHOUT ANY FIGHTING AND WITHOUT ANY PROMISE OF REWARD, I HAVE DECIDED TO REWARD YOU. I''LL BE TEACHING YOU A NEW POWER: REMOTE VIEWING. IT ENABLES YOU TO SEE THINGS THAT ARE NOT HAPPENING IN FRONT OF YOU. USE IT TO HELP SPEED YOUR TRIP THROUGH THE DUNGEON.]


    The voice was aware of Althos''s name, a name that the skull hadn''t heard during its time with the adventuring party. It spoke with a similarly loud voice and a voice that even in its tone and timber sounded similar to that of the skull. But before Althos could spell out the obvious the deity received a new notification.


    [NEW POWER EXPLANATION: REMOTE VIEWING


    BY FOCUSING ON A TARGET OR LOCATION USERS OF REMOTE VIEWING CAN SEE THROUGH THEIR EYES OR GAIN A BIRD''S EYE VIEW OF A LOCATION. THIS POWER ALLOWS USERS TO SEE NEW LOCATIONS AND WITNESS THINGS IN REAL TIME.


    AS THIS POWER BECOMES STRONGER AND AS THE USER OF THE SKILL GAINS MORE FAMILIARITY WITH IT USERS CAN EVENTUALLY BEGIN TO USE OTHER SKILLS IN CONJUNCTION WITH IT. AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS USERS OF REMOTE VIEWING CAN CAST SPELLS AND USE PSYCHIC ABILITIES EVEN ACROSS VAST DISTANCES.


    CURRENT MAXIMUM RANGE: 500 METERS.


    COOLDOWN TIME: 15 SECONDS.]


    Althos took a deep breath and concentrated. Once he felt sufficiently in sync with the other orb, the one that was with his peers, he closed his eyes and focused on his mind''s eye.


    He silently activated his new power and waited for it to take effect.


    The darkness he was seeing from his closed eyes was quickly replaced. Instead, what laid before his mind''s eye was what the other orb saw.


    The orb saw the imp flying back down the tunnel, possibly to inform Althos that they had arrived at the end of the other tunnel. Then the orb turned and faced the door that had just been behind it. They had actually arrived!


    Althos retracted his vision from the orb and quickly triggered the mental connection between the three creatures. He sent them a mental picture of the doors each of them could see and willed them into the metal barriers.


    The tiny orbs didn''t hesitate to obey his commands and threw themselves into the doors that obstructed Althos and his allies. Within seconds the doors began to open up and Althos stepped through one of them. He waited a moment for the orbs to emerge from the doors and rejoin him and had to wait longer for Tristan and Salifinos.


    The path before them was a straight hallway like the one they had walked through while in the first part of the dungeon. The godling wondered why a dungeon would be designed so simplistic and in such a straight-forward manner. It struck him as odd.


    <hr>


    After the three devils of various types were reunited they wordlessly continued their journey deeper into the tomb. Althos pondered the identity of the voice from earlier, while Tristan reflected on the nature of the deity she was traveling with. Salifinos''s mind was filled with a hope that he may one day return to Bastille.


    The orbs rested themselves on Althos''s shoulders as the crew traversed the inside of the dangerous dungeon and gave the odd-looking deity even odder looking ethereal shoulder lights. The sight of it was comical, and when it first happened Althos''s companions laughed at the sight of the god with glowing shoulders.


    Eventually, the gaggle of devils stumbled across the native inhabitants of the dungeon.


    <hr>


    The group was walking forward when Althos spotted a single scorpion a few meters ahead of them walk into the dim illumination offered by a nearby torch. Its dark natural armor made it look like a dot of darkness fighting against the illumination of the torch.


    He wasn''t bothered by the tiny creature and kept walking in its general direction. As his crew got closer and closer to the creature, Althos watched it with a level of curiosity and admiration for its unusual form.


    In his short life, he had never seen anything that traveled like it did. It crawled on a variety of legs, and Althos found its anatomy quite interesting. From the venomous stinger that it swung over its head in an attempt to ward them away, to its tiny pincers.


    It was strafing from side to side, its incredibly tiny red eyes locked on the approaching group, and it snapped its pincers menacingly at them. Althos found the creature''s attempt at intimidation amusing and delighted in seeing the tiny creature refuse to back down as they neared.


    His companions hadn''t noticed the tiny arachnid, and he wondered what they''d do if they did notice the creature. He wouldn''t have to wait long to find out. When they were fairly close to the tiny and poisonous critter Althos''s impish follower Salifinos reacted to the creature''s presence.


    Salifinos noticed the creature and hissed at it, the imp angered by the sight of the tiny arachnid. This was confusing to Althos, but Althos didn''t hesitate to intervene when Salifinos neared the creature and prepared to strike by moving close to the skittering arachnid and raising his hand threateningly. The imp swung his hand towards the scorpion.


    Althos rushed towards the imp and grabbed his hand as it fell towards the scorpion. The imp roared in anger as his moves to eliminate the tiny creature were thwarted by something that viewed him as a tiny creature.


    Althos''s reaction to his ally was both inquisitive and annoyed. "What are you doing? Why are you attacking a random critter?" His tone was filled with judgemental curiosity.


    Salifinos was angered by the god but also confused as to why Althos would intervene. Althos himself wasn''t entirely sure why he had intervened, but he wanted to understand the basic logic behind the imp''s furious reaction to a scorpion merely defending what it probably viewed as its own territory.


    When Salifinos regained a bit of self-control the imp furiously glared at the deity. "Scorpions are awful! They are the children of creatures that took imp''s poison!" The imp shouted at the deity, and the deity took a second to react to that answer.


    This answer stunned Althos. After replaying what he said in his head, Salifinos clarified and corrected his statement.


    "Verminlords, the creators of scorpions and a variety of other little poisonous critters, stole poison from some of the first imps. They stole the poison from an ancient imp, messing up our tails and making us weaker."


    Salifinos punctured this statement by showing Althos his tail, a tiny thing that ended in a hammer-like nub. Althos visually explored the tail, and noticed that it did look odd.


    The red extremity on the end of the imp''s body was tiny and weak looking. It didn''t seem like a naturally evolved body part, more like the result of a bodily modification or a vicious curse.


    The imp began to speak again, speaking with a fervor that the creature didn''t possess even when demanding that Althos not leap out of the tower of Paimon, over half of a day ago.


    "I hate verminlords and their creations. I''d love to tear that scorpion apart!" The imp declared, his passionate hatred for the critters evident even in his voice.


    Althos was still confused about something. He knew that this would likely result in more yelling and shouting from the imp, so he looked past the creature and at Tristan.


    "What are verminlords?" He asked, curious about the nature of the creatures that Salifinos had a wild hatred for. Tristan had been watching this idly, and quickly responded to what Althos asked.


    "Verminlords are a type of devil. They aren''t common and are one of the sorts of devils that Paimon hates. They are quadrupedal creators who are responsible for a variety of nuisances that plague mortal worlds and other planes of existence."


    Her answer was casual but the information it revealed was fascinating. Althos kept Salifinos''s arm contained and waited for the scorpion to walk away.


    The scorpion assessed the situation in front of it for a few moments. It glared at the imp and swung its minuscule tail as if the tiny stinger it had posed a threat to an imp, creatures who had absolute immunity to injected venom.


    Althos kept the scorpion-hating creature away from the critter long enough for it to make the choice to walk towards the wall further away from them and eventually vanish from sight altogether.


    Althos was alarmed to receive a notification.


    [FEAT GAINED: ALLY TO VERMIN.


    BENEFIT: VERMIN NO LONGER REACT HOSTILITY TO YOU. CREATURES LIKE MICE, SCORPIONS, COCKROACHES, WORMS, AND MORE ARE NO LONGER AGGRESSIVE TO YOU.


    METHOD OF ACQUISITION: EITHER BEFRIEND MULTIPLE VERMIN OR SAVE A SINGLE VERMIN FROM CERTAIN DEATH.


    NOTES: STRONGER VERSIONS OF THIS FEAT EXIST THAT REQUIRE BEFRIENDING MORE VERMIN OR SAVING MORE VERMIN. THE FINAL VERSION OF THIS FEAT CAUSES ALL VERMIN WHO ENCOUNTER YOU TO PROVIDE YOU WITH FAITH-POWER AS IF THEY WORSHIPPED YOU LIKE A SAPIENT CREATURE. ACQUISITION OF STRONGER FORMS OF THIS FEAT ALSO GRANT YOU POWERS RELATED TO VERMIN.]


    After Althos blinked the notification away he ordered his followers to continue their march towards the deepest parts of the dungeon.


    <hr>


    The silence that overtook the group in the wake of their encounter with the scorpion was awkward as hell. Althos could tell that Salifinos was doing his best to contain his rage but at best it was only a matter of time before the creature exploded.


    Althos had spent the last few minutes considering what the imp had told him about the nature of the poison that was once a weapon imps could use. He had spent several minutes pondering it when he realized that there was a chance he could do something about it that may enable the imp to get over his hatred of the scorpions. Or at least something that would empower the imp.


    "Hey Salifinos... do you want your poison back?" The deity, grinning at the imp, as he searched through his mental repertoire of restoration spells.


    Althos suspected that he may have had the ability to restore one of the imp''s long lost abilities and as the imp turned to speak, Althos realized that he did in fact have the power to restore what was taken from the imps. His ability to do so came in the form of a powerful and costly spell. Fortunately limitless magical energy made that price meaningless.


    [SPELL TYPE: HEALING


    SPELL NAME: VESTIGIAL RESURRECTION


    EFFECT: USES MAGICAL ENERGY AS FUEL TO FIND AND RESTORE OR FIND AND EMPOWER A SPECIFIC VESTIGIAL TRAIT IN A SPECIFIC CREATURE. SOME EXAMPLES: TAILS IN HUMANS, SIGHT IN SOME TYPES OF CAVE-DWELLING CREATURES,


    COST: 10,000 MAGICAL ENERGY PER TRAIT.


    PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS AN INCREDIBLY POWERFUL HEALING SPELL. MANY ARE UNAWARE OF ITS EXISTENCE.]


    Salifinos spent a few moments pondering how to react, before turning slowly around and looking at Althos. The look on his face was a stoic one but the emotion in his eyes was intense.


    "Althos, imps who choose to remain imps have long hunted for a way to regain the poison that was stolen from us. If you have a method to restore it... there are a lot of imps who''d do a lot for that. If you have a real method of restoring what was taken from us, I''d... honestly I don''t know what I''d do."


    Salifinos''s response was surprisingly heartfelt. The emotion in it was real and Salifinos looked at the deity with a hopeful gaze. Althos smiled at the imp and quietly spoke. His voice was serious as he met the imp''s gaze.


    "Well Salifinos, you aided me greatly in giving me directions to the Cathedral. So as a way to reward you why don''t I restore your long lost poison?"


    Salifinos looked at the godling. He carefully appraised the deity''s face and replayed what he heard in his mind. It seemed that the imp was thinking about how seriously to take the deity''s words.


    The imp didn''t want to get his hopes up if in a few moments the deity either didn''t or couldn''t follow through with that statement. But after thoughtful consideration and minutes of applied skepticism, the imp solemnly nodded at the deity.


    "If you can restore my lost poison... please do."


    The imp gulped as he waited to see what the deity would do.

 Chapter 26: The Dungeon (Part 3)

    Althos was quietly contemplating how to proceed. The deity was being unusually contemplative in considering how to best leverage his potentially incredible healing power. He had actually been thinking about that for the last minute, a minute during which the passageway the trio of adventurers and the soul orbs lurked in had been silent.


    I want to secure Salifinos''s servitude. I quite enjoy his company, and in securing his allegiance I could gain an intelligent, albeit biased, advisor in Infernius that I might be able to trust more than Tristan. At least a little bit more than Tristan.


    His thoughts were pragmatic, and because of them, he was taking his time in deciding how to most easily secure the servitude of the imp.


    This feels like something significant for the imp. If I''m too casual with how I proceed it might lose some of its weight in his mind.


    Within a few moments, Althos began to develop the loosest version of a strategy that he could come up with when given such short notice. When he first moved to enact it he put as much gravitas into his voice as he could.


    "Salifinos, as a suitable reward for your aid in escaping the lair of Paimon I shall render onto you something of equal value: the long lost poison of your species. Poison which was taken from your kind, unjustly and in an act that doesn''t honor the values of Infernius."


    Althos knew that he was speaking out of ignorance, but he hoped that the gravitas in his voice coupled with the power of saying what he suspected the imp wanted to hear would give him the needed persuasive power to persuade the imp to trust him.


    The plan he hastily cobbled together came mostly from remembering the emphasis on order, hierarchy, and tradition that he vaguely recalled hearing Tristan speak about during her retelling of the legend of the first dark saint.


    At that moment he wished he had paid more attention to the story. He would have to remember not to repeat that mistake in the future.


    Althos noticed at that moment that Tristan appeared to be mildly entertained by his declaration. The fanatical half-devil had begun acting much more subdued since they entered the dungeon, and Althos knew that such a transformation felt dramatic and unnatural, but he''d had time to question her at a later date.


    Althos stepped away from the imp and looked at the creature. He appraised Salifinos openly and opened his mouth to speak again.


    "I am going to offer you one chance to say no to this gift. I will not judge your reasons for denying this gift, nor will I ask for them, but if you don''t say no explicitly then I intend to recover and give to you what is rightfully yours."


    His voice was majestic, accentuated by a potent mix of illusion and mind magic that he was mixing for no specific purpose but to aid in his overall persuasiveness. The imp didn''t really stand a chance against Althos''s voice, his feigned regalness, and his magic, and his agreement came swiftly.


    "Althos... Please restore what was taken from my kind. If you can and you do, you will have performed an act of great kindness for me and demonstrating an ability to perform great things for all imps."


    Salifinos''s voice was filled with a quiet note of hope. It was an odd thing to hear in the quiet tremble of an imp''s voice. His eyes were wide and he had clearly begun to fall for hope''s allure.


    Tristan watched this with a look of amusement on her face. Depending on how this went the young half-devil could predict her neutral but hopeful feelings with respect to the deity whose mysterious powers seemed to continue growing, might eventually become an open obsession.


    Can he actually do it? If he can... honestly even if he can''t he''s acting intelligently in this situation. It might be worth eventually tutoring him in the ways of the perfected approach to evil.


    Her own thoughts were a callback to an ancient text her father was once obsessed with. A book that significantly influenced her own life.


    <hr>


    Althos, after hearing the subtle creep of hope in Salifinos''s voice, wanted what happened next to be dramatic, so he spent a few moments pretending to gather energy. He took deep breaths and looked like he was concentrating on compressing the appropriate energy.


    When he felt that he had done enough acting the deity outstretched his hands towards the imp, and targeted the creature in his mind. Then he wordlessly activated the spell. He felt the 10,000 points of energy rush out of him and towards the imp he was targetting.


    When the spell took effect the power of the spell overwhelmed Althos''s field of view and massive notifications became all he could see.


    Salifinos felt the spell''s power spring up not from the godling but from deep inside of a long-forgotten part of him. A part of him that contained the powers of the first imps.


    Within seconds Salifinos was overwhelmed by the feelings the spell invoked in him, feelings of dark solidarity and a corrupted version of hope that hoped that he might be able to exact revenge against the most ancient enemy of the imps: verminlords.


    The feeling was powerful and it overwhelmed the tiny extraplanar''s senses. He went from seeing Althos and the passageway they were in, to seeing nothing but bright redness. The redness was the same shade of red as Salifinos himself. And it was growing in intensity with every passing moment.


    Eventually, the color became so intense that Salifinos had no choice but to shut his own eyes or else risk impairing his vision and seeing everything through a red filter forever.


    <hr>


    Salifinos''s connection to the powers once possessed by his ancestor manifested in a peculiar way.


    When Althos targeted the creature and activated the spell Althos''s eyes changed. They went from their heterochromatic state to an odd state of milky white orbs like the deity was suddenly struck blind.


    And in front of Althos, Salifinos himself was suddenly surrounded by a thick column of red light, that rendered the creature nearly invisible. But all Althos could see was a vast notification about the mighty spell Althos had just used.


    <hr>


    [LEGENDARY SPELL CAST: VESTIGAL RESURRECTION.


    TARGETED CREATURE: SALIFINOS THE IMP.


    VESTIGAL TRAITS: COMPOUND EYES, VENOMOUS TAIL, SHAPESHIFTING, TELEKINESIS.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    PLEASE SELECT WHICH TRAIT(S) YOU''D LIKE TO RESURRECT.]


    Althos was intrigued by all of the options. There was a part of him that was tempted to select each of the options in front of him, but he knew better than to do that.


    When Salifinos is mine... I may experiment more with these options. Though after seeing the surprising diversity present here I''d love to see what a creature like Tristan''s vestigial traits might be given her status as half-devil and half-something-else.


    After allowing his mind to wander for a moment Althos snapped back to the present and made his selection.


    [VENOMOUS TAIL SELECTED. INITIATING RESURRECTION.


    THE PROCESS WILL BE COMPLETED IN


    TEN...


    NINE...


    EIGHT...


    SEVEN...


    SIX...]


    After a few moments, the process was complete. The column of bright red light that surrounded Salifinos began to vanish, centimeter by centimeter.


    <hr>


    While in the column of light Salifinos felt his ancestors'' might flowing through his veins. He could feel their power and the diversity of their talents present deep inside of him. He could even hear the faintest echoes of their whispers.


    The light that surrounded him and forced him to keep his eyes shut seemed to whisper to his mind, filling him with a faint awareness that he had other vestigial traits. He wasn''t told what those traits were, but the knowledge that they existed was now seared into his brain.


    Once Althos made his choice to resurrect Salifinos''s venomous tail, the imp felt the light''s heat intensify.


    Seconds ago the light had been the same temperature as the rest of the passageway, but now in the time it took for the magic to resurrect the selected trait, the light warmed significantly. The area the effect was the most pronounced was Salifinos''s tail.


    Salifinos hissed in pain as he felt his tail heat up as if the extremity was on fire. He couldn''t see it, but the heat of the magic light was actually physically modifying the tail, causing parts of it to melt away entirely.


    The tail was being restored to the state such tails were in during the age of Salifinos''s ancient ancestors. Entire chunks of it fell to the ground behind the imp, and after Salifinos endured a minute of the invasive heat, the imp''s tail was transformed.


    Salifinos didn''t realize at that moment, but his tail was now lighter and instead of ending in an awkward hammer-like nub, it ended in a stinger that was thoroughly filled with a newly revived and active venom gland located near the tip of the tiny menace''s tail.


    When the heat began to fade, so too did the light that surrounded Salifinos. But not before he received an amazing notification.


    [ALERT: YOU''VE GAINED A NEW SKILL: VENOMOUS STRIKE.


    SKILL DESCRIPTION: LASHES OUT AT A NEARBY OPPONENT USING YOUR VENOMOUS TAIL.


    COST: 15 STAMINA POINTS.


    COOLDOWN: CAN ONLY USE THIS ATTACK EVERY 10 SECONDS.


    NOTE: THIS IS AN UPGRADABLE SKILL WHERE EVERY LEVEL-UP BRINGS WITH IT A LOWER COST AND COOLDOWN TIME AS WELL AS STRONGER VENOM.


    FOR IMPS THIS IS ALSO A LEGENDARY SKILL. ONCE IT''S FINISHED BEING CONSTRUCTED BY THE SYSTEM YOU WILL GAIN AN ADEQUATE FEAT FOR IT. CONGRATULATIONS!]


    Salifinos mentally read the notification and clicked it away. He only just began the task of processing the weight of what had just happened, as at last the imp opened his eyes and found himself face to face with the godling.


    <hr>


    Althos waited for the light to fade from around the imp. As it began to dissipate he kept his eyes where he suspected the imp''s tail would first appear.


    Within a matter of moments, the light faded enough to allow Althos to peer at the tail of his imp. What he saw wasn''t a hammer-like ending to the tail of the tiny devil, but rather a wicked syringe-like extremity.


    The imp''s tail had tremendously changed in the wake of the spell. The tail of the imp used to be the same shade of red as the creature''s skin, but now the flesh of the tail was a dark blue that contrasted sharply with the shade of red of the imp. The new coloration went from the base of the imp''s back to the syringe-like tip of the tail.


    The tail now no longer ended in a neat looking but obviously weak hammer-like tip, but rather ended in a cruel-looking imitation of a proboscis. Much like a proboscis of a mosquito, this appendage promised to penetrate the skin of any opponent of the imp in the future.


    Towards the beginning of the thin needle that promised to wickedly pump venom into any victims of the imp''s wraith, there was a part of the imp''s tail that visibly pumped blood and dark blue venom through the rest of the tail. Each beat of the odd organ sent pulses of venom and blood towards the rest of the organ.


    Althos was satisfied with this, and when the final bits of red light dissipated Salifinos found himself face to face with a smug-looking deity. Althos was grinning at the creature and opened his mouth to speak. His voice was still empowered by gravitas and by a combination of magical energies.


    "Well hello there Salifinos. Are you pleased with what you''ve received?"


    The imp smiled at the deity but was silent. The grin was filled with pride and joy, an unusual emotion on a lawful evil creature, but one that Althos didn''t hate. He could feel that the creature''s respect for him had significantly increased due to his actions.


    What Althos himself felt wasn''t bad either. He quite liked seeing the expression of joy on the imp''s face.


    <hr>


    Within a few moments, the trio of adventurers was walking again, heading deeper and deeper into the tomb. Althos was processing the underwhelming but still positive response he had received from Salifinos in response to his actions.


    The imp hadn''t responded with words. Instead of responding with words, the imp sent out a clear mental message to both of his allies.


    [I am... still processing that my tail is venomous. Allow me a bit of time before I am to speak again. I am filled with an almost otherworldly amount of joy at knowing that my tail is like that of my ancestors and I don''t believe I could properly express my feelings if I am made to speak as I am at the moment.]


    Althos had respected that and urged his companions forward. Now a few minutes had passed and with each passing step, they strode deeper and deeper into the tomb.


    After 20 minutes of marching and exploration passed in relative silence, the trio of adventurers reached a new area.


    <hr>


    When the trio drew nearer to the depths of the tomb the path before them changed. Instead of coming across a metal door that''d require soul-orb intervention, this time they came across a flight of stairs that descended into darkness after about twenty-five steps.


    The very top of the flight of stairs was illuminated for them by a sourceless light that seemed to emit from the very walls themselves. It was a colorless light that didn''t filter what laid out before them in any singular shade but rather revealed it plainly.


    Althos didn''t hesitate, nor did the deity ask for insights from his companions, he just took a single step onto the flight of stairs, tested its sturdiness and when satisfied he continued descending down the stairs. His companions followed him, and they all plunged into the darkness as a unit.


    Althos''s decision to continue moving was influenced by the fact that he could see in the darkness and had seen that what was waiting for them was merely more steps, not any devious traps or monstrous foes.


    When Althos took his second step his tremor-sense power activated and gave him a clearer understanding of what laid out in the direction he was traveling in. At the bottom of the flight of stairs, a few dozen yards ahead of the trio lurked nothing.


    Like much of the dungeon, the path before them seemed to contain no monsters. It was the same smooth sailing they had experienced for most of the dungeon.


    Behind them the floating skull that had been tracking their progress for its master, the true lord of the dungeon, grinned slightly. It and its master were the only ones who knew about the creature that waited for them in the deepest depths of the dungeon itself.


    It knew they were getting closer and closer to the depths of the tomb and to the creature that would be quite pleased to see them.


    <hr>


    The first time Althos ever encountered a trap intended to be used against him what ended up saving both him and his ally''s time was his supernatural ability to peer through darkness.


    At the bottom of the stairwell Althos and his allies walked down there was a panel that was built into the floor. This panel was a specially designed panel that would sink into the floor if stepped on. Althos noticed it as the adventuring party drew nearer to the bottom of the stairwell. Althos made the wise choice to warn his allies about the trap.


    "There''s a weird panel in front of us. At the bottom of the stairwell, just beyond the last step. Instead of stepping on it just hop over it."


    When the deity himself reached the final step of the long stairwell he leaped past the panel. He was followed by Salifinos who merely floated over the panel. The last person to join the duo was Tristan, who like Althos deftly leaped over the panel.


    The trio was approaching the dungeon-heart. And in doing so approaching the master of the tomb.

 Chapter 27: Knowledge, Faith, And A Reunion

    At the bottom of the stairwell, the trio of travelers and their two new companions found themselves wandering in the dark. Much like its upper area, the layout of the tomb''s bottom floor was simple. It consisted of a straightforward passageway that led deeper into darkness.


    They had two sources of light: the soul-orbs. The silver light emitted by the soul-orbs was incredibly useful for the adventurers, and though Althos could see in the dark without difficulty his companions couldn''t. The other adventurers relied on the sound of Althos''s footsteps and the light his familiars gave off to guide them. Their divine partner was quiet but he allowed his footsteps to be heard for their sakes.


    He was beginning to be unnerved by how calm their trip through the dungeon had been. All they had encountered was a single mummy and a single scorpion, and the deity himself had only slain the mummy. At this point Althos''s thoughts were scattered.


    Part of him was thinking about how he could return to his allies. He focused on remembering the events of the past few hours, specifically what had happened when he "accepted the campaign". There was something he was told when accepting it, that stuck out to him.


    When I took on the first quest I was told that no time would pass between my acceptance of the quest and the time of me returning to my body, assuming I completed it... but it is necessary for me to go along with the campaign''s rules? It never said I couldn''t leave Infernius... What if I could find a way to return to my body preemptively, and bring my companions back with me here?


    He cleverly noticed that there was no requirement that he actually stay in Infernius. But his other thoughts were more immediate.


    This dungeon is weird. It''s like its a testing ground or something, that isn''t intended to kill people but to block them from getting something. Or... maybe even designed to keep something from escaping.


    That last thought was particularly cryptic.


    His emotions were all over the place as well. But he was mostly annoyed, annoyed at the dungeon in general and at Tristan specifically. And though he couldn''t do much about the dungeon situation, he could do something about Tristan.


    He was tired of walking around without any significant knowledge and under the current circumstances she held the knowledge he wanted. And so he figured this was a chance to change that since they had nothing else to do.


    He began to scheme, and explore the variety of illusion spells he had acquired. Some of them had a lot of potential, and relied on his own imagination. With them there was a lot he could do to the little priestess.


    In a matter of moments, he came up with a dark scheme and began to explore the few mind-magic spells he had access too. Just in case he broke her mind.


    <hr>


    Behind him, Salifinos was excitedly flying through the air. The imp was moving with renewed energy, excited to be the first of his species in thousands of years to have a tail capable of poisoning enemies. His thoughts were considerably more joyful than those of his companions.


    I can''t wait to get out of this tomb! I''ll be able to inject anyone who crosses me with poison... Oh man I hope I get a chance to do that really soon! What if I could sting that damn police officer? Oh that''d be sweet!


    He felt filled with energy, and though he hadn''t completely let his guard down he was far from watching out. This was mostly because he couldn''t see much, and not because he was distractedly overjoyed by his tail, though his tail certainly didn''t help.


    <hr>


    Tristan couldn''t see at all and followed the footsteps of Althos, coupled with the sight of the soul orbs, one of which was between Tristan and Salifinos and the other of which was further ahead than Althos was.


    The half-devil didn''t feel comfortable in the tomb. She knew that it was part of the ancient prophecy that said that the Cathedral of the Dark Saint would be a place of rest for either Althos or whoever it was that was meant to reunify Infernius, but that didn''t tell her anything about the person the tomb was presumably built for.


    And there was the true, tragic nature of her connection to the dungeon. She knew that sooner or later she''d be forced to tell Altho about her connection to this place. She dreaded that moment, knowing that depending on how Althos reacted to it she might face a fate like that of the mummy they had encountered earlier.


    Much like Althos, Tristan was left uncomfortable by the lack of life in the tomb. It was odd that a dungeon was so deserted, it was almost like whoever designed it wanted it to eventually be conquered. And if that was the case then whatever was waiting for them at the core of the dungeon was something that was imprisoned.


    The thought of that left Tristan on edge, but the deeper they descended into the dungeon the more a curiosity filled Tristan that made her want to see this through.


    <hr>


    The two familiars of Althos were constantly communicating with each other, sending mental images back and forth as they floated through the dungeon. They shared feelings, observations, and neat things they saw illuminated by the light they emitted.


    Out of the five creatures exploring the tomb, they were probably the happiest, though Salifinos was likely a close third.


    <hr>


    After wandering around in the dark for a full five minutes, Althos began to grow impatient. He stopped walking forward and spoke to his allies.


    "We''re stopping. Until that damn skull appears and explains to us what''s going on, we aren''t taking another step in the dark towards... whatever we''re headed towards."


    Though Althos didn''t turn back to confirm that his allies agreed with his actions he suspected they wouldn''t disobey him. In the case of Salifinos, this was because the deity knew how much his poisoned tail meant to him. In the case of Tristan, he was basing this off of a hunch that the priestess valued him for his role in the prophecy she believed him.


    The three of them stood still in the dark and waited for several moments. Then the three of them felt the faintest impressions of dark energy begin to emanate from the depths of the tomb.


    The dark energy seemed to be slowly crawling towards them, and they felt it like the faintest traces of tiny insectile legs crawling across their skin. Althos gritted his teeth in response to the emerging dark energy and had to suppress the part of him that was excited to meet the source of that power.


    That was when the floating skull finally revealed itself once again. It played up its ethereal nature by coming out of a wall in front of the adventurers, and the ghostly light it gave off painted the part of the passageway it occupied a sickly shade of green.


    "WELL WELL WELL... ARE THE ADVENTURERS GETTING COLD FEET? BUT YOU''RE SO CLOSE. SO CLOSE TO MEETING MY MASTER. AND HE''S BEEN WAITING FOR SO LONG!"


    The floating skull''s voice had real emotion in it for the first time since it first appeared in front of the trio. Excitement made the voice of the odd creature tremble, and all three of the creatures who could understand language heard it. Each of them felt a bit nervous but because of this they also independently predicted that the creature wouldn''t let them leave willingly.


    They were right, and the reason it took the creature a few moments to appear in front of them was that it was actually locking the doors they had gotten here through behind them. They were shut in the dungeon and didn''t know it.


    <hr>


    "AGOWRAITH IS WAITING FOR YOU. NOW IF YOU''D KINDLY FOLLOW ME WE''LL GO STRAIGHT TO HIM. AND DON''T BOTHER TRYING TO ESCAPE. BY NOW YOU''VE MOST LIKELY BEGUN TO GLEAM THE TRUE NATURE OF THIS PLACE. IT IS A PRISON THAT EVEN THE UNDEAD CAN''T ESCAPE, LIVING CREATURES WHO ARE NOT THE MASTERS OF THIS PLACE WILL HAVE AN EVEN HARDER TIME ESCAPING IT THAN MY MASTER WOULD."


    The skull''s voice, booming but still filled with the same odd edge of excitement as before, and diction may have included kind words but each of the creatures knew they had no choice but to go forward. Into the darkness stretched out before them.


    Althos assessed the situation that laid before him and his allies with a calm gaze at the skull.


    So... we''re almost certainly stuck here until we clear the dungeon, aren''t we? Well, in that case, we ought to make use of an opportunity to go straight to the boss of the place, shouldn''t we? For now... I''ll just send my allies a mental message.


    And that was precisely what the deity did. He quietly established mental connections with the two devils who had become his partners in Infernius. The connections he established with the devils in his party were individual ones, not a group connection so the resulting conversations were private affairs.


    [I''m going to go along with this. For now. We''ve been given a chance to head straight to the boss of this dungeon and clear it out immediately, so why not take it?]


    Salifinos''s response to that decision was simple. It wasn''t particularly enthusiastic, but it also wasn''t a declaration of an intent to not go along with the plan.


    [That''s as good a plan as any other I suppose...]


    Tristan, on the other hand, was more cautious.


    [Is this really the move? If you say it is, given your variety of powers, I guess I''ll go along with it but... is this it?]


    Althos contemplated how to respond and quickly decided to be simple. And while he was at it, Althos decided this was a perfect chance to gain more knowledge.


    [Yes it is. And since we''re having a private chat, I''ll gonna give you a reward for not telling me everything that you know about this damn dungeon.]


    At that point Althos fired a silent spell at the priestess. It was a single cast of the spell known as "Mark of Fear".


    Mark of Fear targets objects and places a mark on them. To be affected by the spell it is necessary to see the marks themselves.


    Althos aimed the spell at Tristan''s habit, inside of the hood of the piece of clothing. And then he used an evocation spell to conjure a gust that came at the trio from behind them.


    The second spell pulled Tristan''s habit over her head, bringing the mark itself right in front of her. The effects of the spell were instantaneous and enhanced by the closeness of the mark. Her mind reeled from the vision that was suddenly beamed directly into her brain.


    In the split second before Tristan''s sensations were gripped by the spell, she realized that the spell was a particularly powerful mark of fear spell, and tried to gather her wits about her to protect herself. She wasn''t particularly successful.


    Althos received a fascinating notification just then.


    [ALERT: WHAT YOU''VE SCHEMED IS EVIL. THIS ACT OF EVIL IS MOVING YOU EVER SO SLIGHTLY TOWARDS A DARKER ALIGNMENT. THE PULL OF EVIL WILL BE A BIT HARDER RESIST GOING FORWARD. IN EXCHANGE DOING EVIL THINGS PRODUCES BETTER RESULTS THAN THEY HAD IN THE PAST.]


    <hr>


    In her mind, Tristan was no longer in the tomb of Agowraith. Instead, the amber-skinned woman was somewhere else, an altogether more grim location.


    In her mind, the priestess was chained to a wall in a lightless cell by tight chains that bit into her skin. She felt the effects of starvation and dehydration render her incredibly weak all of a sudden but she knew it was the spell''s doing.


    It was difficult to stay on her feet, but she could somehow remember the pain that accompanied partially falling while chained to the wall she was mentally chained to as if she had experienced it dozens of times. That gave her a reason to fight to stay on her feet. It was also another example of the spell''s trickery.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    Her senses were bizarrely assaulted. The smell of rotting flesh filled her nostrils, as did the smell of long-dried blood. She could hear the faint sound of pain-filled moans and gasps but they were the pain-filled moans of a sort of creature she had never heard before.


    The sounds were undeniably alien, nothing remotely humanoid or devilish sounded like that. It was like listening to the death throes of a particularly large reptile, perhaps a dragon or something.


    In her fearful vision, she remained chained to the dungeon wall for over two entire hours, struggling to stay on her feet the whole time. Eventually, the darkness that surrounded her began to change. The darkness went from being an amorphous mass and a part of her surroundings to taking on the terrible shape of a massive creature.


    Within seconds the darkness in front of her wasn''t just a feature of the dungeon, but a gigantic and living shadow monster the shape and size of a cart with milky white eyes that turned and focused on her. They blazed with hungry wrath and the creature slowly opened a maw filled with egg-white knife-like fangs.


    The last thing that happened in her hallucination was the creature coming at her with its maw open. The vision ended right as the creature was millimeters from penetrating her soft flesh with its fangs.


    Tristan felt her sanity take a hit, as even though she was aware she was in no danger the sensations she felt were weakening her resolve. They also played up the dark potential of the creature she was with, as in her vision he orchestrated for her to be slowly tortured through neglect and then eaten by a mighty shadow beast.


    But in the time in the real world that had passed Althos cast another spell that suddenly plagued her mind giving her no time to rest.


    <hr>


    In the real world, the world outside of Tristan''s brain, the devilish nun had fallen to her knees. The spell had immediately affected her brain and its effects were drastic.


    The nun slowly fell to her knees and her mouth was wide open. Her eyes, normally focused and sharp, were unfocused and slack. The effect was drastic enough for Salifinos to notice and be worried for a moment.


    Althos walked over to her, and placed a hand on her head, his hand large enough to hold her entire face easily. And then the creature began to use a variety of mind magic spells to explore her memories and her knowledge, having grown tired of her coyness.


    He smiled grimly, his mouth not opening but the lines of it stretching in a frightening way. His knowledge was increasing with every passing moment, as he learned what she knew and used it to craft a vision for her future that he could share with her that would play to her hopes and dreams.


    This was an unusual act of cruelty and invasiveness that used powerful magic and involved the construction of an elaborate illusion. It also greatly expanded Althos''s knowledge. It was rapidly increasing his progress along a variety of domains and subdomains because of how many different things it involved.


    <hr>


    The sudden influx of knowledge the godling was receiving by scouring Tristan''s mind for things related to the dungeon reinforced his decision to do what he had done, and made him aware of her philosophies. It also made him keenly aware of the half-devil''s tragic connection to this dungeon. And to the 5 trials of Dark Sainthood, the things Althos would need to do before he could be recognized as an arch-devil and begin to reunify Infernius.


    One key bit of information that both the system and Tristan had omitted from the deity, that Tristan was aware of was the eerie fact that eons ago the arch-devils stopped appearing in public. Althos'' quest to become an arch-devil, if accomplished would make him the first arch-devil to appear in public since the days the dark saint walked the dimension.


    Tristan was one of the few creatures outside of the hierarchy of Infernius to come to a dark conclusion: the arch-devils may well have vanished completely. And that information was now stored securely within the mind of Althos.


    Tristan''s father had perished exploring this dungeon in the ancient past. At least, that''s what Tristan herself suspected. It was part of why she was hesitant to tell the godling the truth about the dungeon itself. Though the half-devil wasn''t lying about the tomb being part of the prophecy either.


    None of this made Althos sympathize with her plight, though the mystery of the supposed disappearance of the arch-devils was quite intriguing to the inquisitive deity. The fact that she hadn''t been forthright with him was annoying. That said her knowledge was vast, and she had a sort of fanatical charisma that had made her a successful member of her faction. Her memories revealed as much.


    Tristan is... for her all of her faults passionate and wise. Even now that I possess her religious knowledge and know her beliefs like I know myself, I want her to become my servant. Actually... I want her more now than I did before. I guess I should just make use of this chance to make her want to worship me.


    Althos thought about Tristan''s own desires, what she herself wanted. She wanted power and respect, and she wanted that in a particular way. She didn''t want to become a true-devil. She wanted to worship one. And she wanted to lead others in their worship of that true-devil.


    Althos''s exploration of her mind revealed that Tristan was a true priestess. She had a heart that valued worship and tradition, even if she hated the current traditions of Infernius because they rendered Infernius static and unmoving.


    She hated how creatures who were basically powerless lorded over Infernius, protected by tradition despite their inability to promote devils.


    Devils like Paimon, and the other lords of other cities throughout the dimension were true-devils but the order of the dark saint had long confirmed that the lords lacked the ability to promote devils. It was one of the secrets that Paimon and his peers kept hidden from the public, and one of the things that distinguished the second dark saint from them.


    It was part of what Tristan hoped Althos could do. And Althos himself knew that he''d soon gain her as a real worshipper when he completed this quest and promoted the soul-orbs to imps.


    But he wanted to lay the foundation for her to become a worshipper first. And it was that desire that caused Althos to gain a powerful notification.


    [ALERT: THIS DESIRE, COUPLED WITH THE POWER OF THE PERSONAL MIRACLE YOU PERFORMED EARLIER FOR SALIFINOS THE IMP HAS GRANTED YOU THE FIRST TIER OF INFLUENCE OVER THE FAITH DOMAIN. CONGRATULATIONS!


    THE FAITH DOMAIN IS AN INFLUENTIAL ONE THAT WHEN USED AGAINST PEOPLE CAN MAKE THEM MORE SUSCEPTIBLE TO THE MIND-ALTERING NATURE OF THINGS LIKE MIRACLES AND ILLUSIONS. THIS IS A POWERFUL BUT BASIC DOMAIN THAT GOVERNS SUBDOMAINS LIKE MIRACLES, TRADITIONS, AND CLERGY. IT ALSO GRANTS THE ABILITY TO GRANT SPELLS TO BELIEVERS AND THAT ISN''T JUST FOR THE FAITH DOMAIN BUT FOR ALL DOMAINS.]


    Immediately following this impressive accomplishment, Althos was alerted to his acquiring a new feat.


    [FEAT GAINED: BASIC DIVINITY


    BENEFIT: AS A BASIC GOD YOU ARE NO LONGER A GODLING. YOUR ABILITIES THAT AFFECT OTHERS ARE GREATLY IMPROVED. YOU NOW ALSO GAIN AN AWARENESS OF ALL OF YOUR WORSHIPPERS. YOU GAIN THE ABILITY TO TRAVERSE THE PLANES EVEN MORE EFFECTIVELY AND CAN WILL YOURSELF ACROSS DIMENSIONS. ANY DIVINE ABILITIES THAT HAVE LIMITS HAVE THOSE LIMITS DOUBLED. ANY LIMITATIONS PLACED ON YOUR PHYSICAL SENSES ARE WEAKENED GREATLY, AND YOUR TREMOR-SENSE IS NO LONGER A TREMOR-SENSE. IT IS NOW A CONSTANTLY ACTIVATE RADAR.


    METHOD OF ACQUISITION: EITHER GAIN INFLUENCE OVER FIVE DOMAINS AND/OR SUBDOMAINS OR GAIN INFLUENCE OVER THE FAITH DOMAIN.


    AS AN IMMEDIATE AND EXTRA BENEFIT YOU CAN ALSO SELECT ANOTHER DOMAIN AND SUBDOMAIN TO IMMEDIATELY BE ABLE TO EXERT THE LOWEST TIER OF INFLUENCE OVER. PLEASE NOTE: YOU CANNOT SELECT THE FOLLOWING DOMAINS: SOUL, LIFE, DEATH, FATE. ALL OTHER DOMAINS AND SUBDOMAINS ARE SELECTABLE. PLEASE MAKE YOUR SELECTION NOW.]


    Althos read that, and in doing so caused it to take effect.The effects of the power boost were dramatic, and Althos''s newly enhanced vision suddenly expanded dramatically outward. Off in the far-off distance, Althos was able to see the area the group of adventurers was heading towards. And that was just one effect of the boost.


    Another effect was that Althos was suddenly painfully reminded of what was waiting for him on the first world, the world he came to life in. He gained an awareness of Silander, his one worshipper, and her static condition. For Silander, time was frozen.


    When Althos focused on her he could see her health and her stamina, as well as the fact that she was currently worried. He knew she''d be worried for a long time, in his perspective. if he didn''t do something to get back to the world he sprung to life on, so he decided that he would do something about that.


    Althos informed the system that the domain and subdomain he was selecting were the domain of knowledge and the subdomain of teleportation. His mind was immediately assailed by a variety of sensations. The first of which was the addition of another voice in his mind. A new voice.


    [SO YOU SELECTED THE DOMAIN OF KNOWLEDGE? THAT''S AS WISE A MOVE AS ANY YOU COULD HAVE MADE IN YOUR SITUATION LITTLE GOD. AND FOR THAT I CONGRATULATE YOU. MOST DOMAINS DON''T DO THIS, BUT I MANIFEST MYSELF AS A VOICE THAT IS AUDIBLE TO GODS OF ME... GODS OF MY DOMAIN. I AM THE VOICE OF KNOWLEDGE. YOU COULD CALL ME THE VOICE OF REASON. AND I AM SOMEWHAT AT YOUR SERVICE.]


    This voice then faded from Althos''s mind as it began to explore his own brain. This exploration wasn''t made with hostile intent though, and Althos found that his knowledge of a variety of things was expanding the more the voice explored his mind.


    The domain itself was granting Althos bits and pieces of knowledge as it explored the god''s memories. To Althos this was a worthy tradeoff.


    The deity targeted the mind of Tristan and activated the power of the faith domain. The effect took hold almost immediately.


    <hr>


    Tristan''s vision was suddenly changed again. Now she stood in a small and dark circle, not in pain but in jubilation. Like before she recognized the alienness of the emotions deep inside of her and her situation, aware this was the effect of an illusion spell.


    All around her was a significant amount of darkness like this vision was only partially complete. This small circle was totally empty, aside from one odd feature.


    In front of her was a podium. It was made of bones, and at a glance, the half-devil could tell the bones belonged to a variety of creatures. Tristan was excited to not be in the dungeon anymore, but she was also confused. That was when Althos''s voice penetrated her brain, and boomed throughout the strange hallucination she was experiencing.


    [Tristan... why do you refuse to share your knowledge with me? To me, that shows a lack of trust and that makes me distrust you. And I am not nice to those I distrust. But we don''t have to have this distance between us. Let me show you, a priestess, what sort of a future you may have with me if you trust me and believe in me. If you worship me.]


    The circle of darkness she was trapped in expanded. Behind her, she noticed that what was suddenly visible was the interior of the back wall of the Cathedral of the Dark Saint. And in front of her, the first row of pews of the chapel was visible and they were occupied.


    The pews were packed and they were packed with a variety of creatures. Tristan could see orcs, animals, humans, and a variety of devils, eagerly awaiting something. She wasn''t sure what they were waiting for though. That was when Althos offered some clarity.


    [Tristan... my priestess. They are awaiting you. Well, actually they are awaiting your words. About me. These are your congregants. My worshippers. You are their high priestess.]


    Tristan absorbed that information and felt a powerful emotion well up within her. In front of her were eager congregants, worshippers in need of her guidance and her dark piety. Only she could communicate the will of their dark master to them, and only she felt his dark power in everything.


    This illusion played into her faith, it preyed on her values, and on her hopes. She had long envisioned herself as a successful cult leader, a charismatic presence who was partially responsible for the successful infiltration of darkness into societies.


    Suddenly a book materialized on the boney podium. Tristan walked over to the podium and opened the book. To her surprise the book was blank. She didn''t have time to react to this, as Althos willed the illusion away and instead manifested himself in her mind.


    He did the mental equivalent of gently cupping her face in his hand. The half-devil waited to hear what he had to say.


    [Tristan... if you become mine, we can craft my religion, my church, together. I know you resent Infernius''s traditions, traditions which have brought this place to a halt. I know you want to be the high priestess of the second dark saint. I want that too. But the thing is... you''ve kept secrets from me. I don''t trust anyone who keeps secrets from me. One day you''ll willingly divulge everything you know and have ever known to me. And when you do... you''ll become mine. Until then I won''t take what you won''t offer, aside from what I''ve already taken of course.]


    As he finished thinking the word "mine" to the half-devil, Althos prepared to fully deactivate his spell. He wanted to offer her an impression of her future, something to chew on. It was a future she could only have if she gave herself to him and became a priestess of his.


    He wanted her to be able to clearly visualize it. To remember the faces of the congregants, and the place of worship. It was an illusion that relied on her own understanding of the world around her.


    As Althos undid his spell and released the girl from its hold, he activated his teleportation ability.


    <hr>


    Althos was intent on returning home and bringing his allies with him. He had selected the teleportation subdomain for that very reason. And when he activated it, shortly after deactivating the illusion spell cast on Tristan, he received a surprising notification.


    [ALERT: IF YOU RETURN TO THE PLACE YOU SPRUNG TO LIFE IN, TIME WILL RESUME ON THAT WORLD. IF YOU COME BACK, WITH OR WITHOUT YOUR ALLIES, TIME WILL CONTINUE TO PASS FOR THEM AGAIN. IS THAT ACCEPTABLE?]


    Althos notified the system that such a change was acceptable. And he turned to look at his allies for a single moment. He wanted to inform them of what was happening.


    "I''m gonna be right back. Don''t move forward without me."


    Althos actually did wait for Salifinos to respond. He wanted them to be aware of what was going on, and felt that it was worth taking an extra moment to await confirmation of that.


    His imp nodded at him, and the deity nodded back. Then the deity vanished, leaving the groggy and shook half-devil with the imp and the two soul orbs.


    <hr>


    The effect was instantaneous. One moment Althos was in Infernius with his new allies, and the next moment Althos was back in his human body on the world he came to life in.


    He could see the faces of his companions around him, and he could see the clear sky above him. After nearly a day in one of Infernius''s subterranean layers, the deity was once again in a world with a sky and a real sun. He felt the pleasant heat of the sun on his skin and enjoyed it for an instant before springing back to life.


    To his companions, the deity appeared to have fallen unconscious for a few moments, during which they approached and surrounded him, and then suddenly woke up, as if he was just taking a brief nap. Each of them were shocked but pleased to see him once again awake.


    Althos was on the floor, surrounded by his companions. The one directly in front of him was Silander, the great-frog he had awakened when she had been a simple but poisonous frog. She was shocked that he was awake again, but he suddenly reached out and pulled the girl into a tight hug. Silander smiled and relaxed in the arms of her master.


    After a few seconds, he released the girl, and then turned and spoke to his companions.


    "Boy... do I have some stuff to tell y''all."


    Althos intended to come clean about his status as a deity. And the group of adventurers was all listening,quite curious about whatevertheir master would be revealing to them.

 Chapter 28: The Truth Revealed And New Worshipers Gained

    Before Althos uttered another word he carefully activated the ability of the faith domain. He sucked in a breath as he felt the power surge out of him and slowly creep towards his allies. It infused the air around him and infected it like a sort of gas.


    This ability was aimed at each of his followers and in making the decision to activate it the deity was hoping to create circumstances that allowed him to gain more worshippers.


    Once his power reached them, it began unconsciously rendering each of them more vulnerable to his presence and to his influence. He waited silently until it took hold. Once he felt that it had firmly taken hold he began to speak. He decided to start at the beginning.


    "The truth is I came to life three days ago in this very forest. Well, technically it was two days ago to you all. And the first thing of importance that happened to me was that I met an angel. Now that very same angel is... well it''s my advisor."


    At the end of that confession, Althos wordlessly willed Samyaza out of himself. The angel materialized directly on top of the tall godling and descended to eye level with Althos''s party. The party was stunned as they watched the angel descend, particularly Raverangos.


    The demon glowered at the angel and barred its fangs at the metallic orb. Althos sensed the fear in the angel and responded to the physical drama between the demon and the angel quite simply.


    Althos rose a hand in the direction of the demon and infused his flesh with divine energy so as to remind Raverangos who was in charge. There was an intense, divine fire in his eyes that made the threat even more clear. The demon relented and took a step back, averting its gaze from the menace in Althos''s eyes.


    After being reassured that Althos was in its corner and seeing that the demon had relented, Samayaza spent the next minute spinning in a circle, greeting each of the followers the deity had gained over the course of the time he had spent in this particular mortal world.


    The orcs silently starred at the godling and the angel. Even the sight of their master and his advisor was awe-inspiring and while under the effects of the faith domain the observers of the deity were especially moved by the scene before them.


    They were quietly processing the implications of a master who had an angelic advisor and a demonic servant. The one person who wasn''t starring at her master silently? Silander.


    Silander fell to her knees in reverential worship once her master unveiled his angelic advisor. She was prostrating before him, her head touching the grass. Her companions were so stunned by the revelations of their master that they didn''t even respond to Silander''s display.


    Althos silently observed their reactions, before opening his mouth to continue to speak. His next declaration was quite simple.


    "I am a god."


    Upon finishing his declaration he thought for another second and then emotionlessly added the following sentence:


    "Now allow me to tell you my story."


    <hr>


    A few minutes later he had informed his servants of his true nature, and the unplanned excursion he had taken into the realm of Infernius. They were quiet and respectfully listened to their master as he explained what little he knew of the nature of the prophecy, as they learned about his odd allies, and the escapades he had gotten up to in the Tomb of Agowraith.


    As he physically spoke with his allies he mentally informed M.A. as to his connection with the system, and she decided to not change his settings back. Althos didn''t mind this, as it allowed him to received all of the notifications and shuffle through them himself.


    In the aftermath of the revelations Althos revealed to his allies a hush fell over the party. After minutes of silence, Althos himself brought it to an end.


    "If you wish to worship me... I''d be quite pleased and would be happy to welcome you to my fold. If not, I won''t force the issue. If there is some proof you wish for that would allow me to prove my divinity to you and convert you from my servants to my worshippers let me know of it. If I can''t provide it now, I will seek to provide it for you in the future."


    Althos''s words were haughty, but the members of the party that he had built knew that his power was real. Another silence fell over the party. Althos patiently waited for their reactions.


    Eventually, the first of the orcs to speak was the newest member of their adventuring party: Gallow. The rogue looked at his master and spoke softly.


    "Master... You saved my life. And unlike the others, you and I never fought. I... will worship you. I have experienced your magic firsthand, and I know how powerful it is. If you tell me you''re a deity I''ll believe you."


    At the end of his declaration, the rogue''s eyes meet Althos''s and the deity noticed a new fire in them. They burned with new intensity and Althos sensed the orc''s sincerity. Althos smiled at his servant and felt his own powers surge as if in direct response to the orc''s declaration.


    The sensation was pleasant, a rush of endorphins that began in Althos''s head and gradually flowed down to the rest of his body. That was when he received a new notification.


    [ALERT: YOU HAVE GAINED A NEW WORSHIPPER, GALLOW THE ROGUE.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    GALLOW''S SKILLS HAVE BEEN COPIED AND ADDED TO YOUR OWN. YOUR INNATE STEALTH AND YOUR ABILITY TO PASSIVELY DETECT TRAPS HAVE BEEN AUGMENTED.


    IF YOU GAIN MORE ROGUISH FOLLOWERS YOUR SKILLS RELATED TO THE ROGUE CLASS WILL IMPROVE. THIS IS THE MOST EFFICIENT WAY TO INCREASE SKILLS RELATED TO CLASSES, THOUGH YOU CAN ALSO IMPROVE YOUR SKILLS RELATED TO CLASSES THROUGH HARD WORK AND DETERMINATION. AND OF COURSE BY GAINING CLASSES AND PROGRESSING ALONG THEM YOURSELF.


    CURRENT WORSHIPPER COUNT: 2.


    YOU MAY AT ANY POINT AND OVER ANY DISTANCE ESTABLISH A MENTAL CONNECTION WITH YOUR WORSHIPPERS AND GIVE THEM COMMANDS OR ELSE COMMUNICATE WITH THEM.]


    The notification was pleasant and Althos smiled as he willed it away.


    The next orc spoke up. This time it was Bazur, the orc who surrendered to Althos during the battle for the ruined village.


    "Althos... I need time to process this news. I don''t... I''m not skeptical of your divinity, but I need time to fully process what you''ve told us. Please allow me some time to think through how I feel."


    Bazur''s words were logical and Althos didn''t fault the creature for feeling how he felt. The deity nodded at his second companion and waited to see how the others would react.


    One of the more shocking moments of Althos''s young life was what happened when Bazur''s siblings reacted to the Althos''s declarations. Both orcs were indignant.


    It wasn''t shocking that Anthus was indignant but Ragnor''s frustration was shocking. Both orcs roared as one, and Althos felt their anger. The deity waited to see what happened next and took a second to try and assess how their anger was directed.


    <hr>


    Anthus was seething with rage. The orc had been okay with being defeated by a powerful mortal, one who had grown up and trained to acquire their powers, gaining experience on battlefields and in life-threatening situations. But this? Being defeated by a powerful child?


    By a... powerful child whose powers were granted to him for no apparent reason? That hurt. His pride was in shambles and his anger stemmed from his pride being shattered not once but twice in as many days.


    It was that fractured pride that caused the orc to shout his feelings.


    "Althos... no wonder we got defeated so easily. You were a god this whole time!?" Anthus shouted at his master, before throwing himself at the deity in an effort to deal with some rage. The orc was a well-built humanoid and the amount of force in his charge wasn''t insignificant.


    Althos grinned and was appreciative of the patience he had begun to build up over time as such patience guided how he responded at this moment. He wasn''t so cruel as to lash out against the orc for being angry over being deceived, and he knew better than to fight back at that moment.


    Althos effortlessly handled the charge by reaching out to gently grab the orc''s shoulders and direct the charge away from him before the creature could tackle him. He did this in a single swift and coordinated motion, not giving the orc time to react. He allowed the orc to rush past him unharmed.


    The deity knew that anger had overwhelmed the youngest and most bull-headed of the orcish siblings and wasn''t going to hurt him for that, though he was aware that just days ago he definitely would have fought back in this situation.


    The deity resolved himself to bring no harm to his servant and waited to see how the orc would react to the deity''s decision to simply redirect the charge.


    Bazur''s eyes were wide open as he watched his sibling lunge at their master, but was relieved that the deity didn''t instantly slaughter the orc for his insolence. Instead the orc''s charge was gently redirected and the orc sailed past the deity. When he came to a stop he didn''t move anymore, and stood still as he contemplated the idiocy of what he had just done.


    Ragnor, on the other hand was still fuming with anger. His anger was aimed more chaotically though. Instead of being aimed uniformly at Althos, the anger was directed towards several things. Some of it was aimed at Althos, but much of it was aimed at traditions and beliefs themselves.


    The orc was clearly working through things, so instead of addressing the conservative orc, the deity turned to the orc who had just charged at him. He spoke gently, his voice different than it had been before he spoke his truth to his followers.


    "You okay? I won''t begrudge you for being angry. I did willingly deceive you. I willingly deceived all of you aside from Silander, who knew my true identity from the start. If any of you are angry... that''s understandable."


    Anthus was silent. The orc was headstrong and he wore his emotions on his chest. He took a deep breath and then he finally spoke.


    "Althos... My pride is wounded. I feel, or at least I felt as though I was weak but I suppose I never really stood a chance against a god did I?"


    His voice was calmer now.


    "I can accept that you are a god. But if you seek my worship... I don''t think I''m ready to give that quite yet."


    Behind the two of them Ragnor nodded respectfully. The orc himself hadn''t finished cycling through the wide variety of feelings he had on the matter so he made a conscious choice to not speak until he was sure about how he felt. The only things he said were to alert his companions as to this reality.


    "Friends... I will not lash out like Anthus. But I am also in need of time to sort out my thoughts. I hope you all, particularly you Silander and Althos, can respect that."


    The orc brawler had noticed that Silander was a true follower of Althos. He made the fascinating choice to include the deity''s awakened creature in his remarks. Both Althos and the great-frog herself found this curious.


    Both creatures nodded at the orc, and Silander, in particular, had a newfound respect for the strange brawler. The orc himself had again fallen silent.


    There was but one orc who had yet to speak. The archer named Ranthor. He himself had been unusually calm after hearing everything that Althos had said.


    <hr>


    Unlike the orcish siblings, Ranthor''s pride didn''t suffer in the wake of the orc learning the truth about the nature of his master. In fact, Ranthor was actually feeling quite proud that not only did he fight a deity, but that deity actually wanted him to be one of his worshippers.


    A deity wants me to worship it? A deity that spared my life, when it could have very easily killed me? That''s... really cool! To think that a deity that fought me wants me to be one of his first worshippers...


    The orc''s mind was being slowly overwhelmed and undermined by the power of Althos''s influence over the faith domain. The domain was quietly and insidiously sapping at the orc''s will, and it was doing something similar to the other orcs. But since the domain was being used on several creatures at once, none of the targets were being forced to endure its full effects.


    It just so happened that the orc with the lowest resistance to magic happened to be Ranthor. The orc spoke after a few moments of silence and his words were music to Althos''s ears.


    "Althos... I will worship you. Please instruct me and allow me to join Gallow and Silander."


    Althos grinned at his new worshiper. And then he received one more pleasant bit of information. He winced as he heard the voice of M.A. ring through his ears, but what she had to say was quite exciting for the young deity.


    [ALTHOS! I RECALL YOU MENTIONING THAT ONE OF YOUR ALLIES IN INFERNIUS IS INTERESTED IN TEACHING YOU ABOUT NECROMANCY... I CAN DO THAT INSTEAD. WOULD YOU LIKE FOR ME TO DO THAT?]

 Chapter 29: Deeper Into The Forest

    The moment after the declaration by Ranthor, a stunned silence fell over the party. No one was expecting the orc to willingly choose to worship the creature who had shattered his pride, but after a few moments of contemplation, each member of the party realized that that shattered pride was probably why it was so easy for the orc to side with the deity.


    After a few moments passed Althos nodded at the creature, and then grinned wildly at him. That was his reaction to both the orc''s declaration and the statement by M.A. informing him that she could teach him about necromancy. Both of those were wonderful bits of news that the god was quite excited by. But seconds later he quickly regained his focus.


    After thinking about the particular circumstances he found himself in, he assessed the situation as holistically as he could. His calm mind and lack of experiences enabled him to do this quickly and granted him the clarity of mind to come up with a decisive decision.


    He wanted to finish the quest he was undertaking in this world before going back to the dungeon. His followers in the Tomb of Agowraith were, as far as he knew, relatively safe where they were and if he worked to complete this quest right now he could go back to Infernius with more strength and hopefully with a party of followers who worshipped him.


    That would make conquering the tomb easier, and it would allow him to have backup in Infernius, where he needed it the most. Once he made the decision it was easy for him to proceed, so he began to do just that.


    He took a second to look out before him speedily looking at his various followers, and then cleared his throat to ensure that everyone was looking at him.


    "Alright before we do anything else it''s time that we resume the original quest. I want us to tackle things chronologically. There is no need to rush anything... for now anyway. We can just take on the problems before us, before me, one at a time."


    And with that statement, Althos turned around and began to walk towards the half of the forest that stretched out beyond the river. The team was taking its first steps into the other half of the forest, the territory of bears and who knows what else. Behind him, Althos''s first companions gathered their wits about them and then quietly followed their master.


    <hr>


    Althos quietly walked to the corpse of the bear. He stopped by it, and examined it. His powerful vision effortlessly scanned the thick body of the bear that Althos had accidentally killed, an event which to his followers had just happened but to him had occurred over an entire day ago.


    He was carefully studying the creature''s body, deciding to make use of the deceased bear to learn what bear anatomy was like. He studied the creature''s powerful legs, the thick fur covering its body, and the distinctive shape of its head. He took note of the sharp claws that were attached to the edges of each of its digits.


    <hr>


    Althos carefully observed the corpse. He wasn''t familiar with bears, so he was mostly doing this to satisfy his own curiosity about the creature. He knew that until he encountered another bear this would form an uneducated baseline as to what basic bear bodies ought to be like, so he carefully made mental notes about each detail he observed.


    He noted the color and length of the ivory claws the creature possessed. He noted the eye structure of the creature and mentally compared it to that of his allies. He opened the creature''s mouth and looked at its fangs. He even touched the legs of the creature, familiarizing himself with the feeling of the fur and density of the creature''s muscles.


    Althos took his time silently studying the once mighty creature he had very easily slain. In an odd way, it looked almost as if the deity actually respected the creature and wanted to memorize what it was like, even though he was actually just learning about bears using the one he had killed to learn what he could.


    After a few seconds physically and visibly scrutinizing the corpse, Althos heard a voice in his head give him some unsolicited advice.


    [WHAT WILL YOU DO ALTHOS? WILL YOU ALLOW THIS CORPSE TO ROT? IF YOU DO BUGS WILL COME TO IT AND EAT IT EVENTUALLY BUT IN THE MEANTIME IT''LL BEGIN TO MAKE THIS AREA SMELL QUITE BAD, EVEN WITH THE RIVER SO CLOSE. YOU COULD ALSO USE NECROMANCY ON IT... OR YOU COULD LET YOUR FOLLOWERS EAT IT. IF RAVERANGOS EATS IT, ODDS ARE THE DEMON''S LOYALTY TO YOU WILL INCREASE.]


    M.A. offered some handy suggestions to the deity. He spent a few seconds considering each of them, but in actuality, he was most partial towards either using necromancy on the creature''s body or increasing his pet''s loyalty. It took him a few seconds of internal reflection and debate to settle on allowing his pet to eat the corpse.


    Althos''s basic reasoning was quite simple. The demon was a creature of brutal violence, and he had already kept it from unleashing violence before. Doing this would probably make the creature more inclined to behave in the future by showing that if he is obeyed the creature will get rewards.


    [IN CASE YOU DON''T KNOW THIS YET, DEMONS DON''T ACTUALLY NEED TO EAT. THEY LIKE TO EAT, BUT IT''S NOT ACTUALLY NECESSARY. THAT SAID IF YOU DO THIS... THIS WILL PROBABLY MAKE IT LIKE YOU MORE. PROBABLY.]


    Althos actually didn''t know that demons didn''t need food, and he thanked M.A. for that mentally, while committing to the choice he made.


    Behind him his followers quietly and patiently walked over to him, having learned that he was an inscrutable being whose behaviors were quite odd to them. They studied him studying the bear and wondered what exactly he hoped to achieve from such odd actions.


    Silander, the only one of his followers to truly notice his burgeoning affinity for nature due to her own particular background, wondered if he was mourning the bear but found that quite unlikely. She knew from what he had told them that he was more than willing to act violently, even if he wasn''t in a rush to commit acts of violence, so it wouldn''t make much sense for him to be particularly saddened by the bear''s death.


    After a few moments passed he turned to them and looked at them. His gaze fell over each of them individually and then settled on his own personal pet demon. The hulking creature tensed up, wondering why its master was looking at it.


    The demon quickly got an answer, one that it found quite satisfactory and well worth any immediate fear that it might have felt being subjected to a gaze by its master.


    "Raverangos, when you obey me, you will get rewarded. As a reward for not attacking Samyaza earlier, you can eat this."


    Althos''s words were casual and detached, revealing that despite what his followers were wondering, there was no particularly deep reason why the god had studied the bear.


    He had ultimately just studied it to see what he could learn from a corpse and Silander quietly realized that. As did the orcish siblings, who had firsthand experience with the deity''s willingness to be violent.


    The demon was positively delighted to hear this, and beamed warmly at its master, quite grateful for this unexpected treat. It licked its lips, revealing a thick black tongue that slowly and grossly trailed over the creature''s thick lips. And then it moved, quite quickly in the direction of the corpse.


    The demon launched itself forward through the air and then quickly landed, causing a soft thudding sound, on top of the corpse. It began to greedily consume the remains of the bear. Althos watched it with abject curiosity, even though the rest of his followers found the grisly sight to be a bit revolting.


    The demon''s muscular arms effortlessly tore the limbs from the body of the bear, while its fang-filled maw bit into the creature''s fur-covered hide. The other followers of the deity could understand eating without cooking, but they were less keen on eating something that was still covered by fur.


    Althos hadn''t really seen his followers eat yet, but he had come to understand that such a thing was necessary for them. His decision to reward the creature caused him to receive a short notification.


    [NOTIFICATION: RAVERANGOS THE SENTINEL DEMON NOW LIKES AND TRUSTS YOU MORE. THE CHOICE TO REWARD IT AND GIFT IT WITH THE CORPSE OF THE BEAR INCREASED ITS WILLINGNESS TO OBEY YOU.


    REWARD: YOU HAVE RECEIVED A NEW TITLE. SENTINEL DEMON SYMPATHIZER. IT INCREASES YOUR AFFINITY WITH SENTINEL DEMONS.]


    Althos grinned at this and was thus reassured that the choice to gift the corpse of the bear to his pet was at least a correct choice, if not the correct choice.


    The group of adventurers was silent, and the only noises that penetrated the silence surrounding them were the noises of the river, and the noises of the demon loudly devouring the corpse of the bear. Its countless teeth easily tore through flesh and bone alike and the resulting noises shattered the harmonic noises of nature around them.


    Raverangos continued to eat, undisrupted by any of Althos''s other followers, for a few minutes. When Raverangos had finished stripping the flesh from the creature''s body, it would surprise everyone by tearing off a canine tooth of the bear and silently offering it to its master with its head down, in a gesture of supplication.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Althos looked at his pet, and though he was confused carefully took the tooth from the creature. That was when M.A. chimed in, with a suggestion about the behavior of the creature.


    [THIS IS YOUR FIRST KILL ISN''T IT? WELL... YOUR FIRST DIRECT KILL ANYWAY. PERHAPS RAVERANGOS WANTS YOU TO REMEMBER IT AND THIS IS ITS WAY OF COMMEMORATING THAT.]


    Althos pondered this suggestion and then figured it made enough sense given the demon''s fondness for violence. He shrugged his shoulders and then wondered what to do with the tooth. After thinking about it, he made a public display of grandly showing his pet''s gift to his followers before tucking it away for safe-keeping.


    Althos looked at the demon to gauge its reaction to his actions and saw that it looked pleased with that reaction, causing the god to smile. After this the group of adventurers continued on, deeper into the forest.


    <hr>


    The mixed group of adventurers and their master quietly walked through the woods. They all easily strode through the verdant forest, quietly admiring the sight of the trees before them, casually observing their surroundings without any particular concern for their safety. They owed this sense of safety to their new knowledge about their master''s powers and his own attitude as he walked through the forest.


    The god''s enhanced senses told him that nothing was nearby aside from small creatures that burrowed through the earth, or creatures with wings that nested in the treetops and thick branches of the trees that surrounded them. This made him relaxed and as a consequence of that relaxation, he walked through the forest in a rather carefree way.


    His own carefree attitude as they wandered through the forest rubbed off on his followers and none of them were anymore alert than they usually were. They heard the ambient noises that typically populated forests around them, and didn''t hear any particularly odd sounds, nor did they smell anything particularly unusual.


    Ravernagos, the one of them the least used to forests, felt more free to explore the forest than it had in the past due to its increased trust in its master. And so the lumbering demon-beast wandered around them examining objects it wasn''t familiar with, which happened to be many things it found in the forest.


    The creature lifted various grasses to its maw and chewed on them, tasting them to see if it found anything it liked. More often than not the creature would violently spit out the grasses, and look in the direction it found them in with an annoyed expression. Occasionally the creature would shallow what it had sampled and make a delighted, bestial noise.


    Althos''s attention often turned to the creature, so that he could keep track of its reactions to the arboreal treats around them. He noted which of the plants the creature seemed to like, and chuckled whenever the creature spat out something it didn''t.


    Althos''s other followers looked around themselves in curiosity and enjoyed the sights that greeted them. This part of the forest felt more vibrantly alive to them than the part of the forest they had previously occupied.


    The colors of the tree''s leaves were considerably brighter and more explosive here than the trees in the part of the forest Althos was born in. The trees were also generally taller here, though only Althos could notice this.


    The noises and smells here, though no different in terms of sheer variety than in the other part of the forest, felt more intense to the god''s followers, though the deity himself didn''t find this as delightfully distracting as they did.


    Althos quietly wondered why this part of the forest felt more alive than the other part did, but didn''t particularly pay it any mind aside from hoping he''d eventually find out why this felt to be the case. His servants, the angel, and M.A. didn''t quite know why either, so they made the choice to be quiet.


    Eventually, after exploring the forest for nearly half an hour, Althos discovered something odd: small footprints in the dirt he and his party were walking on top of. Althos stopped and looked at the prints in the dirt beneath him.


    The prints were the most humanoid-like prints Althos had stumbled across in the forest, and they stood out to the curious creature because they were multiple sets in close proximity.


    He fell to his knees so that he could get a closer look at the prints, and his companions moved over to him once they noticed that he was staring at something on the ground with a level of visible fascination.


    Gallow the rogue was the first to notice the prints the god was studying and let out a muffled sound of shock. He quickly fell to his knees as well and moved closer to his god so that he may also observe the prints. He wasn''t under the impression that he could identify them better than Althos, but rather that since his god was a newborn creature, Gallow''s wider base of knowledge may prove useful to the deity.


    The rogue''s focused vision zeroed in on the prints and holistically analyzed them. He was able to identify them as belonging to smaller creatures, wearing localized boots that didn''t leave tracks quite like anything he had seen in the various raids he had participated in throughout his life.


    The prints were deep enough in the ground that they were noticeable by anyone looking at the ground, and they hadn''t been swept away by a breeze or filled in by soil yet. That meant that whoever made them might have been small but it wasn''t light.


    Upon examination, the prints also had the treads revealing that were likely to come from boots. This coupled with the fact that there were multiple sets of prints that left similar tracks indicated that the boots they wore weren''t totally unique but rather were more likely to be from the same shoe-crafter local to this area.


    The rogue looked at them for a second, trying to quickly glean what bits of knowledge he could gather from the prints. Then he stood up, while his master and the object of his newfound faith stayed on his knees memorizing the prints. He turned to his fellow followers of Althos and began to speak, his voice carrying newfound authority and confidence.


    "I believe these prints are the prints of a gnome or something of similar stature. Something tiny, yet intelligent and strong enough to wear equipment, given the uniformity of the tracks they leave behind as well as multiple distinct sets going in the same direction. It''s possible a group of gnomes lairs in this forest."


    Althos listened to this declarationand felt the keen sting of lacking knowledge once again. But the deity didn''t allow himself to be bitter over his lack of knowledge, instead, he felt the urge to do something about it. He made a mental note of something to discuss with his worshippers later: knowledge and worship.


    I should make a core component of worshipping me sharing knowledge or at least create a sort of ritual for me that commands and involves worshippers sharing their knowledge. If I do... then I''ll quickly gain significant amounts of knowledge and most likely become more powerful.


    This thought was picked up by the pair of voices who dwell in Althos''s mind and unbeknownst to the deity they delighted in it. They agreed with this train of thought and were excited to see Althos proactively thinking about how creatures would or should worship him. It was an exciting development for the deity''s distinct behavior and traits.


    At this point, Gallow turned to his master and waited to see if his master wanted to say anything. When the rogue was greeted by silence he decided to try and gather some favor from his deity by explaining more things about gnomes, correctly assuming that his master knew very little about the little creatures.


    "Gnomes are tiny humanoids. As far as I know they like to live in small villages in plains but it''s not unknown for them to have lairs in forests. Other possibilities as to whoever made these tracks include dwarves since they are about the same size but dwarves infinitely prefer mountains to forests for lairs and goblins are also a possibility but they definitely prefer shallow caves for their lairs as opposed to forests."


    Althos nodded at the rogue, who grinned sheepishly in delight at the acknowledgment by his master. Then the god asked his follower a question.


    "What do gnomes look like?"


    Althos''s voice was calm and curious, seeing this as an opportunity to gather knowledge about a species he had never heard of. Gallow quickly responded, and his voice was as speedy as his reaction time was.


    "Gnomes look like humans, just tiny ones. Though where many humans tend to look... clean and well-groomed, at least in cities and in large enough towns, gnomes tend to look wild. They are often covered in dirt and seem to enjoy the sensation of dirt and soil on their skin or covering their faces. They wear unkempt clothes and can but don''t always smell of trees and sweat."


    Althos quietly played and replayed this explanation, memorizing it and formulating a mental picture of a gnome based off of the humans he watched his followers clash against days ago. Then he spoke again.


    "What about dwarves?"


    His question was simple, and his roguish worshipper thought about the question for a second before answering. When Gallow spoke his voice was excited and eager to impart his knowledge on his master.


    "Dwarves are intelligent architects and smiths. They are short, like goblins and gnomes, but they are above and beyond the most talented populous species of constructors found throughout this continent. They tend to live in or around mountains and they have a preference for volcanoes whenever they can possibly build homes wherever they want too. They look like short humans, but who tend to be dressed in heavy metal armor and with thick hair, be it atop their heads or on their faces."


    Althos smiled at this description and pictured a stubby dwarf in shiny armor with a thick beard. This mental picture did dwarves justice, at least male ones. While he was constructing this mental picture Gallow began to speak again.


    "If you gained a dwarven worshipper or servant who is a blacksmith you''d gain a skilled follower who might be able to craft some strong weapons or armor. Goblins on the other hand... Goblins are tiny humanoids who are notorious raiders, much like orcs but usually less disciplined, and what few skilled warriors they have tend to be rogues like me. Theyare thought of as beinggreen-skinned but their skin color can range wildly, usually seeming to depend on where they were born."


    Althos reflected on that statement and noticed many things of interest in it. This propelled another question he had.


    "Based on what you know, if I gained a gnome worshipper or servant, how would that benefit me and us?"


    His question was something he was genuinely curious about. He waited, quietly, while his follower reflected on the question. When the rogue spoke his voice didn''t have quite as much confidence as it did before, due to the uncertainty he felt in his answer to his master''s question.


    "Honestly? Based on the few stories I''ve heard about gnomes, and the very few I''ve fought in the past, you''d likely gain either a farmer''s worship or perhaps more interestingly the worship of a druid. That would actually be really useful for us, as it''d mean we''d have another creature capable of shapeshifting and talking to animals or plants."


    Althos looked at his follower and nodded. He was grateful for Gallow''s contributions and grinned at the rogue, causing the rogue to smile happily at the creature who had saved his life.


    The godling actually wanted to gain as many followers as possible and didn''t particularly care for the species or occupation of whoever served him, but it didn''t hurt to gain even theoretical or imperfect knowledge.


    He wasn''t aiming for any specific type of worshipper, he just wanted worship and knowledge.


    He and his crew of servants and worshippers resumed their walk through the forest, but now they were following the tracks they had discovered. Althos intended to find the creators of the tracks.

 Chapter 30: A Monster In The Woods

    As Althos led his party deeper and deeper into the forest, he silently reflected on what sort of deity he aspired to be.


    I want knowledge. Right now, more than anything else, I lack a real awareness of the world around me. As far as I know, there aren''t many limits to my powers, but since I''m ignorant, my weakness is that there are simply so many things that I honestly don''t know.


    Because of that I am in a weird position where I have tremendous power and incredibly little knowledge. How can I correct that?


    I already know that I plan on having my worshippers share their knowledge with me, but what else can I do? How else can I gather knowledge? Are there things that store knowledge?


    <hr>


    Within Althos''s mind, the intensity of his thoughts and the tone of his self-reflection was fascinating to the two beings who whispered their counsel to him, in exchange for a home in his head. They listened intently from their mental abode as Althos quietly brooded on his perception of his weakness.


    Neither creature disagreed with his assessment, and they were growing increasingly fond of what was gradually becoming the deity''s first obsession. Both creatures were amused by the deity''s ignorance of the existence of books and other written things, so Samyaza decided to reward the deity''s attempts at self-reflection by informing him as to the existence of books.


    The metallic angel thought about how to phrase it''s message politely. After thinking about it for a few moments, Samyaza sent the creature it was accompanying a quick message.


    [Hey Althos, M.A. and I can hear what you''re thinking about and we just want you to know about something called a book. A book is an object which contains writing, a written form of language, and that writing often contains knowledge in a semi-permanent state. Do you think that maybe you should look for books?]


    Althos didn''t physically react to this new knowledge, but it caused his mind to race.


    There are things that contain knowledge in a somewhat permanent state? I must know more!


    Althos''s sudden and energetic thoughts were heard by the voices who dwelt within his mind. His mental voice was loud, eager, and clearly excited. He then issued an abrupt demand to his mental guests.


    [Tell me more about books. What do they look like?]


    The two voices in Althos''s mind chuckled at the same time and once again Samyaza took the lead in responding to the mentally energetic creature they advised.


    [Well Althos, books don''t come in any set shape but many of them built by humanoids, creatures like humans, orcs, goblins, and other creatures you''ve yet to meet, are rectangular objects, that are often made of wood. They have wooden frames and contain pieces of paper called "pages" which are covered in markings known as "words". We are communicating with words, but some people can turn our speech into symbols and therefore leave it behind.]


    Althos reflected for a few moments while continuing to silently lead his party deeper into the forest, before remarking, mostly in passing, about the illusion he cast on Tristan in Infernius.


    [They are wooden rectangles? That''s one of the things that appeared in the illusion I used on Tristan... Does Tristan like books? If it appeared in the illusion built from her memories and desires then I suppose she must value them... Books would be good to have.]


    The level of confidence in Althos''s mental voice was initially quite small but as he mentally spoke it grew and grew. And by the time he was done thinking his thoughts he felt confident again.


    He quietly gave himself a small objective: to gather and figure out how to use some books as well as to use them to gather more worshippers.


    After giving himself a new goal, Althos reflected on the nature of the spells he used on the half-fiend companion he had gained while in Infernius.


    The cruel combination of illusion spells Althos used on the half-devil Tristan to gain her service had given him a chance to search her mind for a lot of information, and though he had seen images of books in her mind he hadn''t focused on them. Because of that,the deity only knew what books looked like, not what they actually were.


    The spell he used on her to show her a vision of the future he could give her hadn''t shown her a future handbuilt by the deity. It actually made use of Tristan''s own thoughts and desires to feed her an intoxicating and personal message that would appeal to her.


    He quietly thought about the new goal he gained in learning about books while continuing to lead his party into the depths of the forest.


    A forest which before his very eyes was subtly shifting, but not so subtly that it evaded his detection.


    <hr>


    Several minutes later the diverse adventuring party had continued their pursuit of the footprints. Their pursuit compelled them to sneak deeper and deeper into the forest with every step they took.


    And as they did so the forest itself began to conspiratorially but noticeably change around them and in doing so become something altogether more eerie than a natural forest.


    The forest would go from being an arboreal wonder to being a place of oppressive closeness over the course of the kilometers-long march into its innermost reaches that the party was undergoing.


    They had been quietly following the footprints they happened to find in the ground and at no point deviated from the tracks. Each group within the party noticed the forest subtly changing around them in unique ways, but over time the changes stopped being subtle.


    <hr>


    Althos was the first member of the party to notice the unnatural changes happening with each step, even in his unfocused state. The deity gained an awareness of the forest''s subtle shifts thanks to his powerful vision.


    He would occasionally look up and around him. While doing this he''d glance at nearby trees. He quickly realized that he could see the distance between the trees shrinking with each set of trees he glanced at.


    Silander was the second member of the party to realize that something about the forest was different. She realized this because she, like Althos and Raverangos, was barefoot.


    The ways the twigs underneath her feet snapped when she stepped on them felt different in this deeper part of the forest than they had when the great frog and her allies were closer to the river dividing the forest.


    Her lightness made her aware of the ways things moved and shifted underneath her whenever she walked. Because of how rare it was for grass to bend underneath her weight she was extra sensitive to the sensations that she felt whenever her weight disturbed whatever she stood upon.


    This sensitivity alerted her to how twigs breaking underneath her weight felt. The twigs in this deep part of the forest felt brittle underneath her, weak and easily broken, not like the twigs from where she was from.


    In her place of birth, the twigs would have withstood her weight and not snapped at all, as opposed to breaking with fairly little resistance like the twigs here did.


    Raverangos, the hulking sentinel demon who had decided to serve Althos in exchange for chances to commit violence, could taste a change in the air around them.


    The part of the forest the group was in before tasted natural and fresh to the demon, but now the demon could taste a subtle taste of magic in the air, like someone applied the most gentle of spices to it. It was more pronounced whenever a soft breeze blew over the party.


    The orcish siblings had a harder time detecting the shift in the forest. They didn''t have the magical senses of their allies, nor did they have any familiarity with the forest.


    They became aware of the change in the forest by sight like Althos, but the sight that tipped them off to it was different than the sight that tipped off Althos. They noticed a change in the color of the grass they were marching on because they were following the mysterious footprints by sight alone and their eyes were glued to the forest''s floor.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    The grass they were walking on top of was originally a bright green, but with each passing step, the green grass was becoming a quiet mix of blue and green. It was pretty, but in time it became undeniable and clearly out of the ordinary.


    Ranthor the orcish archer was made aware of the changes to the forest by sound. He leaned in on his training as an archer and was carefully listening for the ambient sounds one expected to hear in a forest. But the deeper the party went into the forest the quieter it became.


    Normal animal noises ought to have been all around them. Ranthor ought to have heard nearby animals living their lives in the forest, climbing trees, and scattering piles of leaves while playing fun games or hiding from predators. Yet what Ranthor heard was a slow, and gradually encroaching silence.


    Ranthor''s search for sound caused him to find relatively few sounds where he should have found an abundance. He should have heard bird noises in the background, high above him and the treeline but he didn''t.


    He should have heard the sounds of leaves drifting on the breeze, but he heard very few gently falling to the ground. He should have heard the ambient shuffle of animal feet crunching leaves and crushing grass, yet he had to struggle to pick up the faintest sounds of animals in the distance, in the same direction that the party had come from.


    Gallow''s empathy and his awareness of his comrades were what gave him an awareness of the suspicion his comrades felt. He was looking at the ground beneath them all like the orcish siblings behind him, and so it took his vague awareness of his comrades gradually tensing up around him to alert him to the oddness of the situation around them all.


    The rogue reached into the jacket-like armor he wore and grabbed one of his daggers. He swiftly pulled it out of the thin jacket-like armor he wore and readied himself for combat.


    In doing this he was the first of the party to physically react to the oddity of the situation they were in. His comrades followed his lead and mentally readied themselves for anything to come.


    The party stopped moving for a second when the relative silence around them was interrupted by the sounds of Gallow pulling out his weapon.


    Althos, a combination of his ignorance and his power granting him the confidence to be still in this situation, stood still and waited to see how the forest around them would react to the actions of his worshiper.


    The orcish brawlers rushed forward, going from being in the middle of the party to the forefront in moments. They spread themselves in three directions, so as to be ready to respond to attacks from a variety of directions.


    They rose their firsts and readied themselves to be attacked at any moment. They were brawlers who were ready to put their lives on the line to defend their companions from any attempts on their lives.


    Silander and Raverangos moved to their master''s side, approaching from behind Althos and taking positions near him. The hulking demon stood directly behind him, so that it may act as a barrier that would oppose any attempts by any enemies to rush Althos.


    Silander quickly moved to be beside her master and wondered what she''d actually do if any enemies came close to her. She was unsure herself since she knew nothing at all about combat.


    The orcish archer Ranthor moved to a position between Althos and the orcish brawlers who had taken charge of intercepting anyone who may decide to approach since they were now clearly aware of the unnaturalness of the forest around them. He lifted his bow in front of him and gazed out at the forest around him, waiting to see or hear something approach his allies.


    Gallow stepped behind Bazur, the middle sibling of the orcish trio, and waited to see what would happen next. He held his knife in a way that allowed him to quickly lash out with it if necessary, and his eyes scanned the area directly in front of the party.


    The party held their breath as they waited to see what came next.Like the party, the forest itself was frozen and tense, as if it were waiting for a command from someone or something nearby.


    The forest''s next move was to fade from view as a dense fog emerged from between the trees and moved towards the party from a variety of directions.


    The aggressive vapor that obstructed their sight quickly had them surrounded and charged at them until the fog was so dense and so near to them that even the trees that surrounded them were impossible to make out.


    <hr>


    In response to the haze surrounding them, the party huddled closer together. They neared each other and took a few seconds preparing themselves in a variety of ways for whatever came next.


    Althos passed the time by going through the variety of spells at his disposal. In doing so he studied a variety of illusion and evocation spells he hadn''t really had a chance to check out.


    Raverangos spent seconds sniffing the air around itself and picked up a scent it had an ill-defined sense of nostalgia about, but couldn''t specifically place. It was an odd, but not unwelcome scent.


    Silander spent the moments by lifting getting down on all fours and warming up her muscles for some intensive movement, because she feared a fight was moments from breaking out.


    The orcish brawlers made a display of grunting and trying to sound intimidating towards whoever was watching them from beyond or within the fog that surrounded them.


    Ranthor''s sharp eyes gazed out into the mist, and he poured his energy into his vision. He strained his eyes looking for something to target, but was annoyed to find that he couldn''t make out any distinct shapes, or even any moving ones, from within the mist.


    Gallow was considering doing something he felt was an appropriate thing to do in the moment but felt a bit embarrassed by.


    Oh man, how do I even begin this? How does prayer work? Will Althos hear me? I guess there''s no harm in trying right?I mean... if I plan to be a good and faithful worshipper, I suppose I ought to start when it''s inconvenient right? That way prayer gets easier later on?


    In that moment Gallow was grateful to have a mother who remembered orcish customs, including antiquated ones like prayers to show devotion to the gods. It was her piety that was responsible for his own limited awareness of how to show fealty to the gods.


    The orc who owed Althos his life put in the effort to invent a basic prayer, and took a few moments to utter it in the safety of his own mind.


    Althos please bestow upon me the skills needed to steal that which you desire, and to most effectively carry out your will. If it is your will, please direct me as if I were a knife in your own hand so that I silence those who oppose you, and so that your enemies may feel the pain of your wraith. Thank you for your kindness in saving my life, and I pray that you may grant me the chance to be your instrument.


    Althos was alerted to this unexpected but welcome development because he received a notification.


    [Alert:One of your worshippers has recited a prayer to you. Gallow has asked for your blessing via prayer, and his quiet show of faith is the very first traditional act of worship anyone has directed at you. Due to his occupation, devotion to you, and the nature of his prayer, his skills have been increased and so have your own abilities related to stealth, and theft.


    Reward: You have are inching closer to being able to exert influence over the domains of Stealth and Theft. Gallow''s own skills in those areas have been improved, and so have yours.]


    Althos grinned upon reading and then willing away the notification. The deity quickly used a form of magic he was becoming quite familiar with, mind-magic, to establish a mental connection with his roguish worshipper. He immediately sent the rogue a simple message.


    [Your prayer has been heard, and as a way to meet your devotion, I will now connect our minds. This way you can more easily understand my will and act upon it. Your devotion is real and I recognize it. I will see to it that you receive a reward for that, in the near future.]


    In response to this sudden development, Gallow''s cheeks flushed with a mixture of excitement and joy and the orc took a moment to enjoy being praised, even in this tense situation.


    The party wasn''t approached by whatever creatures called the fog into being, as such an aggressive mist was clearly unnatural. Instead of revealing itself to them, the party was forced to wait.


    At least an entire minute passed before whoever was responsible for the fog made their next move.


    The party was surprised to hear, rather than see, a mysterious creature call out to them from somewhere they couldn''t see, presumably somewhere within or just on the other side of the fog.


    "Akuwhack malubranche. Am Tua Qut, dark caballo."


    Althos''s companions couldn''t make out what the voice was saying but they cringed as they felt the words wash over them. The voice spoke in a language the mortal creatures couldn''t understand. Rather unexpectedly, Raverangos could understand the gruff language.


    Althos, like his demonic pet, understood what was being said. To the deity, the voice came out and spoke in a rough, masculine, voice that was speaking confidently and clearly. He heard a gruff and simple greeting.


    "Hello, strangers. I am the dark unicorn, Qut."


    The language the self-described dark unicorn spoke was the twisted and corrupted tongue of the Heart of Darkness, the fiendish realm from which Raverangos hailed. Althos''s servants instinctively disliked the language and as they felt it wash over them they had looks of disgust on their faces.


    There was a pause, as Althos and Raverangos both considered responding but were unsure of what to say or even where to look. The creature hadn''t revealed itself while speaking, so either being would have to project their voice.


    Qut must not have been known for having patience because after an awkward silence filled the air between the two groups the dark unicorn spoke again. This time it ceasing its feigned politeness.


    "Y buta tu pews. Q ui alu ors? Wo cew iu nedu wu p?"


    Even with the language barrier, Althos''s party could pick up a tonal shift. The words were faster, even if there were more of them, and there was a soft whining noise at the end of the second question, a sound that reminded Althos''s allies of the noises a horse made.


    Althos''s abilities to speak to and understand all creatures were once again incredibly useful as it automatically translated what Qut said to the god and Althos immediately knew what the creature had said to them.


    "I have your friends. Or are they not yours? If not, what do you seek from here?"


    This alarmed Althos, and the deity immediately began to fear the worst.


    And at that moment, Althos''s unparalleled vision finally glimpsed a bit of the dark unicorn named Qut. Deep within the mist, Althos could see a pair of darkly glowing ruby eyes peering at him and his allies, and slowly inching closer to him and his party.

 Chapter 31:

    The dark unicorn slowly trotted through the fog in the direction of the party its vapor had surrounded. Its pace was lackadaisical, and it felt confident and a bit opportunistic as it lazily strode towards the impertinent creatures who dared intrude upon its domain.


    The reasoning the creature used to justify its lazy pace to itself was so that it could call upon one of its most potent powers, a power which it never failed to use right before it went to battle and had over time became a tradition of the creature before it met any new being.


    <hr>


    This damnable power... What I wouldn''t give to somehow improve it. I''m sick and tired of having to wait for it to recharge before I feel comfortable diving into battle, or using it to frighten weaklings into obedience.


    The creature complained to itself as it strode through the mist it had magically generated. The creature then began to count the seconds it took for its strange ability to begin to take effect.


    10...11...12


    It had counted almost all the way up to 15 seconds before its jet black horn began to gently glow. Just moments later the horn began to sweat a bright liquid, a liquid which dripped from the beast''s horn onto its snout.


    The area soaked by the liquid darkened in color and Qut felt itself grow in power, albeit temporarily. The dark unicorn made a sound that was halfway between a gasp and a moan as the feeling of power suffused each part of its body. And then it picked up its pace to move closer to the party of adventurers who had unknowingly stepped onto its territory.


    One effect of the aura that the unicorn was slightly uncomfortable with, when not using it at least, was that it strengthened any dark urges the beast felt, even while it was spreading over the creature''s body. And though that might be a boon in battle, it did make the moments during which battles weren''t happening more difficult for the creature.


    An example of that was that in the wake of the silence that the creature had been met with after it spoke, it wanted to use its horn to impale each member of the party that it was approaching. The longer they were silent the more it felt like goring them onto its unusual extremity.


    The thought of one of Althos''s allies speared onto its horn brought the dark creature a not-insignificant amount of glee.


    Qut''s vision was unimpeded by the haze it was using as cover to slowly approach the creatures. The dark unicorn could effortlessly see each member of Althos''s party, from the tiny batrachian humanoid hiding next to the human-like creature in the group to the massive demon who stood behind the group''s sole human-looking member.


    When the creature looked upon the human-like creature who was at the heart of the party''s formation it was surprised to see that the deity was looking right back at it. This caused the unicorn to want to straight into Althos''s eyes directly. The deity didn''t avert his gaze and actually grinned when the unicorn''s eyes met his own.


    The unicorn was rather surprised when Althos suddenly locked eyes with it. The unicorn''s eyes were like dense pools of dark magma, but the deity''s eyes were a dark void that felt as though they''d absorb anything that they came into contact with. The unicorn met the gaze of the deity for a few moments, but then averted its gaze.


    In the moments the deity and the unicorn locked eyes the creature felt a chill run up and down its spine. It was a thoroughly unpleasant experience, but in undergoing it the unicorn came to a wise realization: the creature who was lurking in the heart of the party was a nefarious and mighty creature.


    <hr>


    Moments after Althos determined the location of the unicorn, thanks to its eerie ruby eye color, the god and the magical equine creature locked eyes. Althos stared at the creature openly, boldly, and without blinking or backing down. The creature tried to match Althos''s gaze, and successfully did so for several heartbeats, but ultimately averted its gaze.


    Despite averting its gaze the dark unicorn continued its leisurely trot towards Althos and his servants. With each lax step it took in the direction of the party, more and more of its wicked yet striking body was revealed to Althos.


    The dark unicorn was perhaps the most majestic creature Althos had seen in his life, however short that life was.


    The creature that was lazily walking towards Althos and his followers was about two and a half meters long. Its coat was similar in color to its blazing eyes, a dark red color that contrasted sharply with the fog it shrouded itself in. Some features, like the unicorn''s crest, were a striking shade of white that to a creature with more experience than Althos would have looked like snow. The color contrast was striking yet made the creature stand out even more.


    The coat was thick but not thick enough to hide the creature''s mighty muscles. Qut''s body was covered in dense muscles. The creature''s length was caused in no small part by how muscular the creature was, its muscles making its legs thicker, and giving it a broad chest.


    The creature was tall, measuring close to three meters in height. Its face was sharp and angular, with deep-set eyes, a snout that occasionally exuded puffs of dark smoke, and a mouth that hid rows of teeth that were similar to shards of broken glass.


    One of the strangest things about the creature, in Althos'' eyes anyway, was an "air" which seemed to surround it. In fact, to the god''s eyes Qut was positively bathed in a strange and alien aura.


    This aura drapped itself over the creature''s body, like a sort of barding that wrapped the creature in air a darker color than the creature''s coat. For Althos the act of looking at Qut was the act of looking at a unicorn with a dark coat, through an even darker filter. It was totally bizarre.


    Though Althos was studying Qut, Qut was studying Althos''s party. The dark beast spent several moments eyeing each of the creatures the young god had gathered to his side.


    Althos wondered what the creature thought of the very tiny cult and followers he had gathered, but that was mostly an idle thought. Instead of focusing on it, Althos began to walk in the direction of the creature, quietly passing the orcish brawlers who had positioned themselves to defend their allies.


    Althos'' followers tensed up, still unable to see where Qut was coming from but aware that Althos, who was approaching them from behind, probably could see the creature. He motioned for them to not move. None of them disobeyed him.


    Althos''s movement caught the wandering eye of the enigmatic unicorn who stopped its relaxed movements in response to Althos moving forward. The creature''s final step brought it just close enough that Althos''s companions could see the shape of it stand out against the dense fog, even if they couldn''t yet make out any of its specific features.


    Althos willed the next words to escape his lips to come out in the dark language of the demons and opened his mouth to speak.


    "Greetings Qut. My name is Althos. I and my companions are newcomers to this forest. What is this you just said about ''having our friends''?"


    The deity''s question wouldn''t be answered immediately, as the dark unicorn evidently had other plans and possibly even a flair for the dramatic.


    As if in response to the words of the god, the fog that hid Qut from the view of the creatures who served Althos slowly began to pull back. Once the fog had pulled back enough to reveal all of Qut to the party, the fiendish creature silently made eye contact with every member of the assembled party and then took a small step towards Althos.


    The sight of the dark unicorn caused the various figures who served Althos to gasp. It had an otherworldly bearing and it was quite striking in an alien sense, like something one might expect to see in a world that was a dark mirror of the one the adventurers lived in.


    At that precise moment, the wind blew through the forest, causing the mane-like hair on the back of the unicorn''s head to billow to the side.


    Althos felt his party react to the figure who was apparently behind the mist, thanks to his unmatched hearing. He heard the beads of nervous sweat not only form on the brows of his allies but begin to roll down their brows as well. He even heard the quickening of their heartbeats. This made Althos grin, but of course, the deity only grinned internally.


    <hr>


    All five orcs in Althos''s service were ultimately simple men. None of them possessed skills in spellcraft and none of them possessed any real experience with magic. This colored how they saw the dark unicorn.


    When they looked at the dark unicorn, they saw a creature that was clearly intelligent, but they couldn''t even consciously perceive the magical aura of darkness that Althos saw clearly when he looked at the creature.


    The orcs who were in Althos'' service reacted to the creature solely on the basis of its majestic physical appearance. They were astounded to see a creature that was both regal and capable of striking fear into someone''s heart. To them, the black unicorn was a majesty creature that looked as though it was capable of inspiring or causing great evil.


    In fact, the sight of its dark noblesse stirred a strange and unnatural bloodlust in them. To each of them it sounded slightly different but the warriors, in their proximity to the dark unicorn and their exposure to its malignant aura felt powerful dark desire surging forth from within the wilder and more brutal parts of their hearts.


    At this moment the unicorn spoke to Althos, but the orcs were busy dealing with the insidious effects of the equine creature''s aura and thus they didn''t hear what it said to Althos. Not that they would have understood what it was saying anyway.


    Gallow, only you deserve to be by your master''s side. The others are either creatures he pities or those who had to be defeated by in order to convince of his greatness. But you? All it took was his mercy! Remember how your proactiveness before resulted in Althos''s praise? Be proactive again, cut down those who only respect violence and earn more of his praise.


    Ranthor, use your bow and arrows to earn your freedom. Liberate yourself from those whose strength can only manifest itself up-close. Althos may be worth serving thanks to his mighty magic, but must you fight alongside these brutes? Men who can only use knives, or their fists to fight? Althos may forgive you if you do this for him, but it''s always easier to ask for forgiveness than to beg for permission.


    Anthus, is this the life you desire? The life you deserve? A life defined by a single failure, wherein all you do is serve one who defeated you once? Why not secure your freedom the traditional, orcish, way? Fight. Fight!If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Bazur, Althos may have saved your siblings and showed you mercy, but did they deserve it? Anthus fell to a single blow! That is not the orcish way. Killing him is a mercy. And Ranthos would find that true to the orcish path, to orcish thinking.


    The strong survive Ragnor. Only the strong. They have forgotten that. But if you rise up right now, no one who survives the day will forget it again. Power is waiting to be seized. If you act now, strike while the iron is hot, then you stand to wake up tomorrow much more powerful than you did today.


    Each of the orcs found these nefarious whispers annoying.The orcs weren''t shaken by them, and in fact, found them very easy to ignore. This confused the dark unicorn, who strode up to them expecting its power to shake-up their relationships, loosen their hearts, and make them tear each other apart.


    There were two reasons why the sinister power of the unicorn''s aura didn''t work. The most direct and easily understood of the reasons was that the power of the faith domain was still gripping the hearts of the orcs and that that coupled with what strange and distinct faith they each had in their master overcame the predatory nature of the unicorn''s aura.


    The second reason was harder to explain concretely but was probably more important in the long run. The reality was that each of the orcs, the only people in the party with mortal minds and the strength to not flee or want to flee from the unicorn, had endured events over the last two days which fundamentally altered their minds.


    Their understandings of reality and their expectations about their own lives had been both upended and undermined by the mysterious and often random works of Althos. His sudden emergence into their lives, the dramatic nature of the things he did either for them or to them, and even his very presence, had forced them to become mentally flexible.


    These two things put together granted them unexpected mental toughness, perhaps the only sort of toughness orcs weren''t typically known for having.


    Silander for her part in all of this found the massive creature, a creature so tall that the only being taller than it in the party was Raverangos, absolutely terrifying. The dark creature''s imposing air made Silander want to run and not look back. It was her proximity to the god who awakened her that granted her the ability to stay still, but the unicorn and its aura was pushing that resilence to its limit.


    Althos and Raverangos were simply unaffected by the aura. Both creatures had minds that were immune to such weak mind-altering effects and were thus completely ignorant as to that effect of the strange aura that bathed the unicorn.


    <hr>


    Seconds after taking a step forward, Qut opened its mouth to speak. When the dark creature''s open mouth was exposed to Althos''s companions they had to stifle their reactions to Qut''s broken-looking teeth out of fear of disrespecting the creature. Althos took that moment to try and learn what the creature was feeling by using a touch of mind-magic and mixing it with his own enhanced vision to assess the creature''s body language.


    The first emotion Althos sensed from the creature before his allies had unknowingly shrugged off the cruel power of the aura, was a level of confidence. There was also a nearly imperceptible bit of fear, or perhaps paranoia, along with the confidence, but the confidence itself was considerably more noticeable and powerful than the paranoia Althos sensed from within the beast.


    "Al... Althos is it?"


    Althos silently nodded in response to the question.


    It was at that moment when the unicorn realized that none of Althos''s comrades had turned on their peers. This truly mystified the beast and caused an unexpected emotional shift.


    At that moment Althos''s ability to understand the creature''s emotions picked up a quick emotional change. The creature, still proud and arrogant, went from being confident to being confused.


    Confusion had profound effects on the proud. Normally it caused proud creatures to become irritable and aggressive, but on Qut the effects were more subtle. This confusion awoke the creature''s reasoning abilities and they warned it that it was facing something strange, and perhaps even something dangerous. Which made the creature cautious.


    Qut may have been named for what its maw would do to meat and other food that entered it. The creature''s mouth was filled with innumerable teeth, all of which looked like translucent shards of broken glass and promised to slice up anything unlucky enough to be in Qut''s mouth.


    Althos took a step towards the creature and began to speak again. His voice was slow and he willed it to wash over the unearthly beast and he hoped that it would placate the strange fear he felt the creature radiate.


    "Qut, we are not your enemies. We are merely wanderers in search of something we believe we may be able to find in this part of the forest. But I''m afraid I must repeat myself... what do you mean you ''have our friends''?"


    Althos watched as the creature looked straight at him, and as it contemplated his words. It took a step back, as the fear Althos identified earlier began to take a firmer hold in its heart.


    <hr>


    This being''s friends were totally unaffected by my aura... that means they must have strong minds. And all of them together could probably force me to flee this area if I wish to remain unharmed.


    There must be a way for me to deal with these newcomers that prioritizes my safety... Gah, I guess I have no choice but to deal with them as equals and see if what they want is anything unreasonable.


    The unicorn was an intelligent and evil creature, and like many evil creatures, it had a powerful sense of pride. But like even more evil creatures it had strong instincts that prioritized survival. After all, if one survives one can rebuild their pride. In the eyes of the most dangerous evil beings, the only end that was permanent was death.


    <hr>


    Qut spoke just an instant after realizing that it''d probably be best to listen to Althos and his allies. The next words out of Qut''s mouth both shocked and relieved the deity.


    "Are you not aware that your friends are missing? Or are the goblins not yours?"


    Qut received its answer from the deity''s body language rather than any words it spoke. The godling breathed a sigh of relief, and then immediately began to grin, after hearing Qut utter the word "goblins".


    "Goblins? No, we have no goblin allies. But, I suppose they came across you somewhere closeby. I''m making this guess because we were following their tracks. They may have something to do with some local wildlife... acting aggressively."


    Althos was happy to hear that the creatures caught by the dark unicorn were not orcs belonging to the same group of raiders Althos''s allies were a part of.


    Althos''s mistake was his sudden mood shift, the deity''s mood led to him being a bit too cavalier with what the wolves had mentioned to him. His voice had changed mid-sentence after he realized the mistake he made, a change that was detected by the unicorn.


    The unicorn''s curiosity was piqued by Althos''s unfortunate slip of the tongue, but the creature did a quick cost-benefit-analysis and figured that that particular bit of forest gossip wasn''t worth the risk of agitating the group of adventurers, given how quickly Althos''s tone shifted when he realized the mistake he made.


    To ensure that the unexpected interlopers to its domain weren''t tempted to try and silence someone who may know a bit too much, Qut, in a fit of paranoia, spoke up and made an offer it hoped would placate the travelers.


    "Well since they might have knowledge useful to you, would you like to accompany me to them? I''m not keeping them in my lair, just watching over them in an area that''s close by."


    As the unicorn was making that offer it willed away the rest of the fog and felt the effects of its aura begin to wear off. It mentally readied itself for the unpleasant aftereffects of the period after the ability was used.


    The ability was a temporary one, and chatting with the creatures had chewed through the time the ability was able to be active. Qut carefully and stealthily repositioned its legs so that the sudden weakening of its body it knew was coming wouldn''t cause it to fall and possibly give away that it was entering a period of serious vulnerability to strangers.


    Althos pretended not to notice that the creature had seemingly randomly moved its legs to a closer and tenser position where it could muster more force, and spoke for the group.


    "Sure! We''ll accompany you to where you''re... ''watching over'' the goblins."


    Althos''s voice revealed his skepticism of the dark unicorn''s claims, but he was genuinely interested in meeting the creatures that the dark unicorn had, one way or another, acquired.


    The godling turned around and explained the gist of what was said to his non-demonic allies.The orcs behind him, his great-frog worshipper, and the demon all felt that this was probably the best course of action so none of them cared to add anything else to what their master said.


    The unicorn nodded at them and then slowly turned around, weakened in the moments after its ability was used up. When it finished its slow turn, it began to walk at a moderate pace in the same direction Althos and his allies had been wandering in when the encounter began.


    Althos was curious as to what awaited them deeper in the forest, and he was far from alone. Qut, for its part in all of this, was feeling rather conflicted. The intelligent dark unicorn was frustrated that its auric powers were useless, but the creature was glad that it was still alive and that the goblins it acquired might be of some use to it after all.


    At that moment Althos received a handy notification.


    [New Species Knowledge Gained: Dark Unicorns


    Dark Unicorns are a demonic corruption of powerful celestial creatures known to mortals as Unicorns. Their celestial counterparts are famous for their kindness, dignity, mercy, and hope, but Dark Unicorns are lustful creatures who are the dark embodiments of the fury at the heart of a stampede and the belligerent pride of a mighty lion. Their horns are potent magical items that can be used as part of deadly magical rituals or as the foundation of sinister weapons. That said acquiring a Dark Unicorn''s horn is a foolhardy task as the Dark Unicorn will fight hunters seeking their horns to the death.


    Known Dark Unicorns: Qut.]


    <hr>


    As the party wandered off with the unicorn, Althos reestablished his mental connection to the infernal allies he had made during his short and unwilling trip there. He tested it by asking a quick question.


    [Tristan and Salifinos, can you hear me?]


    He got a response within seconds.


    [Althos, this is Tristan. I can hear you. What is it, are you on your way back?]


    Tristan''s tone revealed that the half-devil was evidently quite excited by the idea of Althos returning. In the heat of the moment, the deity was unsure if that was due to her being stuck in a tomb without him, or because she now wanted to serve him, but he was inclined to think it was a healthy mixture of the two.


    And then an instant later he received a response from Salifinos.


    [This is Salifinos, you are heard. What''s up?]


    Salifinos'' casual tone slightly annoyed the deity, but Althos was quite excited to realize that his mental powers and mental magic could have an effect even over cosmic distances.


    [Sit tight for a bit. I may attempt to summon the two of you out of the tomb in a bit. I just need to be in a better place to try something like that. If it doesn''t work, within the next few hours I may just teleport back to you and the orbs, grab you and then teleport out of the tomb. I''m currently where I came to life, and I''m trying to solve a mystery. Your powers, and the powers of the orbs, would be more useful here, than there, but I have a demon, my demon, here and I honestly don''t know how it''d react to you since you''re devils.]


    After Althos finished explaining his rationale he waited to hear their reactions. Within seconds both creatures telepathically sighed and mentally grumbled quiet complaints but didn''t try to persuade the deity to do anything else. Then there was a silence as no member of the trio said anything over their connection. Both of the devils quickly corrected that.


    Salifinos''s message must have been finished quicker than Tristan''s because it was the first Althos received.


    [I''d love to be back in the mortal world. If you can bring me there that''d be awesome. It''d give me a chance to test out my poison.]


    Salifinos''s message was simple and to the point. At the end of it the imp also revealed some of the excitement he felt about the possibility of having targets on which he could finally use his stinger.


    Tristan''s message came through a second later.


    [I''ve never been to the mortal plane. That makes it neat, exciting, and probably filled with things to corrupt. If you can bring me there that''d be awesome. Plus I''d rather be there, being useful, than be stuck here. I hope to see you soon, Althos.]


    Tristan''s mental tone shifted a bit at the end there. All of her thoughts were respectful, but the thought at the end was more than that. There was a bit of giddiness to it. Althos pondered it for a bit and then focused on where the unicorn was leading them. Behind him, his companions wondered what had taken his attention away from the immediate surroundings but none of them felt like asking directly.


    That was when Althos received a new notification.


    [Feat gained: Long Distance.


    Benefit: Range is less of an obstacle to you now. Range limits applied to ranged weapons are now doubled for you.


    Method of Acquisition: Perform a spell or attack that crosses dimensions to reach its target. Spell can be of any type.


    Note: Given your nature as a god, range limits for magic that would apply to mortals are effectively disregarded for you for no other reason than your limitless magical power allowing you to fuel magical spells infinitely. This feat is for ranged weapons like bows, guns, cannons, and other things like that.]

 Chapter 32:

    Seconds after reading through the notification the deity blinked and at the same time willed the disruption to his vision away. When he opened his eyes the notification was gone, and the deity grinned. To the group of followers he had, and to the dark unicorn, the sight of his grin was cryptic.


    After noticing the gaze of his followers upon him Althos chuckled and quietly said "Sorry, I was willing away a notification. If our pace is slow enough that you''ve got time to gawk at me, would you like for me to see if our guide can speed up? I''m more than happy to do that."


    His followers shook their heads at him and grimaced. None of them spoke but it seemed they were fine with merely maintaining their present pace. Althos watched their reactions and then quietly laughed. Seconds after he laughed the orcish archer Ranthor spoke up and asked the deity a question.


    "Althos, you get notifications too? Does that mean that even you, a god, have to deal with the system?"


    The orc''s question and tone made it clear that the archer, the very first person Althos had ever defeated in combat, wasn''t fond of the mysterious thing known as the system. Althos''s consideration of how to respond to the question was interrupted by Althos''s unorthodox aid, the mysterious creature known as M.A.


    [Before you say anything I''ve been messing with my settings and I think I may have figured out how to... well not shout at you anymore. Do you like it? I do. It''s nice to not yell. Oh, and I got the system''s settings changed too! There are might be some kinks to work out, but this should beeasier to deal with than before.


    Anyway, species who were created by gods deal with a different sort of system than you do. Their systems are a lot more restrictive than yours is. But if your power grows... who knows, maybe you will gain the power to fix that.]


    Althos was shocked to hear M.A. and not feel as though he was being yelled at. It was a pleasant change, especially when coupled with the knowledge she shared with him. Althos considered it as he prepared his response to Ranthor.


    "As a god, the system I deal with tends to be... lenient with me Ranthor, almost certainly more lenient than the system you deal with. So far it''s been fairly pleasant. It''s mostly given me access to information and taught me about my powers. And that means it gives me what I love: knowledge."


    Althos''s response was a bit cryptic but it also revealed to the orc that at least one god dealt with the same sort of universal mechanics as mortals did. That was an eye-opening revelation to the mortal, who nodded at the deity after the deity finished speaking and began to think about what that meant for the universe itself based on his own knowledge.


    <hr>


    After the group had been walking along with their dark unicorn guide for almost half an hour into the depths of the forest, Althos decided this was as good a time as any to use a potent spell he had only used once before.


    As he contemplated using it, Althos recalled the only time he had used it in the past: to give Salifinos the imp the poisonous powers of his ancestors.


    [Alert: given your interest in making use of the legendary spell known as Vestigial Resurrection, the system will now provide you with information about the spell''s options for each of your followers. Since this defies how the spell is normally used,due to its high costto cast on multiple targets, a new spell will be created solely to simplify this process.


    As far as naming the spell goes, the system recommends the name "Vestigial Examination". The effects of the spell are simple: when used on a target or targets this spell reveals what vestigial powers any target(s) have locked away within the depths of their genes. Do you have any objections to this name?]


    Althos thought it over, even as he kept walking alongside the dark unicorn, and then quickly told the system that he didn''t have any objections. Seconds later the system sent him another notification.


    [Initiating usage of a brand new spell, hereafter referred to as "Vestigial Examination". Scanning the various creatures in your service, beginning with your worshippers and your pet demon.


    5...


    4...


    3...


    2...


    1...


    Scanning complete. Commencing scanning of your followers...


    7...


    6...


    5...


    4...


    3...


    2...


    1...


    Scanning complete. Preparing results for your purview. List displaying options have been configured to be as simple as possible.


    Externaltraits:


    Wings (Silander, Raverangos)


    Natural armor (Bazur, Ragnor, Anthus)


    Second heart (Bazur, Ragnor, Anthus)


    Secondary set of arms (Ranthor)


    True-vision (Gallow)


    Natural camouflage (Gallow)


    Elemental breath (Silander)


    Horns (Raverangos, Silander)


    Animal shape-shifting (Raverangos)


    Artifact shape-shifting (Ragnor, Bazur, Anthus)


    Suction breath (Raverangos)


    Mucus mastery (Silander)


    Internal traits:


    Mind-reading (Gallow)


    Manifestation of chaos (Raverangos)


    Animal speech (Silander)


    Qi radar (Ragnor, Bazur, Anthus)


    Pheromone generation (Silander)


    Soul-Weapon(Ranthor)


    Telescopic Vision (Ranthor)


    Emotional detection (Raverangos)


    Consumption of emotions (Raverangos)


    System commentary: After examining their genetics it seems as though Orcs live in a highly regulated society wherein mates are selected on the basis of their talents. If you wish to test this yourself perhaps you should aim to acquire a servant or worshipper who is an orcish magician. If you do and their vestigial traits include a variety of magic oriented abilities that''d be further evidence of this hypothesis. In other species, an examination of vestigial traits will produce far less predictable outcomes.


    Ability summary: Some of these abilities, particularly the internal and shape-shifting ones, are immensely powerful. Qi radar is an ever-active detection ability that renders any attempts by living creatures to sneak up on whoever wields it useless. Artifact shapeshifting allows its users to transform their limbs into weapons, shields, and other artificial objects.


    Manifestation of chaos gives sentinel demons ranged attacks using the power of the abyssal chaos of their home realm and if used to paint an area in chaos it can corrupt an area. Animal shapeshifting allows users to take on the traits of animals including the claws of crabs, the stinger of scorpions, and the thermal vision of serpents.


    Powerful sentinel demons once possessed the ability to detect emotions, a powerful sort of radar-like ability in its own right, and to consume those same emotions. They could also prevent escaping foes from fleeing by using their breath like a vacuum to draw in smaller foes and devour them outright, or to slow larger enemies until they could be torn apart.


    Mucus mastery grants frogs and their evolutions total control over their mucus allowing them to make it poisonous, paralytic, into an aphrodisiac or inflict other status conditions on those hit by it or weapons coated in it. Elemental breath allows its users to exhale gouts of flame, electricity, acid, mist, or frost.


    An archer with a soul-weapon will never be unarmed. And a long-range archer with telescopic vision has the potential to become an amazing assassin if properly trained and nurtured. That second pair of arms is a very strange vestigial trait but definitely not a bad one. After all, a long-range archer with four arms could wield two bows at the same time.


    The rogue''s vestigial traits are also fascinating. You could train him into a powerful assassin and knowledge gatherer by resurrecting those traits.


    Any and all of these abilities are incredibly powerful. The system urges moderation and caution in how to approach granting these abilities to their potential recipients.]


    Althos''s eyes went wide as he finished reading the notification, and as he looked at the incredibly wide range of abilities his followers and worshippers could be granted with but a simple casting of a spell.


    This was perhaps the first time the deity felt the true weight of his powers. He cautiously thought through the options he had.


    What can I do in this situation? Obviously I should tell them about the options they have, but even that... I suppose I can start off by telling my own worshippers and Raverangos about the options before them, but what about the siblings? Their vestigial traits are mostly external but their lone internal trait is so astounding that even I can understand its usages.


    And Raverangos''s manifestation of chaos is probably the single most interesting ability of them all... so far I''ve only ever met one demon but if my basic understanding of the internal trait is correct that means that if we find a place we want to meet other demons in, I can order Raverangos to use the ability many times and then we just wait.


    As Althos thought through the situation in front of him, the demon whose lost-ability was at the forefront of the god''s mind wasn''t really thinking about anything.


    <hr>


    The sentinel demon moved quadrupedally behind its master. It was creeping behind Althos, and its eyes and nose were directing it towards any nearby plants. The creature lumbered behind its master, largely unfocused on what the being who had offered it chances to commit violence and an opportunity to feast on a bear was doing in that exact moment.


    It was creeping so that its face could be close to the surface of the forest. It would use that proximity to sniff the ground and move its long arms in the direction of nearby, loosely hidden vegetation so that it could pull out and eat any earthy treats the forest would have hidden from it if it wasn''t actively looking for snacks.


    At that moment the creature didn''t feel like a primate to the orcs who served its master, but more like a gigantic pig. They heard the noises it made while scarfing down plants, and the swinelike noises it made whenever it sniffed the ground in pursuit of even more vegetation. Both were distinctly piglike, and even the creature''s movements weren''t unlike those of a wild boar.


    The demon was sapient, but as it moved to sate the hunger that was plaguing its mind it definitely didn''t seem that way. That was perhaps the first moment in which the creature Althos viewed as his pet truly felt, to Althos''s companions anyway, like a mundane animal as opposed to a sapient creature with inscrutable goals and a distinct, aggressive attitude.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    <hr>


    Silander was next to her master and wasn''t paying the demon her master had tamed any mind. She was instead studying the forest around her.


    Much like her master she found the forest fascinating. To her master, the appeal of the forest laid in the diversity of life that lurked within it, but to her the appeal of the forest was the myriad of sights it presented to anyone who knew how to look.


    The great frog had powerful eyesight. As she studied the forest around her she noticed a variety of things. She looked up at the trees around her and she saw the holes that insects and other animals made in the trees. When she looked at the branches of those trees she saw and studied the nests of birds who were out hunting, mating, or merely exploring the forest around them.


    When she turned her attention to the ground she saw diminutive ants nests. If she really focused she could see the individual ants, many of whom had coloration that granted them a bit of camouflage, going about their lives and like the demon behind her and her master, roaming about in pursuit of food. Knowing that behind her, Ravernagos was voraciously devouring any food he could find she felt a pang of pity towards the ants.


    When she looked for other sights on the forest''s floor she''d sometimes see bushes shaking and hear the soft footfalls of creatures smaller than her. She''d catch glimpses of squirrels and could see just the snouts of small foxes peeking out from within thick bushes or in incredibly shallow fox dens.


    Silander''s mind was focused on memorizing these sights, and not on the fear that persisted in her brain of the powerful unicorn that her master had apparently talked into guiding them towards other living creatures. She didn''t trust the creature, and the fear she felt towards it had a role in that that wasn''t small.


    <hr>


    Silander''s vestigial traits were interesting as well. If Althos wanted too he could grant her the ability to fly. He could also empower her to gain total control over her mucus, the substance that made her poisonous and that made her have the potential to be a skilled fighter if she were trained in both Gallow''s style of fighting and the fighting style of the orcish siblings.


    Althos knew that by empowering Silander with her vestigial traits he''d be making her a more diverse member of his party, and also giving her the ability to speak to animals. If she gained that ability, that combined with her climbing ability would make her an even more unique member of his party.


    As the deity reflected on this the deity considered what he himself wanted for her. She wanted to be a worshipper of his, it''s just that at this early stage of him learning about gods neither of them had a concrete meaning for this yet.


    If I resurrect Silander''s ability to talk to animals... doesn''t that mean she could chat with them and maybe even convince them to worship me? She could become an ambassador of mine to animals!


    This realization made Althos grin. Althos enjoyed meeting animals and knowing that he could potentially gain more worshippers just by empowering one of his pets was something that was quite pleasing to the deity.


    <hr>


    The orcs were behind the demon. The trio of brawlers was marching in tandem, in order of youngest to oldest with the youngest being closest to Althos and Qut.


    They weren''t particularly paying attention to anything. Instead, they were each deep in thought, though how deep in thought depended on the orc in question.


    What does Althos''s power mean? Are there limits to it? Can it grow? We''ve felt his empowerment before when he granted us a strange boost to our attack speed and strength. If we worship him... does that affect his power? I recognize that in theory, since he''s so strong AND he''s a god, he should be worshipped... but should I, an orc, be one of his worshippers?


    Ragnor reflected on the limits of his knowledge about Althos and Althos''s godly powers, as well as considering the implications for an orc to turn from remembering the ancient and long gone orcish deities to worshipping a new and active god.


    Althos being a god makes a certain kind of sense. And him being a newborn definitely makes sense. But what will he do from here? What are his objectives? What does he want to be known for? Does he actually understand what it means to be a god?


    Bazur''s questions were more direct and more focused on Althos himself.


    Althos... seems to get along with beasts better than with humanoids. Who he doesn''t fight is weird. He didn''t fight the wolves, he didn''t fight this unicorn, and he didn''t fight Silander. But he did fight us, he fought the demon he tamed, and he fought that bear. Does Althos decide to commit violence on a whim?


    Anthus was making use of his imperfect knowledge of Althos to try and determine any patterns he could make note of regarding the creature''s behavior. It wasn''t going to work though, because Anthus failed to regard Althos as what he was: before the deity was a god, hewas a newborn.


    Newborns weren''t exactly known for behaving stably. All Anthus could really do was try and help the deity mature and hope that in time the creature matured to the point of having reliable patterns of behavior.


    <hr>


    The orcish siblings only had two vestigial traits of any real interest to Althos. The qi radar and the artifact shape-shifting abilities were of interest to the deity, but Althos could easily wait to grant the siblings those powers.


    Althos was mildly annoyed that Bazur hadn''t started worshipping him, even if he understood why the orc needed time to process the news that the deity was, in fact, a deity. Althos was actually scheming something as a sort of soft punishment to the orcs for holding out on him.


    Maybe if I tempt them into worshipping me I can persuade them to give up their pride and become my arms... I think the traits of granting them natural armor and secondary hearts will be seen by them as powerful gifts. If I give them those for free and tell them of greater abilities if they just worship me that may just do it. Yes... that might work!


    As he reflected on the scheme gradually coming together in his brain he and his group of minions were unknowingly getting closer and closer to where Qut had stored the goblins it had come across earlier that day.


    <hr>


    Gallow was listening to the sounds of the forest. He had long since unfocused his vision and used it exclusively to stay close to his party. In exchange for unfocusing his vision, he had focused his energy on picking up nearby sounds.


    If Silander had passed time by seeing things around her, Gallow passed time by listening for things. His hearing was sensitive because of the conscious choice he was making to pick up even the faintest nearby sounds.


    He heard not just the footfalls of wild animals like foxes, badgers, and squirrels, but he heard them manipulate their environments. He heard squirrels harvest acorns, foxes dig into the dirt at their feet, and badgers eating food in tiny holes they dwelled in.


    He heard the soft motions of insect wings in places beyond the sight of the group due to natural obstacles like bushes and trees, and he also heard the motions of his comrades as they strode through the forest.


    Ranthor was focused mostly on walking. When he did look away from the rest of the party the archer looked at the sky. The party was in the depths of the forest and only occasionally did the forest''s trees clear in such a way to allow the orc to see through the forest''s tree line and actually see clouds and birds flying higher than just a few meters over the party.


    The orc wanted to see the clouds and since he couldn''t he didn''t care to look around.


    <hr>


    Althos was a bit surprised that both Gallow and Ranthor had some distinct abilities. He absentmindedly stared at the floor as he walked beside the unicorn and thought about the vestigial traits Gallow and Ranthor had.


    So my worshippers have some neat powers. How should I go about granting them their powers? I particularly like Gallow''s abilities... I''m not fully sure what an assassin is, but I can imagine that the camouflage ability when coupled with mind-reading could have neat implications.


    It was at this point that the party''s dark unicorn guide came to a halt. Upon realizing that the beast had stopped Althos'' non-demonic allies looked around, yet none of them noticed any major differences from where they were now to where they had been before.


    Althos himself looked up from the floor and at the unicorn who had served as their guide. Then he turned his vision towards what laid in front of him.


    Raverangos turned its gaze upwards and at the forest path in front of it when it noticed that the unicorn and its master had both stopped. Its eyes pierced through the illusion, but it took the brutish creature a second to truly process what it was seeing.


    Althos and Raverangos were the only members of their party who saw through the illusion unaided. Althos starred for a second at the four creatures who lurked just out of the sight of his non-demonic allies and pet. Their bodies were covered in odd-looking dark armor and their backs were turned. Althos had never seen anything quite like them before.


    Then Althos looked at Qut in confusion and spoke softly to Qut in its native tongue, the grotesque language that both Qut and Raverangos spoke.


    "Hey Qut, why have we stopped?"


    Upon hearing Althos'' voice the beast turned its ruby-colored eye on the god and spoke to him in the same tongue. Its voice was also quiet, though Althos doubted that was to not alert the strange creatures lurking in front of what may have been Qut''s lair.


    "We are where I stored the goblins. They are... within that cave."


    At that moment Qut''s eyes quietly shone for a split second while the air in front of Althos''s companions shimmered. Then the illusion that had fooled the mortal members of Althos'' entourage slowly melted away, revealing the true nature of the place the creatures stood in front of and exposing the creatures to Althos''s allies.


    Althos'' mortal allies had temporarily doped by a clever illusion that relied on the habit of sentient beings to look for patterns. It had shown them what was in effect a loop, an illusion that showed those it tricked what they were already seeing: a safe and fairly unmarked path through the forest. And in exchange, the illusion hid the cave that was now revealing itself to the party.


    What the orcs saw when the illusion was totally undone made Gallow want to pull out his dagger again. It made the orcish siblings tense up and move forward so that they were closer to their master.


    It also made Raverangos grin, his monstrous maw opening in surprised delight. Silander moved closer to her master. And Ranthor quietly pulled out his bow and pushed it forward so the weapon was visible to the creatures who were curiously examining Althos and his party.


    Raverangos pushed forward until it had imposed itself halfway between the creatures and the party of its master. Then the demon stood up on two legs so that it rose to its full height. When standing at its true height the demon was a massive creature.


    Its broad and muscular back stood tall in front of the party and once again the demon truly stood out in comparison to the rest of Althos''s servants, worshippers, and his other pet. Silander watched this unconscious display of might and felt jealous of the creature''s strength and the odd sense of reliability she felt it emanate.


    The demon spoke two words in the language of its homeland that any self-respecting demon would understand and be mildly delighted to hear.


    "Dark-elves."


    Its guttural voice was loud enough to be overheard and the creatures its statement was about turned around and saw Althos, his retinue, and both the dark unicorn and the demon. They looked at the diverse crew with inscrutable expressions.


    <hr>


    Althos was silent as Raverangos stepped forward and imposed itself between Althos''s followers and the strange creatures. Even after his demonic pet spoke he didn''t react, even though he did hear what it said. At first, the deity studied the cave behind the creatures Raverangos called "Dark-elves" more than he studied the creatures themselves.


    The cave had a tiny entrance, barely tall and wide enough for Raverangos if it crawled on all fours, to a tiny and possibly artificial portion of a grassy hill that was surrounded by an odd clearing in the forest, a clearing that Althos suspected might have been artificially made.


    In looking beyond the creatures in front of the entrance to the cave into the cave itself Althos''s peerless vision allowed him to make out a few details within it, including a thin campfire and a cage full of tiny, green-skinned creatures.


    Althos saw that these creatures were wearing carefully constructed armor that would have made them difficult to spot in the forest. Their green-skin and the green-armor they wore would have made them challenging to spot in the forest, but here they stood out against the light of the lit campfire and the darkness behind them.


    Althos gave each of them a visual once-over and confirmed that none of them appeared to be on the verge of death but they certainly weren''t comfortable since the entire group was crammed into a single cage. Still, for now, that''d have to do.


    Althos''s thoughts on their condition were quite simple. The deity also went ahead and thought up the very beginning of a plan quite quickly.


    So long as they are alive, I can get what I need from them. Once these... dark-elves in the way are no longer in the way I''ll go and talk to the goblins.


    Then the deity fully turned his attention to the four dark elves who were apathetically examining his party.


    The company of dark elves was gradually beginning to rest their vision on Althos himself. He took a few seconds to study each of them.


    As far as Althos could tell there were two dark elven women and two dark elven men. All four of them wore similar and ornate suits of armor that looked to be made of a strange organic compound and was painstakingly crafted. Althos''s powerful vision could make out stylized markings on the suits of armor that were most likely intended to reveal who the armor''s wearers were.


    Though there were minor differences in each suit of armor''s distinct markings commonalities between the suits included themes of spiders, daggers, and that on each of the four suits over where Althos presumed the elves hearts were located there was a single image of an eye the same color as Qut''s.


    The armor was thin but something about the stylized nature of the armor and the indifferent way the elves watched the party suggested that they firmly believed in the defensive power of their equipment.


    In examining the suits of armor Althos noticed that they seemed to fit the dark elves perfectly. It was as if the creatures were wearing a second skin.


    Althos looked at the faces of the elves and noticed that each of them had different but similar skin colors, but their suits matched their complexions perfectly. The deity wondered if that was magical or if the creatures somehow worked to maintain their complexions to match to their armor.


    Part of what gave away the sexes of the dark-elves was the armor they wore. The armor of what Althos assumed were the women of the group didn''t have preset indents for abdominal muscles like the armor for what Althos assumed were the men did. Additionally, Althos''s sharp vision revealed to him that the armor of what Althos thought were the men was wider around the area of the groin than the armor of what Althos suspected were the women.


    Both elven men and both elven women were armed. Althos noticedthe weapons each of the dark elves had on their person. The men casually held thick looking clubs that were outfitted with what Althos assumed were some sort of razor-sharp metal that was the color of midnight. Althos with just a glance that getting hit by one of those could hurt his servants, and he wondered if the weapons would also be able to do damage to Raverangos.


    The women carried elegant looking glass daggers. Their appearance contrasted sharply with the dark skin of the elves themselves as the daggers seemed to shine and shimmer when exposed to the sunlight, which Althos learned when the women rose the daggers in front of themselves as if in self-defense.


    All four of the elves were good looking. They had few similarities in terms of their appearances but they all had the same striking ivory-colored hair, and both men had muscular physiques that pushed and strained against their armor which had the effect of ensuring their muscles never fully relaxed so long as they were prepared for battle.


    Both women looked at a glance to be youthful, though the orcs and the demon knew better than to rely on physical appearances to try and judge the age of an elf. At this point, the elves were slowly approaching the party so it wasn''t just Althos who could assess their appearances.


    The facial expressions on the faces of the men betrayed no particular surprise at seeing Althos''s party and gave away no fear or bloodlust as they approached the strange and diverse group. They had the trained gazes and attitudes of calm and clear-headed warriors who felt that emotions were a distraction in the heat of battle.


    One woman had human-like eyes that in the light of the sun, currently at its highest point since it was almost noon, looked to be a pleasant shade of brown. The other female dark elf''s eyes, as they caught the light of the sun, appeared to be cold orbs that only allowed one color to shine through: a shade of blue one might expect to see in a frozen lake.


    The men had the same eye color. In the light of the sun both of their eyes shone a shade of black that one might have expected to see in the eyes of powerful devils.


    All four of the dark elves had smooth and angular faces that wouldn''t have been out of place as part of statues in some grim art collectors macabre private gallery. They had high cheekbones, deep eyes, and full lips that ran a variety of shades. The women, in particular, had the sort ofplump lips that many mortal men would have found entrancing to look at and that even the orcs in Althos''s party found a bit charming.


    Within seconds the group of elves was in front of Raverangos, and they stood there silently. From what Althos could tell they were conducting what the god felt was an astoundingly calm assessment of their situation given that they had randomly come into contact with a racially diverse group containing a demon, which Althosassumed probably wasn''t an everyday sight for them.

 Chapter 33:

    The scene unfolding in front of the entrance to the cave in which the goblin scouts were detained was an odd one.


    Two groups stoically starred at each other. No one present spoke, and instead of something as primitive as audible speech one of the groups communicated within itself using telepathy. That group had two almost equal leaders and both of them needed to agree on a plan before acting.


    The other group was a loose dictatorship. Only one opinion mattered in it, though the leader of that the group would have listened to any counsel his followers provided. Much like the dark-elves, the youthful overlord who stood across from them had the ability to communicate silently through the usage of telepathy. He chose not to make use of this power, at least at that moment.


    The silence that engulfed the two groups, one of which was a racially diverse group led by a deity, and the other of which was made up of four striking dark-elves, created an atmosphere of palpable tension. The dark-elves were meters away from the hulking sentinel demon who went by the name Raverangos and they quietly examined the mighty but dim-witted creature.


    Behind that demon was a majestic dark unicorn, who stood beside the demon''s master, an incredibly young and immature deity. Behind the two of them were the rest of the creatures who served the deity after experiencing the deity''s magic, power, mercy, or in many cases all three, firsthand.


    The dark-elves knew nothing of the context behind the formation and diversity of the odd creatures who had joined Althos''s retinue. Though in their haughtiness they all doubted they would have have had much interest in the story of a creature who looked human.


    <hr>


    The small squad of dark-elves impassionately studied the sentinel demon. The demon, in turn, observed them but its brutish and simple mind couldn''t make the same sort of detailed observations theirs regularly did.


    The demon noticed their armor, much like its master had, but it paid no mind to the designs that adorned the masterfully crafted material that protected the dark-elves. On the other hand, the dark-elves not only noticed the blood that stained the demon''s teeth, but their sensitive senses also detected the smell of plants and dirt that followed the demon as fondly as a fly followed the scent of dung.


    The dark elves carefully studied the anatomy of the sentinel demon that stood as a barrier between them and its master and noticed one of the demon''s few secrets. By studiously examining the creature''s body for a few moments they determined that its muscles and organs did not match those of mortal humanoids.


    Their crowning achievement at that moment was also due to their careful examination of the beast-like creature. Their study of it led them to notice a place on the creature''s left arm that was covered in thick muscles and sinister scales while also being a darker color than the rest of the skin around it. When the demon was in motion it probably would have been difficult to spot this anomaly but since the creature was still, spotting such a thing was easy.


    They didn''t know it and couldn''t find out without experimentation but the area they were looking at was where the heart of the monster was hidden. Underneath that densely armored body-part was the center of the creature''s circulatory system where each heartbeat pumped a shocking amount of tar-like fluid through its body.


    The demon''s crowning achievement in the sport of observation and study at that moment was to notice that the dark-elves themselves carried a scent it didn''t associate with them: the scent of trees.


    The demon''s limited intellect and less than stellar memory were tiny in comparison to those of the dark-elves yet they were still capable of correctly remembering that the dark-elves of old weren''t fond of trees and the surface world, yet this particular group didn''t contain the deep and calming stench of the dark chambers of the world underneath the surface.


    This fascinating revelation stood out keenly in the mind of the demon who was moved to share this knowledge. Like an overlarge and mighty bloodhound, the demon quickly felt compelled to report to its master.


    [Master, the dark-elves do not smell like dark-elves. They smell... like surface walkers.]


    As the demon sent its master a useful message its face erupted in the demonic version of a grin. This ghoulish sight evoked a sort of instinctual, primal even, fear in the prideful elves who studied demons and they wisely decided to take a step back out of a wise fear of whatever causes demons delight.


    The demon reacted to that by examining them more carefully, an ultimately fruitless move because it lacked the faculties to understand what had made the elves feel fear. After failing to grasp what caused the creatures before it to back away from its muscular frame it thought about why it had made the choice to move between its master and the dark-elves.


    The demon''s purpose in moving forward was to capture the attention of the dark elves, which it had done spectacularly. If the creature had the intellect necessary to inform its master of this the creature would have been commended by Althos, who despite his immaturity knew to reward ingenuity and displays of loyalty.


    <hr>


    Althos was silent after receiving the message from his pet demon. He was, of course, grateful that the demon felt like sharing what to Althos, in his ignorance when it came to dark-elves, felt more like trivia than anything useful. To the deity, it was the thought that counted and Althos knew that the demon had a thought in mind when it decided to share what it had shared with them. What thought? Althos would find out later.


    Althos wasn''t focused on the seemingly random bit of information Raverangos had shared with him but instead on the whole concept of "dark" elves. He was confused by that.


    Dark elves... I keep coming across "dark" versions of things. What does that prefix mean?


    Althos''s thoughts were calm as he examined the attractive creatures who busied themselves studying his pet. His thoughts might have been calm but that didn''t make them idly. Instead, they were infected by the creature''s odd sense of curiosity.


    Assuming the "Dark" in this case is like the "Dark" in the case of dark unicorns does this mean that these creatures are some sort of grim corruption of an otherwise nominally kind and possibly even noble species? How many of these kinds of "dark" creatures exist?


    The deity''s curiosity was exciting, to himself most of all, but also to the strange pair of oft disembodied voices who dwelled within his mind. Of course, these capable fonts of information had at least some of the knowledge the deity sought, but they found it more fun to wait to see if the deity himself would independently learn to dynamically and aggressively seek out their pearls of wisdom.


    The voices, despite possessing the knowledge relevant to what the deity hypothesized about, stayed silent. The deity himself pondered this strange set of affairs for a second longer before turning his mind to the matter unfolding directly in front of him.


    Althos stepped forward, taking but an instant to arrive next to the hulking demon. His sudden movement alarmed the dark elves who turned their attention from Althos''s pet to the man himself.


    He reexamined the dark elves up close and now that the distance between them was reduced so greatly he noticed that the creatures were also tall. The women stood at an intimidating two and a half meters tall, and the men were a good deal shorter coming in at just a bit over 2.3 meters tall. Though the creatures were tall, they were shorter than he was.


    This was the first moment that Althos was grateful for his form, as his height granted him the ability to alert the mood of the coming conversation merely by glowering if he felt the need to do so.


    Althos was silent for a moment longer, and then he realized and accepted that the creatures before him weren''t likely to speak first. So he decided that he''d do it himself.


    Althos, aware of his ability to speak to any creature who could speak, knew better than to waste time pondering language too deeply. So the deity opened his mouth and began to speak without any hesitation.


    "Who are you? Why are you examining those goblins?"


    His voice flowed outward in all directions and thanks to an autonomous intervention by one of Althos''s own powers it was understood by each of the people present. Unbeknownst to Althos, his power seemed to sense his awareness of his ability and automatically cause the words the deity spoke to be whispered in the unique tongue of deities that all creatures could understand.


    This was unknown only for a second, as Althos quickly received a notification that made him aware of this.


    [Alert: Your divine ability to speak to and understand every creature who can speak intercepted your speech and automatically modified it into the unique tongue of the gods. Rather than speaking in the language of the demons, the highly formalized devilish vocabulary, or the words of orcish tribespeople, you just uttered words in the omniglot, the formal name for the language of the gods.


    This language tricks people into thinking that the speaker is speaking their preferred language and speaks it with their preferred accent. When this is used cleverly it can contribute to the domains of trickery and deception.]


    Althos willed the notification away and upon once again laying his eyes on the Elves the young god detected the sense of shock emanating from them.


    <hr>


    The small party of elves were able to maintain their facades of calmness through a lot of shocking things. They were positively nonplussed at the sight of the unexpected party of people who arrived at the cave. They were able to stay calm when a demon approached them.


    Even the dark unicorn not betraying the party surprised them but didn''t break them. But what they never imagined was a human-like creature speaking to them in the language of their homeland, complete with a shocking mastery of their specific regional accent. This act momentarily caused them to drop their impassive masks, but with impressive speed each of the elves expertly recovered from the shock and they composed themselves.


    One of them, the dark-elven witch named Qu''Ren took a single tentatively step forward. She was the dark-elven woman Althos had noticed had chilly eyes.


    As she took her step forward to distinguish herself as the group leader she contemplated sending Althos a mental message. But she ultimately decided this would be a moment wherein vocalized communication was necessary. She mentally prepared herself for the unpleasant sensations she associated with verbal communication.


    She looked at Althos and was annoyed to find herself looking up at the creature. But the closer she got to the creature the more she sensed something amiss. She couldn''t quite place her finger on it though, at least not yet. For now, her senses were warning her to be caution in how she treated this being.


    "Hello, my name is Qu''Ren. I am the leader of this group of Ebony Elves and might I ask who are you?"


    The dark elf''s voice was soft and alluring, an enjoyable thing many would have liked to just listen too. She was confident and that confidence was clearly detectable in her voice. Her words were soft but her tone suggested she believed she merited respect.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    Althos nodded politely at her and then began to speak himself.


    "I am Althos. These are my servants and pets. I am a druid who is new to the area. I am merely exploring the forest and familiarizing myself with the flora and fauna of the region. I happened to meet that fellow,"


    At that point, Althos motioned towards Qut, who was impassively watching the events unfolding before it.


    "And it offered to introduce me to its neighbors, those goblins."


    And at the end of that sentence, Althos pointed at the goblins just within the entrance to the nearby cave, while using the motion to lay his eyes on the goblins again. Upon a somewhat closer examination of the creatures, Althos was surprised to notice that they appeared to be unconscious.


    During the visual once-over, he gave them he could have sworn that they were awake, but their being unconscious explained their passivity to the strangeness of the scene before them. This annoyed the deity but was a small matter in the grand scheme of things.


    At most, it meant a small diversion that the deity could use to try and call forth his allies who were still in Infernius and at last be reunited with all of the minions he had gained over the course of his short life.


    Qu''Ren had followed Althos''s gestures with polite grace and now turned back to face the deity. Then she spoke softly but with a sort of authority Althos would eventually learn came from people who expected things to go their way.


    "Well you see Althos that''s quite odd. Because I and your dark unicorn friend had a verbal agreement. You see I came here to purchase those goblins from the magical beast."


    Althos made no attempt to hide his shock at this. His shocked expression made it seem as if his jaw had dropped to the floor and his eyes didn''t hide his shocked expression. That was when the dark unicorn itself began to move, quietly moving to where Althos and Raverangos stood. Then it began to speak.


    <hr>


    "Qu''Ren, I apologize but there has been a slight change of plans."


    The dark unicorn''s mouth opened and closed but Althos noticed that the words that he heard didn''t seem to match the mouth movements the creature was making. Althos quickly surmised that the beast was using some sort of magic to aid it''s speech.


    The dark elves responded to the statement made by the dark unicorn by quietly moving to ready their weapons and by trying to place themselves close to their ally, but both Qut and Althos noticed their smooth movements. Qut responded to the creatures quickly, moving to try and prevent Althos from readying any sort of magic he may have had at his disposal.


    "Now, now, now my Unseelie peers, there is no need for violence. I understand that this is disappointing to you and I accept responsibility for that. I will make it up to you, but if you commit an act you can''t take back here there may be consequences none of us can foresee."


    The statement uttered by the unicorn was polite but it served as a clear warning to the group of dark elves. Unfortunately, since it was spoken in the language of the dark elves one important figure close by didn''t understand it; Raverangos. The hulking demon moved closer to the action and balled its thick fists, ready to move with but a single command. Althos, understanding the words of the elves and the unicorn stopped his pet by moving his hand in such a way that it was clear he wanted the creature to back off for a second.


    The demon nodded and stopped moving, but it kept its fists balled up and in a gesture that contained a significant amount of menace opened its maw wide and pantomimed throwing something into it. One of the elven males looked at the demon and his eyes contained no small amount of fear, but the elf continued watching the creature. He knew that anything could cause the creature to erupt into violence.


    Behind Althos and Raverangos the rest of the party approached the conversation and readied themselves, drawing their various weapons, while Silander moved to her master''s side and did her best to look small. In comparison to the elegant elves, she looked small without much effort on her part.


    At this point Althos began to speak again, speaking in the same supernatural tongue he was speaking in earlier. His voice contained a hitherto unheard level of power, and the creature moved forward, inching closer than ever to the dark elf before him.


    "Qut mentioned you ''buying'' those goblins... Qu''Ren, are you planning to leave before I question them? If you are... you''ll find that I won''t sit idly by."


    There was a tone of curiosity and a whisper of quiet menace in his voice. The dark power he possessed began to softly leak out of him at the moment he ceased speaking, and began to seep into the earth beneath him. This unearthly display was detectable by the elves and it made them look at each other in fear, cold sweat beginning to appear on their brows.


    His face had changed as well. The deity normally had a soft, flexible face with expressions that changed easily but now his facial expression had hardened and he had was looking at the strange creatures before him with the eyes of a predator and not the warm, weak gaze dark elves associated humanity with.


    <hr>


    The dark elf witch who spoke earlier found herself beginning to feel a bit of fear as the creature before her reacted unexpectedly fiercely in response to her statement.


    Her mind raced as she mentally tried her best to come up with an excuse that would get her and her allies out of this situation. She knew that this situation had a simple answer, yet for some reason, she couldn''t think of it.


    The ebony elf witch was too close to the deity to be able to react effectively to its air of quiet menace. But one of her allies, the male dark-elf warrior who was behind her wasn''t.


    The elf warrior quickly opened his mouth and began to speak, and in doing so assuming a position of leadership in a move that ran contrary to the culture he was raised in out of fear of the unknown in the form of the strange power leaking out of the self-proclaimed druid.


    "Though it''s unplanned we can certainly wait until such honored and powerful guests of our friend are satisfied with our newfound... companions before we leave with them."


    Althos heard this and considered it for a moment. Then he relaxed and allowed his power to stop leaking outward. Within a matter of seconds, his face regressed to its normal state of mutability and emotional openness, though the air around him took longer to return to normalcy.


    The young deity grinned at the elves and spoke with the certainty of a child whose mind was known for producing sure, hard opinions.


    "That''s acceptable. For now... stay close."


    Then he turned to the demonic pet who stood close by and had been dutifully prepared to inflict violence on the creatures who were now humiliated.


    He commanded the creature to watch over the elves with but a single word in the language of the demon''s homeland and then motioned for Silander to join him on a walk.


    He and his mortal pet passed by the orcs and he gave them all the same mental command.


    [I am going to go and summon my minions from Infernius. Stay here and aid Raverangos if the elves try anything tricky.]


    It was at that precise moment that Althos received two fascinating notifications.


    [System Alert:


    Due to having met a fair amount of different types of creatures, and having gained a considerable amount of knowledge notifications your overall "knowledge" level is now level 2! This means that the various sorts of "knowledge" notifications will contain more information! This also means you''re a quarter of the way towards gaining the ability to exert influence over the second tier of the "knowledge" domain. Both of these things are neat and significant updates that shouldn''t be downplayed. Congratulations!


    Also, if you review older "knowledge" updates you''ll find that they contain more information than they did before now.]


    [New Species Knowledge Gained: Dark Elves


    Dark Elves are corrupt and powerful Elves who live in underground cities and in the ancient past worshiped powerful lords of darkness.


    In the ancient past, Dark Elves lived in communities with institutions that upheld sinister matriarchies where women had absolute control. Now, even without the backing of mighty lords of darkness women continue to be the more dominant sex but things are considerably more egalitarian and it is possible for men to be deemed equals in smaller communities of the hedonistic creatures.


    Dark Elven communities are built on the backs of other, physically mightier creatures who the Dark Elves lord over, through usages of their impressive magic. Their willing allies include gigantic and darkly beautiful arthropods and a variety of species they created through orgiastic breeding experiments that included forcing humanoids and animals alike to breed with demons.


    Given Dark Elves'' proclivity to worship and serve lords of darkness it''s possible there is an Althos shaped hole in Dark Elven society that might be worth attempting to fill. But if that is an objective you decide to pursue it''s important to remember that as a species Dark Elves are ambitious, bloodthirsty, and zealous beings who equate power and violence. Their worship would be dark, violent, and sinful, and gaining their worship would likely require many acts of darkness.


    Known Dark Elves: Qu''Ren, Mianthus.]


    Althos learned a lot with this fairly detailed knowledge update, but he was also surprised to see a knowledge notification seem to be "written" so casually and directly. It was an odd experience to the deity who had long since grown accustomed to dealing with, until now at least, fairly formal tone of the system itself.


    That said the deity didn''t mind this, in fact, he liked it and was excited to read the other notifications he had gained before now. The deity quickly willed the two large notifications out of his sight. He and his pet wandered towards a deeper part of the forest where they''d be out of the sight of the rest of his party.


    It took them nearly five minutes of pacing at an impressive speed before they reached a place Althos felt comfortable attempting to call out to his allies in Infernius.


    The area before them was a place of dense growth and they were surrounded on every side by the floral inhabitants of the forest. Althos felt comfortable surrounded by plants as he was, and he began to mentally call out to the mystical energies that made up his very being. He gently asked the energies in his veins to come to him and to aid him in reaching his servants.


    He whispered to his veins and took hold of the energies that flowed towards his brain and his palms. He began the slow process of molding the energies so that they may power what he was planning to do.


    As a deity, Althos possessed limitless mystical energy and it was thanks to that mystical energy that many of the things he did were possible. He was growing increasingly accustomed to wielding his unique energy with each usage of magic that he successfully pulled off, though how significant the effect of each spell was on his overall comfort level with magic depended on how strenuous each spell was.


    As part of his preparation for this particular and mighty spell, the deity tapped into the part of his brain that "stored" the mental links he had established with the various creatures he had mentally connected to in the past. At this moment he searched the connections he had made until he found and "grabbed" the connections belonging to Tristan and Salifinos.


    When he had those connections in his psychic "hands" he tapped them and sent a message to his minions. He sent both of them the same message and allowed a bit of impatience to seep into the message as to get them to prioritize his command.


    [Send me a mental image of what you see before you.]


    Within seconds he received what he had asked for. In both cases, he received a mostly black image with the sole dots of light coming from his soul orb pets. He grinned at the image and sent his servants a command to hold onto the soul orbs.


    The two creatures quickly obeyed him and sent him quiet updates informing him of their obedience. At that moment the deity closed his eyes and channeled the energy pooling in his palms and in his brain.


    The energy reacted to his force of will as he began to visualize the mental pictures he had been sent by his minions. He willed himself out of the forest and towards the place pictured in his mind.


    The stored and reactive energies transported the fierce deity across a vast distance, taking him there thanks to the gigantic amount of magical energy being used and the potency of Althos''s visualization giving him a specific location to reach.


    After a few seconds Althos''s mental vision showed him the dark hallway he had left his servants in and indeed the servants themselves.


    <hr>


    A few moments after Tristan and Salifinos clutched a soul-orb each the darkness of the hallway they were in, in the ominous tomb of Agowraith the Kingwhisper, was replaced by something wholly unexpected: a bright, verdant green, light radiating off of the vaguely translucent humanlike form Althos was using in the mortal plane.


    They knew the manifestation in front of them was Althos, but they had never seen Althos''s human form, so it took them a second to process that it was truly the creature they had decided to side with, in an attempt to overthrow a powerful devilish overlord.


    The grinning creature in front of them looked impressively human, even as he radiated the vibrant and intensely alive aura of a mortal forest.After a few seconds, the intruder silently extended his hands towards them, one towards each of them and waited for them to place their hands in his.


    Tristan didn''t hesitate to give the creature her hand, Althos responded by pulling her close which was unexpected but also quite pleasant to the half-devil. Salifinos followed her example mere moments later, and the five creatures vanished. Upon their disappearance, the hallway regained its former darkness, now completely filling the passageway with lightlessness.


    The spell Althos had cast on them quickly drew them through space and across planes before safely returning them to the forest Althos from which Althos used the hefty magic.


    Althos looked around and saw that Silander was still where she had been before he cast the spell, but now he was holding the small hand of the devilish imp, which was safely attached to the rest of the creature, and the half-devil priestess Tristan was clutching the shirt he wore, a red flush across her cheeks and breathing quite quickly due to crossing an unimaginable distance, magically and instantaneously.


    "Silander... say hello to Salifinos the imp, and Tristian the priestess. They are the allies I made during my unplanned excursion to Infernius."


    The great-frog smiled at her master and the strange creatures he brought with him. His excitement was palpable and was infecting her as well.

 Chapter 34:

    While Althos and his pet batrachian humanoid were off in the denser part of the forest the elves who were had taken up a temporary residence in front of the cave controlled by the dark unicorn stayed where they were. They didn''t dare antagonize the powerful-looking demon who was evidently either under the control of the mysterious druid or working with him so they were rendered momentarily powerless.


    The dark-elves may have been physically silent but they were having a lively conversation amongst themselves in the safety of their own minds.


    One of the dark-elves, the younger female who in the light of the sun had eyes that looked to be a warm shade of brown, sent a message to her comrades.


    [A druid and a demon... do you think he''s lying?]


    The other elves considered their compatriot''s speculative thoughts and gave each other grim gazes.


    They didn''t really want to consider the implications of the human-like creature lying about the source of its powers, because they knew too little to be able to come to sure conclusions about the being whose powers had made them freeze up. If they thought Althos was lying they''d have to take a risk and stay in the area until they had more information on his powers.


    One of the males spoke up a few seconds after the younger female said her piece. His tone was firm, direct, and the argument he made was something the others didn''t disagree with so they ignored the rudeness of his directness in favor of acknowledging the wisdom in his words.


    [For now... when the druid returns keep your eyes on him. Don''t let him leave your sight. We will have to make a decision about him and how to deal with him before we leave.]


    The other male, the elf named Mianthus nodded at his senior. The two women, one a witch and the other an alchemist, glared at the elf but didn''t disagree so they merely allowed him to experience the power of their gazes, gazes which would have paralyzed lesser elves.


    <hr>


    Althos''s abilities were mighty but since he was born with them and he was so young he lacked a legitimate understanding of how lucky he was compared to other people. What happened in the forest shortly after he was reunited with his infernal allies was solid evidence of that.


    Silander, the young great-frog Althos the young deity had awakened in that forest the day before, moved forward to introduce herself to Althos''s infernal allies. She boldly approached them and waited until both the half-devil and the imp were looking at her before she spoke.


    "Hello! My name is Silander. I am a newly awakened great-frog who is one of the awakener''s... Althos''s first worshippers. He awakened me and I am very happy to be able to serve him. The other servants of Althos, mostly orcs, for now, are nice as well. I hope we can work together and become each other''s dependable allies."


    After she finished speaking an awkward silence fell over the area. After a few moments, Salifinos shed some light on the situation by commenting and sharing his insights.


    "Althos... She''s speaking the common tongue of this region, but Tristan can''t understand her. I can, and I''m even speaking in this language so that she can understand me, but it''ll take Tristan establishing a mental connection with her for them to be able to communicate."


    Salifinos''s tone suggested this was something that Althos should have seen coming, but the deity in his youthful naivete didn''t have the knowledge base needed to realize that the humanoid-looking Tristan would be incapable of speaking the language the majority of humanoids Althos had met had spoken. The deity laughed off his mistake and corrected it by sending a mental message to Tristan.


    [Hey Tristan, can you establish a mental connection with Silander? That way you two can chat!]


    Within seconds of sending the message to Tristan, the young-looking half-devil priestess responded with a grin and locked eyes with Silander. Shortly thereafter the great frog began to grin back. Althos watched all of this with a grin of his own.


    The group was quiet, chatting mentally for a few minutes before Althos refocused and told his companions that it was time for them to return to the wider group.


    <hr>


    The sentinel demon known as Raverangos leered out at the dark elves who silently stared back at the demon and his allies. For several minutes Althos had been gone there had been an awkward silence that had fallen over the area where his group and the group of dark elves had met.


    Without Althos''s quirky and loosely diplomatic attitude and his inclination to communicate with everyone present, there were no people present who were particularly chatty. Althos''s display of his power had left an impression on the power-hungry dark elves but since he was gone and had left his demonic pet tasked with ensuring that the elves didn''t go back on their word there wasn''t really much to say.


    The elves respected Althos''s decision to not trust them because without the bloodhound like sentinel demon glaring at them they knew they would have been tempted to actually go back on their word. Some dark elves were plagued with faulty notions like "trust" and "honor" but not this particular group. They had an objective and were planning on fulfilling it.


    The orcs who were beside the demonic hybrid of an ape and a pig occasionally turned and spoke to each other, in the uncivilized language the "civilized" people spoke. The dark unicorn had long since sauntered past the dark elves and placed itself in a place where it could protect the goblins it knew would soon bring it money.


    The dark unicorn glared out at both groups but said nothing. It was quiet because it didn''t think it had anything of importance to say, and because anything it''d say it''d just be saying out of anger which was a risky move in the presence of dark elves.


    Pointy ears on one side, and a demon with some monsters on the other... what a freaking day.


    The unicorn''s mind was filled with derogatory thoughts aimed at both factions of interlopers who were intruding on one of the tiny camps the beast had established throughout the forest long ago. The beast hated people and to be exposed to so many different people, at least some of whom were stronger than it was wounding its pride and angering it.


    Within the unicorn''s small cave the goblins it captured quietly began to awaken from their unconscious state. One at a time, until all five of them, were awake. They woke up right as the orcs and the elves heard the sounds of nearby foliage being disturbed and pushed out of the way. Both groups listened intently as the sound got louder and more distinct.


    Moments later, Althos and Silander reappeared from within the forest, something which didn''t go unnoticed by the dark elves. And they weren''t alone. They were joined by a winged imp who was visibly shaking as it drew closer and closer to the rest of Althos''s group and a woman who wore a strange outfit that one might have seen on priestesses in the age of the old gods.


    The dark elves noticed the imp that flew next to the young druid who had stopped them from running rampant earlier, and as soon as they confirmed what it was the group of them instantly hopped back, preparing themselves for the typical explosion of violence that occurred whenever a demon and a devil stumbledacross each other in the wild.


    The dark unicorn saw the imp coming out of the more wild part of the forest and readied itself for what it saw as an inevitable conflict between the demon and the devil. It backed up and inched closer to the cave where its new prizes were waiting, and unknown to Qut, now awake and silently watching this strange event.


    The scouts simply lacked the knowledge that the unicorn and the elves had and though they noticed the body language of both the unicorn and the strange elves, they had no idea why the stranger they saw earlier had suddenly emerged from the forest and why it was that his odd companions provoked such a strong reaction from all of the creatures involved in their capture.


    No explosion of violence occurred. The demon glared at the imp, sure, but the creature didn''t lunge forward. The imp''s decision to move to the same area as the demon was every bit as odd as the demon''s apparent restraint. But they owed their unity to Althos and his influence over the two.


    <hr>


    Along the way to back to the rest of the party, Althos had used his mental powers to inform the demon of the devil''s proximity and he also informed the devil of the demon. He had done so quite quickly and quite effectively. In doing so he was making sure his two allies found a way to not attack each other, relying heavily on his own strength and his ability to punish Raverangos as well as his ability to protect Salifinos.


    The demon hungered for the devil, but Althos put Raverangos in its place quite forcefully and informed the hulking beast that it wouldn''t be having imp for dinner but that he''d let it go hunting again if it behaved. Althos also reassured Salifinos that the imp would be safe so long as he served him.


    Althos had been ready to spring into action the whole time he and his companions inched towards the rest of his party but he was surprised to find that no intervention was necessary. His demonic pet behaved and obeyed the firm commands of its master and in doing so earned a smile and the swift mental promise of a reward from Althos later on.


    The deity''s two soul-orbs left the side of the deity''s infernal companions and returned to his side when the deity was steps away from his orcish servants. The two creatures of strange, evil light floated next to their master and wandered about around him, cavorting freely and proudly now that they were once again reunited with their master.


    Althos''s wondered why the two creatures who were at the lowest rung of the devilish hierarchy were so energetic as the various creatures he had been approaching looked at him in wonder due to the light-show he had accidentally performed for them.


    It was at that moment that Althos looked beyond the dark unicorn or even the elves watching him, and into the cave once again. He was delighted to see that the goblins were waking up, and that meant that he''d be able to question them soon.


    This knowledge compelled the deity forward and he moved quickly. Seconds after his awakened orbs joined their master, the deity resumed his approach to his orcish allies.


    When the deity was once again next to his companions, the orcs looked at and introduced themselves to his infernal allies. Salifinos made use of his knowledge of the languages of mortals and audibly returned their greeting, but Tristan took a bit longer to use her telepathy to communicate with the orcs. In time all of them were briefly acquainted, and Althos grinned.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    In that moment, as Althos watched all of his allies in one place and interacting with each other, the deity felt powerful. This was the first time since he had gone to Infernius that he was with all of his allies, and in the strange world of his birth, he felt far from the one legitimate enemy he had: the mysterious true-devil Paimon.


    For a moment Althos wondered what the strange devil was up too. But after thinking about it, he realized that it was one of the many areas where he was ignorant. And after reflecting upon that for a few moments the deity quickly contented himself by thinking about the things he did know: like that before him there was a chance to gain even more knowledge by questioning the goblins, who were themselves watching him quite openly.


    <hr>


    Once his followers were all acquainted the deity began to walk again, wordlessly striding past the dark elves and the dark unicorn until he was just inside of the cave and mere steps away from the goblins. The suddenness of his actions caught everyone watching him off-guard, but to him, such directness made perfect sense.


    He stepped all the way into the cave and kept walking until he was right in front of the cage that contained the goblins. When he stopped he looked into the cage and made eye contact with all five of the goblins that Qut had captured. He was silent as he did this, taking time to note their physical conditions and the discomfort they felt.


    The deity''s silence was strange, but as he made eye-contact with the goblins they could sense that he desired something the deity felt they may have had. The mere intensity of his gaze made the goblins want to recoil from him, but they were stuck where they were due to the narrowness of the cage they were stored in.


    The deity quietly considered how to proceed in dealing with the goblins and was unsure of how to begin to converse with them. This was something fairly new to the deity, a conversation with a stranger who had no real idea or impression of the deity. Perhaps the only time the deity could think that he had done that was with Tristan, or with the wolves.


    At first, his mind was focused on diplomatic approaches. He pondered the possibilities that required words to be exchanged and possibly resulted in new allies or even servants and worshippers. Althos, being the opportunistic sort was quickly learning to see possibilities wherever they hid, and liked those approaches but wasn''t sure how to talk to the goblins. Sooner rather than later he impatiently turned to other approaches he could take.


    Eventually, the deity began to consider ways that he could get what knowledge he needed that didn''t involve spoken communication. His mind turned to the assortment of magic that made up a healthy part of the deity''s arsenal. The young deity was actually quite fond of this idea and began thinking about how to act upon it.


    He wondered if he had the right sort of magic stored away somewhere within the already somewhat considerable knowledge he possessed locked away in his mental codex. But he didn''t begin to search for whatever spell would allow him to go into someone''s mind and learn what they learned just yet.


    Instead of being proactive and doing that the deity even began to ponder the possibility of doing nothing, and letting the cards fall where they may. He considered the ramifications of merely allowing himself to be seen by the goblins and waiting to see if this eventually caused something handy to happen.


    But when he began to think about how that could help him he realized that it was too reliant on others outside of his awareness doing things in response to him. He didn''t like that this would force him to remain ignorant and that it relied on others. The deity wasn''t sure if he liked others having the option to prepare for and react to him, rather than him having the option to prepare for and react to them.


    Altogether the deity must have spent several minutes in this strange state of silence. It wouldn''t last.


    The deity''s quiet contemplation was eventually shattered by Samyaza, with the orb angel doing away with the silence in the space by providing an easily actionable suggestion.


    [Althos... just talk first.]


    Upon hearing the angel''s suggestion, Althos chewed on it for a bit. After nearly another minute of awkward silence, silence so odd that even the creatures behind Althos who were watching him were mystified by it, Althos finally grew frustrated with himself and gathered the mixture of courage and frustration needed to be outspoken to someone who wasn''t a servant of his or a creature he had intimidated.


    He finally spoke, his voice not only reaching the goblins in the cage but the others who had inched closer to the cave so as to observe the exchange.


    "Hello, goblins. Are you locals to this area?"


    His voice was soft, and he again channeled the power he had that allowed his speech to be understood by any creature capable of speech. The goblins heard his question and one of them, a smaller one dressed in a thin layer of armor covered in green soil and leaves, approached the edge of the cage and spoke.


    As she spoke she also starred openly at the deity, in a move that had her companions predicted she was going to do so freely they would have warned her against.


    "Hello, I am Amelie. We are locals to this area, who are you?"


    The goblinwho approached Althos was perhaps the youngest goblin in the group. Althos looked her in the face, his own eyes were unforgiving pits of inky darkness and eventually, he saw that hers were tiny blue orbs, a color that Althos wouldn''t have expected the eyes of a goblin to be given that the skin color of the species appeared to be light green.


    After making eye contact with her Althos felt a bit mischevious and wanted to take advantage of the chance she had given him by looking at him to barge into her mind. She didn''t pull away from his gaze, and she didn''t seem particularly distressed by his gaze either. That was useful to Althos, whose mischevious mind was moving at a mile a minute to come up with a plot that moved him closer to his goals.


    Althos recalled the illusionary magic he used to enter into Tristan''s mind when persuading her to become his servant but then the young deity had an even better thought; mental magic. He realized that though the majority of the targets of his mental magic to date had been people who he was already aligned with, there was no real reason he couldn''t creep into or even invade the brains of people who were neutral or even hostile towards him.


    He mentally tapped the strange codex icon that was part of his H.U.D. which contained the spells he could freely wield. He began a search for the right type of mind magic and wondered how long it''d take for him to find it. It took him but a few seconds to find something that was exactly what he was looking for.


    [Spell type: Mind


    Spell name: Mind Walking


    Effect: Causes the caster to enter the mind of the target. The spell can be resisted, but attempts at resistance can fail if the caster is overwhelming more magically powerful than the target is.


    Once the caster is inside of the mind of the target there is little the target can do to resist but the spell can be interrupted by outside influence or ended whenever the caster runs out of mana or undoes the spell with but a thought.


    The interior of the mind of the target is known as a "mindscape" and each is a unique reflection of the person whose mind it is. Exploration of "mindscapes" gradually increases the power of mind magic, and can eventually result in the acquisition of mind-centric feats.


    Cost: 200 magical energy right after being cast, and another 50 magical energy per 15 seconds the spell is in effect.


    Notes:


    1: This is a "concentration" type spell. As in it is one that takes your full attention, and it can be interrupted by things that disrupt your focus. During the time it is cast it will


    2: The caster can decide to render the target of the spell unable to remember that their mind was invaded, or afflict them with a powerful status condition that causes them to experience intense pain if they try to tell others that they were hit by the spell.]


    Althos wordlessly activated the spell and aimed it right at the eyes of the goblin girl who had locked eyes with him. Upon activating it Althos could feel the effects of the spell taking hold, and he felt his own mind slowly disconnect from his body, which to the deity was odd sure, but much to the deity''s surprise it wasn''t unpleasant.


    One surprising consequence of this decision was the sudden acquisition of two powerful feats even before Althos entered the mind of the goblin.


    [Feat gained: Disembodied


    Benefit: Your ability to change your shape now includes the ability to do away with a physical form altogether. This means that you can will away your physical body and explore the multiverse as a being that lacks a physical form if you so chose and due to your nature as a god you can at any time reconstitute your physical form.


    Method of Acquisition: Leave your physical body behind in a way that doesn''t grant you a new, equally physical body.


    Notes:


    1: For many creatures, this is one of the most difficult feats to gain before they truly master shape-shifting, though among shape-shifting circles it''s not exactly a secret feat.


    2: Currently, you are the only creature in existence who can do this.


    3: If you gain the ability to exert a level of influence equal to the greater tier or higher over the shapeshifting domain you can grant other creatures this feat as part of your blessing.]


    [Feat gained: Dual-Willed


    Benefit: You can do more than one thing that would otherwise require all of your attention. Here are some examples: with this, you can continue to cast "concentration" type spells while doing other things such as talking or even moving around. You can craft items while attacking or even using magic without risking a drop in the quality of the item.


    Method of Acquisition: Have cast multiple spells that require concentration. Possess an overall magical energy of at least 25,000.


    Note:


    1: There are others who have this feat. A quick scan of the multiverse suggests that there somewhere around 2,000,000 people with this feat. All things considered, that''s an incredibly small number of people.


    2: The dual-will obeys the commands of the primary will and is dormant while not in use. This feat does not create a second personality or consciousness, merely a puppet that handles easy tasks. Each time before the feat activates the secondary will asks for a basic command to follow while the primary will focuses on the primary task.]


    As Althos was being transported to the mindscape of the goblin he was surprised to see a menu pop up before him.


    [How should I, the secondary will, act while you are in the mindscape of the goblin?


    Talk, kindly


    Talk, rudely


    Be silent and possibly hostile


    Retreat back to allies


    Please note, these options are rough but once I''ve been used several times I''ll begin to gain a greater grasp of your personality and be able to better tailor my responses to your personal style.]


    <hr>


    Althos quickly opened his mouth to respond to Amelie''s question.


    "I am Althos. I am a druid and I was tasked by some of the animals on the other side of the river to address some problems that some bears from this part of the forest have been causing. It seems that for some reason bears who are believed to be from here are acting very aggressively and even crossing the river. Can you help me find out why?"


    The voice of Althos, whose physical form was being controlled by the brand new secondary will of the deity was unusually kind and gentle. He smiled at the goblin, and somehow the gesture made the other goblins feel a bit more secure. After all that was, almost exactly their mission as well.


    There was a softness to Althos''s voice that appealed to the frightened and fatigued goblins. It wasn''t enough to make them drop their guards, but the goblins would be lying if they said they weren''t somewhat relieved to have found someone with a bit of sympathy.


    They exchanged wary glances at each other and considered how to proceed. Olizeo silently decided that it''d be best if he monitored his companions. His companions, on the other hand, adopted a range of other attitudes.


    Brutus, the third oldest goblin of the five, moved towards the bars of the cage and looked at Althos. His amber colored eyes didn''t look directly into Althos''s black ones but rather starred at the deity''s clothed chest. The goblin may not have had the courage or foolishness needed to look into the deity''s eyes but he did have the courage to directly ask the young deity something.


    "Althos... this cage is really tight. Can you find a way to open it?"


    Brutus''s deep, for a goblin, voice rang out and carried all the way to the mouth of the cave. The unicorn and the elves heard this request, but only the elves understood it. They quietly wondered what the deity would do in response to it, and spread out in such a way that exiting the narrow cave-mouth would be tough even for a goblin. They wouldn''t allow their own ignorance to be their undoing.

 Chapter 35:

    Althos''s perception of his surroundings changed in the wake of him selecting the first option for his "second will" and he felt his mind zooming towards the little goblin who boldly approached him moments ago. Immediately upon his mind entering the goblin''s the deity, for the first time in his life saw nothing but deep darkness, the sort of darkness a mortal associated with unconsciousness.


    The darkness that surrounded him was strange and omnipresent. He didn''t see a mental version of a sun, a moon, or stars. He didn''t know it yet, but he was completely surrounded by utter nothingness on all sides.


    Althos''s mind-form spun in a circle to check out his immediate surroundings. After looking out in front of him he did this while having a suspicion that he''d be completely surrounded by darkness, and his first action in this strange new place only confirmed that. Unbeknownst to him, there was a reason beyond his understanding that explained why he felt surrounded by darkness.


    In a matter of seconds, the darkness that surrounded him vanished and was replaced by something different. Before he could take a breath and analyze what now surrounds him his vision was temporarily overtaken by a massive notification from the system.


    [Alert: Your mind and Amelie''s mind are now synchronized. Until you gain the appropriate skill or feat it will take a second for your mind and the minds of victims of your mind magic to synchronize. If the victims of your mind magic are conscious, until you gain the appropriate skill or feat, or perhaps a certain level of influence over the right domain or subdomain, in order to successfully invade their minds you must synchronize with them.


    The synchronization of your mind and the victims of your mind magic mind means they are aware of your mental intrusion. How they react to that... well, that depends on them and of course on you. But many people won''t be happy, at least not initially, about you invading their minds. Which is fair.]


    When Althos willed this notification away he was able to truly examine the changed environment he found himself in.


    He found himself in a strange place. A quick check of his surroundings hinted that he was currently at the edge of the goblin''s mindscape. Behind him and to both his left and his right was the same sort of odd darkness-like nothingness that surrounded him before. But he could vaguely make out something different, directly in front of him.


    After checking behind him and to his sides he quickly looked out as far as he could straight ahead and off in the distance he saw a foreboding building that was covered in what looks to be dark green roots and other miscellaneous plant parts. The deity shrugged his shoulders and began a long "walk" towards a more central part of the goblin''s mindscape.


    As he wandered towards this strange mental approximation of a building, he wondered how he could see anything at all here. There is no light source that illuminates the building that Althos could see. During the walk the deity stored this question away in the growing catalog he is building of questions he can''t answer right now.


    At the beginning of the trip through Amelie''s mind, he checked his mental map and found that it uselessly told him he was surrounded by "life". The deity rolled his eyes and wished he could have a smart way to detect life in any environment.


    <hr>


    The goblins were stunned to hear their peers and colleagues take a chance and approach the deity. From a distance, the dark-elves readied themselves to react violently to what the goblin, Brutus, had asked, and the dark unicorn who stood close to one of its secondary lairs looked into its cave curiously, wondering what the odd druid would do.


    Althos''s own allies approached him even though they were the group furthest from the action and in response, the others pushed closer to defend their own vested interests in the cave. It was then that Althos'' second will, controlling his physical body within the cave, acted.


    Althos'' second will followed Althos''s command and responded to the goblin with kindness. The voice it spoke in was a perfect replica''s of Althos'' surprisingly deep voice, mostly because it was an extension of Althos and not a new creature so it didn''t have to replicate Althos'' voice, when it spoke the deity himself was speaking.


    "Well... Mr. Whatever Your Name Is, I can certainly ask."


    And with that Althos'' second-will used the deity''s body and turned to the dark unicorn. Then the deity''s mouth opened and Althos, speaking in the strange demonic tongue of the Heart of Chaos, asked if the unicorn would mind if Althos opened the cage.


    <hr>


    Though to Althos, in the mindscape, his journey across the featureless wastes to the strange building that was the only thing he could see felt like it takes several minutes in reality only a few seconds passed before the deity was standing just steps away from the odd feature of the environment he was in.


    He looked at the building and analyzed what laid in front of him. It was a plain structure, made of the mental approximation of stone, and as far as he could see from the one side of it that was visible to him there is just a single door in or out of it. The deity, in a somewhat unusual moment of caution and forethought, took a second to explore the boundaries of the building.


    The deity quickly walked around the building and was soon back where he started this quick expedition. Upon exploration of the building''s exterior, he found that what he found originally was correct, there was but a single door in or out of the building.


    The deity approached it and observed it. It looked utterly mundane, a dull grey barrier blocking the deity from access to the knowledge the goblin possesses. He knew, instantly, that to actually benefit from this mental invasion he needed to venture beyond this door and into the depths of the goblin''s mind and knowledge. Where he''d probably encounter some response from the goblin herself.


    And then Althos opened the door. Just beyond it he could see more darkness, but this time the darkness felt more mundane and not utterly empty. Althos gathered his resolve and ventured beyond the open door and into the darkness behind it.


    <hr>


    The dark unicorn stopped looking at the goblins and turns slightly so that it''s gaze fell on Althos. It pondered the deity''s words and actions for a second.


    Then it turned its head ever-so-slightly just so that it looked at the dark-elves. They were focused on what was going on within the cave and were only barely aware that the unicorn''s gaze has turned to them.


    At that moment Qut took a second to be introspective. The dark unicorn carefully weighed the weight and impact of its next decision. It contemplated how the elves might react, and how Althos'' party might react. For a second it even considered how the goblins themselves might react. But only for a second, the unicorn wasn''t kind and didn''t care for the goblins who intruded on its domain and weren''t strong.


    And then it made a decision.


    <hr>


    Upon walking into the building and into the darkness beyond the open door Althos'' environment changed yet again. And the first thing he noticed was that he wasn''t alone.


    Long before he noticed the stream of memories and the river of thoughts behind him he noticed that the environment had changed into that of a pleasant, strangely well-lit, grassy meadow over which floated a clear blue sky and that Amelie had materialized a mental form that now stood next to him.


    The ego''s facial expression conveyed how it felt quite clearly: scared and concerned. Feelings which were, given everything that had gone on in the past few hours for her, quite valid.


    The goblin''s vision of herself was not particularly different from her physical form. As Althos gave her a once-over he noticed that this mental-body was perhaps a few centimeters taller than the goblin''s actual physical body, and her skin was a bit clearer. Aside from that, she was also a bit more muscular, and her nearly nude form was covered not by green-armor but by the mental reflection of assorted animal furs.


    She opened her mouth to speak but Althos cut her off. In the instant before he spoke he considered how to approach this and after a moment of deliberation decided to be honest with the goblin, to an extent, and saw how she reacted to honesty.


    "We are in your mind, you''re trapped here until I decided otherwise. I am aware that you are probably aware of this, and I''m fine with the consequences of that. I am here in search of knowledge, and I really feel the need to stress this: not to hurt you. And I won''t hurt you unless you attempt to instigate something. In which case I make no promises of your safety.


    If you give me the knowledge I seek, which is and I must stress that there is a ''literally'' here, literally everything you know, your memories, thoughts, and secrets, then we can leave here soon and I will help you in a way that you choose. I am seeking, without exception, every bit of knowledge you''ve gained over the course of your life, as well as your memories, secrets, and thoughts.


    If I can acquire those peacefully and easily I can be persuaded to aid you in a way you choose beyond merely freeing you from the prison you''re in. You can also try to resist this spell, but the odds of you successfully expelling me from your mind are... well they aren''t high."


    Althos spoke without hesitation and the blunt honesty in his voice, coupled with the odd display of his powers he made just by plunging both Amelie and himself into Amelie''s mind convinced her of the veracity of his words. She looked at him, most likely sizing him up and she was probably considering what, if anything she could do to get out of this predicament.


    The goblin''s ego closed her mental mouth and thought for a second about how to proceed. Her facial expression changed from confusion, concern, and frustration to one of quiet contemplation.


    <hr>


    Without speaking a single word, the unicorn walked into its cave and acted. It approached the cage, its silence adding dramatic tension to the moment.


    Althos'' second will, in watching it, realized its intention and allowed the beast to do what it had entered the cave to do without complaint. He stepped aside and the unicorn walked right up to the edge of the cage.


    The beast looked at its captives and made direct eye contact with Olizeo and Brutus. The goblins grudgingly engaged in a quiet yet tense staring contest with the unicorn and the bizarre version of chest-pounding going on in the cave went on for considerably longer than it ought to have.


    And then the creature opened the cage, by clever usage of its natural telepathic abilities. It used telepathy to dissamble the lock and remove it in front of the goblins. Seconds later the door slowly swung open, giving the goblins the ability to walk out of where they had once been contained. It took the goblins a moment to truly realize that the door had been opened.


    And it took the dark-elves even longer to realize what had just happened. Following their collective confusion they, one by one, moved forward, stepping into the cave and edging closer to Althos and the goblins than any of Althos'' allies felt comfortable allying them to be. The assorted creatures and orcs Althos had gathered reacted defensively to the elves drawing ever nearer to their master. At that moment, from within the cave, Qut spoke.


    "My fellow Unseelies, I must insist that you take a second and contemplate your actions... I have not freed these goblins, I am merely showing them consideration and good manners. Come now, let us bargain once again. Let us bring in our new companion to the most honorable of tables: the bartering table."


    The unicorn''s voice rang out in the cave and echoed across its narrow walls. Those words carried with them an odd conviction that was also quite curious in nature. The elves were unsure of what the unicorn''s play here was, but they knew that as of yet there was little they could justifiably do. As one the four elves relaxed their guard and waited to see what would happen next.


    <hr>


    In that particular moment, Amelie''s will was stretched tight and she struggled to make sense of the events of the day which quite quickly had gone from mundane to rather extraordinary in the most horrifying of ways.


    The young goblin had started off today by investigating Althos and his allies and in very short order, while retreating was knocked out alongside her peers when they intruded upon the territory of the dark unicorn. An unknown amount of time passed while the goblin was unconscious and she then had woken up just in time to interact with Althos.


    Althos, who immediately upon being interacted with pulled what a lot of humans would call a grade-A dick move and immediately invaded her mind while also trapping the two of them inside of it.


    It was, quite frankly a lot to take in and it understandably took a toll on her will and her sanity. The young goblin was feeling quite pressured at that moment and Althos could see that. The deity watched her, his gaze never breaking not even to blink.


    And once again Amelie, in desperation and a desire to understand, coupled with the fact that though the goblin was intelligent she was lacking in wisdom, looked into the obsidian-colored pits that were Althos'' eyes. What she saw while starring into those eyes, and trying to make sense of Althos, was a sort of hunger and a drive that as far as she could see were limitless.


    Deep in Althos'' eyes, she could see how the deity hungered for knowledge. It was intense, and there was a purity to it that revealed that for all of Althos'' real flaws the deity wasn''t lying about his intentions. There was a simplicity to the deity''s hunger and drive for knowledge that almost made the creature seem reasonable albeit a bit aggressive but it was all honest.


    "All I want is knowledge. All knowledge, actually. I''ll freely admit that pursuing all knowledge is a big undertaking and will take a long time but we''ve all got to start somewhere and our dreams don''t have to be realistic, do they? Now... what do you say, Amelie? Will you give freely and in return be rewarded and helped, or will you say no? There''s a non-zero percent chance I can just leave and leave you trapped here but I don''t want that. Just give me what I want and I''ll give you what you want."The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    The deity spoke words that once again put pressure on the mind of the goblin. She grimaced and weighed what might happen next with each choice laid out before her. Fortunately, there were only two real options: for her to give in and give Althos what he wanted, or for her to say no.


    The goblin was quite intelligent. She may not have had much common sense, and she may have been bull-headed but she had a terrific memory and she was skeptical by nature. This skepticism empowered her to test the waters she found herself in.


    "Althos... if I give you my knowledge, all of it, can you intervene and secure my freedom and the freedom of my friends? We are about to be sold and dark-elves don''t just practice slavery, they also sacrifice living creatures to the demons and other dark creatures they summon and ally themselves with."


    Upon finishing her explanation the goblin looked to Althos, her mental form''s eyes were wide with fear and frustration. Althos looked at her and considered her suggestion. He thought about how he might have to work against the new strange elves and undermine their objective. He thought about how they had explicitly said they were going to purchase the goblins. And then he considered whether or not he could do Amelie asked.


    It only took him a second to be sure of his ability to do this. He looked at her and spoke, ready to convey that information.


    "Amelie... I am certain I can secure your freedom. Am I right in assuming you don''t particularly care how I achieve this, so long as you and your friends come out alive?"


    His voice once again carried no hesitation, no doubt. She looked him in the eyes and nodded. And then Althos began to grin.


    "Well, then Amelie... We have a deal, don''t we? I get all of your knowledge, thoughts, memories, and secrets,"


    As Althos said that his dark eyes began to glow as if indicating his knowledge-focused greed.


    "And in exchange... you get your freedom and the freedom of your friends."


    Amelie herself began to grin, a mixed expression on her face once again revealing the complicated feelings she felt at that moment.


    And Althos began to think of how he could most efficiently secure all of the knowledge this goblin had within her brain. And while doing this a pillar of solid darkness descended from what felt like the sky of the strange meadow the two creatures found themselves in and engulfed Althos, taking him out of Amelie''s sight due to its darkness.


    [Alert: You have secured permission by this creature to plunder her knowledge. How you go about this depends on you and what you will. Do you wish to be maximally efficient and possibly risk harming Amelie''s brain, or do you wish to take your time and considerately explore the depths of her knowledge, absorbing it into your own while freeing both yourself and her from this strange location?


    If you choose this second option both you and Amelie will be freed from here, and copies of Amelie''s knowledge will steadily be created and transferred to you. The process will only take a few minutes, or a few hours depending on the knowledge of the creature whose mind you are plundering. Amelie is a young goblin but is bright for both her age and species. It will take a few minutes to create copies of her knowledge, secrets memories, and thoughts and transfer them over to you but it won''t take more than 15 minutes to do all of this.


    If you are maximally efficient you will instantly absorb all of her knowledge, memories, thoughts, and secrets and you two will leave here right now but there is a real possibility the process will harm her mind. Make your choice, please.]


    Althos wasn''t exactly merciful, but the creature''s impatience wasn''t so high that he''d willfully put the young goblin, who had just cooperated with him, in unnecessary danger. He didn''t hesitate to choose the second, more considerate, option. And the instant he thought this, his surroundings changed once again.


    The deity instantly went from the strange meadow whose parts would soon be flooding his own mind, back into his body and thus the mortal plane.


    The deity found himself approaching the dark-elves, with a new mission that went quite well with what his secondary will had been doing anyway, which was treating the goblins with a bit of careful kindness.


    Unbeknownst to the deity, Amelie was also instantly returned back to control of her own body, and she was the last of the goblins to leave the cage. As soon as she was out of the cage knowledge of what had gone down while she was trapped in her mind, without a secondary will, was given to her in the form of memories her body made while her mind was preoccupied.


    She grinned at Althos, though she was confused by how he was able to move and talk when she couldn''t.


    <hr>


    Moments passed while the elves approached Althos and the goblins moved to congregate behind him. His allies appeared behind the elves and moved into position behind them to make it hard for them to leave unless they were moved. While this was going on Althos''s mind was smoothly incorporating the first bits of knowledge copied from the goblin.


    Althos was learning about the names of plants in the forest, and about woodland critters, one could find in the forest. This knowledge, especially that of the woodland critters, was useful to Althos who found himself tempted to go out and awaken more things, especially birds. It was synchronizing first because it smoothly touched on Althos'' interests in lifeforms and in the forest he spent the first few moments of his life in.


    Theelves took a few moments to reach Althos and when they were standing just in front of the deity, Qu''Ren immediately began to speak.


    "Althos, if you wish to question these goblins please feel free, after all, we already agreed to that... but are you planning to secure their freedom or perhaps purchase them for yourself? Because if so that''s quite inconvenient for me and my kin."


    The witch infused her voice with arrogance and power in a paultry display meant to put the deity on the defensive. Internally Althos rolled his eyes, even as his mind was expanding and the number of things filling it was growing ever wider than they were a few minutes ago.


    At that moment Althos was learning about eating, something he had seen his servants do once and which he allowed Raverangos to do to the bear corpse back at the river''s edge. He found the idea of eating something quite intriguing after learning that most mortals needed to do it to survive.


    Althos opened his mouth to speak to Qu''Ren and the other dark elves. He willed the language he spoke in to be the dark language of the abyssal realm from which Raverangos hailed. His infernal allies cringed in response to hearing the dark words escape from Althos'' lips.


    "Qu''Ren, as a fellow leader I find that I''ve come to quickly respect your natural grace and eloquence. Allow me to be direct and honest with you for a moment will you?"


    Althos appealed to Qu''Ren''s pride and given her track record of speaking for the group coupled with what he had learned from the notification he had received about dark-elves. His manner of speaking was influenced unconsciously by fragments of Amelie''s knowledge and her memories of the other residents of the forest, knowledge, and memories that were still being absorbed by his mind.


    And at that moment Althos aimed at all four dark elves and activated the spell he had accidentally created while trying to discover the vestigial traits of his followers. He hoped to see if there was something hidden within the elves that he could offer as a trump card to get them to leave here without the goblins.


    <hr>


    At that moment the secondary will Althos had gotten minutes ago was acting as a buffer that prevented the deity from being overwhelmed by the knowledge the goblin had agreed to give to Althos. Althos''s chosen method of mercifully copying that knowledge as opposed to just taking it helped prevent him from being overwhelmed as well since there was a limit to the knowledge he could absorb in any one moment because it had to be copied and transferred over to him.


    The manner in which Althos''s mind was absorbing the information he had gained depended on the information in question. Amelie''s memories were being absorbed into his own, and at the end of this process, as in when copies of all of Amelie''s memories were stored in Althos, would grant Althos a knowledge base with which he could begin to make predictions based off of patterns and even grant him the ability to make rudimentary plans that went beyond a few hours in length and weren''t incredibly vague.


    Amelie''s factual knowledge was being added to Althos''s own factual knowledge bit by bit with each passing second. Althos was quietly receiving secondhand notifications which were influenced by the fact that the deity had an upgraded knowledge level, thus giving him far more detailed notifications than Amelie had gotten.


    Amelie''s secrets and thoughts would be copied and transferred over last. They would just be added to the mental log Althos had of his own thoughts. The deity didn''t really have what passed for secrets among mortals, due to his simple-mindedness so there was no existing mental repository for him to store them in like there was for memories, thoughts, and knowledge.


    <hr>


    Althos was grateful for Amelie''s knowledge because it granted him an understanding of things he had heard of but didn''t fully understand. Even as fragmented as the knowledge he was absorbing was, he had the basest knowledge of things like slavery, sacrifice, and the ways some living creatures organized themselves.


    This knowledge came to him in spurts and bursts but it was enough to allow him to speak intelligently to the dark elf who stood in front of him, awaiting a followup to what he had originally said to get her to take him a bit more seriously. He had tried to do something called "flattering" her, and he suspected that it worked because the dark elf didn''t immediately shut him down.


    The amoral diety''s first tactic was to gain an understanding of what the elves wanted from the goblins. So far directness had worked so Althos continued that approach.


    "What do you hope to gain from having goblin slaves? What''s the goal there? I lived in places like this forest my whole life, so I''m genuinely trying to understand what is in it for you, what benefit you stand to gain, by enslaving these little green fellows."


    Althos creatively came up with a bit more to his own falsified backstory, and it was easy for him to think up that detail since it wasn''t exactly a lie.


    Qu''Ren looked at Althos and considered what sort of statement she could make to grant her a leg up at this moment. She turned and looked over at Raverangos and came up with what she felt was a brilliant response to the young deity''s query.


    "We want them so that we can summon more demons. We''d normally hesitate to confess that, but frankly, your sentinel demon looks... surprisingly loyal to you. It obeys your commands and moves to defend you even without specific instructions. It''s honestly kind of impressive given the hatefulness demons normally demonstrate towards us non-demons."


    Qu''Ren met Althos'' own strange honesty with her own strange honesty. Her intentions with the goblins was to torture them and then to sacrifice them to summon more demons. And in making that confession she inadvertently gave Althos a weapon only he could use against her.


    Before the deity could speak, he received an unexpected yet welcome message from his own pet demon.


    [Master, even if all of those goblins were sacrificed at once to summon a single demon... it wouldn''t be as powerful as I am and I am a not a greater demon. If you sacrificed the orcs, Silander, and especially Samyaza or your infernal allies... all of those would result in far greater demons appearing. It''s not really worth making any extra efforts to collect these goblins if your end goal is sacrifice and the summoning of one of my kind.]


    Raverangos, Althos'' pet demon sent its master a quiet message. Althos grinned at this and knew how to proceed, at least for a second.


    "You want to summon a demon with just those goblins? My demon once ate an entire bear. I don''t believe any demon you summon using these goblins as sacrifices would be very strong."


    Althos spoke this with a hint of laughter in his voice, but also turned his gaze towards Amelie for a second and grinned at her, before turning back to face Qu''Ren yet again.


    This made Qu''Ren''s eyes flash with anger. She felt, rightfully so, that Althos was making fun of her. She was about to open her mouth to respond, but Althos knew that if he let her do that they may be no going back so he immediately cut her off and spoke once again.


    "Before you speak, let me make sure we''re on the same page. You''re after these goblins because you want to sacrifice them? If that''s correct let me make you a... counterproposal. I can empower you right here and now and grant you powers that would make you far better able to go out and catch worthy sacrifices. The only thing I ask in exchange is that you leave here without the goblins."


    <hr>


    Moments ago when Althos had activated "Vestigial Examination" the results that appeared before him were quite interesting to the young deity.


    The external traits he had seen were as follows:


    Spear mastery (Qu''Ren, Milene)


    Thermal vision (Qu''Ren, Milene, Mianthus, Drow)


    Natural armor (Drow)


    The internal traits were also interesting:


    Telekinesis (Qu''ren, Mianthus, Milene)


    Pyrokinesis (Milene)


    Ichor veins (Qu''Ren)


    Clairvoyance (Drow)


    Poison generation (Mianthus, Milene)


    True shape-shifting (Mianthus, Milene, Drow, Qu''Ren)


    Of those, the most unique to Althos were "Ichor veins" and "Clairvoyance". The deity contemplated immediately resurrecting both of those traits no questions asked, but patiently held back.


    Ichor veins was an ability that granted Qu''Ren a secondary sort of blood vein all over her body. When attacked in a way that caused her to bleed this ability would cause the wound to expel the dark ichor-like blood Raverangos had in its veins.


    Clairvoyance, if resurrected, would grant the male dark-elf named Drow the ability to see visions given to him by Althos. This was a powerful ability that Althos would almost certainly resurrect at some point, even if not right at that very moment.


    But Althos had no way of knowing just how incredible it was that he possessed the ability to resurrect the power to shape-shift that laid deep within the genetic makeup of all elves. And he wouldn''t learn how significant this was until he informed the elves themselves of this reality. Which wouldn''t happen immediately.


    <hr>


    A silence fell over the cave as the elves all considered what Althos had just told them. So as to sweeten the deal, Althos decided to provide a demonstration of his powers.


    He quietly selected the young dark elf female who stood a ways away from Qu''Ren and cast one of his earliest legendary spells on her.


    In much the same explosive way that it had occurred with Salifinos hours ago a spectacular pillar of darkness the same shade of darkness of the void between stars themselves came down from the natural ceiling of the cave and engulfed the younger sister of the warrior named Mianthus. She was surrounded on all sides by the potent magical power that was needed to resurrect the chosen vestigial trait.


    Within the pillar, she felt the power that surrounded her being steadily absorbed into her body, and she felt something strange happening to her mind. It felt like her mind itself was gradually becoming more and more powerful, like she could do things with just her mind and not with magic or with her own hands.


    While still surrounded by the pillar''s anti-light she heard the whispers of her ancestors. She heard them offering muted praises and felt their respect for her increasing. She smiled and began to graciously accept the boost to her own powers.


    Though the pillar that surrounded her was very impressive, after a matter of seconds it faded away and left just the girl standing there, feeling more powerful than ever.


    Althos waited a few moments while the girl returned to what passed for normal among dark elves and then he spoke to her. He didn''t know her name, but he knew that she''d know who he was referring too.


    "You there... Do me a favor and demonstrate what you''ve just been given. Use your gift on the cage my friends here just left."


    Milene looked at the strange deity and considered whether or not to obey him. She considered this until she realized this was a way to undermine Qu''Ren, something her dark-elven nature delighted at the chance to do, and until she recognized the reality that without Althos none of this would have been possible in the first place.


    Milene nodded at Althos and then turned her gaze to the cage. She extended one of her hands towards the cage as if to direct her mind in its direction and then quietly willed her mind to lift the cage up.


    <hr>


    Qu''Ren had known Milene, Drow, and Mianthus for decades. She knew Milene as a quiet little alchemist, not a potent sorcerer or psychic. The girl, at least relative to Qu''Ren, was good at many things but magic and psychic abilities had never been on the list of things the girl was capable of pulling off well.


    The iron cage that had previously held the goblins and was now empty must have weighed at least a few dozen kilograms. And within a matter of seconds, it began to move, slightly and slowly at first but that only lasted a few moments.


    Milene''s initial mental reaction to the dense cage was to balk at its weight given that she had never used this newfound ability before, and when sweat formed on her brow. That was when the cage only budged in response to her mental pushes. But then the girl refocused and felt a newfound measure of self-assurance and self-worth from deep within herself. A product of innate dark-elven pride and self-respect.


    She centered those emotions deep within herself and tried to move the cage again. This time she audibly groaned in response to the effort she was making, but this time the cage obeyed her will and like she was actually lifting the cage by hand slowly and visibly rose in the air, shakily but still obviously off the ground.


    Althos grinned at this and then turned to Qu''Ren to speak again. A grin was still plastered onto his face as he spoke.


    "I can empower all of you. How you''ll be empowered differs from person to person, but what I did for her, I can do for you. And once again, the only thing I ask is that after I do it you all leave here and let the goblins go free."


    Qu''Ren had a look of serious consideration on her face, as she weighed her desire to sacrifice the goblins coupled with her frustration at Althos, against her desire for immediate self-improvement and free power-ups. Althos was delighted to see that she was so seriously considering how to proceed from here, and the young deity hoped that she''d take what he felt was a good deal.

 Chapter 36

    Unbeknownst to Althos, his magic was already taking on its own distinctive flavor, a flavor that would soon touch the dark elves. Though his first usage of magic was offensive, back when he sent magic through Samyaza and into the ground so that it would lash out against Ranthor, the majority of his usages of magic were mutative or restorative or both.


    Althos had used restorative magic multiple times, first to heal his servant Gallow, and then to restore vestigial traits in Salifinos, and in the dark elf Milene. He had also used mutative magic to awaken Silander and the soul orbs who at that moment floated over to him and provided illumination of the cave as they drifted towards him.


    Because of this and because of his inexperience with magic, those were magically touched by the young deity in non-aggressive ways felt strange but good sensations assail their mind. It lowered their resistance to Althos'' magical touch, and also empowered his abilities that were restorative or mutative.


    If he knew this, this probably would have been delighted, especially if it was explained to him that this could convince people to more readily accept his mystical embrace or used as a means to tempt the weaker willed into divulging secrets and other knowledge.


    <hr>


    Seconds after speaking to the small party of dark elves with the offer of immediate improvement Althos did something that could have been considered a bit reckless. He silently established a mental connection with Qu''Ren, reaching out with his mind while he activated the spell that would allow for the two of them to chat unnoticed.


    [Qu''Ren, why do you hesitate? What can I do, to sweeten this deal?]


    Althos waited for a second to make sure his connection was well established and hadn''t somehow been rejected by the witch. She showed no obvious, outward signs of having suddenly gotten a mental message which was impressive given that Althos had messaged her when she was lost in thought.


    Instead, she maintained a stoic expression as she internally debated how to respond to Althos'' quiet mental query and whether or not to take Althos'' deal. After a few seconds, she sighed and mentally messaged Althos back.


    [If you empower us, how specifically will we be empowered? Or is this some weird sort of alteration magic that boosts us randomly?]


    Qu''Ren revealed her hand at that moment. She betrayed herself by making it clear that she was legitimately interested in what Althos had to offer. She hungered for power and, in her own way at least, Althos saw a hunger for knowledge within her. She was most likely a powerful magician, and Althos could feel the ambition radiating off of her.


    It appealed to him. But in a way similar to how blood appealed to a shark. He sensed it and wanted to feed on it. And so the deity made his play, and in doing so forever changed the lives of the goblins, the elves, and to a lesser extent the unicorn too.


    Qu''Ren''s every movement, and even her thoughts betrayed her desire for power and her belief in herself. To Althos, who desired knowledge and had power, including power he could share, there was a certain compatibility there.


    Althos put up a stoic expression of his own and silently responded to the question in a way that would be immensely exciting to the dark elf he was mentally trying to tempt.


    [I will tell you and only you of the true nature of this power because it is quite apparent that you are the leader here. You see, I have a powerful magical ability that is restorative in nature which reveals to me vestigial traits that creatures lost access to over the course of generations. I can then pour a considerable amount of magical energy into someone and revive those abilities.]


    Althos sent that message to the dark elf, who had to work to maintain her poker face in that moment, and greedily declined to share this information with her peers. That was when Althos sent her a message that changed the weight of this negotiation.


    Despite her poker face, Althos could easily hear the beating of her heart intensify as he spoke. It made him grin, cruelly, as he set out more bait for her.


    [All of you but Mianthus have unique vestigial abilities I can revive in you. Yours is a strange ability called "Ichor veins" which is an ability that gives you a... second type of blood. When forced by an enemy to bleed you can try to strike them with fiendish ichor that will stream out of you and if it hits them will slow them down. It will also strengthen your body. I can also revive thermal vision in all of you and telekinesis in you, Milene, and Mianthus.]


    Althos wasn''t expecting his repetition of what the system had told him to be the final thing that tipped this brief round of negotiations in his favor but hearing that knocked the stoic expression out of the elf''s face and the deity could have sworn he saw her palms begin to drip a tiny amount of sweat. This decision coupled with what Althos did next changed the tone of the discussion in the dark unicorn''s cave.


    The next step of the deity''s plot was rapidly formed and relied on the fact that Qu''Ren was visibly shaken by what he had told her.


    Originally the deity''s next target was the dark elven male who had yet to speak. But then he noticed something.


    He learned the elf''s name twice, once by virtue of his ability to examine vestigial traits and then again focusing on his environment around the elf, and seeing the following information:


    [Name: Drow Banethal


    Class: Ranger


    Species: Dark Elf


    Faction: The Dark Elven City Of Undermoon]


    This was exactly what happened with Tristan back before Tristan, Salifinos, and himself had ventured into the tomb of Agowraith the Kingwhisper, and as Althos looked around him and focused not just on the creatures he was surrounded by, but the actual atmosphere he once again saw these text boxes above everyone''s heads.


    For the elves, both the species and the factions were generally similar. All of the elves aside from Qu''Ren had the same faction, and Mianthus and Milene had the same last name.


    Qu''Ren''s faction wasn''t listed as "The Dark Elven City Of Undermoon" but rather her faction was something called "The Keepers Of Tradition", a name that sounded rather arrogant to Althos, but was also something worth looking into at a later date. The deity quietly stored that information away and went ahead and established a mental connection with Drow.


    Althos'' message to Drow was filled with falsehoods, but he stated them firmly and boldly hoping to deceive the dark-elf.


    [Drow, listen to me. Aid me in persuading Qu''Ren to take my offer. I am planning to endow you each with powerful gifts as a means to convince Qu''Ren to let the goblins live and leave here peacefully. I don''t wish to see the goblins die or to see the sort of weak demons their insignificant deaths would summon be a nuisance to you or to me.]


    At the moment of receiving the mental message and recognizing Althos'' voice, the dark elf looked up and starred at the young deity. In response, Althos began to smile.


    Althos had a particular deception in mind for the man who would become clairvoyant. It was inspired by the misconceptions about clairvoyance that Althos had learned about while absorbing the information, secrets, thoughts, and memories of the strange goblin who had been pressured into sharing her entire mind with the knowledge-obsessed deity. A process that was still occurring even at that very moment.


    [I am planning to give you the power to peer into the future. All it takes is you aiding me in persuading Qu''Ren to leave here peacefully, without the goblins.]


    The quiet warrior didn''t respond by using the mental connection Althos had made for the two, but by waiting until he and Althos made eye contact. Then he subtly nodded, and Althos began to grin a bit more openly. Drow on the other was skeptical of the god''s claims. This skepticism stemmed from a lifetime of hoping to acquire what Althos had just promised him. A lifetime of failures and disappointments embittered the dark elf.


    <hr>


    Drow was one of the youngest members of a family, a family that had spent a long time dealing with the present and the future. Many of his ancestors, including his own parents, had been creatures who could peer into the future. Such a power never awoke within him.


    The dark-elf had always wondered why he did not possess the same power as both of his parents. He had spent much of his life seeking to change that.


    Drow had even escaped from the underground cities that contained the majority of his kind in pursuit of ways to awaken what he felt must have been hidden with him. Despite the risks he took, and the places he ventured too, he never succeeded in awakening the power he hoped lurked with him.


    This strained his relationship with his mother and father, who never found a reason to be proud of their son. Sadly, they also never failed to express their sheer disappointment in him. They let him know how he made them feel, and it was never positive.


    And now some stranger says they can awaken within me what I''ve dreamed my whole life of having? It''s suspicious.The dark elf thought, skepticism ruling the day in his mind.


    The skepticism quickly mixed with anger at the idea that he had wasted so long doing this, and there was just a stranger out there who decided that the lives of goblins of all creatures weighed more than the power the dark elf had always longed for.


    <hr>


    Althos turned to Milene, the younger of the two females who stood in the cave alongside himself and the goblins. He didn''t have to initiate contact with her.


    Milene was eager to chat with the deity, and the second his gaze fell upon her he received an enthusiastic mental message from the elven alchemist.


    [Hello! Thank you for the power-up. Do you mind sharing what it was that you did specifically? If not it''s fine... probably.]


    Milene had already been made aware of Althos'' true nature due to one of the things that happened to her while her telekinesis was being resurrected. This knowledge was sitting within her and she knew that this wasn''t the time or place to sit down and think through the cosmic implications of the existence of a new deity.


    Like all dark elves, she had an excellent poker face and was relying on it to see what the deity did and was planning to do. She decided not to inform the deity that she knew about its deific status, believing at this point that this was its plan.


    The deity himself didn''t know this, because so far the only other creature on whom he had used his ability to resurrect vestigial traits was Salifinos, who already knew that the being was a god. The devil most likely would have warned him if he had spoken in the language of the devils or if Althos had informed him that this was his plan, but Althos hadn''t.


    Althos quietly but audibly chuckled. He quickly responded to the girl and kept his word to Qu''Ren by not revealing the true nature of his magic.


    [I am a druid but I possess powerful alteration magic. I used it on you to grant you a new power, one which for now is temporary but I can easily make it permanent. That said I won''t do that for free.]


    As Althos weaved this fabrication he contemplated how to best make use of Milene. Based on these first impressions she was distinctly different from the other elves in the party, both younger than them and also with a different attitude.


    Mianthus was a serious, probably dependable sort, Qu''Ren was almost certainly powerful and ambitious, and Drow was a quiet sort. Milene on the other hand... had something to prove. Almost like some sort of failure or series of failures had influenced her and filled her with a need to succeed.


    She had a sort of clear and strong ambition that was evident in how she easily and without encouragement tried a second time to use her newly restored powers and a clear drive to succeed as shown by how she actually successfully used her powers on just the second time she tried them.


    Althos'' impression of Milene was improved further when the girl responded to what Althos had just told her. Althos grinned as in the distance he saw the girl nod her head in understanding. Then she sent another mental message.


    [Of course. We dark elves don''t like it when people give something for free. There''s always a cost to be paid, and we can appreciate honesty and a reciprocal approach to these sorts of things. I also suspect that you and that goblin came to a sort of understanding somehow that is leading you to intervene to protect them. That''s fine with me, I''ll do what I can to aid you.]


    Althos looked at her, his entirely obsidian eyes gazing quite clearly into her oddly human-like eyes, despite the fact that she was a true dark elf and not a half-elf, and smiled.


    [That is not the only power-up you will receive and your brother will receive power-ups as well. Aid me and be rewarded for your services.]


    Milene looked at Althos for a second, wondering how he knew about Mianthus being her brother and then shrugged her shoulders. Althos was a deity and frankly, there was no real way of knowing what other powers he did or didn''t possess, so it was entirely possible he ambiently knew all sorts of details about them all.


    She quietly wondered what sorts of things Althos must have known with but a glance at her about Qu''Ren. She was envious of her aunt and would have loved to be able to know even a single thing that Althos knew about her.


    Althos hadn''t actually known that Milene and Mianthus were siblings, but her reaction confirmed it. He smiled, mentally, at this. It was a trick he had seen Amelie use in one of her memories and he was delighted at its success.


    Then there was Mianthus. The deity and the elf made contact at the same time with an almost instantaneous exchange of messages, like two friends who hadn''t seen each other in a long time yet were so excited that they began to chat instantly upon reuniting.


    Mianthus'' message came through first.


    [Hello Althos, I know what you''re gonna offer. You don''t have to do that with me. Though I plan on accepting your offer of empowerment, and I know that it''s some sort of alteration magic, I am just happy to have a chance to power-up at the expense of Qu''Ren. I''m with you. Well... I''m with myself anyway. For now, that happens to mean siding with you. In the future... Well who''s to say?]


    Althos'' message came through an instant later, and Mianthus grinned at it. Althos also grinned at Mianthus'' message.


    [Hello Mianthus. Aiding me right now may mean a quiet and temporary loss, but it''s for the sake of the acquisition of greater, permanent power. I want to empower each of you in unique ways, and all I ask is that you aid me in convincing Qu''Ren to take my offer.]


    Mianthus was perhaps the one who garnered the least interest from Althos, but his message went a good way towards changing that. Althos peered over at the elf and the two exchanged the sort of friendly smiles normally reserved for old friends.


    When he looked at Mianthus he saw his group''s Bazur, a skilled leader who quietly held the group together with force of will and skill. Mianthus didn''t possess the power or ambition of Qu''Ren, but he possessed a calmness to him and an aura of dependability.


    Althos knew in that moment that he had succeeded in this negotiation. He considered how to convey this bit of news to Amelie, and then accepted that it was best to just send her a mental message. Mentally chatting with people was rapidly becoming a favorite tool of Althos''.


    [It is done. I have secured your freedom. Just watch.]


    <hr>


    Behind him, Amelie smiled and felt tears begin to form in her eyes. They threatened to ruin the tense mood, but she immediately and nearly silently hissed and took a beat to recover from the stress of the situation.


    The elves were silent for just a few seconds longer, and then Qu''Ren stepped forward and spoke for the group. For the first time, she spoke in the common tongue of the region, for the sake of being understood by the goblins.


    "Althos... we accept your offer. Once you have performed your odd magic, we will depart from here. Will you share what ways in which you''re planning to empower us?"


    Qu''Ren''s decision to speak in the common tongue was an act of deeply uncharacteristic kindness, but it was because the elf felt that the moment represented something that would in the long-run be categorized as a neat win, even if at the moment she felt a bit annoyed. That caused her to feel charitable.


    Althos took a breath upon hearing the elf confirm that they would accept the terms Althos had given them. He felt surprisingly excited to move forward and speak.


    "Sure! Well, my ability allows me to empower people. The way it works is... that when I select targets I am given options and in your cases what I''ll be doing is using it on you and selecting the assorted options that appear. Take, for example, thermal vision. I''ve already used the first part of my power to discover what I can empower you with, and thermal vision is something that is common completely across the board.


    When I activate my power the same sort of pillar that surrounded her,"


    At this point, Althos nodded in the direction of Milene.


    "Will engulf all of you, including her, once again. I temporarily empowered her before but now it will be permanent. The pillar will surround you, while you acclimate to the new powers and traits you''re being given. Once the pillars vanish, as far as I know, your new powers and traits should be fully operational."


    Althos then stopped talking. He brought his hands together and closed his eyes. He was considering the oddity of the final power he had seen listed, the power that was called "True shape-shifting". His intuition warned him that it represented something significant outside of his own knowledge, unlike the other powers, even though its description, to the deity, felt less impressive than the descriptions of the others.


    He recalled the notification he had received that informed him of its nature.


    [Ability explanation: True shape-shifting.


    Ability type: natural


    Ability properties: Shape-shifting grants those who possess it either limited or full control over their appearance. True shape-shifting is the penultimate form of this, and the most powerful form available to mortals. This grants mortals total control over their appearance and physical properties they possess. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Mortals with true shape-shifting are among the only creatures who can transform into copies of other living creatures and perfectly mimic their voices. Once this power is sufficiently upgraded they can even use magical energy to replicate the natural or supernatural abilities possessed by other mortals, even creating a lesser version of the supernatural breath abilities possessed by creatures like dragons.


    Note: Though to some creatures this ability is perfectly natural and innate, it''s possible for people who are the right combination of classes and races to recover it if it was lost to their race. In some cases it can be recovered with genetic experimentation.]


    Though Althos recognized that this was a powerful ability it was also deeply innate to Althos whose form was subject to his whims. His own familiarity with his version of this ability blinded him to its power to mortals. Upon rereading the description of the ability Althos quietly decided to consult with his advisors before doing anything else.


    [Samyaza, M.A., can you tell me what you know about the ability called "True shape-shifting"? It''s one of the things I can restore in the elves. I have a... feeling about it that I can''t quite put into words, but it''s making me unsure of if I should give them access to it. I never told them about it, so they wouldn''t know about it unless I restored it in them.]


    Upon hearing the request Samyaza and M.A. both immediately did their best to remember what they could about the ability. Both of them had heard of it before, but neither one immediately knew why it was filling their often somewhat reckless friend with concern.


    After spending a few seconds in silence, Samyaza spoke up.


    [Honeslty? I don''t know why that''s what''s going on Althos. But since they don''t know about the ability just don''t restore it in them for now. Your instincts are good, they are very literally divine. Listen to them. Find a way to learn more about this, later, and for now, focus on restoring their abilities that don''t evoke this feeling in you. It''s possible that for them this ability is an evolutionary requirement, and the second they get it they''ll evolve like Silander did when you awoke her. If dark elves can evolve... whatever they become will be terrifyingly powerful.]


    Seconds after Samyaza spoke up M.A. did as well. Her advice wasn''t dissimilar.


    [There are safer ways to go about discovering why this ability evokes the feelings it evokes in you than resurrecting it and seeing what happens. Especially if you didn''t feel that way when you read it initially, versus now that you''re actually considering resurrecting it in the elves. That means that it''s likely tied to them as a species. Samyaza''s advice is good. I recommend listening to it.]


    Althos considered what they said and after a few seconds of careful consideration decided that their advice was wise. He decided to follow it, for now.


    The deity then wordlessly cast his spell, targeting all four elves with the spell as he selected all of their abilities aside from True shape-shifting for resurrection.


    <hr>


    The cave darkened as four pillars of obsidian darkness descended on the four elves. The dark unicorn, the goblins, and Althos'' allies all quietly watched the theatrics in action.


    All four of the elves felt the darkness land on top of them. They were immediately buffeted by potent magical energy and each of them reacted differently to it.


    At this point in time, Althos had no way of knowing that the honesty of the system itself would be what undid his attempts to be deceptive.


    <hr>


    Qu''Ren was the embodiment of ambition and pride. These emotions, along with a cold-blooded sense of wrath guided her and gave her her sense of self. And at that moment, as the pillar descended around her and made her only see darkness, she felt like she was on the cusp of a grand victory. And in a sense, she was right.


    Qu''Ren relaxed and felt at ease within the coldness of the pillar. Her ambition had won out over her pride and her anger, and to her, this was the perfect reward for that. She felt not only her mind but also her body becoming stronger.


    Her anatomy itself was being changed by Althos'' power. She felt her veins widening and increasing in strength and number as her heart began to beat faster than ever. She felt her new veins be flooded with the same sort of vile ichor that filled Raverangos'' veins.


    Her new veins crisscrossed her body. They extended forth from her heart like tendrils and her reaction was to try and suppress the shivers of pleasure this caused her. Her whole body felt more sensitive as a result of the new blood type that within seconds reached every centimeter of her body.


    She quietly, and only for a fleeting moment wondered if this was what Althos'' caress would feel like on her skin. If his fingers, used to the magic involving restoration, would chill or inflame her senses. But then she snapped out of it. He was no dark elf after all. Though she was about to learn what he actually was.


    She also felt her mind''s power increase and all of a sudden she felt the range of things she could reach out and grab increase significantly. Her new physical strength, supplied to her through the ichor she was now filled with, and her new mental strength filled her with even more confidence, bolstering her belief in herself to new heights.


    Even her eyes changed, going from their normal color to ruby-red for a split second as she tried out her thermal vision. Much to her surprise, it peered past the pillar of darkness she was in and allowed her to see the creatures she was with. Where her allies were, was a strange and empty space but she suspected that was because the pillars were supernaturally cold.


    That was when the system reached out and dropped a mind-blowing notification on her.


    [Alert: The following vestigial traits have been resurrected within you, by the young deity known as Althos.


    Spear mastery, thermal vision, telekinesis, and ichor veins.


    All of these abilities can level up and can be trained in distinct ways. Careful usage of them empowers them and thusly empowers you.]


    This revelation stunned the dark elven witch. Indeed it shook her to her very core. When she read it her heart actually skipped a beat.


    That meant that Qu''Ren had never been closer to death than when she was dealing with Althos, and that at any moment Althos could have done... well it was impossible for her, a mere mortal to guess the multitude of things Althos could have done to her if he had been displeased.


    The last few seconds she was in the pillar of darkness she carefully considered what to do next. She was truly unsure of what it meant that the deity had interacted with her without harming her, and without revealing his true nature.


    After thinking about it for a second she quietly realized that it must not have meant that much to Althos to keep his true nature a secret since he had activated a spell that would reveal his identity to them and since he was familiar with the spell which made it clear, to the dark elf anyway that he had used it before.


    She never, for a second, considered that Althos, as a young deity, was inexperienced with magic. This was made even less of a possibility in her mind by the fact that the spell he used was one with properties she had never heard of.


    As the pillar of darkness around her dissipated and light once again touched the edges of her vision she felt her ambition reignite, ambitions which had caused her to always be perceived as a bit out there, even by other dark elves including ones who respected her power and skill. She saw in Althos'' divinity an opportunity to restore her people to greatness.


    She saw, in him and in his whims, the sort of mysterious blessings that had once led her people to greatness within their deep subterranean metropolises and to an underground empire that once stretched throughout the whole of the mysterious region hidden deep underground.


    Althos'' lightest mutative touch had not only empowered Qu''Ren, but it also made her hungry for more. Gifting someone so ambitious with even bits and pieces of power had influenced her perception of him once she was inside the dark pillar, but the revelation that the provider of that power was a god had an unusual effect on her psyche.


    As the pillar vanished she smiled and sultrily walked out of the area where she had been temporarily cocooned.


    At that moment Althos'' gained a bit of influence over the faith domain without even activating it, and also unintentionally began to walk down the road to influence the insanity domain.


    <hr>


    Milene had several moments to herself to stand in the dark and safely explore her hypotheses about Althos.


    As she felt the rapid changes her body was undergoing she tried to assess what she knew about the strange deity named Althos.


    The first thing she knew was that he had powerful magic. His only displays of magic thus far had been his telepathic abilities, and this spell, but they were both potent abilities.


    The second thing she knew was that he was lying about his identity. She wasn''t sure who all he was lying too, but he was lying. She suspected that the goblins didn''t know and that the unicorn didn''t know, but it was well within the realm of possibility that she was partially wrong about that one and that one or more of the goblins knew the truth. Althos had moved to save them after all, so who knows what they knew. She also suspected he was probably telling the truth to the orcs and the demon and the devil who followed him around.


    The third thing she knew was that he was a deity of not insignificant power. She was by no means a historian or a religious sort, but she knew of the conflict that had at least in the past raged between the devils and the demons and like all dark elves she could identify most demons and some devils by sight alone. Althos had a devil with him, and a demon, and for some reason, they weren''t killing each other.


    The fourth thing was that he was young. That was it really.


    What she wanted to know about the deity was extensive.


    She wanted to know if he had given himself a name or if someone else had. She wanted to know if he was a mortal that somehow ascended to divinity. She wanted to know what he wanted. She wanted to know its interest in dark elven kind. And she wanted to know if the creature was interested in evil, good, neutrality, law, or chaos. Or more than one of those things.


    Her questions were significant but for now, she knew there was nothing much she could do about them so she focused on what she had control over.


    The girl quietly looked at the floor at her feet. Then she closed her eyes and focused her mind on the mental image of the floor. She imagined the floor heating up and then slowing bursting into flames.


    She felt a comfortable warmth emerge near her feet and opened her eyes while focusing on the idea of thermal vision. When her eyes opened up she saw orange flames jut out against the darkness of the pillar she was engulfed in, and she grinned in delight.


    That was when she received a notification that brought an even wider grin to her face.


    [Alert: The following vestigial traits have been resurrected within you, by the young deity known as Althos.


    Spear mastery, thermal vision, pyrokinesis, and poison generation.


    All of these abilities can level up and can be trained in distinct ways. Careful usage of them empowers them and thusly empowers you.]


    In that moment she made a quiet decision. It wasn''t a decision she planned to make a big deal out of, but it was an important decision.


    Having met Althos, having conversed with him, and having experienced the mutagenic and restorative touch of his magic, as opposed to the destructive pain of the magic of her fellow dark elves deciding to worship him was easy for her.


    She was an odd dark elf, one more fascinated by alchemy and by subversion than conquest, magic, and piety, and he was an odd god who in his own way subverted her expectations for what a god was supposed to be. She felt like it was a match made in the Heart of Darkness.


    <hr>


    Within his own pillar of darkness Mianthus quietly contemplated his future as he felt the comfortable touch of the darkness Althos generated and had surrounded him with while his magic took effect.


    The dark elf was a warrior with a purpose. He was determined to ultimately defeat his enemy, the dark elf witch known as Qu''Ren. To an outsider, the fact that his aunt was his enemy might have seemed shocking but in reality, the woman was a cruel taskmaster who incessantly micromanaged him and his sister, and who lashed out against them at every turn. And frankly, as the elf felt the power of Althos surging through his veins and reaching into his very genetic makeup, the elf felt powerful and courageous.


    He felt his brain increase in size slightly and he felt his mind expand. His eyes burned with a mysterious heat as Althos'' magic touched his eyes and his sight was seared by the power of the divine magic that had unexpectedly entered him.


    It wasn''t just the head of the elf that was being affected by Althos'' potent magic, it was the creature''s whole body. His pores were affected significantly, as the deity''s magic seeped into his skin and resurrected an ability long lost to his kind: the ability to generate poison internally that can be used in a variety of ways to poison his foes or those who he is displeased by.


    The elf took a deep breath and as he did so he felt the air itself experience the kiss of the poison that was now a part of him and found that it seemed to affect the quality of the air he inhaled. This made the elf smirk, and he thanked Althos for his gift. That was when he received the notification his sister, aunt, and his peer Drow were all receiving at around the same time.


    [Alert: The following vestigial traits have been resurrected within you, by the young deity known as Althos.


    Thermal vision, telekineses, and poison generation.


    All of these abilities can level up and can be trained in distinct ways. Careful usage of them empowers them and thusly empowers you.]


    This surprised Mianthus and left him breathless. His abilities didn''t affect his mind like how the abilities of his peers did, and Althos'' magical touch was pleasant but not euphoric like the sensations had been for his team. He was moved by the revelation that a god had interacted with them in respectful ways, and he was delighted by the fact that the same god had subtly empowered him to fight against his aunt, but the dark elf didn''t immediately convert to the worship of the young deity.


    This was partially due to Althos'' relative disinterest in Mianthus. He was grateful to the elf and was happy to empower him, but the elf didn''t have any unique abilities. His abilities were strong, and so was he, but the dark elf''s dependability made him stand out in Althos'' eyes as a dependable figure who would be difficult to change right away.


    Althos quietly thought of him in the same way as he thought of Bazur, a powerful ally who one day might make an incredible worshiper but who at the present moment had a heart that would be difficult to sway.


    <hr>


    The final dark elf had perhaps the most unique ability amongst the rest of his peers. As he looked around himself in the pillar of darkness, Drow began to experience something odd.


    He could feel a sort of second sight manifesting itself into his brain. At that moment it was totally dark, no color, no shape, and no other sort of sensory input, but Drow had a suspicion of what it was. A suspicion that made his heart flutter, but he quickly stopped the organ from becoming overly excited without any real cause.


    If I''m wrong... it would be crushing.He thought.He couldn''t dare risk being wrong here. The thought of his heart experiencing this sort of childish joy, just to be crushed was unthinkable. He crushed the inkling of hope his heart was too quick to produce before it could become a wave of excitement or a surge of disappointment.


    This strange second sight didn''t inconvenience him at all. It was odd, sure, but it wasn''t harmful, nor did it do anything unusual aside from giving him a strange black space to "look" at, internally without closing his eyes. He wondered what it was for, and hoped to find out soon.


    His eyes physically heated up for a second as his thermal vision was focused on by Althos'' magic and then the heat stopped as quickly as it had started. It was an odd sensation.


    Surprisingly, the least pleasant experience the elf went through in the pillar of darkness was the emergence of his natural armor. The elf''s natural armor came in the form of scales that emerged over the course of a few seconds in weak and sensitive spots all over the elf''s body.


    They emerged rapidly, and came out of the young warrior''s skin, bloodily cutting up the flesh they were replacing. This made the elf hiss in pain, but it was all over fairly quickly and once it was done the pain was quickly replaced by a pleasant sensation that sent almost sensual tingles up and down the areas that were affected by his natural armor.


    Then the elf received a notification that confirmed his earlier suspicions.


    [Alert: The following vestigial traits have been resurrected within you, by the young deity known as Althos.


    Natural armor and clairvoyance.


    All of these abilities can level up and can be trained in distinct ways. Careful usage of them empowers them and thusly empowers you.]


    The elf hailed from a family with a long line of far-seers, a colloquial term for oracles. He had a suspicion about the nature of Althos'' ability from the moment the deity tapped into his mind, and to know that his fate was to deal with the strands of time and with deity-defined visions evoked awe within his cold heart.


    It was true...Drow realized, recognizing the name of the ability that his system informed him had been "resurrected" within him. Drow was still as he processed what the young god had just done.


    Among many other things the god had told the dark elf the truth earlier, something many dark elves don''t have much experience with.He told the truth...Drow thought, his mind-warping at that moment.Althos... Althos just gave me my family''s power.The dark elf realized, absorbing the weight of the moment.


    A god came to me and did away with the worst part of my life. How can I ever repay him?The dark elf realized and then thought, as the pillar around him began to vibrate slightly.What can I do for a literal god? What service could I ever possibly provide? Especially one that comes into my life and just... irrevocably transforms it.


    If I can''t repay this god... maybe I should serve him? Maybe I should... praise him?The dark elf thought, his mind racing with possibilities.Is that... what I should do?


    Would that please this god? Would such an act of service... be something that enriches that god''s life? I suppose... there''s only one way to find out. Althos, in exchange for this power, my life and my soul are in your hands. Take them. Use them. Use me. Use me however you wish.


    <hr>


    Althos suddenly received a notification, while the elves were in the pillars that made his eyes go wide in shock.


    [Alert: You have gained three worshippers. One of them is the spellcaster named Qu''Ren who seeks to serve you in exchange for power. Another is the new oracle, Drow the dark elven surface-scout.


    If you so desire you may form a pact with this spellcaster which will allow you to copy her knowledge and mastery over dark powers and give her access to spells you know which she does not currently have. You will be her master and can give her tasks and command, summon, or even possess her, and through serving you she will gain access to new feats and powers. Her class will also be modified.


    Since this is the first time you''re meeting this type of person, servants of divine powers, allow us, the system, to introduce you to the most basic class-types accessible to fervent worshippers of gods and goddesses. Aside from clerics, obviously.


    Oracles: People gifted with visions by deities. Occasionally non-religious oracles appear but typically once someone knows of their oracular abilities, especially if they are affiliated with a particular deity, the people swiftly convert to the worship and service of the gods who give them their visions because the deities control the visions and can punish or torture oracles with a variety of visions. Oracles whisper the wills of the gods to the servants of the gods who go out on quests to honor the lords and ladies they revere.


    Dark Nights: Paladin like figures who move in service to gods of darkness and villainy, demon lords and arch-devils. They call themselves "Dark Nights" to distinguish themselves from knights who do villainous things for fun because in their eyes those are fools who play with things they don''t understand.


    Witches, Warlocks, and Wards: Spellcasters who draw their magical might from pacts they make with a variety of incredible powers. In the age of the old gods, there was a multitude of powers and creatures to make pacts with. After that age, true warlocks, witches, and wards vanished but some clung to the titles and redefined them to mean magic users who specialized in conjuration magic.]


    This alert shocked but didn''t displease Althos. In fact, the young deity was quite pleased by it. It was an unexpected and lovely reward for the effort the deity put into fulfilling what was basically another quest.


    Despite the life-changing nature of Althos'' powers and the revelations that the system provided them with, the elves kept their word. Minutes after emerging from their pillars of darkness, as newly empowered creatures and as new members of a strange and growing faith, they left the immediate presence of their new master and god.


    They did this at Althos'' own prompting, via the mind links he had established with them. He told them to leave the immediate vicinity and that when night fell he would join them. The deity felt that he owed them an explanation, and since three out of four of them now worshiped him he figured he may as well try and lure Mianthus into the religion he was building so that he may gain yet another servant.


    <hr>


    Once the elves left the immediate area Althos'' party left the cave and ventured away from the lair of the dark unicorn. They were joined by the goblins, and the expanded party wandered until they found an area where they felt safe from either the dark elves or the dark unicorn. They spent hours exploring the forest, and Althos quietly combed the copied knowledge he had gleefully absorbed from Amelie''s mind.


    By mid-afternoon Althos'' knowledge, as in the knowledge that was legitimately his own had multiplied several times over. He gained knowledge of settlements, species, magic, and cultural tales. He even eagerly shared it with his advisors, who reacted to the deity''s eager sharing of knowledge as parents might react to a series of firsts done by their children.


    A handful of events occurred during the wandering done by the enlarged party.


    The dark unicorn was convinced to accept this turn of events by Althos, who shortly after the party left vanished for a quick second using the excuse of needing to take a bathroom break, something he had learned from Amelie''s memories, and returning to the lair of the beast. He used magic to empower the creature and enhance its aura through an empowering vestigial trait that was locked away in the horse''s genetics.


    The unicorn, after learning of Althos'' divinity promised not to follow or harm the goblins and gratefully accepted the resurrection of its vestigial trait as more than fair payment for the goblins. Althos smiled at the beast and wished it well before leaving.


    Another event that occurred during this lull in the deity''s rather action-packed life was that he was reminded by M.A. that she was going to teach him about necromancy. That reminded deeply excited the deity, who was mere hours away from gaining knowledge about one of the darkest schools of magic, and who couldn''t wait to be able to gain that power and that might.


    Althos had tried to speak to the goblins he had rescued. They expressed profound gratitude to him but told him that they didn''t want to share what they knew about the quest both of their parties were undertaking until they were clear of the powerful creatures the goblins believed could easily have been following them. Althos'' accepted their reasoning, after attempting to persuade them otherwise for nearly half an hour. He had to admire their stubbornness but they were, in fact, wrong, no one was following them.


    When they happened across a natural clearing, a meadow not unlike the one Althos saw in Amelie''s mind, the expanded party came to a stop and quietly set up camp. The goblins liked the area, because the goblins felt that sneaking up on them there would be a challenge, and Althos'' didn''t mind it so his party accepted their reasoning.


    At this point, hours had passed since the party saved the goblins from slavery and sacrifice, and the sun was setting down on the third day of Althos'' life. Althos''s mind was ablaze with activity and he was excited for the night to begin so that he may go converse with his new worshippers, as well as the upcoming conversation he was moments from having with the goblin.

 Chapter 37:

    Near the most remote edge of the forest laid the entrance to a cave-system that led deep underground and was used by subterranean creatures who braved the kilometers long journey upward to reach the surface. Inside of this cave-system was an entire ecosystem filled with an astounding variety of life. Monsters, humanoids, and other, more alien things lurked inside of this underground region.


    Massive bioluminescent mushrooms illuminated naturally occurring tunnels that stretched for kilometers and led travelers underground and into civilizations vastly unlike those of any creatures who dwelled on the surface.


    Deep pools of slightly acidic and sour tasting water were used as neutral places for both predator and prey who inhabited the cave-system. Entire colonies of mold, ooze, and parasitic plants dwelled in the more remote and hostile portions of the cave-system. Humanoids and sapient creatures built eerie civilizations in this and other cave systems throughout the world.


    Relatively close to one of the naturally occurring exits that led outside of the cave-system, primarily so that it could occasionally creep outside under the cover of night and corrupt nearby trees, dwelled a demon who at the moment was fairly tiny.


    For weeks now the clever thing had squatted on the very edge of a small underground river, a river that went all the out way of the cave and into the greater forest. The corrupt demon spent most days with a lone pseudopod dipped into the water, slowly corrupting and despoiling the water that aided plants nearby and was at times drunk by forest-dwelling animals.


    The demon, for the sake of simplicity and to be unbothered by other creatures who lived close to its moist lair and to aid in occasionally creeping outside of the cave-system, had recently mastered the arcane and transformative act of molding itself innocuous forms to shift into that wouldn''t cause people to suspect its true nature.


    At the moment, as the sun was setting right outside of its cave, the creature looked like a small green slime, perhaps half a meter tall and about that wide, that was hydrating itself by using a sickening pseudopod to absorb some water. In actuality, the fiend was gleefully dumping pollutants and toxins into the water to drive anyone who drank it mad, and to corrupt any plants watered by water its pseudopod had corrupted.


    The filth that it was pumping into the water was clear and microscopic in size, so any creatures downstream from it who drank the water would have no way of knowing, by sight alone at least, that they were drinking a polluted substance. The thought that its actions were sickening lifeforms and filling them with near mindless aggression delighted the demon.


    The demon, with magical senses that extended well beyond what a mortal would estimate the creature could physically sense, occasionally cackled maniacally, cackles which were unnervingly silent, since from time to time it would feel forest or cave creatures growing weaker because they sipped the water it had poisoned. When it cackled its body would bounce manically as if the critter was performing a wild dance to music only it could hear.


    <hr>


    For the elves, the night had come fairly quickly. One moment they were all grimacing as they felt the dreaded kiss of the sun, even through shade that was kindly provided by nearby trees. And then almost immediately they felt the welcome and chilly touch of the shadows as the sun parted below the horizon and darkness overtook the part of the forest they were in.


    The elves were in a part of the forest that was as of yet unexplored by Althos, the mysterious god who had graciously rewarded them for having the wisdom to listen to his counsel while in the lair of the dark unicorn. They had traveled for perhaps forty minutes in the general direction of their mysterious birthplace, the underground, dark-elven city of Undermoon before they set up camp.


    The decision to set-up camp was made easy by a trio of factors. The first factor was that all four of them had received mental messages from Althos, once three of them almost instinctively converted to whatever religion the deity was setting up and in doing so became his worshippers after receiving notifications that alerted them to his true nature, instructing them to go and wait somewhere until night-fall. Althos told them he would go to them when the sun had set.


    The second factor was that they wanted to return home soon. Their purpose in heading to the surface world in the first place had been for the sake of capturing slaves to sacrifice, and they had admittedly failed in that purpose but they learned of a new god, one that was active on the mortal world, and informing the leaders of their city of that took precedent.


    Even the least pious among them, and among any other dark-elves would understand the incredible significance of the discovery of a new god and knew that virtually any failures could be forgiven, even by dark elves, if the failure was followed by and especially if it was caused by the discovery of a new deity.


    The third and final factor that led them to stop where they had stopped was that they had advanced farther than their current location but when they had they came across a brightly lit clearing, and they didn''t feel like crossing that clearing until they were under the light of the moon.The dark elves could tolerate the sun, but they didn''t like it.


    When they had first met Althos, the sun''s rays didn''t directly slam into the clearing that led into Qut''s lair but were mercifully blocked by an overcast sky. Now the elves wouldn''t have to deal with the cruelty of the sun for another few hours.


    Once the elves noticed that the moon was shining overhead, the four elves wordlessly got up and began to walk towards the clearing they had found earlier, under the belief that such a place under a starry sky would be a suitable location to have a conversation with a creature as powerful as a god.


    <hr>


    Althos watched, silent, as the sun finished its descent by dipping just below the tree line of the forest his allies and his new companions were inside of. The group, which numbered a total of seventeen creatures of various sorts, sat beside a small number of campfires in the middle of a clearing deep in the forest. Everyone who sat in the clearing had had a long day.


    The devils, including the half-devil priestess, who were present in the encampment began their day by venturing through a dark dungeon, encountering an undead monstrosity that Althos dispatched quite easily, and then spent several hours waiting for Althos to return to them. The two soul orbs who illuminated the air near their master were half of the total creatures from the plane of Infernius who were at the informal encampment and they had gained their vague sort of sentience only earlier today.


    Althos'' mortal followers, with the exception of Silander, had known each other for months since they were colleagues who had collaborated as part of the same band of orcish raiders who raided frontier settlements. Then they met Althos, who nearly murdered each other of them aside from Gallow. And then the deity had awoken Silander.


    Althos gained the sentinel demon as a follower by viciously beating it, and then offering it a chance to stay in the mortal plane and opportunities for violence. The creature was now an attack dog and had taken a seat near Althos, looking increasingly delighted as the moon began to rise into the night''s sky.


    The goblins who accompanied Althos included a member who had allowed for Althos to create a copy of her entire mind and use it to gain knowledge. The very same knowledge that the deity was currently reflecting on. That knowledge was the price the group unknowingly, aside from Amelie, paid for freedom. They had spoken to the deity and his followers and had shared what they knew with the party. Althos'' made use of his absorbed copy of Amelie''s memories, thoughts, knowledge, and secrets to confirm that the group was being forthright with the party.


    Althos reflected on the knowledge he had gained from Amelie, even as he got up and spent a second mentally messaging Gallow and Silander to accompany him. Then the deity quietly took off into the woods and communicated with his demonic pet to stay in the clearing and watch the goblins, and sent a message to Qu''Ren asking the elf for her location.


    <hr>


    As Althos took his first steps into the wooded part of the forest he silently reflected on the incalculable number of things he had learned by greedily looking through each and every thought and memory Amelie had had until the moment she agreed to give Althos unfiltered access to her mind and in a retroactive way, her life.


    His mind was filled with new thoughts. Each of these thoughts was rapidly replaced by another, and the chaos that was the deity''s mind didn''t distract him from steadily approaching the place Qu''Ren had told him that she and the other elves were waiting for his arrival.


    I wonder what meat tastes like. Amelie seems to quite like it. Sex seems... odd. Should I have Gallow teach me how to use a dagger? Being stabbed hurts a mortal a lot. Children are... quite small.


    The flurry of activity that now lit up the deity''s mind was hilarious to the deity''s advisors, who had been alarmed when their mental real estate in Althos'' mind was suddenly filled with a variety of mental statues, statues that corresponded to powerful memories and thoughts that Amelie had experienced in her life.


    Some of those statues were of fond memories. Amelie''s first successful hunt. Amelie joining up with Olizeo. The moment Amelie lost her virginity. Some of the more colorful successes the young goblin had achieved in her 21 years of life like the first time she outdrank a human, her first homemade trap, or the first time she cooked on her own.


    In her mind, powerful memories became islands in her own "stream of consciousness", whereas in Althos'' mind they became statues of the same quality and make as statues generated by experiences that were actually experienced by the deity himself.


    Both Samyaza and M.A. were amused by this change but also noticed that these thoughts were quick but not distracting to the deity. He wasn''t sidetracked by them, and they didn''t inhibit his ability to move forward and towards the strange creatures who had become his worshippers unnervingly quickly.


    The deity''s advisors found this behavior by creatures as powerful as dark elves odd, but they also knew that it was impossible to deceive someone''s system and that the only way Althos would have received that alert was for them to truthfully convert to his worship.


    Both of the deity''s advisors also knew that if the dark elves attacked the deity he''d likely either eliminate them or merely stop them. He had stopped a full-grown bear by accident and slew a mummy without breaking a sweat, he could handle a group of dark elves if it came to that.


    After considering how to pass the time while the deity and his chosen party walked towards the elves, M.A. saw an opportunity to finally fulfill a promise she had made Althos. The odd entity activated her own system, and began to configure some settings within it, to allow herself to reward Althos for learning and growing relatively on his own.


    Within a matter of minutes, Althos, who at the time was in the middle of walking atop soft grass, received a sudden notification, followed immediately with a message from M.A.


    [New magic knowledge gained: Necromantic magic.


    Necromantic magic is a form of powerful, dark magic that grants users the ability to speak with the dead, to capture souls, raise corpses as a variety of unholy abominations or terrifying spirits. It also allows users to commune with creatures from the planes of shadows, nightmares, and death and sufficiently powerful magic-users can use raw magical power to form undead creatures out of shadow-stuff and death energy as opposed to relying on corpses or existing spirits for raw components.


    Necromantic energy can be channeled by powerful living creatures or some types of undead creatures and transformed into poisonous energy or used in its rawest form to inflict deadly wounds that cause living creatures to lose limbs or for their senses to be destroyed.


    Necromantic magic isn''t actually the same as disease magic though rotting flesh and poison damage are parts of the overall effects of necromantic magic, but if/once that distinct school of magic is understood it''s possible to create seemingly non-magical diseases that convert those who of die of them into basic forms of undead.


    As a creature with unlimited magical energy, your necromantic potential is incredibly high, and you can now create many basic types of undead creatures. Like with other schools of magic as you increase your knowledge level you also increase the number of spells you immediately gain access too, though spells are only the most basic way to use magical energy.


    Also as with other schools of magic, you can now mix and match elements from necromantic magic with elements from other schools.


    As an example of this, you could create a magical burst centered around yourself that heals a wound right now but causes a creature to transform into a zombie tomorrow, or whenever they die and immediately attack the closest person. Or you could create an illusion that causes people to attack each other by causing them to see each other as zombies, ghosts, or ghouls rather than by filling those hit by it with rage.


    Necromantic spells known at the moment: N/A, as a reward for learning, the entity known as M.A. is using her own energy and lifeforce to grant you this knowledge.


    Necromantic spells gained: Vampiric touch, Lethargy of the dead, Necrosis, Rot beam, Darkness, Dark sphere, Weight of the dead, Ghoul gaze, Raise the dead, Harvest soul, Detect soul, Create zombie, Create skeleton, Create ghost, Create ghoul, Blood burst, Energize the undying, Empower the grave, Call the dead, False resurrection, Feign sickness, Vitality absorption, and over 80 more.


    You can also construct spells belonging to this school.]


    [Hello Althos, I told you I''d teach you about necromancy and I have! Now you''re halfway to learning about all of the basic schools of magic, aren''t you? Congratulations! That''s quite the accomplishment. I am going to go rest for a bit, doing that drained me of some energy and I feel quite tired. But I''m happy to have helped you learn more.]


    Althos smiled in delight as he received that notification. In the darkness of the night, he felt more powerful than he ever had at that moment as he read the notification that went on for quite a while, and there was a part of him that was tempted to go and try out one of his new spells right away. But he calmed down and sent M.A. a message to properly express his gratitude and joy.


    [M.A., thank you for this. I honestly feel so much stronger now than I did before. Please go and get some rest. By the time you awake I''ll have begun to establish my religion. How exciting!]


    After another few minutes of wandering through the forest in the direction of his elven worshippers, Althos grew bored once again. This time he came up with a diversion that he thought might bring him some amusement.


    The deity looked within himself, as in mentally went through the process of searching his mental, magical codex, for a spell that he could use even as he wandered through the forest. After a few minutes of searching, Althos eventually stumbled across something that seemed suitable.


    The deity casually rose his hand in the direction of a tree up ahead''s branches. Without uttering a single word he willed a lined of negative energy to fly forth from his open hand and watched as a bolt of sheer darkness, utterly absorbing any nearby light, flew forth and slammed into the tree.


    Moments later one of the tree''s branches began to suddenly, visibly, and violently rot until the withered husk of the tree''s limb snapped and fell to the ground in front of them. Althos kept walking, never once breaking his stride to stand still and watch the result of his handiwork but the whole display made him feel considerably more comfortable with the strange magic he now possessed.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    <hr>


    The elves had to wait less than half an hour before Althos and two of his allies emerged from the wooded part of the forest and into the clearing the elves had selected for this meeting. The creatures Althos had join him as part of an escort and to learn about what he would like from his worshippers were one of the orcs who was a part of his party, and the frog-like humanoid who had meekly stood at the back of the crowd.


    As Althos stepped out of the wooded area and into the clearing he got an advice-filled message from Samyaza that helped him get into the right frame of mind.


    [Althos, listen to me for a second. You''re embarking on the path to real godhood right now. You''re holding a meeting, your first meeting, with your worshippers, creatures who want to serve you and enact your will on the world and on the multiverse at large.


    M.A. and I know that you''ve put a lot of thought into the sort of worshipper you want to have. This is the time to vocalize that and to show those who you''ve gathered here that you truly are a deity. If there has ever been a time to be dramatic and to show off, it is now. Remember: mortals notice size, and they notice magic.]


    This advice was somewhat challenging to Althos, whose moments of dramatic flair, such as when he pushed the bear away from him at the river, or when he leapt out of Paimon''s window, weren''t intended to be dramatic. But it did challenge the young god to go ahead and do things he might not think to otherwise do. This advice left an impression on the deity, that got him to think creatively.


    His own thoughts on the topic of what it meant to be a god and how to interact with mortals, were definitely different than Samyaza''s.


    Gods are or at least appear to be... power incarnate. My power is possibly limitless, my magical energy certainly is anyway, but what does that mean my responsibility is to other creatures who are weaker than I am? I am a leader, by choice, but how do I become an effective leader? I should protect my followers and command them, and I know what I want, but how do I protect those who become my worshippers?


    Althos'' thoughts were numerous. They drove the deity forward as he drew ever nearer to the creatures who were waiting for him.


    The clearing was a small section of the forest that some ancient inhabitant must have cleared out due to its clearly unnatural circular shape. As Althos looked at it, he recognized that the clearing his allies were in was exactly the same, just a bit bigger. This one was a tinier circle to be sure, but otherwise, it had the same features as the clearing where the goblins were currently preparing for bed.


    The moon shone up and behind them, still rising to its full height due to the earliness of the evening. Althos had been excited by this and had come as soon as he felt he could, so the evening was just getting started and the stars were just starting to come out of hiding.


    Althos readied himself to approach the creatures that he knew as prideful, ambitious beings. He did this by mentally warning his other servants to step back and then he began to allow power to radiate out of him, radiating a combination of divine energy and magical energy.


    He began to emanate a mystical aura that leaked out a variety of energy types into his immediate surroundings. The aura that surrounded him was one of darkness, but every few seconds the air around him would shift slightly to accommodate a new energy type, be it the deathly energy of necromancy, the emotional energy of illusion magic, the pleasant energy of healing magic, or a variety of energy types related to evocation magic.


    As he drew closer and closer to the creatures he willed away his humanlike disguise and used his powers to modify his appearance.


    Over the course of a few footsteps, Althos'' body rippled and changed.He mentally visualized a larger and more powerful-looking version of the half-white, half-black creature he had become when he was teleported into Paimon''s penthouse and he willed his form to become the image he had in his own mind.


    His body expanded in height and width, changed in color and became asymmetrical, swiftly becoming a modified version of his avatar form from Infernius.


    His own servants behind him audibly gasped when they saw him change from the humanlike form Althos had adopted around them and shifted into this odd monstrosity.


    The elves gazed at him in what he had decided would be his temporary godly form and they felt the softest impact of the far-reaching aura he allowed to surround himself, and waited for him to begin to approach. He nodded at them, and silently began to cross the clearing, where they stood at its center. He willed his aura to not affect those behind him, so Silander and Gallow were untouched by the aura''s mystical effects.


    Althos then approached the four dark elves, all of whom fell to their knees and lowered their gaze away from him as he approached. This was fascinating to Althos, who due to his studious examination of Amelie''s memories now knew that this was the act called "prostration".


    He wondered why they were doing this because to him it was an act that screamed of weakness and of humility, things he didn''t know the dark-elves to be since in their dealings with him they had been quite prideful. His knowledge of dark elves came from two separate things: the notification he received about them, and their behavior during the negotiations in which he freed the goblins.


    <hr>


    Each of the dark elves was feeling different things at that moment.


    Qu''Ren, in her hunger for power and her ambition, was delighted to be in front of the most powerful creature she had ever met, armed with knowledge and ready to show the proper respect and fear such a creature deserved. She was doubly delighted by the fact that the creature had a form, probably its true form, which didn''t resemble something as weak as a human.


    As he approached, she felt the chaotic nature of his aura even when he was still many meters away, and delighted to feel it flow over her skin, as if his aura was something more sensual, intimate, or at least consistently pleasant. She kept her head low to the ground, and waited until she could sense the creature''s proximity and not just his aura.


    Milene knew the tales of the gods of the dark elves in the past, fierce creatures who''d kill for as small an infraction as making a noise they didn''t like in their presence. Though she felt that Althos wasn''t that mindlessly or needlessly destructive, she knew that the gods of old had bizarre quirks that could cause them to lash out for any minor reason. She didn''t want to invite the creature to cause her pain, so her instincts shouted at her to show him respect in the dark-elven way.


    For her, her prostration came about as a result of an ingrained reflex she had to show respect to any dark elf she perceived to have a higher status than her, by humiliating means.


    To a dark elf few things were as humiliating as prostration, because it made the normally somewhat tall creatures look small, took their eyes off of a creature with considerable power, creatures that by nature were deposed to violence and could brutalize those who looked away from them for even a second. Yet in doing it to a stronger creature like Althos or a more powerful dark-elf it invited mercy because it was such a clear act of submission.


    The men had similar reactions and feelings in that situation. Althos wasn''t hiding his nature from them anymore, having transformed into something they had never seen before, a sort of asymmetrical and chaotic creature that to the two of them reminded them of their own chaotic culture.


    As Althos, in the closest thing he had to a "true form", drew nearer and nearer both elves felt the keen kiss of the god''s aura. To them, it was a test of courage and endurance, and they felt that in boldly enduring it they were likely proving their worth to the creature.


    Mianthus may not have been one of Althos'' worshippers but he was no fool and he knew that the creature before him was the single strongest creature he would ever meet. At any point, the beast could demand a sacrifice or command them to fulfill a test and if they refused it, they could very easily be slaughtered for their impertinence. Or Althos, if he felt violent or bloodthirsty, could just kill them outright.


    <hr>


    Althos'' own ignorance prevented him from understanding what made him so intriguing and so appealing to the dark elves. He didn''t know about dark elven religious history. He had absolutely no knowledge of the terrifying deities that were once worshipped by the various inhabitants of the regions beneath the world.


    The dark elves once worshipped incredibly mighty gods whose domains were tied to caves, the underground, and various threats faced by creatures brave enough to dwell within instead of on top of the world. Their gods ruled over underground beasts and monsters and were creatures of incredible violence and depravity.


    Whether one specific dark elf was more loyal to the queen of the pit, whose minions devoured soil, rocks, and the very ground itself to create deep and deadly sinkholes that devoured entire cities, or to the spider king, whose favored minions were massive spiders who possessed dark intelligence and even darker appetites, or an uncountable number of other dark entities the gods of the dark elves were cruel and had violent tempers.


    They didn''t make deals, they issued commands to those unlucky enough to be chosen by them and terrorized anyone who failed them. They ordered things of worth to be sacrificed, material gains to be lost in the name of religion, and destroyed more than they created. Even when they invested their powers in someone, it came at the cost of pain and suffering.


    In the past these gods had their minions corrupt dark elven societies subtly or had their warriors brutally subjugate them and then in sinister rituals the magics of the dark gods infected dark elven women and then infused them with power and madness to make them powerful priestesses who then ruled in their names, communing weekly with their divine masters whose cruelty included painfully filling them with fiendish spawn to use as cruel enforcers.


    This cruelty inspired the dark elves to remember. By the time the gods and their peers had disappeared cruelty was the way of the land in dark elven society. Pain was commonplace, and wickedness and ambition were the norms of dark elven society.


    The dark elves were inspired by their masters, transformed by them, and they wanted to remember what the deities did. So unlike most societies, dark elves wrote about the gods in the wake of their disappearance. They took copious notes on the varied and often monstrous gods who were worshipped underground.


    It was these writings that allowed dark elven gods to be remembered. Thousands of generations later, dark elves still talked about this history, they still taught their children about it, they were still inspired by it. This allowed all dark elves to remember a fundamental fact: the dark elves had no kind gods.


    The dark elves had no kind gods. They had no merciful gods. Their envisionment of a god was a creature of incredible power who lorded over monster, man, and elf alike through fear, tyranny, and violence. Yet oftentimes it was only through the creatures of the gods that they made their wills known to their dark elven worshippers. Althos wasn''t like that.


    In Althos the four elves saw a god who had the potential to be unlike any they had ever imagined. The creature before them had the powerful visage of a god, the powers of a god, and yet was direct without violence. It had made a deal with them and fulfilled it, pleasantly.


    It had prevented violence and had cooperated with them to grant them the power to still fulfill the goal it knew it was obstructing. It freely gave them power, and it didn''t torture them while doing so.


    The elves had been thinking about that while they waited for nightfall. It had become quickly become an obsession of theirs. Even Mianthus, who still wasn''t about to worship Althos, was fascinated by the odd god who didn''t rush to commit violence to get its way.


    All of this made it less frightening for them to do something that would otherwise fill a dark elf with terror.


    <hr>


    When Althos reached the center of the clearing, he waited for a second. He expected them to rise on their own, but after more seconds passed, the deity grew somewhat impatience and spoke to the elves in the language of the gods all creatures could understand.


    "Rise."


    He gave them a one-word command, and his voice reverberated throughout their minds. All four of them quickly rose to their feet and stared at the large creature in front of them. They paid no mind to the non-divine entities Althos had brought with him.


    At this point, the creature''s eyes, one of which was the color of alabaster and the other of which was the color of charcoal, zeroed in on Milene. The girl had to resist the urge to freeze while feeling the creature''s eyes explore her body. Then Althos spoke.


    "How did you learn I was a deity?"


    It was clear Althos was speaking to Milene, so Qu''Ren had to bite her tongue and work to be silent. After a few seconds Milene gathered the courage needed to speak.


    "When you resurrected the powers you were giving us we got a notification that informed us that you were a deity."


    Her voice was soft, and she spoke in the language of the elves as opposed to the demon-tongue. Althos listened to what she said and then after a few moments spoke again.


    "I see... Well, I suppose I should start off by confirming something: it''s true. I am a deity. As far as I know I am the only one of my kind left. I sprung to life three days ago, and have since then been acquiring followers and worshippers, using my powers and gaining knowledge."


    Althos then stopped speaking, allowing what he said to sink in. He looked upon the dark elves and found that they were not truly surprised, but rather merely nodded in agreement with what he said. This caught the deity off guard, but it wasn''t an unpleasant response to what he said.


    The deity then continued to wait for a few more moments, until silently reaching out to Qu''Ren and instructing her to ask a question he worded a specific way. She eagerly complied with her master''s command. When she spoke, her acting was impressive and didn''t betray the artificial nature of the question.


    "Althos, what do you as a deity want?"


    Althos grinned at her, his mouth and his lips also asymmetrical messes and then began to speak in response to her question.


    "I want worshippers and I want knowledge. I want to know as much as I possibly can, and I want as many worshippers as I can possibly get. I am steadily increasing in power, and I don''t plan to stop increasing my power anytime soon. I will use my powers to protect those who worship and who serve me, and I will help them grow in power. I know that three of you,"


    Althos said as he looked at each of the four elves in front of him, including Mianthus.


    "Are worshippers of mine now, but as a new deity I haven''t had time to sit down and determine what worshipping me in practice looks like. That''s why we''re here now. I''ll be accepting input from everyone here, including my other, earlier worshippers."


    Althos then rose his hand and silently caused a magical effect to occur in front of his worshippers. The empty air next to his hand shimmered and then suddenly the deity''s final worshiper, Ranthor, appeared next to his master.


    The orc was alarmed, and also unarmed. He stumbled back and tried to reach for his bow since he had never seen Althos'' other form, but he was without his weapon. He began to panic as he looked at the deity he worshipped but didn''t recognize and then was doubly surprised to see that mere meters from him stood the dark elves Althos had negotiated with mere hours ago.


    It was only when Althos mentally messaged him, explaining the situation that the orc calmed down and walked to his master''s side.


    The elves exchanged messages with each other and with Althos, and all five individuals had a grim laugh at Ranthor''s expense. Then Althos received a surprising new notification.


    [New magic knowledge gained: Conjuration magic.


    Conjurers are incredibly powerful magicians for whom distance is never an obstacle. Conjuration magic allows users to create things out of nothing, call things from one location to another, teleport things from one location to another, and call or send living or undead beings from one location to another.


    Conjurers can call demons, angels, devils, or other extraplanar beings into the mortal plane, summon phantom copies of all sorts of things, send mortals into other planes, and at the highest levels can create permanent portals from one plane to another. Incredibly powerful conjurers can also prevent something including themselves or other people from being teleported or summoned somewhere else.


    Spells that revolve around familiars are situated in the conjuration school, and immediately upon willing away this notification information about your familiars, Raverangos, Salifinos, Silander, and the two soul orbs, will be added to your H.U.D., as well as spells that enable you to call them to you at will. All five answered yes or did something akin to that to notifications that asked them if they''d be interested in becoming your familiars, over the course of the last few days.


    Conjuration is one of the few schools of magic that is practiced by non-magic-centered peoples, some warriors fight using conjuration magic as a way to spawn well-maintained weapons that can harm undead creatures, some assassins use difficult to trace conjured bows and blades, and some hunters prefer to use conjured tools to bring down game.


    Wards, warlocks, and witches are all fond of the conjuration school, and so are many other assorted spellslingers.


    Spells known: N/A


    New spells granted: Call aberration, Call celestial, Call demon, Call daemon, Call devil, Call loth, Call shadow, Call radiant, Call dragon, Call humanoid, Call giant, Call golem, Call soul, Summon, Create portal, Banish, Teleport, Conjure sword, Conjure mace, Conjure bow and arrows, Conjure helm, Conjure gauntlet, and over 100 more.


    You can construct spells and create magical effects that incorporate elements from the conjuration school. Examples include healing someone and summoning a creature to protect it, or curing someone''s disease and then immediately teleporting them back to their homes.


    You can also mix and match elements from the same school of magic, such as by summoning a giant and outfitting it in a suit of armor and giving it a powerful conjured weapon. You can inflict horrifying damage on someone using necromantic or acidic magic and then teleporting them far away.


    Note #1: Some of these spells, especially but not just call soul and call golem are unlike your other spells. Without the proper levels of influence in the right domains, these spells are once a day and both spells cannot be cast on the same day. Golems are often powered by souls, and though you can harvest souls using necromantic magic until you gain the level of influence over the soul domain needed to exert control over souls, using them properly will be challenging.


    Note #2: This school of magic cannot be reliably used to gain worshippers. That''s because when you conjure a creature type you''ve never met before you don''t conjure a real creature. Instead, you conjure phantom copies of creatures, that are lesser in strength then real creatures.


    Note #3: Phantom copiesof creatures can form powerful fighting forces, but they are not as powerful as real creatures can be. The old deities had limited magical energy and thus still had a limitation on their spellcasting. You on the other hand...


    System commentary: The remaining "basic" schools of magic are trickier than you might think to trigger the notifications for. But here''s a hint: mutation, not restoration like resurrecting vestigial traits or enhancements like awakenings, are one of the keys you''ll need to begin to legitimately master magic.]


    Althos looked in front of himself and at his worshippers, and turned to gesture to those behind him to join the rest. At that moment the deity was filled with pride for the assorted things he had done to date.


    Then the deity opened his mouth to speak. He filled his voice with divine power and coated his vocal cords in illusionary energy to make it relaxing to listen to him speak.


    "Hello everyone. We are here tonight to define what it means to worship me, Althos. I am more than happy to take suggestions and to learn from you all, so let''s start with you telling me about any of the lost gods your races may have once worshipped in the distant past."

 Chapter 38:

    The scene in the clearing was one that clerics may have found inspiring but that others would be horrified by. Assorted humanoids stood in front of a creature that was clearly not a humanoid, and was freely radiating an aura of potent magic. The non-humanoid was silent and gazed out at its followers.


    Despite the group''s size and the presence of orcs in it, the group in the clearing was eerily silent. Many moments passed where only the sounds of nature around them intruded on the silence as Althos considered what to say next. It was a sight that would have disturbed many humans had they seen it because they associated orcs with loud assaults and with brutality, not the sort of quiet piety the orcs in front of the young god were demonstrating at that moment.


    The group gathered in the clearing looked like a strange and nightmarish cult. Before the massive monster in front of them, the deity responsible for gathering them there in the first place stood the small number of worshippers the strange creature had gathered over the course of his short life.


    The two orcs who easily converted to his worship stood beside one of the creature''s pets. Althos could see Silander in front of him, as well as see a symbol in the shape of her frog-like face tucked away in a small corner of the creature''s vision. This was due to him having, mere moments ago, gaining knowledge about the conjuration school of magic and thereby receiving an update to his H.U.D. that gave him information about any and all of his familiars.


    The icon, when mentally selected by the deity, revealed her health and her emotional state. Though Althos had yet to test it he had been informed when he first selected the icon and revealed the icons of his other familiars, all of whom were extraplanar beings, that by making use of the icons he could summon forth his familiars wherever he happened to be. Althos wordlessly decided to test this out, shortly after messaging his servitors who would be remaining with the goblins Althos had saved to inform them that their allies would be vanishing.


    Without so much as a single word as an explanation or a warning to the worshipers he had assembled, Althos conjured forth his familiars, and the strange monsters who served him were suddenly called to his side. Raverangos, a hulking and bestial demon, Salifinos, a clever imp, and two unremarkable looking, ethereal soul orbs, suddenly appeared beside their master.


    Though they were suddenly summoned to a location that was different from where they had been, none of the creatures Althos had suddenly conjured had shocked expressions on their faces. They actually seemed quite content to be where they were, after taking a look around and seeing the elves, the orcs, and Silander. And unlike the orc who had been summoned to the extraplanars all immediately recognized Althos as their master.


    The elves quickly realized that Althos must have been mentally communicating with them, as they quietly spread out next to him, Raverangos walking to his left, and the orbs and Salifinos silently floating to his right. Althos stood at the center of the strange formation, and he silently activated one of his more powerful skills: the power of the faith domain.


    The dark elves, orcs, and Silander unconsciously closed their eyes and inhaled at once and felt a strange buzz settle in the pit of their stomaches, as Althos'' insidious power washed over them. When they opened their eyes and looked again they found the sight of their master and his familiars quite inspiring.


    The sight of Althos, flanked by his familiars signified a future wherein the forces of darkness were not divided by petty devotions to traditions or chaos but stood united as a solid bulwark against the light. The orcs and the dark elves may not have considered themselves evil, but their societies for innumerable years had ingrained in them principles that pushed them towards violence and acts that were considered by weaker creatures to be acts of evil and darkness.


    They understood where they fell in terms of how the world viewed them, and both groups valued power and influence within their own societies if nowhere else quite intensely. Orcs and dark-elves may not have seen eye to eye on many things, but in the eyes of Althos both of the groups he was bringing together had great potential to be mighty servants, and Althos wanted them to feel similarly small in his presence and to be united in that regard.


    What he was doing was to make them feel small and to show them his power, as opposed to continuing to look like a human. He knew that he had been underestimated when he met both groups because of his human appearance, and now the deity was doing away with that in one fell swoop.


    For perhaps the first time Althos felt the power of their devotion and felt the awe his actions inspired in them. It came to him lazily, infusing him with confidence and a slight euphoric buzz.


    As he felt that buzz surge through his enlarged body he realized that his plan was working. That made the odd creature grin at his servants, which in turn increased the endorphins his actions were releasing in his servants. Then the deity finally realized how to begin the conversation, a conversation that by the time it was over would most likely have amounted to the most important conversation he has had to date.


    A confident smirk emerged on his asymmetrical face as he once again called out to his inner wellspring of divine energy and waited for it to soak his lungs and vocal cords.


    <hr>


    Moments after Althos mentally began the strange process of allowing divine energy to coat a part of his body, something he did for the first time unconsciously while trapped in Paimon''s tower earlier in his life, he spoke.


    "Here''s the bare basics. I am nonjudgemental. I don''t and I won''t discriminate against people, animals, the undead, extraplanars, or anything else that can worship something, on the basis of their species, their intelligence or their lack thereof, of alignment, or of social status. I want people who want things. Whether they want power, or they want hope, or they want help of some sort. I want them if they want something. And if all they want is a master or a god to worship that''s fine with me."


    He stopped for a moment to think.


    "I desire knowledge. And I have the power to aid those who give it to me. I recently acquired a... copy of an entire lifetime''s worth of knowledge, memories, thoughts, and secrets and it was positively transformative. I spent mere minutes today going over those memories in my mind. And the experiences I got to see a mere shadow of, were transformative." The god''s voice was eerily overjoyed as he said this.


    The creatures in front of him felt odd as he talked so highly of living vicariously through another creature, but they repressed those feelings so as to not endanger themselves. Self-preservation was powerful after all. He quickly continued speaking, after having taken a second to think about how "transformative" it was to get snippets of someone else''s life, in their own eyes.


    "And that was of a young creature, someone who was just 21 years old! If I think about the sort of sensations I''d experience if I had access to the memories, secrets, thoughts, and knowledge of an older creature... I shiver in delight." He said, grinning.


    When Althos spoke, his voice was filled with divine power and echoed across the clearing. His was a low voice, the sort of voice that echoed in the mind and gave listeners the same sort of deep emotions they might have felt after listening to the skilled singing of a rich baritone.


    The mortals in Althos'' presence had to try and suppress the shivers they themselves felt, and the goosebumps that broke out on their exposed skin in the presence of Althos now that he wasn''t hiding his power or his true nature.


    He opened his mouth to speak again, grinning all the while at the creatures who were still adjusting to the true might of their master. He freely radiated that same might into the air around them, confident in his divine form and in the drama of being his true, divine self in the presence of his worshipers.


    "For now I will allow creatures who wish to worship me, to worship me in their own ways. I will mandate relatively few things, in these early stages. What I wish for from any worshipper is their knowledge, their memories, their thoughts, and their secrets, say once a month. What I wish for, and expect from you all is the same. In return I am more than happy to aid you, to give you power and to use my own might to bolster you."


    After uttering more words in that soulful voice, Althos closed his eyes and thought. The creatures recognized that his form should have been seen as uncharismatic but in the eyes of the creatures gathered there before him, his appearance was weirdly comforting.


    He spoke once more after thinking for a few moments.


    "If a sacrifice is to be made to me, if that sacrifice is a living creature whose soul someone wants sent to me, be sure to get them to reveal a secret first. We can discuss more specifics later, but I know you,"


    He said, in particular to the elves.


    "I know you enjoy sacrifice. I''ve never had anything sacrificed to me. I don''t know if I want that. But if it is to happen, contact me so we can discuss the specifics, but first, make sure that the sacrifice has revealed a secret. That will always be the first step."This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    The creatures before him gazed at his form. Under the effects of the faith domain, they were putty in his hands, and he gazed out at them. They starred at him in dark awe, their minds susceptible to his power and to the odd influence of his magical aura, which continued to affect them but it didn''t actually harm them. It may have caused them pain and discomfort but at no point were they actually endangered by it.


    Perhaps to them, unconsciously at least, his form represented an acceptance of creatures who may not have found acceptance elsewhere, because of their personalities, their monstrous natures, or any innate darkness. In his appearance as a creature whose form actually symbolized neutrality, or perhaps something more than mere neutrality, his worshippers saw his form as physical evidence that the deity was all accepting.


    More evidence of that, or at least what his worshippers took as evidence of that, was the fact that one of his worshippers and familiars was an awakened animal, and the other familiars were extraplanars who as far as the worshippers knew were normally in opposition to each other. His worshippers, under the effects of the faith domain, gave way moreimportanceto this than they ought to have.


    To Althos, his familiars were just that. They were useful, magical pets. As a deity, he could have as many familiars as he wished, and he planned to do just that. He wouldn''t have minded armies of familiars if he could obtain them, and he felt they were sufficiently powerful. He was very interested in acquiring more demonic familiars, and there was a part of him that wanted to sit down and look through the various things he could conjure, even if all he brought forth were phantom copies.


    But he quickly regained his focus and began to speak again.


    "I have a solid knowledge of various schools of magic,"


    Althos said as he silently cast a necromantic spell that he decided would be solidly dramatic, and felt the darkness and chilliness of the air around him intensify. Much to his surprise, before the spell he had successfully cast took effect he heard a voice ring out in his mind.


    [What is this? A new magician... reaches out into the void, the land of shadows, and the domain of nightmares? So young, so powerful, and already communing with death. Who are you young-one, to be casting such dark magic at such a young age?]


    The voice that rang out in Althos'' mind was a low one. It spoke, in so much as these mental voices spoke, slowly and carefully. Even someone as powerful as Althos could feel the power the voice radiated, and Althos felt curious towards the strange voice.


    Althos kept his expression neutral as he carefully considered how to respond to the voice that had suddenly rung out in his mind. When he felt adequately prepared to answer such a question he expelled his thoughts forth, in a manner similar to how he did when chatting with Samyaza, or with M.A.


    [I am Althos. I am a new, young, god. I seek all knowledge. I gained knowledge of necromancy earlier tonight, and I wanted to test it out. Who are you?]


    There was silence in Althos'' mind as he waited for the odd voice to respond. Within a matter of moments, it did.


    [I see. And I sense no lies, or wrongness from your words. Then it''s true... A god walks the multiverse, yet again... and a secret-seeker at that. How interesting. Do you plan to venture into the void, the land of shadows, and the domain of nightmares one day? What I call the void, you might call the "land of death" or something similar.]


    Althos smiled as he heard this message. The voice contained abject curiosity and seemed truly delighted to hear that at least one god, existed yet again.


    [I do. I plan to explore every corner of the... multiverse.]


    He was unsure of that word, but after he said it, "multiverse" he realized it felt right. It seemed to roll off of the mental version of a "tongue". He felt his confidence increase after telling the strange entity that.That was when he heard a deep laughter boom deep within his mind.


    [For now, little one, I will leave you be. If you ever gain mastery over undeath, and the magic of necromancy, nightmares, and darkness, I shall come to you again. And perhaps if you ever explore the uncharted depths of the realms of nightmares, the void, and the land of shadows, you may find me instead. Just know that I am watching you, with a macabre smile. I sense that your journey will bring me much delight and amusement. Farewell little one.]


    The voice was low, grim, and enigmatic. Althos wasn''t a fan of it. But he also sensed no real hostility from it either and he wasn''t sure what he could do against it anyway. So Althos sat there, and waited. He was silent, and patient.


    After making that declaration, the "voice" felt close-by for a few more moments. Then Althos felt the dark voice "retreat", but the young deity could sense without words and without conscious acknowledgment that he had gained a new, eldritch observer. When he checked himself out before feeling the spell''s effects take hold, he realized with a start that he felt goosebumps break out on his oddly colored arms.


    Althos shivered and shook it off. Then he refocused. His spell had still worked, and it was beginning to leave a mark on the world around him in the form of the undead creature slowly digging its way out of the meadow.


    <hr>


    The first time Althos ever saw a variety of undead in one place was in that grassy meadow.In front of both him and his familiars as well as his worshippers, the grass at their feet began to shake and stir as something underneath it began to dig its way out. Within a matter of moments, an assortment of undead creatures began to emerge from the grass and soil at Althos'' feet, creating small holes as they exited the place of their rebirth.


    The first of Althos'' undead thatthe deity manifested wasclawed its way out of the grassy meadow''s grass and soil. It was a skeleton, a naked pile of bones that slowly and dramatically rose from the earth. It had a generic, humanoid skeleton, something the group noticed as the creature slowly dug its way out of the dirt.


    When its upper body was nearly out of the dirt but its lower body remained trapped, Althos extended a long and thick limb and grabbed the creature''s skull. The entity passively allowed this to happen, and was almost inert when Althos effortlessly yanked it out of the dirt. The deity then gently placed the creature on some undisturbed grass in front of him.


    The creature was a mobile bunch of bones, so perfectly put together and pristine that it was like someone had gotten a perfectly healthy living creature and removed its skin. It stood about the height of a human, and its bones were perfectly unmarked by predation or by injury in life. It was a genuine skeleton, not a lesser copy of one put together by shadow-stuff and animated by death-energy.


    The creature looked at Althos'' followers and worshippers, turning so that it could gain a shallow facsimile of understanding and pretend to be truly aware of its surroundings, though that action was actually commanded by Althos, who ordered it to move without uttering a single word. The skeleton''s skull had empty eye-sockets and from within those eye-sockets, there was a mysterious and eerie light that was a dark red instead of the hollowdarknessthat should have been there.


    The creature was unarmed, but Althos felt like correcting that. He willed a dagger into existence in the creature''s left hand and commanded the being to grab hold of it through force of will more than through actual mental commands. He also willed a suit of ethereal armor into being which he wrapped around the skeleton, creating perhaps his first true custom spell in the process.


    Althos then cast another necromantic spell, this time willing a ghoul into existence. He deliberately created it from shadow-stuff, just to watch the process with his own eyes.


    Next to the skeleton appeared a pillar of purple energy. It stood there, still, for a few moments as if preparing to do something. Then the pillar shrunk in height and width and began to take on a more definite shape in front of Althos and his companions.


    The purple mass continued to shrink and reshape itself until it had achieved a form that was clearly modeled after a humanoid. Seconds after that there was a burst of energy that caused everyone but Althos to turn away from the mass.


    Althos watched as the roughly humanoid in shape mass began to define itself and take on distinct features. Its face grew a mouth consisting of endless rows of sharp fangs and a thick nose. Its hands gained thin and long fingers, fingers that ended in dark and razor-sharp claws. Its chest became defined by clear and thick muscles. Unlike most ghouls the creature didn''t have skin that was rotting or a particularly horrifying appearance, but perhaps because of that there was something deeply unsetting about it.


    It didn''t help that the creature didn''t have a fully defined face since it lacked ears or eyes, and its feet were fairly short. The undead beast was a bit shorter than the human warriors Althos had seen be defeated during the first day of his life. The creature''s form stopped changing and shifting, and Althos'' worshippers and familiars turned their gaze back upon it just to see the completed entity facing their direction, but without eyes or ears.


    The creature was still, almost inanimate, and seemed weirdly patient to the elves and orcs who had both fought against ghouls in the past. The ghouls they had fought against were vicious creatures, murderous and speedy, who attacked them without a thought devoted to tactics, commanded by necromancers to be a pest and to inflict carnage on enemies.


    Althos looked at his followers, his mismatched eyes gazing upon them with pride. Not in them, but in himself. With each spell, he felt himself growing stronger and more aware of his own magical abilities. He knew that he alone had the power of armies, but he wanted that to inspire his worshipers, to drive them to greater feats, not to make them complacent.


    "I possess great power. These two may not look like much,"


    And with that Althos undid the spells animating the creatures, and the skeleton fell apart in front of them, while the ghoul fell down and vanished as soon as it would have hit the floor.


    "But they are just the beginning. You are just the beginning. And if after all of this, you still want to worship me, here''s how you can formally enter this new faith I, and we, are creating. Allow me to make a copy of your thoughts, secrets, knowledge, and memories, and want to worship me. Hide no secrets from me, let me see the sum of who you are. If you do... I''ll empower you, here and now."


    That was the moment. That moment quietly began Althos'' true life as a deity, his real existence as a god. The moment he established the perimeters of entering into the faith devoted to him.


    And with that, his worshippers complied. They fell to their knees and allowed their divine master access to the summation of who they were their thoughts, memories, secrets, and knowledge. And at that moment, each of them who hadn''t yet had their vestigial traits resurrected, aside from the elves, were suddenly wrapped in pillars of darkness, as Althos quietly resurrected a handful of their vestigial traits, and felt power, in the form of knowledge and secrets surge into him.


    The traits he chose were the less direct ones. The ones they could hide. But still, Althos felt a few of his creatures, particularly Silander jump in power and combat ability. He knew he''d come to appreciate this decision in the days to come.


    Althos spent the next few minutes greedily beginning the absorption process, not actually harming them but instead focusing on ensuring the copies they had willed into existence were inside of him so that he may begin the process needed to learn what his worshippers knew. And then the deity sat still, silent, as his mind began the work needed to make sense of other creatures'' lives and lived experiences.

 Chapter 39:

    Althos had quietly spent the next hour of his evening entering the minds of his worshipers and acquiring the knowledge he had asked for. None of his worshipers denied his demand, and they were all happy to contribute to his overall knowledge base. At this point, the night had truly begun, and the sky above the clearing was well lit and illuminated by a beautiful scattering of stars.


    Althos enjoyed the bits and pieces of knowledge he was teasingly receiving from the minds of his worshippers via his mental absorption of their thoughts, secrets, knowledge, and memories as he sat down in the clearing and prepared to draw the rest of his party to him. He contemplated what he knew, and carefully thought about his next few moves.


    <hr>


    A lot of Althos'' careful consideration for what to do next came to him from a single place: his copy of Amelie''s mind. In assessing what the goblin knew the deity learned that Amelie and the squad of goblins were investigating more or less what he was investigating.


    She and her allies were part of a strange organization within the forest that functioned similarly to how she thought a druid operated: using magic to keep the peace in diverse biomes and to aid creatures of nature.They were also intrigued and confused by the behavior of the bears and without any druids in their organization, they had to investigate things themselves with relatively little magical aid.


    They had first encountered and watched Althos and his party when the party entered the shoreline near the river from the side of the forest that was the territory of the wolves, the same half of the river where Althos sprung to life in.


    They quietly made the decision to go and report the presence of the deity to their fellow forest-inhabitants. It was shortly after that decision that the group had unknowingly entered the territory of the dark unicorn and were subsequently ambushed and defeated. When they awoke Althos was already right outside of the secondary lair of the dark unicorn.


    Althos now knew about them and their organization so he knew that logically the best plan for him to safely maximize the effectiveness of their ability to complete the quest would be for him and his allies to go elsewhere. Where exactly? Well, Althos'' wasn''t sure, but that was a question he and his allies could answer together. So he knew what to do next.


    <hr>


    After considering his knowledge he knew he should reunite his entire party. He carefully focused and considered how to best draw his allies to the clearing and to politely withdraw them from the company of the goblins. Given that Althos knew, as far as he knew, the extent of their knowledge he saw no point in splitting the party by having some members stay with them and others be with him.


    Althos commanded Bazur, mentally communicating with the skillful orc who remained in the company of the goblins, to inform the goblins that they''d be returning to Althos'' side and to send him a message when they were ready to be teleported back to where the godling was.


    That took merely a quarter of an hour, and once Althos received the message he executed a grander version of the same magic he had used to conjure Ranthor, and within moments all of the orcs and the half-devil priestess were in the clearing alongside Althos'' worshippers and Mianthus. They were spread out, just like they had been in the other clearing.


    The deity, still in his true form, looked over at them and felt quite pleased with the situation.


    <hr>


    Due to the nature of the clearing, and the fact that it resembled the other clearing his party members had been in before, the summoned orcs and the priestess looked around in confusion and saw Althos before they saw more familiar faces. This was understandably confusing to the orcs, who had never seen Althos'' divine form but was exciting to the priestess.


    She grinned in delight at the deity, and warmth flooded her amber-colored eyes. Before Althos could clear up the orc''s confusion, she mentally communicated with them and clarified what the odd creature before them was. The faces of the orcs lit up due to their newfound understanding of the situation.


    They grinned and went to converse with their fellow orcs, the same fellows who were founding members of Althos'' new faith. Tristan approached the deity, smirking at her master with a bit of mirth in her eyes. When she was close to her master she spoke, teasing him by adding a bit of sadness to her voice.


    "So why wasn''t I invited to this?"


    Althos looked at her, his newfound knowledge from a variety of minds giving him actual awareness of things like being "teased" and the moods of mortal creatures. His response to her was flat.


    "I can detect my worshippers. You may be a cleric in my service, and I think, nay I know, that your service is real. But so far you still worship your conception of the second dark saint. We both suspect, if not quite know,that that''s me, but I have not yet truly become the second dark saint. I know that it''ll take that for you to worship me as a deity and not just your conception of the dark saint. I''m fine with that. One day... I''ll surpass that expectation."


    He understood that she was teasing, but his response was as flat and matter of fact as it would have been even if he hadn''t understood that she was mostly joking. It was only at the end of his response that some emotion crept into his vision. The emotion of longing. Of desire. A part of him actually wanted the prestige and responsibilities that came with being the second dark saint.


    There was a part of him wanted the power that came with commanding an entire plane, and having an untold number of devils at his command. There was also a part of him that wanted her to freely and willingly give herself to him, give her knowledge and her life to him. And he knew that that required successfully conquest of the plane of Infernius.


    Tristan stared at him, really peered at his body and then at his face, for a few seconds. Then the priestess smiled and went to go chat with the dark elves. Althos wondered what she had seen when she looked at him that intensely, but then he heard a certain voice speak in his mind for the first time in a while.


    [Why hello Althos... I see that you''ve really come into your own, as far as acquiring knowledge goes, huh? You''re weirdly good at this whole, gathering knowledge thing. And the way you go about it is fascinating. You''re willing to trade help and power, in exchange for knowledge, secrets, thoughts, and memories? In the ancient past... there was a goddess who acted like that. She was a little insane, but then again perhaps it took a certain kind of insanity for someone to be a deity.]


    Althos was pleasantly surprised to hear the voice of the domain of knowledge ring out in his mind. The voice itself spoke with a certain level of confidence, and after it finished speaking Althos could hear it laugh boldly in his mind. It made the deity smile, and so he responded to it quickly and confidently.


    [Hey, so far it''s worked, right? Even now my brain is hard at work absorbing the memories, knowledge, thoughts, and secrets of my strange cabal. I''ve learned so much! About sex, about magic, even about other gods... wait, I''ve learned about other gods?]


    Althos started off that exchange with confidence but ended it in a state of confusion. His conscious mind hadn''t quite caught up with his subconscious mind, butin the space between the two, he somehow recalled the tales dark elves grew up on. These tales included extensive amounts of knowledge about the old gods. He spent just a few moments willing himself to consciously recall what information laid, unprocessed, in his subconscious.


    And then he instantly learned what the gods of the dark elves in the ancient past had been like. Tales of cities set ablaze by out of control priestesses or beset by gigantic monsters, and armies of utterly insane monstrous humanoids pillaging settlements flooded his mind. As knowledge and memories from all three of his dark elven worshipers flooded his mind he felt the fear and respect they had for the gods, and yes for Althos himself, seep into his conscious mind.


    <hr>


    For the first time in his whole life, he understood what worshipping a god, in the past, had looked like. Knowledge of the apparent hunger and desire felt by the gods coated his brain and took up the lion''s share of his focus. It was a strange feeling to the young god. He wondered about their hunger, their apparent taste for flesh and for the food of mortals intrigued him.


    Though there were things he was confused by and curious about from the tales the dark elves told their young and recorded in their own books, there were other things that appealed to him. He felt a pang of jealousy as he considered the sizes of the armies of those gods. In his mind, he recalled the often childhood memories of the elves as they pictured the events of the stories they were told.


    Thanks to the knowledge and memories of the elves he could loosely conceptualize the sorts of monsters that lived in the world under the world. He pictured gigantic insects, powerful and nearly blind bipedal lizard people who tore apart other creatures with their jaws, and strange monsters with alien shapes, clashing with the lithe and beautiful dark elves.


    He pictured their armies, in some cases hordes of both monstrous humanoids and subterranean beasts working together. In some cases, they could speak to each other and communicate but in others, they were somehow on the same page, despite or perhaps because of their total insanity.


    To Althos, whose independent understanding of the world was limited at best, this was confusing knowledge, but also interesting knowledge. He quickly realized that he''d need time to fully process it and be able to know what to do with it. He was silently thankful to his dark elven worshippers because their knowledge was indeed vast and he could already tell he''d learn an incredible amount thanks to it.


    <hr>


    In response to the deity''s confusion, the voice of the knowledge domain quietly reached into Althos'' mind yet again. This time there wasn''t confidence seeping into its voice but something else. Something akin to pity, or sympathy.


    [I''ll check back in with you later. But that said I do want you to know that I really like your style. The other deity like you, the goddess, wasn''t as... well she wasn''t as open-minded as you are. She had a specific taste. For memories. Only the worst ones really, she was as much a goddess of fear as she was of memories. If you stay like this, open-minded and engaged with your followers I don''t doubt that you''ll one day become a truly powerful god. Stay strong, and stay wise young one.]


    After that Althos found himself alone in his mind, aside from his unusually quiet advisors. He felt that that was a good point to stop being so introspective, and to return to his worshipers. So the deity got up and approached them, moving for the first time in well over an hour.


    He quickly reached them and watched what they were up too. They were interacting with each other, with the elves having gathered around Raverangos and the orcs having gathered around Salifinos. It was curious that they had arranged themselves that way, but that was how they had self-segregated. Althos sighed as he observed them and knew that at some point he''d had to change this and correct them.


    During this time he may not have tried to get his followers to interact with each other, but he did set out to learn what the elves wanted. This was done out of politeness, the deity already knew that they wanted to return home. His consideration and desire for them to speak came from absorbing copies of their minds which taught him that as a species the dark elves enjoyed being spoken too and taken seriously even and especially by their superiors.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    <hr>


    The deity quietly reached out to his new worshippers, sending them slight variations of the same message.


    [What would you like to do? Would you like to accompany me and my party as part of a mixed group, or would you feel more comfortable returning to your home, the city of Undermoon and serving me there in different ways?]


    The elves were surprised to hear him reach into their minds. They weren''t unhappy about it, just the opposite in fact, and so took a few seconds to compose their responses.


    Though their reasons were different each of them said they''d like to return home. Althos was pleased to hear of their reasons, as all three of his worshippers had reasons that were beneficial to him.


    Qu''Ren responded first. Her voice was soft even in the strange mental place she and her master exchanged thoughts.


    [I want to report that a deity exists again to the ruling council of Undermoon. Dark elves are surprisingly pious people, and so if I report that you exist, and we demonstrate that you will gain a variety of worshippers in a very efficient way and we can begin to formalize your worship. Plus I only really care about power in my own homeland. Unless you willed it I wouldn''t be likely to go into the world itself, I''d be more preoccupied withdemonstrating my power and fulfilling your will in dark elven lands.]


    She was forthright about her wishes, and also made a simple yet true case for her to head home. Althos wondered how they''d demonstrate that he was an actual deity and so he asked her that. She giggled in response and then communicated her thoughts to the deity once more.


    [Althos you''re being silly. Your weird vestigial magic informs those who receive it that you are a deity, remember? If you resurrect more vestigial traits in other people they''ll see the same notifications we saw.


    And judging from what you did with my group, and then later on with your group, you can perform these resurrections en-masse which would make things easy. Or you could perform a true resurrection, which is magic that is out of the realm of mortals unless they are high priests but would probably be easy for you to do.]


    The elf was silent for a few seconds before quietly adding more to her thoughts.


    [If you want to be dramatic if there''s a way for you to either enter the city invisibly and perform your vestigial magic on a massive crowd that''d be a great miracle, or if you appeared in the air above the city in a new form and declared your intentions into the mind''s of the people before casting the spell that''d be an easy way to ensure no one doubts your divinity.]


    While Althos was having this conversation with Qu''Ren and hearing from her, in her own words, what she thought would be the best way to begin to build a cult in the city of Undermoon, the others responded to his message.


    <hr>


    In the time since he became an official worshiper of the strange god, a lot of the initial fervor Drow felt had faded into something more manageable. It wasn''t gone, nor was his desire to serve, but now he could hide how he felt. He could maintain a veneer of normalcy. The dark elf put that skill on display when he spoke to his master.


    [I would like to return home. I would like to bring my family into your fold. My parents are seers, and though they aren''t the kindest parents, no dark elves are and I really think that they''d be happy about joining you. Especially if you subject them to what you subjected me and the others too] The dark elf told his master. He was silent for a few more moments, putting his thoughts together.


    I want Althos to want my family to join him. To join us. I really need to sell him the idea of persuading my family to join his worshipers.The dark elf thought, his mind a busy place as he tried to formulate the best possible argument in favor of Althos making his family a priority. Eventually, he put something together that he thought made a lot of sense.


    [As you know, my family has a legacy of being oracles. It skipped my entire generation. My siblings and my cousins were also born without oracular powers. If you resurrect these powers in them, I don''t doubt become fanatical worshipers of yours out of gratitude, especially when coupled with the knowledge that you can give real power.] The dark elf told his master.


    [My family is powerful. We''re well-respected and if we serve you, if we worship you, it''ll go a long way towards securing control of the city. And our influence isn''t limited to one city. Oracles are rare. A whole family of oracles? That''s mythic. Dark elves from many different cities listen to us. If we tell them about you... if you convince them to worship you, that means worship of you is going to multiply.] Drow informed his master. Drow pondered how to talk about his parents.


    He was thinking of the right thing to say. He was pained as he did that, his eyes wincing to broadcast his discomfort.


    [My parents and I aren''t on speaking terms. And I have it easy compared to some of my cousins. The fact that I have the freedom to leave Undermoon is... well it''s leagues better than what my cousins are forced to do. I plan to return home and demonstrate my new powers.] The dark elf continued.


    [When they ask where my powers come from, I''ll tell them about you. I''ll persuade them to speak to you, to join you. And if they do, they''ll worship you. And they''ll ease up on my cousins. And my siblings.] Drow said, his mental voice filled with emotion. Althos was respectfully silent, listening to what the dark elf had to say.


    At the end of that statement Drow mentally transmitted a picture of the cousins, he mentioned. Althos'' mind suddenly contained an image of two handsome dark elven men and one dark elven woman with a dour expression not unlike Drow''s own usual expressions.


    Both of the men in the mental conversation didn''t need to exchange any more words, but that didn''t stop Drow from chiming in with one last thought.


    [Thanks for asking me what I wanted instead of just doing what you wanted. That''s... unexpectedly humble for a god. Even a new one. It reinforces, in my mind anyway, that I made the right choice in worshipping you.]


    Drow''s mental voice carried newfound respect for the deity he had decided to worship of his own free will. Althos smiled at his worshipper, and the dour young dark elf''s normally neutral expression changed, softening just a bit.


    The last elf who worshipped Althos was the first one to decide to enter his religion. Milene was also asked for her insights. She wanted to return home as much as her peers did.


    [There are dark elves in our city who possess the proper disposition and skills to join you outside of Undermoon, but I am not one of them. Instead, if it were up to me I''d be in the city working as a creator of poisons and potions.


    I am an alchemist, if I can create potions and heal people, or create poisons and kill people, with your help and while giving you credit, I can raise your notoriety in a way that best uses my talents. One day I may want to venture out into the greater world, but for now, I know my own limits. Is that fine?]


    Althos grinned openly at her and acknowledged the wisdom in her words. He reassured her quietly with a simple message.


    [You know yourself best. While I expect you, all of you, to obey me, I don''t have specific expectations for you or where you live. While in my service, I will not control your whole lives.]


    Althos said that, and then stopped and considered how it differed from what he told the orcs. He mentally smacked himself after realizing that it was nearly the opposite of what he told them, and he began to consider how to correct that. He wouldn''t arrive at a satisfactory answer immediately though.


    <hr>


    He allowed the large party to interact without directly guiding them for a bit longer, a few minutes and then cleared his throat to get their attention. When they all turned to him, he spoke in the language of the demon and sent a mass telepathic message to his followers to ensure that he was understood by everyone.


    "We''re resuming the original quest we set out to complete. Ultimately we''ve got to determine the cause of the bears becoming aggressive, and we''ve got to stop the bears that are already out of control. There are twelve of them and they are most likely spread out all over the place."


    Althos stopped, took a breath, and then continued to speak.


    "For now, I say we accompany our elven friends to a location close to their city and see if we happen across any of the bears on the way there. Does anyone have any objections to that?"


    He waited to see what his followers had to say and was met with silence. The elves, including Mianthus, were grinning at the deity. They were apparently satisfied with that. And then Althos nodded at his followers, and for the first time in a few hours the crew was on the move, this time also accompanying people but this time they were accompanying fellow followers of Althos, so the deity felt satisfied.


    The group reentered the wooded part of the forest for the first time in well over an hour shortly after finishing their conversation.


    <hr>


    The party had been traveling for an hour in physical silence but after a while became able to exchange mental messages. This was due to activity by Althos.


    One of the waysAlthos killed time while they were hiking through the forest wasthrough the creation of a complex network of mental links that allowed the members of his extended party to have conversations in spite of language barriers.


    The elves mentally messaged their master, who had chosen to stay in his deity-form while walking through the forest. They did this because they sensed their companions growing impatient.


    [Althos, we are beginning to approach the entrance to the region we live in. We want to thank you and your allies for your patience.]


    Althos commanded them to message the orcs and the others themselves, and moments later the first exciting event of the hike occurred. Althos'' radar sent him a notification he had been waiting for for a while now.


    The deity sent out a mental message to the entirety of his party, and he cast a spell on them as well. The spell he cast was a fusion of illusion and mind-magic. It rendered them all, including himself utterly silent to their surroundings and hit them all with a weaker version of the camouflage effect.


    [Look alive everyone. I''m detecting a bear within the area. If it''s aggressive I want y''all to fight it. I want to watch how you fight.]


    Althos was telling them several whole truths and a single, partial truth. The main parts of that statement were true. Althos'' radar had picked up a bear, relatively nearby. There was a chance it was aggressive. And if it was, he wanted them to fight it.


    The partial truth was his reasoning behind wanting them to fight it. If the bear approached them aggressively he wanted them to fight it first, because they may not kill it. That would give the young deity a chance to be sure if it was one of the creatures he was asked to put down, before killing it as he had accidentally done to another bear. After that happened the quest itself had chastised him, which had been annoying.


    In all honesty, the deity did want to see how they fought when they weren''t bolstered by his abilities, something he had gotten toglimpse when he and his allies fought against the humans back in the town he first met the orcs in. Now they had more allies and thus could handle bigger threats so Althos felt more secure in their ability to prepare and adequately handle real enemies, which asingle bear shouldn''t have been anyway.


    Althos'' thoughts became more and more focused as they neared the bear. At first, it was hundreds of meters away, yet now that they were tracking it, each step brought them a bit closer to it.


    <hr>


    Althos found that he took to hunting quite easily. He was naturally a quiet sort, not fond of talking all that much, and even in his large divine form, he was light on his feet and nearly silent. His radar was activate in the corner of his vision and alerted him to nearby creatures which he took pains to hide his party from, especially as they inched closer and closer to the bear.


    He crept through the forest with the ease of a carnivore on the prowl. His thick feet barely touched the ground as he wandered deeper and deeper into the woods. Behind him, his allies followed closely and kept watch.


    He and his allies had long since departed from the conventional path often walked along by humanoids. Now they were in the wilder part of the forest, an area not unlike that where Althos and M.A. found Silander.


    Around them, the trees grew thicker, with longer branches and darker leaves, than they did in other parts of the forest. The grass at their feet grew taller, the bushes produced more berries.


    The cries and howls of wild animals came at them from all directions. The air smelled purer, and the vague whispers of magic surrounded them, calling out to them unconsciously, keeping the party on edge. The whispers of magic only grew louder and more constant the deeper they went into this likely uncharted part of the forest.


    Eventually, they were close enough to the bear that not only did Raverangos and Althos see the beast but so did Althos'' allies. The beast was far larger than the other bear Althos had come across. The creature had found or emptied a den built for or by other animals, a den that was too small for its massive form and had occupied it, filling the entire thing with its incredible frame.


    At the moment the beast was asleep, lazily laying on the ground and its massive frame shook each time the creature snored. Althos watched it and noticed various things that stood out to him. The first was the creature''s fur.


    The creature had a jet black coat, but one that was cut up in places, and that was filled with fur that was tossed around due to some recent activity. The area around its face, in particular, stood out, not only because that area had the same kind of messy fur, but also because Althos could vaguely make out a sort of indistinct slime leaking out of its mouth.


    The others weren''t close enough to see the slime yet, but Althos suspected that they''d see it as drool, or sweat, because in addition to seeing it Althos could make out a vague, fiendish aura radiating from the pool below the creature''s mouth that owed its existence to the sleeping, leaking creature.


    Raverangos saw the same thing and mentally messaged its master.


    [Whatever happened to that bear is the fault of a demon. Some kind of... slime demon, most likely.]

 Chapter 40:

    Althos and Gallow took the lead in approaching the bear. As they did, both men were utterly silent and relaxed, as if they had worked together thousands of times over the past few years despite the fact that Althos had never actively collaborated with anyone before. There were two reasons for this.


    The first reason was Gallow''s devotion to his master. The orc, who owed his life to his master, had completely given himself to the young deity when the orc was among the founding members of the deity''s knowledge-centered faith. In the clearing they had spent over an hour in, he had done away with the last of his hesitation, due to the powers of the deity he had seen first hand and his master''s mercy towards him if no one else.


    The second reason for their skilled work was that Gallow gave his master a copy of his mind. Because of this Althos had an advantage none of Gallow''s other partners had ever had; knowing the entirety of the orc''s life, his style, and the sort of partner he''d like to have while engaging in roguish activities. This allowed the deity, brand new to the world of stealth and roguish work, to make up for his lack of experience.


    The two of them inched nearer and nearer to the bear, and in doing so Althos observed more evidence that there was something deeply wrong with this particular bear.


    As Althos inched closer and closer to the bear, he noticed that the bear smelled of blood and carrion. The second smell was a smell he became familiar with thanks to the variety of memories he had absorbed and made his own over the course of the past few hours.


    He also noticed very thin, nearly imperceptible holes, on the bear''s skin. These holes, much like the creature''s maw, leaked some sort of weird slime. Althos shook his head and began to creep forward, planning to be behind the beast when his allies moved to engage it in battle.


    Within seconds he was on top of the bear''s den, his hands raised and where his fingers had previously been were sharp, tiny blades the creature could use to slice through anyone who dared oppose his will.


    He nodded at the rest of his followers, and they began to quietly move into the positions that they knew would best optimize their ability to fight against a creature as large as a bear. His silence rendered him unnoticeable to the sleeping creature and there was a certain dramatic flair to the image of the deity standing on top of the den the beast was asleep inside of.


    Gallow snuck towards his master until he was standing close to the deity. The rogue''s purpose was to deal critical damage and damage that harmed the abilities of the bear, making it less of a threat to the other attackers. He would be ready when the fight began.


    The elven women stood near the back of the party, furthest away from the deity, the bear, and the rogue. They readied themselves. Qu''Ren casually swung her dagger, an instrument through which she could channel potent magical energy.


    She readied her magic, calling out to the place wherein she could most easily feel its ebb and flow, like a heart of sorts but for magic, not for blood. She tapped into this place within herself, coaxing the magic to come closer to her brain and fingertips, swirling around what magic she could readily tap into like one might swirl a hot beverage and waiting for it to answer her call.


    Soon enough it began to respond, lazily spreading from her chest around her heart to the rest of her body. She grinned when this began to happen, and hoped she''d have a chance to show off for her master by using her powerful and destructive magic.


    Milene grabbed her dagger and waited to see what would happen next, with the young woman preparing herself for the bear to breakthrough, just in case. She had decided that she would wait, and watch the battle rather than participate actively. Althos had already mentally okayed this, of course, otherwise, the young alchemist would have readied herself for battle as well.


    The three orcish brawlers and Raverangos moved into places directly in front of the bear, separated by a distance of a few meters where any one of them could easily have been the first creature that the bear would see when it awoke. Behind them walked the warriors named Drow and Mianthus. The two elves'' macuahuitl''s felt light in their hands and both men were ready, even raring, for violence.


    Silander, Tristan, and Salifinos stood in the back, though Salifinos was just waiting for a chance to commit violence. The tiny imp still hadn''t gotten a chance to make use of his resurrected poison, and he hoped he''d be able to correct that as he looked out at the bear.


    Althos made eye contact with Bazur and subtly nodded. The orc respectfully nodded back and waited for the deity''s command.


    Althos looked at the bear and focused. His eyes narrowed and he tried to consciously activate one of his few fairly unreliable powers: the ability to identify and learn about living creatures. Within a few seconds, the ability began to activate, and the following information lazily materialized right over the head of the gigantic bear.


    [Name: Shredder Ole''Bloodhorn


    Class: Berserker


    Species: Forest-Bear (Corrupted)


    Faction: Maddened Minion Of Mor''Dark''Heart]


    Althos read over the text that appeared over the bear''s head and then looked over at his allies. He visually assessed where they had placed themselves, and then smirked at them. He nodded, before sending out a mass mental message.


    [I''m gonna lift my hand,]


    As he told them this he did as he said, raising his hand higher than before.


    [When I bring it down, it''s the signal to attack. This bear is an enemy. It''s a corrupted bear, and it is a servant of someone called Mor''Dark''Heart, which is a really on the nose name.]


    After that snide remark, Althos once again looked at his followers and worshipers. He made careful eye contact with each of them, nodding and getting a nod back in return. Then the deity brought his hand down.


    And then his followers began to move.


    <hr>


    The first person to act was Bazur, the orcish brawler who was the first person to join Althos'' service. The orc stepped forward and inhaled. Then that breathe that the orc had just inhaled was expelled in the form of an explosive roar, a sound that shocked not only the newcomers to his master''s indiscriminate party but even his brothers.


    The bear awoke with a start and was stunned for a second, but even in its stunned state, its eyes zeroed in on Bazur, the source of the explosive roar that shook it from its slumber. And the orcs charged. There was perhaps a single instant wherein the bear was cleanly stunned and unable to move, but that was enough.


    That instant was all it took for the brawlers to cross nearly the entire distance between themselves and the bear and for them to launch their first strikes. But the bear wasn''t slow and recovered in the moments before it would have taken the hits cleanly.


    In the space of a second, the bear rocketed up off of its stomach and lunged forward to escape the confines of its lair. Itsforward movementthrew it at the attacking orcs and though the attacks managed to connect with its body, prevented the attacks from having the force they otherwise would have, its thick fur easily absorbing the not insignificant attacks. Then the bear itself roared and the sound it produced was truly incredible in its volume, easily stunning the orcs around it.


    Althos watched this and had to struggle not to get involved. He considered this first exchange a bit of a disappointment, but he contained himself and waited to see what happened next.


    The bear readied itself to unleash a titanic storm of claws and fangs and turned its titanic mass on the orc who had shouted at it: Bazur. As it turned it rose onto its back legs and swung its mighty frontal paws, its thick claws covered with dried blood and getting close to the orc at dangerously high speeds.


    An instant before the claws would have shredded through the metal armor the orc wore, Drow, the elven warrior with the power to receive visions from Althos, closed the distance between himself and Bazur and pulled the orc out of the way of the claws. He also put himself in front of the bear, right between where he had pulled Bazur to and the quite insane beast, and where the beast''s claws had torn through empty air moments before.


    The bear''s eyes zeroed in on Drow, and the creature glared at him for daring to intrude on the clash the beast was having. It lunged at him, only to be interrupted yet again by another orc, Ragnor, jumping from where he had been stunned earlier in the fight to right next to the bear''s face and successfully slashing at the creature''s eye with a powerful, metal-clad elbow strike.


    The orc was incredibly fast, even in metal armor, and closed the distance separating him from his brother at a speed that was difficult to follow if one relied on their eyes. His elbow strike viciously pummeled the bear''s face and managed to precisely hit the bear''s eye with tremendous force because it was carefully aimed to maximally harm the bear''s ability to fight.


    The bear''s head rocked back in response to the blow, but at the same time, the bear brutally swatted Ragnor away with a backhanded counter from one of its heavily muscled paws. The orc was thrown backward but landed on his feet several meters away. Althos saw him struggle to stay up, and so the deity reached out a hand and wordlessly cast a healing spell on the brave orc. Relief lit up Ragnor''s face as he felt his wounds begin to mend and the pain began to subside.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Drow lunged at the bear who had hurt his ally, throwing himself at the beast.The bear was still rearing from that vicious blow, and blood was starting to pool in the beast''s eye, so Drow moved towards the creature from the direction that the blow had hit from and a direction the bear couldn''t accurately see in. He even followed the creature''s rearing head for the sake of landing a certain-kill strike.


    The warrior moved to end the fight quickly now that he was in the bear''s blindspot with a single decisive strike. Once he was close enough to the bear to reach out and grab the creature''s snout in his hands, he struck.


    He threw himself at his foe with renewed energy, and he lashed out at his enemy with his unusual weapon. He extended the hand of his that held his weapon and secured it in his grip quite tightly as the weapon flashed towards the bear''s face and thick snout.


    It raked across the bear''s snout, the obsidian blades more than sharp enough to slice through the fur and skin of the bear''s face, drawing and scattering blood across the blades, the warrior''s hand, and onto the ground as the bear bellowed in agony.


    That was only the start of the strike. Once he had extended his arm as far as he could have, he hit the flat part of his weapon with his palm to cause the weapon to enter the slashing wound he had just created with it and then he forcibly dragged his blade back towards himself. The vicious, sawlike motion of the weapon''s multiple blades as he pulled it closer to himself, drew further blood and deepened the already innumerable slashing cuts that the bear had sustained.


    By the time the blades had cut across the whole of the creature''s snout and face, the beast was already unconscious due to blood loss. In a single, fluid and forceful motion Drow pulled his blade out of the beast''s head and then turned to look at the creature. He immediately noticed that the creature was still alive, and he huffed in annoyance at how its hefty endurance had prevented it from dying in a single attack.


    <hr>


    Behind the creature, Althos was passing the time his minions were fighting by looking through his now hefty codex of spells. He could tell that his followers were going to win, and after having healed Ragnor had decided this would make an opportune time to gain practical experience with actual magic, used on a living creature.


    It was when he was in the section of his codex that covered necromancy that the god found the perfect spell to use.The deity was quite excited to note that the spell had usages related to other schools of magic as well, making it his very first truly interdisciplinary spell.


    [Spell type: Necromancy


    Spell name: Harvest Soul


    Effect: When used on a dying living creature it immediately kills them and steals their soul, giving the caster a powerful material component that is a necessary component in some conjuration spells, some dark spells, and some necromantic spells.


    Base cost: 350 magical energy per cast.


    Notes: An empowered version of this spell exists that you will obtain when you gain higher levels of knowledge, that can instantly kill living creatures and steal their souls, or worse automatically turn them into powerful forms of undead creatures while also granting you their souls.]


    The deity looked up and noticed Drow glaring at the dying bear. He grinned at his worshiper and lifted his hand in the direction of the bear. He decided to be dramatic, and instead of casting "Harvest Soul" he opted to cast "Darkness" on his hand as to telegraph his dark powers to those who worshipped and followed him.


    Dark shadows began to gather in his hand, transforming his divine extremity into what appeared to be a weapon of darkness. When he felt that the effect was appropriately dramatic, he willed the darkness out of his hand and in the direction of the bear. The darkness peeled itself off of his limb and became an orb of darkness that flew through the space between the bear and the god.


    The god''s minions and worshippers watched as the orb crossed the distance between where the deity stood, and where the bear laid, heavily injured, unconscious and waiting to die. The deity cast his "Harvest Soul" spell, targeting the bear, right as the orb made contact with the creature''s unconscious body.


    The creature''s death itself was fairly undramatic. The bear stopped breathing and its heart stopped beating. Seconds later Althos confirmed that it had died, as he felt something immaterial, yet heavy flow from the bear''s corpse and into himself.


    Out of curiosity he turned to look at his allies and noticed that they were still watching the corpse, so whatever thing he had absorbed from it, probably its soul, hadn''t been something they could see that was somehow invisible to him.


    The beast died right as the orb covered its body in darkness, and Althos was delighted to receive two notifications at the same time, as well as a message from the eerie voice he had heard when he first used necromantic power in the clearing. Hearing that many voices in his head at once, and seeing that much text was dizzying and annoying, but the strange voice from before had a message that was incredibly appealing to the young god.


    [Quest update: Successfully exterminated one of the twelve hyper-aggressive bears. Congratulations! Keep it up!]


    [Hey Althos I see that you''re using necromantic power and stealing souls... wanna taste it? Souls can be consumed by gods you know. If you eat it, it''ll grant you a boost comparable to if you had gained a worshiper. Fast, easy, instant power & knowledge. If that''s something that interests you, maybe you should try it out.]


    Althos could almost hear the smile in the mysterious and eerie voice. But he also didn''t sense any deception coming from the creature. He thought about it for a second and then realized that that was not a bad deal, assuming the voice was being honest. And if it wasn''t, Althos knew that he''d have learned not to trust the voice in a situation wherein there were opportunities to get other bear souls.


    [Alert: You''ve acquired a bear soul. You can use it to fuel the creation of powerful, unintelligent undead creatures, you can absorb it which is an act of considerable evil, or you can use it to power powerful dark magic. There''s no need to make a... oh you''ve already absorbed it. Why?]


    [I was told that absorbing it will give me power and knowledge. That''s enough of a reason for me to do so, independent of whether or not such an act is evil.]


    Althoswasn''t the sort to hesitate, due to his youth, his obsession with knowledge, and the sort of darkly powerful memories he had swirling around in his mind. When he heard that devouring the soul would grant him power and knowledge he assessed the situation and then made the sort of choice that would have most appealed to creatures of darkness and impatience and chose to devour the soul.


    It turned out that to devour a soul, once one was in his possession all it took was for him to will the soul to be devoured. Mere moments after obtaining the strange, immaterial thing, he felt it vanish from his possession and immediately felt lighter. And in the immediate aftermath of that, he once again heard that strange voice speak to him.


    [So you decided to consume it? And without any hesitation? I don''t dislike people who make bold choices, young one. If you keep it up, who knows where you may end up in the future? You may truly become a deity worthy of dominion over the planes of darkness, yet.]


    Althos chuckled at the voice in his head and then received a notification. This one was far more interesting to the deity than mysterious musings from a being who seemed to feel that being mysterious was the same as having a personality.


    [Soul absorbed... progress has been made along the route to gain the ability to influence the domain of souls. New divine power created. Creating an explanation of the power in 3... 2... 1...


    New divine power explanation: Reconstitution


    Some gods devour souls. Those who do are invariably dark, twisted, creatures possessed of horrendous appetites. But soul-consumption is an act which also grants considerable power. Deities who consume souls are given the power to craft physical shells in the shape of souls which they have consumed and invest in them a sort of horrid unlife where they are animate but exist solely to serve the deity who constructed them.


    Until experience with alteration magic, mutations, or the appropriate level of influence over domains like the nature domain, the animal subdomain, or the subdomain of necromancy have been gained, it is only possible to form physical bodies for creatures that are molded off of templates gained by consuming the souls of a variety of creatures.


    So for now, if you craft any shell it''ll automatically form in the shape of a bear of some sort.


    Cooldown time: 1 hour per shell.]


    Althos read over this entry and found it quite intriguing. He considered activating it, but instead in a moment of rare patience, decided to do something like this in private and not here, next to the corpse whose soul he stole and then promptly absorbed.


    He looked to his companions and saw that they were still staring at the corpse of the bear. Althos looked at it as well and was amused to notice that his previous casting of darkness was still affecting the body of the bear.


    The deity called out to his companions and gestured that it was time for them to resume their adventure. No one made any complaints or any issued any objections, and within less than a minute the party was on its way back to the trail and back to the caves that would lead travelers to the city of Undermoon.


    He knew where to go and he was quite excited. They were perhaps less than an hour from the entrance to the large cave-system that housed the city of Undermoon.


    The encounter with the bear took less than a minute. After that Althos spent nearly five minutes in quiet introspection, dealing with the voices that dwelled in his head, and the system itself.


    <hr>


    The moment that the soul of the bear named Shredder was taken from its corpse, the demon of filth responsible for the bear''s madness felt a mysterious and otherworldly chill. Normally the slimy monstrosity delighted in pain and suffering, but for some reason, it felt the vaguest, alien sense of fear as it shuddered to warm itself up. But a small part of it also felt considerable excitement, an excitement that was as alien as the fear was.


    The demon didn''t like the alienness of these emotions. It quietly wondered what to do with them. After using its pseudopods to crawl around its lair, in its own version of pacing, it realized that all it could do was wait and see if these emotions left on their own.


    At that moment the creature was in what it had declared, to itself and no one else since it couldn''t speak, its lair. Its lair was a small outcropping of rocks where none of the blasted bioluminescent mushrooms that offered considerable amounts of illumination to the rest of the tunnel dared shine their light on the demon.


    Nearly an hour later as a way to try and rid itself of the alien emotions plaguing it, the demon made the choice to go out to the small underground river that fed into the river in the forest.


    It wanted to continue corrupting the source of water, and driving animals mad. It knew that if it sat by the water and spent time corrupting it, it''d naturally rid itself of stress.


    It made that choice at the same time that Althos and his party reached the mouth of the very same tunnel it had spent the last few weeks in. In making the choice to go at that time to the small river it unknowingly set off a chain of events that would bring it into contact with another demon and that demon''s master, the strange and young deity named Althos.

 Chapter 41:

    Guided by the memories of the elves who had joined his party, Althos wordlessly led them through the dark forest. His party members were as silent as he was, and the deity found himself enjoying the silence. He suspected that various members of the mixed party were communicating amongst themselves, but personally, the deity liked the quiet.


    After exploring for nearly 45 minutes the party found themselves steadily approaching a light, off in the distance. The closer they got to the light the less dense the trees around them felt, and some of the orcs breathed a sigh of relief when they realized this. They suspected this meant they were nearing the edge of the forest, or at least another clearing.


    Althos knew that this clearing was where they were heading. And when they finally reached it, his party members realized why. Aside from the elves who had already known why they were heading in this direction. This was the way for them to get back home, the area that led to the tunnel through which people could enter or leave the world beneath the world.


    Althos grinned as they entered the clearing, and found themselves starring at the entrance into the subterranean super-continent from which dark elves, lizard-people, and many other manners of fascinating monsters for Althos to gain control of, dwelt.


    The party didn''t stop moving even as they made it all the way into the clearing and were steps away from the actual entrance into the underground.


    The tunnel''s mouth was facing away from them, but as those new to the world beneath the world approached they noticed some odd things about the tunnel.


    First and foremost they noticed the small river that flowed out of it, barely visible in the dark due to its thin size. They also noticed that as they neared the tunnel, and once they had gained the ability to peer within it, that there was some sort of natural lighting within it that cast a very dim glow on the whole area even when its source was invisible to the people peering at the tunnel from the outside.


    It took them a little over seven minutes to get to the entrance to the tunnel mouth, and without a shred of hesitation, the party entered the tunnel. Althos had quite enjoyed this journey so far, so the deity felt like continuing it. For now at least.


    <hr>


    Once inside the tunnel, the party continued their trek to a location close to the dark elven city of Undermoon. Althos was enjoying the new sights before him, and his curious gaze explored everything, even though the memories he had absorbed from the elves made him feel distantly familiar with this place.


    The tunnel they were in was abuzz with activity. Althos could sense the presence of a variety of lifeforms thanks to his radar power, his tremorsense, and his powerful senses.


    Not only could he feel that creatures who burrowed through the earth were active within the earthy walls of the tunnel, but he could also feel countless small creatures below his party and creatures on the floor beneath him and his party that were so small that even if one looked at their own feet they''d be hard-pressed to detect them.


    Althos couldhearthe swimming of fish in the tiny river that had, over the course of countless years eroded the stone floor of the tunnel and eventually escaped into the forest that surrounded the natural cavern. The river was to their right, and they walked along the stone floor that bordered it. If a fish near them got overzealous and splashed around, the resulting splashes could easily get them wet due to the relative narrowness of the tunnel.


    The tunnel was barely 6 meters wide, though it was more than tall enough to easily accommodate their tallest party members. The water beside them took up perhaps a full meter of the width of the tunnel, so upon entering the tunnel Althos had made his form more narrow and had allowed someone, which ended up being Silander, to walk beside him.


    In the forest, the deity had chosen to take the lead, and no one had been right beside him after the short clash with the bear. Now the party was basically operating on the buddy system to more easily navigate the tight confines they''d have to go through to reach their destination.


    After perhaps a quarter of an hour of walking through the tunnel, which got increasingly bright the deeper they delved, Althos and his party finally discovered the source of the odd illumination. Althos was the first one to spot the source itself, thanks to his powerful vision.


    Several dozen meters ahead of the party a single, positively gigantic mushroom was growing out of the wall right above the river. This strange mushroom was radiating intensely bright light, and Althos wondered about it as they gradually got closer and closer to it. Althos scanned the memories and knowledge within his brain for information on the odd thing but found fairly little.


    What little he could find generally identified the mushroom as a somewhat common type of flora within the world beneath the world that provided useful and necessary illumination for the surface dwellers who braved the dangers of this world to visit civilized spaces beneath the world''s surface for goods that tended to be illegal on the surface.


    Eventually, the party got close enough to the mushroom to be able to identify it for what it was themselves without Althos'' assistance. What they noticed and what he noticed were different. Althos could make out the color of the mushroom through the light it was radiating, a light which intensified to near blinding levels if one looked right at the fungus and from time to time he saw individual, particularly tiny, milk-white spores softly fall off of the cap of the gigantic mushroom and into the river several meters below the source of the tunnel''s light.


    The memories and knowledge that Althos had acquired over the course of his life, including from other people, did not mention anything about spores. This filled the deity with a level of curiosity which would later prove insatiable, and he saw in the mushroom and its spores a chance to gain some real knowledge of his own and on his own. His mind was alight with activity as he neared the strange spores.


    Most of his followers, on the other hand, could only see the light it was radiating, and though they could barely make out a strange shadow from deep within the light, they couldn''t identify its shape at a glance. They found the light source somewhat blinding and turned away from its source as they neared it. Aside from Raverangos and Salifinos, who were as nonplussed by the light as Althos was, but lacked the deity''s curiosity.


    The deity''s curiosity compelled him to do the strange thing he did next.


    <hr>


    As they were passing the mushroom, the deity took a slight detour. Instead of passing by the mushroom and ignoring it, the deity walked into the water below the organism and leaped towards it.


    His followers noticed that he had vanished, but didn''t know where to look to see him. So they began to call out to him, both physically and mentally.


    The deity ignored them and focused on feeding his curiosity. His leap easily reached a space just below the gills of the thick mushroom, and as a result of this the entity he was right underneath was powered up immediately and intensely by his empowering aura. The creature reacted to his presence by shaking happily.


    The action was surprising to the deity, who didn''t get hit by the body of the creature but did get a face-full of tiny, milk-white, powdery spores the mushroom unintentionally released in the wake of its excitement.


    Normally such direct exposure to the spores would cause unpleasant reactions in anyone unlucky enough to be touched by them directly, but the deity was an immortal being with a variety of powers and immunities. He could not be negatively affected by naturally occurring substances, including the unintentionally released spores.


    Instead of harming the deity, the spores made him interested in the mushroom and whatever other abilities it may have had. His curiosity would have had a chance to be immediately displayed quite prominently if it wasn''t for the notification the deity was about to receive.


    <hr>


    Fungi were odd creatures. Whether they were found on the surface, or in the world beneath the world, they were remarkably alive entities and creatures who actively interacted with the world around them.


    The massive fungus in the tunnel had a long white stem and a bright red cap colored in blue scales, measured over an entire meter long from its mycelial roots to its cap. It was a particularly excitable individual in general but at that moment it was excited specifically because it was the first of its species to detect the deity.


    It saw the young god and immediately reacted to his unique and empowering aura. It reacted by energetically shaking and accidentally releasing spores from within its gills.


    It also reacted by spontaneously maturing in response to his proximity, his aura inadvertently providing it with the energy needed for it to gain a new method of communication.


    In a space with relatively little airflow in any direction, the end result of its premature releasing of spores was that they fell directly on Althos. The deity was unbothered by them and merely looked at the fungi in confusion. It was seconds after the spores fell on his face that he first "heard" the mushroom.


    <hr>


    "I can''t believe this! A deity came to me! What a joyous day! Is this the day that fungi finally gain a deity?"


    The mushroom was still shaking, and as far as Althos could tell the voice he "heard" actually belonged to the odd organism. The voice was incredibly happy, filled with euphoric joy the likes of which neither Althos nor the mushroom had never felt before, due to the fungi''s closeness to a young deity with growing powers and as much a history of altering his surroundings as any other noteworthy feat he had accomplished in his short life.


    Althos'' very aura itself was now capable of boosting lifeforms in his presence, and the mushroom was definitely a lifeform, a lifeform less unlike humanoids and other mobile lifeforms than many of them may have suspected.


    Althos was stunned into silence, and his shock caused him to fall to the surface a few meters below him and the mushroom. He landed harmlessly on the watery floor beneath him, disturbing the river and causing a splash large enough for the displaced water to touch his party members who were further away from the river than he had been.


    It was when he landed in the thin river that the deity recovered his wits, and looked back up at the mushroom. He was in the middle of composing a mental message to send to it when he received an odd notification informing him of a multitude of new things and presenting him with a choice.


    [Multi-part alert:


    Oh boy, where do we start with this one? So, Althos, you''ve got a choice, but to get to that choice we''ve say to do a lot. So take a second and listen to what we''ve got to say.


    First of all, by now you''ve figured out that domains are intelligent. Some more so than others. You''ve already conversed with two domains yourself.


    Just like other intelligent things, some domains are more popular than others. Well... when we talk specifically about "popularity" we''re discussing it from a specific angle: that of the gods because some of these domains may have been less popular among the gods but were or are popular among mortals.


    There are two domains in particular that you''ve demonstrated some interest in, that were considered unpopular domains by the gods. The domain of vermin and we''re pretending that your actions here indicate that you''re interested in the domain of fungi. These domains were positively hated in the old age. They were so hated that the only deity-level entities who took an interest in them were demon-lords.


    These are useful, potent domains that grant those who exert influence over them a variety of powers and at least the potential for innumerable servants, but the deities who existed during the old age were prideful and wanted to be able to control more directly powerful-looking domains. You on the other hand... well your attitude is different. You are the sort of person whose curiosity and non-discriminatory attitude would make you an excellent overseer for these domains and subdomains.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    So we want to offer you a test. We want you to become the new, and first-ever god of fungi. If you accept this, you''ll gain a wide variety of powers and if you learn to be a responsible god of fungi then we''ll reward you by granting you control over the vermin subdomain.


    One of the things that come with this is that you''ll be granted total control over the subdomain of fungi. You''ll automatically gain full control over it.


    Oh and just because you become the "god of fungi" doesn''t mean other domains or subdomains are closed off to you, it just means that this is a subdomain you''re the master of.


    Before you accept, we will be granting you powers related to this domain and giving you a chance to preview the first quest designed to help you transition into becoming a guardian of fungi. For now, take a look at the powers.


    New divine power explanation: Spore Production


    This power has been created in response to Althos'' face-first encounter with spores created by a luminous lurker mushroom, a populous mushroom often found illuminating the world beneath the world. This power allows Althos to create and spread spores in a variety of ways, such as with a flick of his wrist, through new types of limbs such as a proboscis, a Pilobolus like appendage, or through a kiss.


    These spores can be absorbed in a variety of ways, such as through inhalation or by contact with skin or soil.


    These spores can serve a variety of purposes, such as allowing creatures to enter a dream-world created and controlled by Althos, they can be a poison that kills those who fall victim to them, allow creatures to hear and understand the language of sentient fungi, calm enemies, or reanimate corpses transforming them into spore-critters. Or they could be spores that actually turn into mushrooms and other forms of fungi.


    This power can be upgraded both by experience and as a reward for completing quests related to fungi. Upgrades diversify the usages of the spores and reduce the cooldown time needed to recharge the power. Higher-level usages of the spores can induce insanity, evoke a range of emotions beyond calmness, and even heal both fungal and non-fungal lifeforms.


    Cooldown time: depends on the spore-type in question, but ones that enable creatures to hear and understand fungi can be produced as often as wanted.


    New divine power explanation: Aura of Fungal Superiority


    This power creates a constant aura that is invisible to non-fungi but is perpetually visible to fungi. Fungi, no matter their intelligence or attitudes towards other sentient creatures, will always recognize Althos as their god and will refuse to act aggressively towards him. If Althos so desires this aura can automatically cause fungi in his presence to enter into a delirious state of joy and hyper-activity, including normally non-mobile fungi.


    Cooldown time: perpetually active. It cannot be turned off.


    New divine power explanation: Spore Maturation


    This power allows Althos to speed the growth rates of spores, causing them to advance to the next stage of their lifecycles almost immediately.


    Cooldown time: one activation per hour, but can affect multiple spores in a small area. It can be reduced as a reward for completing fungi quests.


    New divine power explanation:Mycorrhizal Mastery


    Althos is granted the ability to meld with mycorrhizal networks, networks that connects fungi and plants. Althos can empower these networks, seize control of them, or weaken them. This network is a network that typical boosts plants and creates positive symbiotic relationships between various sorts of plants and fungi.


    Cooldown time: 24 times a day, at the end of each day unexpended usages are lost. It can be upgraded and this cooldown time can be improved, through usage.


    New divine power explanation: Hivemind Creation/Mycorrhizal Domination


    This power creates a hivemind that infects the minds of selected fungi who Althos has met, which can be as few as two or as many as every fungus Althos has interacted with. This creates a single synergized will and turns all members into creatures who seek to fulfill Althos'' will, or any objectives specifically stated during the activation of the power and syncs their minds granting targeted fungi telepathy with other targeted fungi.


    This power can last as long as Althos'' wishes.


    Cooldown time: Once per day. This can be upgraded but can only be upgraded through the completion of the fungal subdomain quests.


    New title acquired: The Fungal Lord


    A note about titles: Titles are divine monikers if a creature worships an entity known as a certain title and doesn''t know the specific name of the entity, the creature with that moniker receives the worship and sacrifices to that entity as though they knew the deity''s true name. A deity with multiple titles can have a variety of different pseudonyms and still receive every bit of power or respect afforded to the titles with no divine consequence.


    New minor note: Upon becoming the "god of" any particular thing, any existing restrictions that would have inhibited your ability to do something related to that "thing" vanish. In the case of fungi, you are never again affected by an inability to hear them. Fungai have a sort of restriction on their speech that makes hearing them difficult even for deities, but as the god of fungi, you will always be able to hear the voices and thoughts of your fungi friends.


    New quest: Aid fungi communities


    Objective: Help 5 communities of fungi. How they are helped isn''t particularly important, so long as they request the aid themselves.


    Progress: 0/5 communities aided.


    Reward: New titles and powers related to fungi, progress towards the plant and nature domains, and a greater likelihood of becoming the god of vermin.


    Note: Fungi are encountered in every plane and universe. This is not a time-sensitive quest. Completion of it is not designed to be a priority. Fungi have existed for trillions of years across every life-bearing universe in existence, without any gods. They are patient. But the completion of this quest will go a long way towards granting Althos more worshippers and exposure to a neat class of lifeforms, lifeforms who in the past were ignored by deities.


    Does Althos accept this offer?


    Y


    N]


    Althos read through this positively gigantic notification with a neutral expression on his face. Several minutes passed while he did this, minutes in which he was silent and not moving. The deity was standing and was unharmed from his fall, but his silence and his statue-like stillness made him an eerie sight. His followers stood still while he read the longest notification he''d ever seen.


    While he had been reading through it, he had also been thinking. He had been carefully reflecting on the information he had been presented with.


    <hr>


    The first thing the deity pondered was about one of the system''s first sentences.


    So it''s not just the domain of knowledge that''s intelligent? It''s at least another one? And I''ve talked to TWO domains? I guess that explains the other voice in my head, huh?


    Then the deity read more. He read entire chunks of the massive notification without having particularly substantive thoughts or moments of introspection. Plenty of minor thoughts occurred to him though.


    Popularity? What''s that?


    I WOULD like to become the god of vermin! Why would the ability to befriend little critters only be appealing to demon lords? That''s unfortunate.


    Nondiscriminate sounds like a good thing, but given its usage, in that sentence, I feel as though it''s a bit insulting in context...


    I wonder if there''s a limit to how many domains and subdomains I can control? I doubt there is, but I wonder if maybe they, as intelligent... entities have a personal preference for the number of deities they''d serve? That''d make more sense, to me at least, than deities being limited in the number of domains they could control.


    These powers sound pretty great, actually. They alone are a real reason to consider becoming a god of fungi...


    So I have a new title huh? I guess that means that if I wanted too I could get fungi to worship me differently than my other worshipers do. That''s awesome!


    I wonder if there are any actual, substantive downsides to becoming the god of fungi? As far as I can tell this is a free powerup... Well, not quite free, but almost free. And I''m not one to turn down free power, or unexpected opportunities.


    Althos asked this question to the system. The system didn''t respond. Althos felt suspicious of this, but though the deity didn''t know it, there weren''t any actual downsides to becoming the god of fungi. That was why the system didn''t respond to him.


    After spending nearly a minute reflecting on the possibilities laid out before him, and the power of stepping into truly uncharted territory, the deity took the plunge. He informed the system that he''d become the deity of fungi.


    [Due to the nature of fungi and the existence of intelligent, sentient fungal creatures, like fungal folks, we, the system, require something from you Althos. A biography, of sorts. Please give us one that we can use to announce your existence to fungi. This is due to the strangeness of the "minds" of fungi, which are capable of worship and are capable of thought-to-thought communication.


    For now, rather than try to explain this in-depth, we just want to get a bio from you that you can use whenever you feel like initiating contact with one of your fungal wards. If you use this in place of your normal message it''ll help show that you''re their guardian and confirm what they begin to sense as you approach: you are divine.]


    After Althos transmitted this message to the system, the system began to inflict its changes upon the young deity.


    The resulting effects were immediate.


    <hr>


    The deity''s followers and the strange mushroom with whom Althos had nearly made contact before were buffeted back by the energized torrent of magical energy that exploded out of the deity. Aside from the mushroom anyone in the deity''s immediate proximity was knocked off their feet and magically pushed several meters back.


    The tunnel was bathed in soft green light, a light that exploded out of the deity along with the energy his body was expelling. This light illuminated every millimeter of the tunnel for over an entire kilometer, and to mushrooms and other fungi in the part of the tunnel exposed to the rays of light, the light caused a sensation of euphoria and tranquility.


    The mushroom responsible for all of this was knocked back by the powerful magical energy that exploded out of the deity, but its roots secured its position in the wall of the tunnel. So the only part of it that moved was its cap and stem, before returning to their original position like a sort of bulbous punching-bag.


    The mushroom also enjoyed the sensation of the deity''s energy and the power of the light that came out of him.


    This light covered the mushroom and blinded even its non-visual senses to the world around. That didn''t prevent the mushroom from reacting to it though, as the creature reacted to it joyously even as it received its own notification from its own system.


    [Alert: The Fungal Lord has risen and is in close proximity to you. The Fungal Lord is the guardian and deity of all fungi, including extraplanar fungi, shambling fungal, and mobile fungal creatures. He is also a new deity, and was initially modeled after a humanoid but has now transformed and become something else.


    The Fungal Lord is a deity of fungi, curiosity, and memories. He seeks to protect and guide all fungal creatures and wishes to create places that are safe habitats for them to live and thrive in. He is currently roaming the multiverse in search of those he seeks to protect and when he comes across fungi he will approach them, aid them, and protect them. He seeks to bless and guide not just fungi but also druids and clerics of spores and mycelium.


    Do you wish to worship the Fungal Lord?]


    <hr>

 Chapter 42:

    I can feel my brain... being changed. I can somehow sense the system itself modifying my very brain. This is more than just expanding my knowledge. This is a series of modifications to my actual mind and not just my knowledge, isn''t it? To what end? What am I gaining? What am I... losing?


    Are my senses changing? I can... see something.


    <hr>


    Althos quietly and nervously pondered the sorts of changes being made to his own mind and his senses. He nervously wondered what he was gaining as a result of the system taking great pains to modify him.


    One of the last thoughts he had before being overwhelmed by a variety of new sensations was that he could see something new. This was shocking to him because after he began to radiate the intense green light that flooded the tunnel, his vision went black. He had been rendered blind to things other than living creatures, whose outlines he could still see thanks to his powers and the "Detect Souls" spell he had set to be constantly active.


    His new sight revealed things to him, even in the darkness that made up his "vision" at that moment. He could clearly and accurately see fungi throughout the tunnel. Not only could he vividly make out their shapes, even through walls, but he could also see their roots digging into the ground under or around them whether they were in the water of the small river going through the tunnel, or in the very walls of the tunnel.


    He had found this odd at first, but after a few seconds, he found the proximity of fungi relaxing. He felt happy knowing that he was near creatures the new parts of his brain wanted him to view as his children. He rejected that instinct to feel that they were his children or his kin, but being so close to them was helpful while he transitioned into a new state of mind.


    His mind was steadily resisting some of the greater changes the system wanted to impose on his attitude, but subtler new changes, ones that told him to be fond of fungi and to be a bit protective of them, were readily accepted. His perception of himself was unchanged, but his perception of the world was changed a bit. And it wasn''t just his mind that was different.


    <hr>


    Within the bright green light, he was radiating his body was changing. At the moment the deity''s physical form wasn''t changing, but that was because the system was focusing on tackling things one at a time, not rushing through the process.


    The system made a curious decision about what order to tackle its changes in, internal ones first and then external ones. The deity wasn''t able to bleed. If he had been cut before this moment he would have leaked magical energy, energy which he could have manipulated at will.


    Something new was occurring: instead of blood or magical energy flowing through his body, spores were. Spores which responded to his will, and would seek to fulfill it, especially if the deity were ambushed and cut as part of an aggressive attack.


    The deity was effectively being transformed into a deceiver, a fungal creature with the appearance of a humanoid.


    Althos could feel the spores filling his veins. He could feel them flowing through him, and he didn''t hate the alien sensations they made him feel.


    It was after this that the changes to his external form began. These changes were only visible if Althos made the choice to appear in his divine form.


    The first changes were the most obvious. One of them was that mushrooms and other fungi began to appear on his body. A large mushroom spontaneously began to grow out of the top of the creature''s head. It was a tall thing, nearly half a meter tall, complete with a large red cap and green scales.


    It also came into being with its own supply of thick spores that the deity could rain down on those close to him with but a thought, knowledge which sprung into his mind at the same time as the mushroom emerging out of the top of his head.


    Another change to his divine form included the emergence of thick and nearly a quarter of a meter long proboscises, one out of the back of each of his hands. The needle-like appendages weren''t intended to allow him to drink blood from enemies, but to allow him to inject enemies and allies alike with his spores. He was granted instinctual knowledge of the sort of mental commands and physical motions needed to do this.


    His palms mutated from being the solid surfaces they had been, to being gill-like spaces which he could use to fire spores at other creatures, or into nearby soil so that he could speedily and effectively plant spores. Armorlike fungal plating and thick moldy growths spontaneously and rapidly grew to protect the flesh of his body.


    The system then finished its modifications to Althos. The first steps of his transformation into a fungal god were now complete. And seconds later, the green light that radiated out of the deity began to fade.


    <hr>


    The creature that emerged from the radiant green light was clearly Althos, but a very different Althos. Althos'' allies, even the advisors in his mind, were shocked at the deity''s transformation.


    The creature was now an odd fusion of monstrous-looking martial angel and fungal monster. Between the three mushroom caps that sprung out of his body, one of which sprung from the top of his head, the vicious proboscises that had come out of his thick hands while he was radiating green light, and the mold that covered some of his skin, he was definitely a different looking creature than he had been mere seconds ago.


    The mushroom above him, not the one sprouting from his head but the one that was actually above him, was going positively wild. It was bouncing so intensely it looked as if it may somehow free itself from the wall it was rooted too.


    Its roots were going to hold, but the strange lifeform felt... sentient to those who looked at it. Its mysterious behavior was unlike the behavior of any sort of fungus Althos'' followers had ever seen, behavior which consisted of normally just sitting down and absorbing nutrients from wherever they happened to be growing. Not engaging in what was clearly a dance.


    After looking at Althos, they looked at it. They watched its joyous dance, consisting of the creature bouncing rapidly as if enthralled to some alien melody and were unaware that their master was conversing with it. The deity, still absorbing what he could see that he had previously been blind too, was physically silent but was mentally quite vocal. Just not to them.


    Their master was still, calm and undisturbed by the mushroom''s behavior. Althos merely accepted the mushroom''s joy. He was the picture of a stoic deity at that moment, standing in the river, and silently thinking. He was merely reflecting on the mushroom above him and was quietly grateful to it. He swore that he would return soon, but knew that he needed to continue his journey.


    But moments later the deity walked out of the river and began to resume his journey down the tunnel. He mentally reached out to his servants and worshipers and commanded them to follow him.


    <hr>


    After a few minutes of silent traveling, the deity spoke to his followers. He channeled his ability to speak in the universal language of the gods and spoke loud enough that he was heard by everyone at once.


    "I am now the god of fungi. It was sudden, but apparently fungi had been godless for... eons even during the age of gods. I was asked to be their deity and I accepted it."


    Althos paused for a second, thinking about what else he needed to say. He then remembered that his followers were visibly shocked by his appearance, something he noticed when he heard their quickened heartbeats after the green light he radiated faded away.


    "I am not JUST the god of fungi, but it''s the first thing I''m the actual god of so... I guess it had an effect on my appearance? But I think, though I''m unsure, this is just affecting my divine form. If I disguise myself I''m pretty sure I''ll be able to hide my fungal features."


    After he said that he reflected on it for a second. Then he decided to test it. He envisioned his body changing as he took his next step and felt his powers begin to take hold. He willed away his fungal features and concentrated on molding himself a new form, a form modeled after the dark elves he had convinced to become his servants and worshipers.


    The effects of his choice were instantaneous and in the time it took for him to take a step he shifted into a new form. This new form was smaller than his divine form had been, and was modeled quite clearly after Drow the dark elf with oracular abilities.


    Althos'' new form had the same skin tone, hair color, and eye color as the dark elf but with a more masculine upper body and thicker arms. He was also still taller, having lost a few dozen centimeters in height but still being taller than his followers, aside from Raverangos.


    The deity was half nude, wearing no shirt or clothing on his upper body. His lower body was clad in naturally generated clothes, trousers made of fungal fibers, which he could peel off if he ever felt like it. They were nice looking and felt comfortable on the deity''s body.


    His upper body was affected by his influence over the hand to hand subdomain, and due to that, his chest was thickly muscled, causing his female worshipers to feel their faces flush at the unexpectedly attractive form he took on. He quickly sent everyone a new mental message after taking on this strange, yet pleasing to look at form.


    [Well? How do I look? Still all mushroomy? Or am I more conventional-looking now?]


    His followers quickly responded to him, sending him affirmative messages that satisfied him and hinted that at least some of them were themselves satisfied. He ignored the lusty parts of their messages and focused on the journey ahead of them.


    <hr>


    The act of merely exploring the tunnel was enough to empower Althos'' fungal aspects even though at the moment they were not physically present. Massive bioluminescent mushrooms were present throughout the tunnel, mushrooms that eagerly accepted Althos as their lord and guardian within seconds of exposure to his aura.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    Althos'' innate aura of magical energy was now enhanced to be particularly powerful for fungi, capable of spontaneously mutating them and granting them previously unknown levels of awareness and sentience.


    As he passed them these mushrooms would be fully exposed to his aura of fungal superiority which made them subservient to him, while his fondness for mind magic also suffused his aura and benefited any creatures who converted to his worship.


    His mere existence coupled with closeness to them was enough to convert the creatures that humanoids had long viewed as mindless to his worship, and this brought the deity strange, alien joy as he felt his wards readily accept him as their master.


    <hr>


    As Althos neared his fourth mushroom, the mushroom that if it joined him would have been worshiper number ten, he wondered what the experience was like for the vaguely sentient fungi. He was curious about what they must have felt whenever he drew close by.


    The fungi itself had been vaguely excited since the glowing green light had covered its body. Minutes ago, while in the middle of being transformed by the system, Althos had radiated light, a light that filled any fungi who felt it withtremendousenergy and a lot of euphoric joy.


    The mushrooms that had been felt the light had reacted by engaging in intense physical activity, which had universally consisted of the fungi rocking back and forth in delirious delight. They had been overcome by a sense of mania, a mania which included audible hallucinations of Althos calling out to them and asking him to join him. They wanted too. None of the fungi in the tunnel possessed the intelligence needed to wish to resist the deity.


    Other symptoms of this mania included a flood of energy so powerful that to resist the urge to use that energy was unthinkable. This strange flood of energy was what compelled the fungi to move around, shaking, bouncing, and engaging in other physical activities that would have looked odd to any mycologists who observed them, had any been in the tunnel to do so.


    The mushroom Althos was looking at, that he hoped would be his 4th fungal family member, had already accepted Althos as its family member. The mushroom had easily been gripped by Althos'' accidentally inflicted mania. Until that point in time, it had been barely sentient, with a minimal amount of self-awareness, so the incredible power of Althos'' aura had overrun it and suffused its mind without any real challenge at all.


    The fourth mushroom was the last one that had been hit by the light. The mushroom sensed the proximity of its "family member", as Althos approached it. Once his aura was within a few meters of it, the creature began to once again feel the same manic energy it had possessed before. Althos grinned as he watched it begin to move, swaying back and forth slowly but gradually increasing in speed with each step Althos took in its direction.


    Once Althos was within five steps of it, the deity''s aura overwhelmed the fungal creature and the creature was asked something three other mushrooms had been asked as well:


    [Alert: The Fungal Lord has risen and is in close proximity to you. The Fungal Lord is the guardian and deity of all fungi, including extraplanar fungi, shambling fungal, and mobile fungal creatures. He is also a new deity, and was initially modeled after a humanoid but has now transformed and become something else.


    The Fungal Lord is a deity of fungi, curiosity, and memories. He seeks to protect and guide all fungal creatures and wishes to create places that are safe habitats for them to live and thrive in. He is currently roaming the multiverse in search of those he seeks to protect and when he comes across fungi he will approach them, aid them, and protect them. He seeks to bless and guide not just fungi but also druids and clerics of spores and mycelium.


    Do you wish to worship the Fungal Lord?]


    The fungus did its own fungal version of answering in the affirmative, and Althos received a notification of his own.


    [Alert: Congratulations! You''ve just gained your 10th worshiper.


    Your current worshiper count is 10. Here''s a breakdown of your cult in chronological order:


    2 orcs


    1 great frog


    3 dark elves


    4bioluminescent fungi


    None of your followers are mindless, though the fungi were only a bit intelligent before your aura of fungal superiority mixed with your fondness for awakening creatures and created something that doesn''t have a big effect on humanoids but does affect non-humanoids, especially fungi in interesting ways.


    As soon as you will away this notification you will receive an update to your H.U.D. that lets you see the health, status, and powers of your worshipers. Once you gain 50 worshipers you will gain another update that lets you use their powers! So far you can already do anything any of your worshipers can do... if that changes though, then that''ll be awesome.]


    Althos willed the notification away and did see that the system was being forthright with him. He could see a new icon at the top of his vision that contained a stylized image of one of the mushrooms.


    <hr>


    The aura that surrounded him was powerful innately, but the more worshipers he gained the stronger it became. By the time he gained his fourth mushroom worshiper, the aura was strong enough to penetrate the rocky walls that supported the tunnel his party traveled through.


    As the fungal lord, his aura suffused everything around him, enhancing fungal creatures and also enhancing his more mobile servants.


    He was still fairly ignorant about his holistic aura outside of its usages on fungi. What awareness of its effects on humanoids he did have he had because its pleasantness was one of the things that convinced Milene to worship him before she gave him a copy of her mind.


    What he understood, on a basic level at least, was his aura of fungal superiority. Because of his awareness of it, he sought not only the massive, glowing mushrooms but also ones whose roots he could sense through the walls in front of him.


    In time his aura extended far enough to reach them and to begin to infuse even mushrooms in other tunnels, tunnels he hadn''t seen, with his power. That brought a grim grin to Althos'' face.


    <hr>


    One of the areas the green light had shone upon was the lair of the slime demon, which was located in a part of the tunnel deeper than where Althos and his allies were. Though the demon hadn''t been there when the light radiated outward from Althos, the demon had been skulking near the river, its pseudopod pouring pollutants into it and this caused the demon to be touched by the light.


    This radiant energy affected the demon''s thoughts and stability.


    What is that!? This feeling... this light... there''s something... terrifying about this. I... want to run, but where could I go? What can I do? I must... flee!


    This exposure to the radiant energy that Althos had been freely radiating infuriated the creature, who found the feeling of radiant energy disturbing and mind-altering. The demon had felt a bit of fear while the light was touching its gelatinous form but in the aftermath of its exposure to the energy was humiliated and infuriated. It began to crawl down the tunnel in the direction the energy had come from, its mind aflame with rage.


    As the creature began to ooze its way towards Althos and his followers its mind was afflicted with the same rage that burned in every demon''s soul. Normally for ooze demons, such fire was easy to put out temporarily, but after weeks of dwelling within the tunnel and being unafraid of most things, to be randomly hit by such powerful and terrifying energy did affect the being, it shook its mind and relit the burning rage it normally smothered.Wiser demons would have smothered that rage. But this demon? This demon really leaned into it instead.


    I will find whatever was responsible... and when I do? Their end will be long, drawn-out, and cruel.


    Unfortunately for the demon, Althos wouldn''t try to hide from it. And the tunnel was straight. There were no turns for either of them to make that may have caused them to not encounter each other.


    <hr>


    The encounter with the one responsible for the bear''s aggression happened accidentally and was over in a flash. Althos hadn''t known that the demon was approaching until it got within two hundred meters of the deity. The moment it did Althos immediately sensed it.


    Althos sensed the powerful, corruptive energies the demon radiated in an aura around itself. The aura wasn''t entirely unlike Althos'' own mutagenic and transformative aura aside from the fact that the demon''s aura corrupted its surroundings, whereas Althos'' merely changed creatures around him, giving them pleasant sensations and also sharpening their wits.


    The demon was oozing towards Althos, moving at ashockinglyquick pace despite the oddity and effort it took to propel oneself using a pseudopod. The creature was hurtling itself at the deity, eager for blood to satiate the rage that filled it in response to what it felt was a humiliating experience.


    Althos could sense the aura and he was intrigued by it. It took just two minutes for the ooze to cross distance between Althos and his party.


    In looking at it, Althos saw a tiny red blob perhaps a meter across, shaking with rage and energy as it crawled at him and his followers quite rapidly. Althos wondered if he should cut it down, but then remembered that it was a demon.


    Demons are neat. It''d be nice if I tame this one as well.


    Althos'' first familiar was the demon Raverangos. He had grown quite fond of the imposing sentinel demon, and at a glance figured that the ooze demon, a creature his familiar was relatively unfamiliar with, looked intriguing. But the demon made a mistake. It attacked.


    The demon launched a quick attack consisting of firing transforming ooze-pellets at Althos and at Althos'' allies, pellets that came from within itself. A few of its bullet-like pellets sailed at Althos, aimed for the center of his mass, and a few sailed higher, most likely intending to fly over him and drop on his allies.


    The ooze-pellets burst into flames in mid-air and Althos realized that they were an attack. This caused the deity''s eyes to narrow in consternation.


    The encounter ended in the blink of an eye. Althos allowed the pellets aimed at him to hit him, the flames fading away instantly as they did and inflicting no damage to the deity. He defended his allies through a demonstration of quick reflexes, by transforming his left hand into a massive appendage, taller and wider than the rest of his body and using it like a catchers'' mitt to catch the pellets in mid-air.


    The failure of its attack caused the ooze demon to freeze up. Its pellets were powerful, and it wanted to inflict terror on its enemies so it even willed them to burst into flames in mid-air. Its failure stunned it, which led to it being a motionless target for Althos'' counterattack.


    The deity turned his cold gaze onto the ooze demon after successfully repelling its attack. His attitude was quite simple: he wouldn''t intentionally do harm to anyone who didn''t attack him and his allies. But he was no fool. He recognized an attack when he saw one. So he readied his own attack. It was quite simple, a brutal physical assault.


    The deity struck once. That was all it took. He lashed out at the demon using his enlarged left hand to grotesquely smash the demonic entity into the ground and shatter the ooze that made up the creature''s physical form.


    Normally such an attack would have been rendered ineffective due to the liquidy body of the creature. But the single attack caused the body of the demon to be dispersed, as the attack cracked the tunnel that the demon sat on. The attack was so powerful it caused cracks to form in the tunnel and made the formerly level area very unlevel.


    The resulting holes in the floor each had different bits of the demon''s oozy body. Because of this the creature couldn''t reform a large enough mass to hold its soul, and after a few seconds passed the creature''s spirit was silently banished back to the Heart of Darkness, a process Althos didn''t see due to him not yet having removed his limb from the area, but he was made aware of it due to a notification he received.


    [Multi-part alert:


    You have banished the Filth Demon back to the Heart of Darkness. This is the equivalent to killing them, but since they are extraplanars killing them while in the mortal plane is... extremely difficult. Normally when a demon is "slain" in the mortal plane they are instead banished back to the Heart of Darkness. You''ve gained experience!


    Quest update: You''ve dealt with the source of the bear''s aggression! Congratulations! With this if you don''t kill another innocent bear and you complete the rest of the quest''s conditions you will gain the best possible reward.]


    Althos grinned at this and felt satisfied with it. When he removed his enlarged hand from the area, he moved his other hand so as to cast a spell that would cause the tunnel to be repaired.

 Chapter 43:

    In the immediate aftermath of reading the notification that informed him that he had dealt with the source of the bears'' aggression, Althos did several things. First and foremost once he had willed away the notification informing him about the unexpected progress he had made, he used his magic to repair the part of the tunnel he hadcaused to splinterwhile counter-attacking in the wake of the demon''s ineffectual pellets.


    The second thing he did was come to a realization. For the past few hours, the deity had been pondering what to do with the orcs he had made into his servants. He had been struggling with how to get the most use out of them, while also treating them with the same odd kindness he had shown the dark elves. And he had finally come to a realization about how he could do that.


    There''s something... weird about treating the elves differently than I am treating the orcs. It feels like I am unjustly holding the orcs to a different standard than I am holding the elves to. It feels... unlawful. I need to correct that, don''t I? Correcting it... feels lawful.


    The orcs were my first allies here, but I made them into my servants and made choices for them, instead of listening to their counsel. I am also robbing them of chances to grow stronger, aren''t I? The right thing to do, and the most effective way to get the most out of them is to let them determine their own future.


    And by that, I don''t mean what I did before, but actually give them the choice to be away from me... That''s not fun. But I want them to grow... I need them to grow. And they are probably the best tools I have for gaining more orcish worshipers, just like the elves are the best tool I have for gaining elven worshipers.


    So if they want to leave... I need to let them, don''t I? I''d prefer for it to happen after I make them my worshipers, but even if it doesn''t letting them go doesn''t mean freeing them, it just means giving them more freedom than they have under my direct control and command.


    Despite his immaturity, the deity accepted this with a fair amount of grace. He quietly realized it and accepted it in the span of a few moments. He was still as he processed his emotions but he didn''t childishly reject it or pretend it wasn''t the best plan. He knew that it was the best move, and to pretend otherwise would only mean he was hurting himself.


    Part of his acceptance came from the maturity he had gained after absorbing hundreds of years of memories. Part of it came from his own lived experiences. And part of it came from the quiet influence of the domains he had gained influence over. But all of it was his own choice, it was his own maturity that allowed him to make this decision.


    The third thing the deity did in the aftermath of the willing away the notification about him defeating the filth demon was that he began to speak.


    "That thing, that filth demon, was the source of the aggression the bears were showing towards the wolves. In defeating it I''ve moved us towards the final phase of the quest. Which is something I''ll choose to interpret as a sign for us to return to the forest. And by ''us'' I mean the orcs, Silander, the extraplanars, and myself. I have a different task for the dark elves."


    The deity finished speaking and then paused for a moment as he considered what to say next. He wordlessly activated one of his most useful powers: the mind-warping power of the faith domain. He was still for a second, while the power silently swept over his followers, the power itself flowing into his minions and making them more susceptible to his suggestions and influence.


    He also began to gather divine energy and concentrate it on his vocal cords. This strange ability enhanced the effects of his words on those who heard them, and when combined with the faith domain''s corruptive influence, had the power to render a mind and will subservient to Althos. While he was doing this, he was conversing with himself.


    <hr>


    If I truly seek worshipers... this is what I must do, right? Offer them what they desire, all the while making use of my divine powers to make people bend to me. To transform them into my servants and worshipers.


    The dark elves are in possession of the vastest repository of knowledge that I know of. I want them to give it to me. To give me their books, to give me their memories. I want it all. Every spell, every secret, every recipe, every book. I will make it mine. From the secret tomes that exist deep in the city''s ancient temple, to the public storehouses of books that run throughout the heart of the city. It is mine. And I will claim it.


    <hr>


    Althos'' powerful desire for the city of Undermoon came from a specific set of memories. Qu''Ren''s.


    While traveling to the tunnel that if more thoroughly explored would lead to the city of Undermoon, the god had spent many minutes silently recalling Qu''Ren''s life. He carefully explored her memories, and read her knowledge like it was a masterfully written book he couldn''t put down. He learned many of the powerful sorceress'' secrets.


    The time he took to sift throughher life and of her secrets resulting in him vastly increasing his own intelligence and knowledge. Because of her shared knowledge, memories, thoughts, and secrets, he was now equipped with knowledge of potent evocation magic, an appreciation for conjuration magic, and a working knowledge of demonkind that far exceeded Raverangos'' own knowledge of its staggeringly diverse cousins.


    While he was preparing himself to offer her and her fellow dark elves one of the most ancient powers their kind had long sought, he reflected on the secrets and lore he had learned from her. Chief among those secrets that mattered to him at that moment was the secret knowledge of the existence of an ancient cache of tomes that existed in the heart of the ancient temple located at the center of the city of Undermoon.


    Qu''Ren herself hypothesized that these tomes contained mystical secrets she couldn''t even imagine, and she had only recently become aware of their existence.He wanted them. And he''d share them with her, once she handed him the city from which he could begin to build a real religion.


    Qu''Ren''s envisionment of her future inspired Althos, and after learning what he could learn from her he found her to be a powerful tool. One he''d use intelligently, and one he''d turn into a powerful instrument with which he''d make his will known to the dark elves.


    <hr>


    When he resumed speaking his voice was filled with confidence and exuded some divine power.


    "I am tasking the dark elves with a critical mission."


    The dark elves looked elated to hear that news. Excitement was visible in their eyes and the three of them that worshiped Althos looked genuinely excited to hear whatever he was about to say next.


    "I want the city of Undermoon. I want you to make it mine. I will aid you, but as elves, especially as clever and ambitious elves, this is something you are more suited to doing than I am. I want you to use your power, and my power, to make the city the first settlement that serves me. In exchange, once the city is mine, I will give you something truly awe-inspiring. An incredible gift."


    At that moment Althos reflected on the weight of the power he was about to dangle in front of his elven worshipers. He pondered whether or not this was a thing he should do. Because the power he was about to promise them as a reward for carrying out his will was something that had its roots in their history as a species.


    "Elven myth tells of a time in the unbelievably distant past wherein all elves possessed a truly incredible power. A power which some creatures now possess a watered-down version of. A power I can restore in any elf I so chose."


    He said that little bit for clarity aimed to help his non-elvish followers and worshipers understand. He recognized that they were most likely confused and wanted to aid them a bit.


    He silently reflected on the history shared by all elves, while the elves in his party awaited the moment he decided to stop teasing them.


    <hr>


    "True shape-shifting". That was the name of the vestigial trait Althos was looking to restore in his followers. As Althos had been absorbing their memories, he learned why all four of the dark elves had a vestigial trait that was called "True shape-shifting". This powerful ability was one with a long history in elven culture.


    Althos reflected on the memories his worshipers had of being taught elven history. He could recall each of them in schools that taught dark elven children about their innate magical gifts, and the incredible history of their species. He recalled their creation myth.


    The creation myth they shared with their lighter-skinned distant cousins, due to it having taken place before even the most ancient elves were born, a creation myth which remained a part of dark elven education even though dark elves stopped worshiping the gods of the surface elves in the unimaginably distant past.


    In the age before the creation of elves, the gods who''d eventually become the founding members of the pantheon the surface elves worshiped had no set form. They explored the multiverse in a thousand different forms, shape-shifting as freely as Althos could. They were hedonistic creatures who freely cavorted with each other, and with all manner of ancient life.


    One of the results of their thousand dalliances were the first elves. These ancient elves, the ancestors of both surface elves and dark elves, themselves had a base form, a form of deep beauty and of immense power, but they could shape-shift as well as their deific parents could.


    Their parents thought them beautiful and adored them, so they stopped shape-shifting and took on forms of similar beauty and magnificence so they could nurture their children and be their divine guardians.


    Eventually, through thousands of generations, and the creation and downfall of over a dozen elvish empires the elves lost the ability to shape-shift. But somehow, vestiges of the power remained in their genetic code.


    Althos could see those vestiges. He could feel them. He could feed them. He could gift elves with the power to shape-shift as their ancient ancestors could. If he so willed it, any of the elves he knew would instantly regain the power to shape-shift. At this point, it was the finest gift he could give to the dark elves.


    <hr>


    Althos opened his mouth to speak. Nearly half a minute had passed after he first teased them.


    "If you successfully complete this quest, I will restore in you the power of your mightiest ancestors. I will return to you the ability possessed by the first elves; the power to shape-shift. It is the one vestigial trait I left untouched after I first powered you up. I can resurrect it. In all four of you. All it takes for you to regain this most ancient ability is for you to please me."


    When he said this, each of the elves in his presence was visibly stunned. The idea that they could be able to truly shape-shift, just like their ancient ancestors, was overwhelming to them.


    <hr>


    While overwhelmed, the elves were in a daze. Their eyes were distant, envisioning a future where they could be protean creatures, shifting from form to form and living hedonistic existences as their ancestors once had.


    The four elves, even Althos'' non-worshiper, felt powerful emotions flowing through them. They felt excitement at the idea that they might gain a power that would grant them a serious weapon in their constant war with surface elves, they felt surprised that this power remained within them across thousands of generations, and they felt grateful that they served a master who was willing to grant them such a powerful reward.


    Each of the three elves who worshiped Althos felt more determined than ever to be useful servants to their master. Even the fourth, the hold-out, could understand why his peers had been convinced to serve the god if this was a power that was actually within the deity''s grasp.


    <hr>


    "Will you accept this quest?"


    Althos'' voice penetrated the daze the elves were in. They recovered quickly enough from their daze and eagerly nodded at the god.


    Though their specific wording may have differed from dark elf to dark elf, all three of the ones he cared about muttered words of affirmation and acceptance. Their eyes also conveyed different emotions.


    Drow''s eyes revealed a calmness, a certainty, that Althos quite liked. Milene''s eyes revealed an eagerness, a desire to get started on this quest. Qu''Ren''s eyes revealed an intense fanaticism, one no doubt affected by Althos'' usages of his powers on her, coupled with the intensity of the reward he had promised them.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    All three of Althos'' elven worshipers received the same notification.


    [Quest: Convert the city of Undermoon.


    Objectives: Convert the dark elven city of Undermoon into a theocracy controlled by a dark elven high priestess of Althos.


    Reward: The deity Althos will perform a vestigial resurrection on you and enable you to use the ancient elven power to shape-shift.


    Progress (0/9): Convince the high council of Undermoon that Althos exists and is a deity. (0/9)


    Appoint a high priestess to Althos. (0/1)


    Gather the support of the 5 noble houses of Undermoon. (0/5)


    Create and ratify a new city-wide constitution that affirms that Althos and his priestess are the supreme authorities of Undermoon (0/1).


    Convert the temple at the heart of the city to a temple to Althos. (0/1)


    Convince the dark elves of Undermoon that Althos exists and is a deity. (4/25,000.)


    Codify the tenets of Althos'' religion, create at least one annual festival, and oversee a public prayer to Althos. (0/3)


    Gain the service of a witch/ward/warlock, oracle, and dark night. (0/3)


    Perform a public act of ritual sacrifice to Althos. (0/1)


    Secondary objectives (0/3):


    Build up an army dedicated to enacting Althos'' will. This army''s composition does not have to consist solely of dark elves. (0/5,000)


    Build areas in the city for non-dark-elven worshipers of Althos to have homes wherein they can dwell without discrimination. (0/5)


    Create an alliance with another settlement in the world beneath the world in the name of Althos. (0/1)


    Note #1: This is an epic level quest. Completing this quest without the active support of Althos would be a herculean undertaking, though with Althos'' assistance it is instead a task of considerable length, but one that can absolutely be done.


    Note #2: This is a shared quest. All three of the dark elves it is being offered too will be sharing in the quest''s progress.


    Note #3: Upon completion of this quest Althos will have a capital city for his religion in the mortal plane. That will benefit him and his followers.


    Will you accept this quest?]


    All three of the elves to whom the quest was presented and offered, informed the system that they would accept it.


    The fourth, not receiving the notification, knew something was up. But before he could complain, Althos sent him a mental message.


    [Join your fellow dark elves for now. And reflect on the choices you made. I intend to grant you the power to shape-shift as well, but your quest will be different than theirs. For the moment, be silent.]


    Althos'' mental voice made it clear that the deity would accept no complaints from the dark elf. The hurt elf considered disobeying the deity, but then recalled the deity''s statement about intending to grant him the power to shape-shift and his greed returned him to his senses. Mianthus swallowed his pride, and bit his tongue.


    Althos received a notification from the system informing him about the quest,as well as informing him that the elves had accepted the quest.


    Althos looked at the elves. His eyes met theirs one at a time until he had gazed into each of their eyes. He felt satisfied with what he saw in them and nodded at his worshipers.


    He was almost ready to deploy his servants. But before he let them go, the deity had one final thing he needed to do. One final thing to give them. As he moved to inform them about his final investment in them, for now anyway, he reflected on what he knew of the old gods who dominated the world beneath the world.


    He reflected on the pain and misery the dark gods left in their wake. He reflected on their continual clashes with dark elves and other powerful civilizations that inhabited the world beneath the world. He felt their power, their bloodlust, and he keenly felt how their approach weakened them.


    Those thoughts were the thoughts that compelled the following moment of quiet decision making.


    <hr>


    The old gods of the dark elves were powerful creatures. But they were also monstrous beings who tortured everyone, including their servants. They very demonstrably existed, but they were also cruel and they inflicted pain on everyone, even their most faithful.


    I could probably be considered a dark god, but I am not like them. Nor do I want to be. I want to be a god who aids those who seek me out, who answers skeptics with demonstrations of my personal power, and who speaks for myself. I want to acquire my own power, my own secrets, and I want to invest those who seek out wisdom, power, and secrets with power and support and in exchange receive knowledge, secrets, and worship from those I aid.


    I will take a different path than they did. I will invade thoughts and dreams and be a seducer, a quiet whisper that offers temptation, an empowerer, someone people invite in once they''ve got a taste of what I have to offer. And this is the beginning of that.


    The elves came to me because I empowered them. Who else will come to me if I just give them power? I suppose it''s time I begin to find out.


    <hr>


    Althos spoke. His voice retained its divine power and glory, and the effects of the faith domain lingered in the hearts of Althos'' servants and faithful.


    "The key to making this quest something that can be accomplished in months or even in years as opposed to decades or centuries is for you to use my power and for me to be a deity who doesn''t rely on servants but one who is active in the world, who boldly demonstrates his own existence. Because of that, I am granting each of you three a new power. I am granting you the power to call out to me and to try and summon me. This power is... it''s immense. I am a god after all."


    His words did indeed reflect reality, and the weight of that reality made the situation the elves were in feel quite unbelievable. They were being given the power to summon an actual, living god to their side.


    In effect, the squad of dark elves were becoming the most powerful elves in the world. When Althos granted them the power he was telling them, he''d be making them possibly unkillable. It was a moment of considerable gravity.


    Althos fell silent just for a few moments so that the weight of the moment could hit the elves.


    "With this power... you can summon me to key locations across the city and at key times. You can summon me in front of the high council of Undermoon. You can summon me in front of an invading force. You can summon me at dinner with the noble houses. When you report to the high council to explain what happened during this mission that caused you to fail in fulfilling your objective, you can summon me."


    Althos'' final statement caused the elves to begin to sweat. In the drama and intensity of the past few hours, they had forgotten that they had failed in fulfilling an important quest. Admittedly they had inadvertently stumbled across a significant success, but still.


    Dark elven culture wasn''t forgiving. The elves knew that when they reported to the council their best bet would be to immediately summon Althos and have him demonstrate his powers in front of the city''s rulers.


    As the elves were thinking about what sorts of punishments they may have been forced to endure, Althos created a new magic effect. He focused on the dark elves, and envisioned empowering them by giving them the power to call out to him, after which he could warp to them. He envisioned them changing and being made stronger by this.


    To get on Mianthus'' good side and begin to make it easier to convince the elf to worship him, Althos decided to grant him the power to summon him as well. Since Mianthus wasn''t a worshiper of the deity, this wasn''t a "divine magic" effect, it was actually an "alternation magic" effect, which was useful for the deity who hadn''t realized what benefit he''d be getting from the effect when he made the choice to be nice to Mianthus.


    He also granted himself the ability to see what was happening to his worshipers, as an added bonus.


    This power was successfully created within them, due to the power and depth of Althos'' magic, and the deity himself received a surprising notification.


    [New Combined Knowledge Notification Gained: Divine, Alteration, and Oracular Magic.


    Alteration magic is magic that allows users to mutate sentient creatures. This school of magic allows users to modify sentient beings, transforming them and making them stronger or weaker with but enough will and enough magical energy. For a deity, this school of magic is particularly potent and alterations made by deities to living creatures can be passed down to descendants creatures affected by divinely cast alternation spells may have.


    This school of magic is responsible for everything from the dark elves themselves, to werebeasts. The effects of this school of magic are present and visible throughout the planes.


    Masters of alteration magic can transform creatures into mighty heroes, or reduce mighty heroes into the weakest examples of their species. They can mutate creatures and inadvertently spawn new species, or accidentally begin a chain of events that wipe out an entire species.


    Divine magic is the school of magic related to the unique powers of deities. Deities who master this school can more easily create domains, subdomains, and also more rapidly gain influence over sentient creatures. This school of magic is the school of magic that clerics tap into to utilize their magic.


    Deities who are masters of divine magic can empower warlocks, witches, and wards more easily, as well as strengthen and drive their followers.


    Oracular magic is magic related to foresight, seeing, and making sense of the world around you. Scrying spells come from the oracular school of magic.


    Masters of oracular magic are impossible to hide from and can find things that have been hidden from sight with all but the most powerful magic. Oracles and oracular mages can eventually learn to see events in alternative universes and can be some of the greatest spies in the multiverse.


    Spells Known: 0


    Total Spells Gained: Over 120. All of which have been added to your codex. You can now mix and match spell effects from these schools into the spell effects you could previously weave.


    Your ability to use raw magical energy has reached the master level. Once you gain knowledge concerning the final basic school you will have completed the first quest needed to gain mastery over the domain of magic.


    Quest update: You have gained knowledge of 9/10 of the basic schools of magic. You are just a single school away from beginning to unlock the secrets of advanced magic. And you are already stronger and more magically informed than many archmages have been. Congratulations. Keep it up!]


    Once Althos willed away the notification and saw that his followers were reacting to the power he had granted them. Especially Mianthus. After seeing the genuine emotion in the dark elf''s eyes, the deity felt that empowering him that way was the right move. Internally the deity smirked at this, surprised at how easily moved the stoic and capable elf could be.


    The deity looked at his followers and began to speak. His voice was soft yet commanding. He chose that so that he may appear saddened by what he said next, as to reinforce the idea that he was, in his heart, a kind deity.


    "It''s time you go. It is, at last, time for you to return to your families. To your people. Once you''ve been summoned to the council, which will according to your knowledge and memories, not be immediate, summon me. Once I appear I''ll convince them of my existence. But for now, you must go. We will be reunited soon."


    The elves looked at him, a variety of emotions visible in their eyes for a few fleeting moments before they nodded. They quickly gathered their wits about them and began to walk away from their master, with a new and momentous mission to carry out.


    It took about fifteen minutes for the squad of elves to disappear from sight, due to the tunnel beginning to dip downward and them disappearing down its gentle slope.


    Once the elves had vanished from sight, Althos turned to his orcish servants. He cleared his throat to gather their attention, as they still had their eyes trained on where the elves had vanished.


    He had been thinking about what to tell them for the last few minutes. He had finally settled on what to say while he was reading through the combined knowledge notification he had received earlier that day.


    "Orcs... I have given them an impressive mission. And I am going to give you one as well. But yours is of a far more personal nature. I want each of you to think over the course of the rest of the night about what you would like to do. You personally."


    After saying that, he paused for a second. He let them feel the weight of his words.


    "I am offering to let you leave my direct command and control. This is not me offering to free you, but it is me giving you a degree of control over your life again. If you wish, I can use magic to reunite you with your friends. You will continue to serve me, just in different, less direct ways. If you say yes, then early tomorrow morning I will locate your friends, your fellow raiders, and teleport you to them. I am also planning to resurrect your vestigial traits, and will do that regardless of whether or not you stay with me. But once again: this doesn''t free you, it just allows you to serve me more distantly."


    His words washed over the orcs. They froze in shock, never imagining that their master would offer them such a gift. Bazur was the first to speak.


    "But Master... why?"


    He wasn''t complaining, it was more that he was expressing his shock. Althos heard him and he thought that the question made sense even if was a bit vague. He looked to the orc and responded with calmness and politeness.


    "While I was in Infernius, I began to learn about alignments. I learned about the idea of forces of order and equal treatment while I explored Tristan''s mind but I didn''t have time to analyze those ideas until the last few hours. After I absorbed more knowledge from the elves, I learned more about this idea. After thinking about it for a while I realized that I wasn''t treating you and the elves equally. That''s not an act of evil, not in a meaningful way anyway, it''s just an act of self-destruction that holds you all back and in turn, holds me back."


    He went silent for a few moments while he thought about how to finish up this statement.


    "I don''t care if someone considers me evil. But if I act in self-destructive, or harmful ways, then I am hurting myself. And I will not hurt myself."


    He felt satisfied with that. He then looked out at his servants. Their faces revealed different emotions swirling in their minds. He could tell that some were more pleased with what he had said than others, and he wondered which parts of his statements were pleasing to the few orcs who looked satisfied with his explanation.


    One of the few orcs who was truly happy in that moment was Gallow. The rogue had a visible grin etched on his face, and he looked pleased with what Althos had said.


    This surprised Althos, but he didn''t say anything. The deity had begun to quite like the orc, after absorbing a copy of the orc''s knowledge, secrets, thoughts, and memories. Althos hoped that the orc made the choice to stay with him.


    Gallow staying meant that Althos had gained a powerful new ally to venture into Infernius with. An ally who''d be useful in a place like the Tomb of Agowraith.


    But the deity was silent. Instead of saying anything else, the deity merely turned and began to lead his worshipers and allies in the direction they had come from on a trip that had taken almost an hour, so that they could begin the bear hunt and wrap up this quest.


    Within the hour, just under an hour in fact, the group was once again outside of the tunnel and in the clearing which led them into the greater forest. Althos quietly wondered how long it''d take for this quest to be all wrapped up, while mentally scanning his radar to detect the closest bears he could find.

 Chapter 44:

    As the party Althos had gathered walked down the tunnel, on their way to what to their second and possibly last hunt as a large party, the party''s members quietly thought about Althos as a person.


    As they thought about Althos as an individual their adaptability was on full display. Though to Althos the orcs had been with him the majority of his life, the orcs were all in their 30s. They had been with the deity for about two days, yet they accepted his power, accepted his divinity, and two of their members even became his worshippers!


    Their lives had changed an astounding amount and their ability to adapt to those changes and be successful in their new environments was a testament to their will. They weren''t the sort to be mentally broken by the lunacy that came with being a species whose culture revolved around something as simple as strength.


    Althos was beginning to develop a bit of a personality. He was growing, steadily, in his own peculiar way. His party members actually cut him some slack for lacking a defined personality for two reasons. The first reason was that the deity was honest and he had informed them of his divinity.


    The second reason his followers cut him some slack was because of his youth. He was a remarkably young creature. Very literally days old. And given that, his growth was positively incredible. He was on the cusp of completing two entire quests! And he had actually completed a quest already, the first quest he undertook to be able to begin the campaign to conquer and unify Infernius. The quest that granted him the power to control soul orbs.


    One of the things that inevitably came with developing a personality was theemergence of habits. One of Althos'' habits was related to the long stretches wherein the deity would be silent. While silent the deity wasn''t lazing away but was actually taking time to review memories, secrets, knowledge, and thoughts that weren''t originally his.


    <hr>


    Althos was the "deity of fungi", due to a deal that had been offered to him by the system, but that wasn''t what the deity himself wanted to be the "deity of". He wanted to be the "deity of knowledge" in all of its diverse forms. And he was setting about to actively make this the case by acquiring knowledge in all of its forms through interactions with the world, and through the acquisition of other people''s knowledge.


    One of the ways the deity was steadily going about acquiring knowledge was that he required his worshipers to give him a copy of their minds, copies which contained all of their memories, secrets, knowledge, and thoughts, this had given him a fair base of knowledge that wasn''t originally his. One of the ways he could be moved to help even non-worshipers of his was if they gave him permission to copy their knowledge, thoughts, memories, and secrets.


    The last source of knowledge that was in his brain that wasn''t his was the knowledge he had been provided with by the system. A very significant chunk of this was knowledge pertaining to fungi, but even that knowledge was extraordinary and eye-opening in its own way.


    As a result of this, the deity had collected an impressive amount of these things over the course of his incredibly short life. He now had centuries worth of knowledge, a very significant portion of which was due to the dark elves who worshiped him, despite being days old. But the truth was that a lot of his more interesting knowledge came to him from the surface-dwelling creatures who worshiped him, and Amelie the goblin whose freedom he had secured and whose worship he had earned from the ambitious creatures.


    As he strode towards the exit of the tunnel, his mind was filled with thoughts related to the sorts of memories and knowledge he had acquired. A lot of this was directed towards the diversity of life he had become aware of but had yet to meet.


    So there are creatures like trolls and ogres both above and below ground huh? I''d quite like to secure some of their tribes as worshipers and servants. It''s a shame that since I''m so close to finishing the first quest I really should be getting back to Infernius once it''s done...


    Fungi have some really incredible diversity. Not just fungal humanoids but fungal monsters and beasts exist as well... That''s amazing! And in a rare few cases, I can even get those creatures ambiently by training and empowering smaller, less mobile fungi. How neat!


    Dragons and giants... I suppose those are the strongest common mortal species huh? It''s difficult to imagine species as diverse and as ambiently powerful as dragons or giants being commonplace. Especially in comparison to the animals and humanoids who''ve been the vast majority of creatures I''ve met so far, most of whom have been fairly weak.


    The young deity''s mind was filled with thoughts like these as he ventured closer and closer to the surface. Behind him, the orcs were thinking about their strange master and whether or not they felt like staying with him or going out into the wider world once again. It wasn''t an easy choice to make, for all but one of the orcs.


    Each step they took brought them closer and closer to exiting the tunnel and once again being in the surface world. It would take them another few minutes to eventually reach the tunnel''s exit and entrance.


    <hr>


    Moments after stepping out of the tunnel Althos quickly checked his radar.


    Performing his mental examination of the strange update to his HUD just took the deity wanting to know what the useful power was picking up. When he did that actively instead of idly scanning the smaller form of the power, what he could see was changed.


    It went from being whatever was in front of him, in his field of view so to speak, to suddenly transforming into a static image depicting a "bird''s eye view" of the region the deity was in, centered on the clearing but also showing the forest that completely surrounded him.


    At that particular moment in time what the static image mostly showed him were trees. Being in a forest, even in a clearing, meant that there was an abundance of trees on all sides of him. But what was revealed to him was more than just a seemingly endless sea of trees.


    Althos could "see" dots within, or perhaps on top of the sea of trees. He could see "dots" that were a variety of colors. Lots of the dots were green, though those green dots often appeared to be within or very close to the blue dots.


    Something that caught Althos'' eye was that there was a single green dot in motion. It stood out against a sea of fairly static dots. On the radar this was one of the green dots surrounded by blue dots, but Althos very distinctly noticed that this dot was in motion, traveling in a fairly slow circle. Althos made a mental note to investigate it later.


    Many of the dots, a sea of them in fact, were blue. Of these blue dots, only a single one of them was moving. And it was approaching Althos. Alongside a handful of bright, angry-looking, red dots.


    When Althos first wished to learn what the colors meant he received a helpful notification since it was the first time he was fully activating his radar power.


    [New Divine Power Explanation: Radar.


    This is a handy power that allows gods to gain an awareness of their surroundings more readily than through failable senses like vision.


    The colored dots that makeup parts of the radar are living creatures. Green dots are creatures with ties to a god''s domains, in Althos'' case, this presently means fungi. The red dots are enemies, creatures who are aggressive and seek to hurt the person looking at the radar. The blue dots are living creatures who are not automatically hostile.


    It is possible to focus on the radar and reveal more information than merely how many living creatures are nearby. If the radar is focused on, then the species of any living creatures within the radar''s range will be revealed. This has limits though. If the creatures are of a species that is unknown to Althos, then Althos won''t be able to identify them at a glance, and the "species" section of the revealed information will be marked "???".


    In a place like a forest, a place filled with living creatures, extra modifications will be made to aid in the process of understanding the radar. A specific modification that will occur in this situation if the radar is focused on is that it will become a 3D model as opposed to being a static 2D image depicting Althos'' surroundings in Althos'' mind.


    The radar operates in real-time so as dots move across the visible portions of the radar that means that they are actually in motion.


    Cost: N/A, always active.]


    This was surprising and extremely educational to Althos. He decided to try that and focused on the radar. The notification''s knowledge proved immediately handy, as the image of the surrounding area''s geography immediately changed.


    Rather than a static image depicting a bird''s eye view of the region he was in, what he could see was suddenly transformed. Now the deity saw a scaled, largely pink, 3D model of the surrounding area.


    This visual transformation took the deity into another "new location" and instead of being able to look in a circle like he could previously, all he could see if he tried to "turn around" in this space was a void of infinite darkness around him. He tried to see if he could "see" anything else by spinning. Nothing new was shown to the deity who mentally chided himself for wasting his own time.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    Once he finished looking around himself he focused and began to look straight ahead, straight at the 3D model.


    The 3D model was infinitely superior to the static image. It allowed Althos to make sense of things like distance, motion, and also identified the creatures that were coming at him, most of whom were represented by red dots. Above the red dots, Althos looked at their species and noticed that they were members of the same species. A species Althos was familiar with: "forest bear (corrupted)".


    This snapped Althos out of the semi-daze he was in from having learned so much in such a short time and having spent so much time focused on the radar. The deity immediately willed the power to deactivate. His power deactivated without a fight, responding to his will and intention, and immediately upon the deity being able to see his allies again he began to speak.


    When he spoke his voice carried a sense of urgency and seriousness that it didn''t always contain, causing his allies to take it seriously.


    "Listen up everyone. Ready yourselves. We''ve got company coming from within the forest. Bears... a lot of them. And they''re coming fast. There should be a total of ten of them coming at us, within minutes."


    The party heard this and they immediately reacted, tensing up and mentally preparing for battle.


    Normally that would have been enough to put the deity at ease, but then the deity received a notification that alarmed him.


    [Emergency Alert And Quest Update:


    The bears you are about to encounter are only 9 of the remaining 11 corrupted bears. The final two bears are gigantic dire bears who were among the last to be corrupted by the filth demon. The filth demon had a special power in place and in play just in case it was defeated and since it fell at your... well your hand, the power is active and controlling the bears.


    The two dire bears are heading in a different direction. They were heading towards the wolves who gave you the quest. If either of the wolves dies, you fall the quest.


    These are worrying circumstances. As such if you complete the quest optimally, you will receive an extra boost to your reward. Go forth Althos. Save the wolves. Free the forest of the terror the bears have inflicted!]


    Althos began to hiss in annoyance as he read through the notification. This sudden change angered the deity and made him feel like the system was changing the rules to force him to take a more direct role than he would have liked. He turned to look at his allies, and then again began to speak.


    "I''ve just gotten more information from the system. The wolves who first gave me this quest are in danger. I''m going to move to intercept their would-be attackers, two ''dire-bears'' who are, like the bears approaching us, enthralled to a powerful ability that the demon I defeated earlier had in place just in case someone defeated it. I will provide you with some assistants and guards, and I will have you be in place here to stop these bears."


    Althos thought for a second and then added some more to what he had just said.


    "Kill any bears who come charging at you. If they lunge at you, strike them down and stay safe."


    Althos hesitated when saying that last part, but ultimately thought it was necessary. Given his frustration, he was willing to sacrifice the bonus to his reward that may have come with killing an uncorrupted bear, if that was what it took to complete the quest. He wanted his followers to have no hesitation and felt comfortable with the idea of them using this opportunity to gain experience.


    Before anyone had any time to object to Althos'' commands he wordlessly cast a necromantic spell that created three short but barrel-chest ghouls, who were created using shadow stuff.


    The orcs were shocked to see the three grim creatures seem to step out of the gloom of the night, and because of that when Althos began to move they didn''t have a chance to speak out. The deity quietly vanished as he activated the same sort of power he had used to escape from Infernius hours ago.


    While he was vanishing, Althos mentally reached out to the ghouls and gave them his commands. They were simple commands but he hoped that the ghouls would be able to fulfill them.


    [Protect the orcs and kill any hostile bears who approach. If necessary keep the bears distracted long enough for me to handle the dire bears and return back here.]


    In response to his commands, the three ghouls rose their hands as one and let loose a single terrifying roar, a roar which emanated across the clearing right in time for the bears to break out of the wooded part of the forest.


    Althos vanished just moments before the bears made it through the edge of the wooded part of the forest, having been just too late to catch a glimpse of their quarry.


    The bears were confused for a moment since they knew that they should have been able to see Althos when they burst out of the forest, but their confusion lasted just an instant. They quickly fell victim to the ability used by the ghouls and redirected their rage at them instead of at Althos.


    <hr>


    Moments before the bears fell victim to the taunting roar of the trio of ghouls, within the forest itself:


    Outside of the tunnel that led into the world beneath the world, there was considerable commotion occurring within the forest. The sounds of forest soil being trodded over, the sounds of grunts of fatigue and exhaustion, and the sounds of bear paws smashing into the ground to propel bears at high speeds could be heard throughout the forest. Ten bears trampled forest undergrowth beneath their weighty paws as they dashed through the forest.


    Some odd force was compelling nine bears forward, all of whom were the corrupted and aggressive bears that Althos had yet to hunt down. The corrupted and aggressive bears were filled with an undeniable rage, a rage that urged them towards an unclear destination. All they knew was the basic direction their rage compelled them to go in.


    They ignored everything else, all but one of their minds consumed by anger and vicious hate. The final bear was scared of the larger, more powerful creatures and had merely begun running with them so as to avoid provoking them, hoping that joining them would be enough to secure her own safety. So far her plan had worked, the bears quietly accepted her due to the rage that possessed them informing them that the only thing of any importance was arriving at an unknown destination.


    The enraged bear''s had bared their teeth, and their claws were covered in dried blood that made their natural armaments more fearsome, as they angrily crashed through the forest in search of the cause of the incredible rage that filled them. An ability was affecting those of them that were enraged and it was what drove them towards their destination.


    [Ability Description: Rage Of The Banished


    This is a "revenge" type of ability. "Revenge" type abilities a rare sort of power that can only activate in response to some massive failure. In this case, the ability is set to activate whenever the ability user is defeated.


    Its activation infects anyone under the influence of ability user with incredible, unshakable rage and directs them to attack the source(s) of the defeat of the ability user, including any quest-givers whose quests targeted the ability user.


    "Under the influence" is a vague term that can include anyone ensorcelled by the ability user, anyone corrupted by them, or anyone possessed by them.


    Cost: 1000 magical energy when activated.


    Notes: In the case of a quest leading to the defeat of the ability user especially if the quest directly required the defeat of the ability-user, this ability prioritizes the quest-giver. But what "prioritizes" means in this context depends on a variety of variables. In some cases, this can mean sending the strongest creature "under the influence" of the ability user towards the quest giver, and in other cases, it can mean sending a swarm of creatures towards the quest giver.]


    Within a few minutes, the area surrounding the tunnel was home to an explosion of noise as the bears explode out of the forest. The sight that greeted them confused them, as Althos was where their rage was aimed but they emerged in time moments after the deity vanished. Instead, they were greeted by the ghouls the deity had just created and commanded and the rest of his party.


    The ghouls, having heard Althos'' command and intended to fulfill it, activated an ability of their own. In unison, the three creatures opened their teeth-filled maws and from within them erupted a disruptive, rage-inducing roar. The ghouls had just used a skill to taunt the bears!


    The bears reacted by roaring back and charging at the orcs and their ghoulish guardians. Their rage had been successfully redirected. Now all that remained was for the creatures to successfully slay the bears.


    <hr>


    Two positively gigantic bears with bright red fur crashed through the forest. They surged forth like a force of nature, snapping and destroying any trees unlucky enough to be between them and their prey. Their maws were large enough to swallow lesser bears whole, and their paws were the sizes of the branches of the trees they crashed through in their mindless rage.


    Unlike their fellows, they were raging through the forest in a direction that led them deeper into it, instead of towards the clearing. Their rage was guiding them towards the river that delineated where bear territory ended and where wolf territory began.


    Each step they took brought them closer and closer to the area where they would find the source of the rage that infected their minds and filled them with a desire to engage in brutal violence.


    <hr>


    In the span of a single second Althos teleported from the clearing to the river''s shore where he had first met the wolves who gave him the quest over an entire day ago.


    The teleportation process was an instantaneous one that to the deity merely felt like he was just taking a single step. It was an odd sensation since in an instant his surroundings transformed from the lovely clearing to the separately but still, beautiful mini shoreline that caressed the river were Althos first met his wolven allies.


    Althos took a second to orient himself with the area he was in for the first time in over a day and a half. He started off by ceasing his movement and silencing himself. Because of his stillness and silence, he could hear loud noises approaching him from the half of the forest that belonged to the bears.


    The noises were still faint, but a quick scan of the radar revealed to Althos that the sources of the sounds were the dire bears, as he had feared. They were close, not terribly close but still close.


    Althos turned to look in the general direction of the noises, and his incredible vision allowed him to see distant trees over 150 meters away that trembled as a result of some gigantic force closeby.


    Althos considered heading towards the source of the sounds to directly and immediately confronting the bears, but after thinking about it realized that he should make contact with the wolves and confirm their conditions before rushing to battle.


    Althos once again checked his radar to try and ascertain where the wolves were located. With a fairly quick glance, the deity noticed that wolves were deeper in the half of the forest that belonged to the wolves and Althos was thankful that they weren''t close by, in danger of being attacked in the immediate future.


    He turned around, facing away from the river and rushed into the half of the forest he had been born in, to try and see how his lupine allies were faring. As he began to bound in their direction he shifted back into the human form he wore so that they may recognize him when they saw him.


    He was used to shapeshifting at this point and the process had become something he could do quite casually, He felt his body shift and his muscles creak and move as to give him the appearance of a conventional human druid, not of a handsome and muscular dark elf.

 Compiled Species Knowledge Notifications Through Chapter 44 (Not A Chapter)

    Orb Angel:


    Orb angels are fairly low-ranking and low-level servitors of the gods. They are part of a sort of "super-species" of creatures known as "Angels" who as a whole have devoted their existence to serving the gods.


    Though angels differ from type to type, orb angels are useful but fairly weak, so much so that they are literally the least physically powerful angels, servants who serve and aid gods and who can be summoned without considerable difficulty by faithful mortals. Some types of gods have forces composed of almost exclusively orb angels.


    Their primary functions are reconnaissance, espionage, and data-gathering. They possess the ability to defend themselves, but their defensive capabilities are weak in comparison to their other abilities so they don''t do well as warriors or assassins.


    Orb angels tend to be seen favorably by gods of knowledge, politics, espionage, and exploration. When they are left without gods to serve they tend to serve higher level and higher-ranking angels as scouts, spies, and note-takers.


    When left to their own devices they tend to be research topics related to the gods and they tend to congregate near holy sites.


    Interestingly enough they are not the most common angel type, despite being the least physically powerful.


    Theoretically, it could be possible for an orb angel to evolve into another type of angel, but the biggest factor in determining angelic evolution is the will of the angels themselves. Unlike nearly every other kind of creature that can evolve, if an orb angel can evolve what sort of angel they evolve into depends on their divine master.


    Common House Mouse:


    Mice are tiny rodents, who can be found in the wild or in communities of humanoids. Mice can be useful to the right kinds of humanoids in a variety of ways so there are plenty of people who have begun to carefully and deliberately breed mice.


    Mice are common familiars for spell-casters and for spy-masters who use magic to remotely infiltrate enemy strongholds or capital cities. Mice are also easily mutatable, possessing a small body and a creative genetic code that can easily be altered by skilled scientists, flesh-shapers, and others with an interest in genetics, templates, and mutations.


    When awakened mice can evolve into fascinating humanoid creatures including but not limited to mice-people and werehumanoids, animals that can transform into humanoid form. When left unawakened mice can evolve into greater rodents such as psionic or elemental rodents.


    Orc:


    Orcs are waring humanoids fond of battle and bloodshed. They are incredibly adaptable and can mutate spontaneously, unlike most other humanoids.


    Orcs are just a bit bigger than humans, are at least as skilled in both hunting and forging metal weapons, armor, and tools. Though orcs can farm, they prefer to engage in bloody action and combat to secure food. They are one of the few humanoids considered to be "civilized" by some while also engaging in the consumption of both other kinds of humanoids and their own kind.


    In the distant past, orcs were taught that only battle and bloodshed matters by their ancient deities, including the long-forgotten creator of all orcs. As a species this is a belief they took to heart and maintain to this day, though plenty of exceptions to this grandest of rules exist.


    Orcs can be primitive or civilized. They can be kind and considerate or brutal and degenerate. They can be the best of neighbors or brutal and subjugative tyrants. But most are brutal, war-mongering creatures.


    Entire tribes of orcs have been conscripted into the armies of powerful dark lords in the past, and they have served dark overlords, ranging from powerful witches and warlocks to martially gifted warlords eagerly, even slavishly. Many orcs yearn for that once again: to be united in service to a powerful and brutal lord of shadows who unifies their species and throws them into battle against the forces of justice.


    Orcs can be evolved or "devolved" depending on a variety of circumstances which is one of the reasons why they are sought out by cruel warlords who seek to use them as part of grand, conquering armies.


    Physically overwhelming orcs can be forcibly "devolved" into less intelligent but more physically powerful creatures, particularly ogres, whereas smarter or more ruthless orcs can be evolved into a range of brutal humanoids from the half-orc half-extraplanar monsters known as Dark-Drinkers to the more conventional elemental and magical variants that commonly exist across most creatures that are capable of evolution.


    Sentinel Demon:


    Sentinel demons are a physically imposing sort of demon with a unique connection to the plane known as the Heart of Darkness.


    These demons tend to be less intelligent than many of their fellow demons yet they possess an innate connection to their home plane that allows them to call upon the plane to mark their enemies, mark territory, and even change the way layers of the plane look. They are the uncelebrated architects of cities within the Heart of Darkness.


    These dim-witted demons aren''t especially hard for chaotic evil creatures to get along with, provided they are allowed chances to inflict violence on other creatures and can eat the corpses of their prey, despite it being unnecessary for them to do so. They are well-suited to work as guardians or as hunters.


    Sentinel demons tend to be solitary creatures and though a large number of them exist, as they are lesser in power than other "intermediate" demons, their territory within their home dimension tends to be isolated.


    Sentinel demons can evolve into other forms of demons. What they evolve into depends in large part on what sort of personalities they had and what sort of harm they liked to inflict while living as Sentinel demons. Like all other extraplanars, not all Sentinel demons want to evolve or see the purpose of evolving. Sentinels who see no purpose in evolution for a long enough time gain the "true" template, marking them as members of their species who are embodiments of Sentinel demonhood.


    Brutal, sexual sentinel demons can become unusually cruel incubi or succubi, bestial sentinel demons can become a variety of brutal demonic predators such as vulture demons, bear-like Korachtures, or demon dogs.


    Magically oriented sentinel demons can become filth demons or other variations of more common types of demons. Sentinel demons who used armor and/or weapons can become more brutal, warlike types of demons from individually powerful champions to teamwork-oriented raiders who operate best in roving packs.


    Poisonous Subterranean Frog:


    PSF''s are a common type of frog found in forests and other temperate environments.


    These are toxic frogs with the ability to poison and paralyze other living creatures who try to prey on them. These are also somewhat common familiars used by spell-slingers of all sorts and even magically inclined assassins. As a species, the PSFs appear to be the product of artificial selection.


    These are poisonous frogs who spend significant portions of their lives underground. Like the Common House Mouse, they have separate evolutionary paths depending on whether or not they are awakened prior to their evolution.


    Awakened PSFs as a whole tend to walk the great frog evolutionary path. The great frog path leads to a variety of humanoid forms, some of whom are nearly indistinguishable from humans but with natural abilities related to poison.


    Unawakened PSFs as a whole have access to a wider variety of evolutionary paths, most of which take multiple evolutions before they can become even remotely humanoid in shape. That said there''s plenty of diversity in this path, including access to incredibly poisonous forms of frog, forms of frog that are well-suited to life underground, and that are capable of demonstrating magical or psionic powers.


    Great Frogs:


    Rare evolutions to a wide variety of frogs, great frogs are the evolved versions of frogs who were awakened and thus made more humanoid in their thinking and habits.


    These creatures are almost universally familiars to druids or spell-slingers fascinated by poison.


    Great Frogs possess a variety of powers related to poison and toxins. They can be trained into skilled assassins or adept healers who can offer skilled treatment related to poisons.


    Great Frogs can serve as skillful gladiators or as handy aides to rangers.


    They can evolve into a range of humanoid creatures with abilities related to poisons and who can handle lesser frogs.


    Tree Wolves:


    Tree wolves are a rare sort of evolved wolf that is well suited to life in forests. They are adept climbers, capable of limited bursts of wind magic, and have intelligence that is similar to an awakened lesser wolf.


    These wolves are physically weaker than other evolutions accessible to wolves, but their flexibility and natural skill within their arboreal domains are second to none.


    These wolves tend to get along well with druids and other appreciators of nature. They can often act as stewards of a forest and can aid humanoids who treat them with respect.


    Tree wolves are evolved from grey wolves. Grey wolves can evolve into a variety of lupine beasts if left unawakened. When awakened they can evolve into Cu-Siths, creatures which are a cross between humanoids and wolves, or they can evolve into werehumanoids like awakened mice can.


    Tree wolves are one of the few animals that, under the right circumstances can begin to evolve into nature spirits. Otherwise, tree wolves begin to evolve into true elemental animals, creatures in the shape of animals but who are composed of elements.


    Forest Bears:


    Forest bears are large predators who lurk in forests and who hunt down all sorts of forest life. They are one of the few predators in non-magical forests who hunt down other predators as much as they hunt down prey.


    They are thickly muscled creatures who are difficult to kill in one on one battles. Even trained guards and professional soldiers can lose a fight to a forest bear if they don''t take it seriously.


    Forest bears are easily influenced by magic and often serve greater forest spirits as either awakened guardians or as charmed cannon fodder.


    Awakened forest bears evolve into berserkers, a rare form of humanoid who possesses the power to invoke a bear''s strength into their physical might. They look like orcs, but are generally considerably more passive and less predatory than orcs are unless they are continually attacked by other humanoids.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    Unawakened bears tend to become bigger, more monstrous creatures as opposed to becoming a different sort of bear, which is rare among animals. Creatures that evolve from bears tend to be overwhelmingly large creatures with powerful jaws and natural armor. It''s not uncommon for humanoids to track bears and eliminate ones that are nearing evolution when they come across them, so as to prevent them from evolving into dangerous and wild monsters.


    True Devils:


    True-devils are a powerful species of devils, inhabitants of the dark plane known as Infernius. Devils can take on a multitude of forms, and most are not "true-devils". So-called "true-devils" are unique creatures who have powerful abilities, including the ability to command devils who exist along the traditional "hierarchy of Infernius".


    Any and all arch-devils are true-devils. But not all true-devils are arch-devils, in fact at any one time, the maximum number of arch-devils capable of existing is a mere 9. True devils are incapable of evolving, as they are the final form of devils.


    Each true devil has unique powers and abilities that are decided upon by their souls. A true devil is the penultimate devilish authority and every single true devil has at least a few devilish followers. The only devils higher up than true-devils are the various members of devilish nobility who rule out of massive devilish palaces, attended by devils of all sorts. At the top of the hierarchy of devilish nobility, are the powerhouses known as the archdevils.


    Imps:


    Imps represent the second-lowest rung on the ladder that is the devilish hierarchy, occupying a position significantly higher than that of a mere soul-orb. They are ambitious, craven creatures with attitudes that make it clear they desire to be near power.


    Physically they represent a strange mixture between humanoids with odd skin tones and winged scorpions. They have the tail and wings of a winged humanoid while their basic body shape is that of a weirdly colored human.


    They have legitimate magical power, but it''s not good enough for the creatures to defend themselves from greater creatures, so they tend to teach magic-users in mortal worlds about basic magic and serve them as errand-doers, while steadily pulling them towards legal evil.


    Imps are the first real devils. They are significantly above soul-orbs in terms of power and potential. Eventually, an imp could proceed all the way up the normal hierarchy of devils and end up at the top rung of that particular ladder as a Vizier devil, Infernius''s greatest standard devilish inhabitants, but under normal circumstances, such an ascension could take tens of thousands of years.


    Other evolutionary pathways exist, including an imp choosing to become a "true imp" and therefore staying an imp forever but gaining considerable power and influence within the impish community, or imps becoming variant creatures of other sorts when sufficiently mutated.


    Half-Devils:


    To call half-devils a species is tricky but for the purpose of codifying them they will be classified as such. Half-devils are creatures who have a fiendish parent and a non-fiendish parent. Their powers and appearance are dependent on their parents.


    Half-devils tend to be dark creatures, who are fanatically loyal to the hierarchy of Infernius and upon their deaths many of them become devils themselves. Particularly powerful half-devils instantly become the same type of devil as their devilish parent, which is thought to be the origin of assorted scary stories in mortal worlds that warn children not to indiscriminately murder supposedly evil creatures. Half-demons also exist, and there are a multitude of different kinds of "half"-extraplanars.


    Half-devils lean strongly towards classes that enable them to influence others, and thus many of them are spell-singers, clerics, paladins, and politicians. Not all of them are evil so some become great heroes, but devils who come across uncorrupted half-devils take great pains to corrupt them.


    Half-devils tend to be the most effective ambassadors from Infernius to the mortal worlds. Some of the more powerful half-devils are children of the ancient arch-devils, unaging ambassadors busy on distant worlds, schmoozing with kings, presidents, and other world leaders to lead them to corruption and Infernius. These half-devils have overcome mortality and owe their unending existences to a variety of sources.


    Half-devils are among the few creatures who can''t evolve. In exchange for that their bodies are well-suited to immortality and becoming immortal for them is far easier than it is for humans or other types of humanoids.


    Floating Skulls:


    Floating skulls are secretary-like undead creatures that float alongside and provide aid to either dungeon lords or skilled necromancers.


    These are evolutionarily dead undead that exists to perform administration tasks that other undead are not suited to doing. These undead beings are capable of performing a variety of tasks that are useful for self-care or for doing tasks that other creatures may find boring.


    These creatures are magically capable of flight, speech, and even basic creation or teleportation if their masters are sufficiently powerful. They can activate traps, speak on behalf of their masters, or even "attack" on their own, though they are useless as fighters since their attacks pass harmlessly through any creatures they fight. In exchange for that most attacks harmlessly pass through them as well.


    The secret to the creation and near invulnerability of these odd creatures is that they are a mixture of construct and undead, not pure undead beings like skeletons, or pure constructs like golems.


    Soul-Orbs:


    Soul orbs are the weakest and dumbest creatures on the infernal hierarchy. These incorporeal creatures are the purest remains of bits of evil souls that have been melted down and reformed.


    They are the only sort of devil that can naturally evolve into the next rung on the devilish hierarchy though they can also be automatically promoted to higher rungs along the infernal hierarchy by sufficiently powerful true-devils or arch-devils.


    These orbs are barely alive and automatically obey commands issued by any true-devil. They are generally used as promotion fodder to create more advanced devils or are used as surprisingly powerful bombs by wicked true-devils.


    To command one, it merely takes a true-devil willing it to attempt a task. Many devilish dungeons demand the ability to command soul-orbs to even enter, which is why throughout infernius devilish dungeons remain inhabited and unlooted.


    Soul orbs are capable of exploding and depending on the sort of explosion may be able to force themselves to reform, but oftentimes the explosion''s effects are permanent.


    Soul orbs are one of the few types of extraplanar that can be awakened. Unlike other awakenable creatures, the evolutionary pathways accessible to soul orbs are not influenced by whether or not they are awakened.


    Mummies:


    Mummies are somewhere between lesser and greater undead, existing in a weird sort of intermediate state between two power levels.


    Mummies are undead creatures who when they are found as actual existent beings are the corpses of former nobility possessed by greed and hate so powerful it clings to a sort of unlife.


    But oftentimes mummies found in the wild are the result of leftover greed slowly coalescing into an unholy and nightmarish monster capable of inflicting dreadful wounds that cause those hit by them to bleed humility and happiness instead of blood.


    Mummies possess powerful claws that can easily tear apart metal armor. Real ones made from corpses could often inflict curses on enemies that were easy for evil creatures to shrug off but harder for good creatures to resist.


    Mummies can be created magically and oftentimes they are found as magical creatures composed of shadow stuff and not actual, physical creatures.


    Dark Unicorn:


    Dark unicorns are a demonic corruption of powerful celestial creatures known to mortals as Unicorns. Their celestial counterparts are famous for their kindness, dignity, mercy, and hope, but Dark unicorns are lustful creatures who are the dark embodiments of the fury at the heart of a stampede and the belligerent pride of a mighty lion. Their horns are potent magical items that can be used as part of deadly magical rituals or as the foundation of sinister weapons. That said acquiring a Dark unicorn''s horn is a foolhardy task as the Dark unicorn will fight hunters seeking their horns to the death.


    Dark unicorns can be made to serve wholly evil creatures as steeds or even as prized pets but will refuse to serve anyone else, even deities. Dark unicorns are brutal slave traders who can lure in a variety of creatures using their majestic appearances and then stunning them with a variety of powers so that they can be contained, restrained, and sold into slavery.


    Dark unicorns evolve into fiends, what sort of fiend depends specifically on their alignment and age. Dark unicorns are among the only creatures who can evolve into the creatures who predate modern demons, but clash with demons in the deeper, darker layers of the Heart of Darkness. This makes them prized by those ancient, dark creatures who seek to ensure that they evolve into the demon''s ancestors.


    Dark Elves:


    Dark Elves are corrupt and powerful Elves who live in underground cities and in the ancient past worshiped powerful lords of darkness.


    In the ancient past, Dark Elves lived in communities with institutions that upheld sinister matriarchies where women had absolute control. Now, even without the backing of mighty lords of darkness women continue to be the more dominant sex but things are considerably more egalitarian and it is possible for men to be deemed equals in smaller communities of the hedonistic creatures.


    Dark Elven communities are built on the backs of other, physically mightier creatures who the Dark Elves lord over, through usages of their impressive magic. Their willing allies include gigantic and darkly beautiful arthropods and a variety of species they created through orgiastic breeding experiments that included forcing humanoids and animals alike to breed with demons.


    Given Dark Elves'' proclivity to worship and serve lords of darkness it''s possible there is an Althos shaped hole in Dark Elven society that might be worth attempting to fill. But if that is an objective you decide to pursue it''s important to remember that as a species Dark Elves are ambitious, bloodthirsty, and zealous beings who equate power and violence. Their worship would be dark, violent, and sinful, and gaining their worship would likely require many acts of darkness.


    If Dark Elves are made to evolve they most likely would evolve into a range of hybrids that combine the power and aesthetics of dark elves with the power of the monsters lurking in the World Beneath the World. Mating between the two is possible and has resulted in a range of successful hybrids like driders and a range of beautiful yet impossibly cruel monsters.


    Goblins:


    Goblins are among the smallest and cruelest humanoids people commonly encounter. They are dangerous, bloodthirsty pests and very few, very remote tribes still worship idols and totems. This makes them one of the few sapient creatures to cling to faith.


    Most goblins though have begun to modernize, bit by bit, and have joined greater civilizations as members of a sort of servitor caste. Many goblins have forgotten about their bloodthirsty roots but retain their cruelty in new and often innovate ways.


    Goblins are one of the few "super-species" that can be found in many mortal worlds. Goblins evolve into fiercer, larger vaguely goblin-like creatures if they live long enough and gain enough experience to do so. The larger creatures they evolve into are powerful and domineering, but they are thankfully rare.


    Goblins who live in "nondiscriminatory" communities of humanoids are closely watched and encouraged to not gain the experience needed to evolve. If they evolve anyway they are often chased out of the communities they were once welcome in, which gives them cause to tap into their innately aggressive and domineering attitudes.


    Filth Demon:


    Filth demons are corruptive and mutative oozes who can shape-shift and are fond of corrupting nature as well as ruining social bonds. They are skilled but deeply troubling creatures who can pollute water, devour crops, and generally make life worse for humanoids and animals alike.


    These cruel critters delight in ruining nature and in doing things that turn creatures, families, and friends on each other. Their abilities are often specialized in that direction, not just actively ruining nature with their poisons but inciting betrayal and violence among those who were exposed to their toxins.


    Filth demons can evolve into a range of more sly demons. They can easily become the humanoid-demons known as succubi or the equally humanoid but more forthright incubi. They can become the temptation demons known as the Cabras, demons whose forms resemble a mixture between humanoids and goats. They can also become more social but monstrous-looking demons, or even demons specializing in poisons and in the destruction of structures depending on how they affected the world around them.


    Bioluminescent Mushrooms:


    These gigantic fungi are a standard and common form of fungal life encountered throughout the World Beneath the World. They are especially common in entrances to and exits from the World Beneath the World where they are planted to lure surface dwellers into the darkness of the W.B.T.W.


    These are pretty standard massive fungi. Their purpose is to light up and they do spectacularly.


    Some of these mushrooms can defend themselves by spraying things with invasive spores that can penetrate the skin and grow into a mutant variant of the standard mushrooms while killing whatever wandered too close, but a range of creatures in the W.B.T.W. have skin that can''t be penetrated by the spores.


    The most often unintentional way that spores of bioluminescent mushrooms reach new places is when the mushrooms are high up in a cave or tunnel and release spores onto people who don''t see them. Those spores can be taken for kilometers on the clothing of whoever they hit, before flying off of them due to a breeze and landing in new, fertile soil or on a newly deceased corpse to feed on.


    These creatures don''t commonly evolve, but they can evolve. It''s just not common for them to do so, due to their stationary nature. The few bioluminescent mushrooms that manage to evolve, evolve into outstanding fungal creatures. Most standard fungi who can pull off an evolution evolve into truly spectacular things.


    Most bioluminescent mushrooms that pull off an evolution evolve into fungal folks, fungi who superficially resemble humanoids and who are capable of creating weapons, tools, and social societies that are eerily and deceptively similar to those of humanoids. If under the command of a malign intellect this could become a deadly trap that results in these fungal societies rapidly expanding.


    Sometimes bioluminescent mushrooms evolve into other, more aggressive fungal forms such as gigantic, walking fungi, who can feed on living creatures and corpses alike to increase in biomass and produce kilograms of spores.


    Perhaps most rarely of all the glowing mushrooms evolve into unusual animal forms, like spiders, scorpions, birds, or fish and gain access to new places to plant spores. These new forms most often appear whenever an intelligent takes control of the bioluminescent mushroom and commands it to behave in a particular way.

 Chapter 45:

    Althos pushed himself harder than he had ever pushed himself before while sprinting through the forest to reach the location of the wolves. He could hear the impressively speedy dire-bears behind him, tearing apart the forest in a mad and cacophonous dash to escape the narrow confines of the trees and sprint to their final objective.


    Althos'' two feet carried him swiftly through the forest, to a part of it he had never been in before, and as he passed by countless trees to cross the vast distance between himself and the wolves he wanted to protect he found himself mesmerized by the blurring of the trees that he dashed past.


    In his vision, due to him being unused to his own speedy capabilities, the trees seemed to blend together to create a constant, swirling background of blended wood and leaves that the deity found quite beautiful, as well as disorienting.


    Behind him, he could hear the faint sounds of the destruction the gigantic bears caused while going after the wolves. He could hear their massive bodies decimating trees and wrecking chunks of the forest. He could feel the faintest echoes of the vibrations they caused with each of their weighty footsteps.


    As he practically flew through the forest it started to become difficult for him to hear the bears, even though they were enormously loud beasts. This was a good sign, and it made the deity breath a sigh of relief. He was nearing the wolves as well.


    He sprinted through the forest, his feet and his stellar senses working in concert to allow him to evade obstacles that would cause him to fall or otherwise slow him down. Within seconds he had traversed dozens of meters and was considerably closer to his intended destination than he had been before.


    <hr>


    Nearly a minute had passed before Althos reached the location his divine radar had informed him the wolves were located. Upon reaching the area, Althos began a short search for the arboreal lupines that ended when he looked up a tree and found the pair of beasts very literally looking down on him. The deity grinned at them and examined them from a distance, for but a moment.


    The silver-furred wolves had easily climbed a massive tree and were parked atop a thick branch. Theirmahogany-colored eyes were filled with relief at the sight of the familiar deity, and the wolves did the lupine version of a grin. Their tails were wagging as well, revealing both happiness and agitation.


    Althos reached out to both wolves using his mind, so as to spare anyone the effort that it would take to speak loudly enough to be heard over the considerable distance that separated them.


    [Hey, can you hear me?]


    His initial message was a simple greeting and a quick question. Moments later both wolves responded in the affirmative, making use of the mental rope the deity had thrown them. Althos quickly crafted another question, and as he crafted it he was annoyed to hear the sounds of distant trees crashing as if solely to remind him of the danger the wolves were in.


    [Are you okay? The bears didn''t already reach you just for you to somehow escape, did they?]


    The male wolf quickly responded, filling in Althos on the details he felt he needed to know.


    [We''re fine, and we fled before they got anywhere close to us. Our systems informed us that you had banished a filth demon back to its home plane and that an ability had been triggered as a result of that. We were told that we were being hunted, but not by what so we fled. That was when we got a followup notification that you were on your way, so we climbed this tree to wait for you.]


    Althos nodded in understanding once he had read through the entire message. The deity quickly thought about what else he needed to tell the wolves, but he felt that there was relatively little they ought to be informed about. He sent one final message and then turned to head out to confront the creatures who were annihilating the forest.


    [Alright, I''m on my way to exterminate the dire bears and then I''m gonna go help my servants with the other bears.]


    Moments after he sent that message and had already begun to move, one of the wolves howled suddenly, manipulating the wind so as to slow Althos'' movements before he could teleport to where the bears were.


    [WAIT! Did you say dire bears? Althos if you are saying that dire bears are targeting us, please find a way to stop them without killing them. Dire bears in this forest are the treasured children of a powerful spirit and a massive bear who protects these lands from humans. If you can find a way to stop them without killing them that''d go a long way towards restoring the peaceful state of this area and ensuring we can remake the treaty that divided this forest evenly.]


    Althos heard this and hissed in irritation.


    [Sorry! But it''s true. Please... find a way to solve this without killing them. Not necessarily without violence, but without killing the dire bears.]


    This last message was sent by the female wolf. It was one of the first messages she had sent the deity. Althos made a strange noise, a sound like that of a mushroom''s roots digging into the ground, and turned to teleport to where the bears were. Right as he vanished he sent the wolves a message.


    [If I can I''ll solve this without killing the dire bears.]


    Althos intentionally made this sound more difficult than it probably would be by willing his mental voice to sound frustrated and concerned. He had deceived the wolves, letting them think he was a druid and not a deity and to keep that up it would take a commitment to his deception, including pretending to find things that mortals would find difficult, difficult.


    He recognized that stopping the bears without killing them would probably have been fairly simple, and now that he possessed a real knowledge base with which to compare himself to mortals he could even imagine ways to do it. His mind was already working out a few different strategies, even as he activated his teleportation power and moved to where he suspected the bears were located.


    <hr>


    The orcs, Raverangos, and Silander watched as the ghouls their master had created leaped into the fray. The creatures, made of shadow stuff, were every bit as fearless as actual corpse-made ghouls were in combat and shortly after roaring at the bears they rushed at them. The two groups crashed into each other quite dramatically.


    The ghouls made use of their well-hidden strength, striking at the bears with gruesome claws and closed fists. The bears charged forward, trying to use both fangs and claws to toss the ghouls aside, but the ghouls'' speed gave them a necessary leg-up to survive the initial exchange of blows unscathed.


    After realizing how shortly that would last if left unaided, Raverangos roared and charged towards the brawl. The creature ran on all fours and threw its full weight at one of the bears waiting to get a chance to claw at the ghouls. The demon weighed several tons, even more than the bear did and its titanic mass pummeling the bear pulverized its puny body.


    The bear was thrown several meters away from its companions, sailing and flipping through the air before landing upside down in a tangle of broken bones and ruptured organs, thankfully numb to the pain it would otherwise feel due to shock. In its mindless rage, the waring creature futilely tried to right itself but spent a few moments unable to do so, until bloodloss made the creature lose consciousness. It was unconscious when it passed away moments later.


    Raverangos roared at the bears, turning the attention of a handful of them away from the ghouls, and towards itself instead. The massive demon grinned savagely at the bears who suddenly turned away from the fight with the ghouls and almost immediately charged at the demon, who had killed one of their own in a single titanic strike.


    <hr>


    [Quest update: 2/12 hyper-aggressive bears eliminated.]


    Althos received and willed away that notification with a smile after but a passing glance at it. Perhaps a few minutes had passed since the bears had approached the ghouls. Althos felt a bit of concern over his less physically imposing servants, but he knew that he''d be done with his part of the battle quickly. All it''d take was for the deity to break the ability that held the dire bears in its grip. And then he could return to his allies and aid them or heal them as need be.


    As Althos began to dash towards the bears, shortly after teleporting to a location further back in the forest, he checked the status of his familiars and worshipers. Right as Althos checked Gallow and Ranthor had just entered combat, and as he checked the status of his familiars he found that all of them were entering the fray as well, aside from Raverangos whose status was currently listed as "Fighting" and showed that the demon was fully engaged in battle.


    This spurred the deity on, and so did the intensifying sounds that came as the deity closed the distance between himself and the massive bears he was rushing towards. Within seconds he saw a gigantic tree topple over, and the creature responsible for toppling it.


    The beast he could see at the edge of his vision, hundreds of meters away, was a veritable mountain of dark red fur, with rage-filled eyes the same color as its coat. The beast roared, the sound explosive, and charged at Althos. Althos could see another massive mountain of fur behind it, who quickly joined what Althos now had reason to believe was its sibling.


    Althos grinned and within seconds the three creatures had nearly closed the distance that separated them.


    <hr>


    Silander carefully watched the battle while clinging low to the ground. The great frog was walking on all fours for the first time since she had been awakened, and due to her flexibility, she was able to reduce her visibility by a significant amount.


    She carefully crawled along the ground and within moments was daringly close to the battlefield where creatures that were positively enormous compared to her freely fought. On more than one occasion one of the bears had nearly spotted her, only for the bear to be attacked by one of her bigger allies.


    Silander was carefully observing the battlefield, looking for an opportunity to somehow attack or otherwise weaken the enemies her allies were fighting a perilous battle against. After she had spent several moments watching the battle, she noticed an odd bear.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    This bear was closer to the back of the disorganized pack but was carefully avoiding the battle. It seemingly refused to lunge at any particular opponent and only making threatening gestures at anyone who approached it.


    Silander knew her allies would have noticed this if they had been free to take their time to watch the battle. She was the only one whose actions weren''t especially active.


    Salifinos was carefully using magic to aid the orcs, and Tristan and the soul-orbs were in the back of the battle, using magic to heal or cheer on the orcs. Tristan, in particular, was doing a considerable amount of work to make it easier for her allies to endure the intensity of this battle where each of them were facing off against massive, enraged enemies.


    Her magic cured her allies of minor, often annoying wounds, that occurred when they weren''t able to fully escape a charge or evade a biting attack. The priestess was even capable of healing and empowering Althos'' ghouls, who kept nearly 5 of the bears busy while the demon confronted several others at once. This gave Gallow and Ranthor real opportunities to stay busy, weakening their targets.


    Within a minute of intense clashing another bear had fallen, just as Silander dared to make a bold move that would fully change the balance of the fight if successfully. She was close to and undetected by the strange bear who had yet to strike. She spoke, making use of her animal speech ability for the very first time.


    "Are you different from the other bears?"


    Her voice quietly drifted through the chaotic battlefield but was heard quite clearly by the bear. The terrified creature became aware of the great frog''s presence in that moment. The bear frantically turned to her, with eyes that contained a lot of fear and a tiny glimmer of hope.


    "Yes. I am."


    The bear''s voice was guttural but quiet, and Silander could hear the deep fear the bear felt. This made Silander think on her feet, about how to help her fellow animal while also aiding her comrades. After a few moments, she realized that there was no need to be complex in addressing this. She locked eyes with the bear and spoke again. Her advice was simple.


    "Run. I''ll make sure my allies don''t chase you down. Run far and run fast."


    Silander''s voice was in that moment empowered by her own belief in herself, and by her desire to be useful. Her eyes peered straight into those of the bear and the bear saw the conviction Silander had. The bear did a soft nod, and Silander leaped out of the way. The bear began to dash past her, trampling the area where the great frog had just been.


    Silander sent an urgent message to her allies using the mental connection her master had previously established that linked everyone.


    [Don''t attack the bear that''s fleeing! It wasn''t enraged, just scared. Let it go free. Focus on taking down the actual enemies.]


    Immediately after sending that message out, Silander felt her belief in herself grow. She turned to one of the few bears that was locked in a one on one fight, a silver-furred beast that was fighting the orcish brawler named Anthus and moved to go aid her companion.


    She readied another of her new powers, one of the mighty traits resurrected by her master, her potentially potent elemental breath weapon.


    <hr>


    When the distance between the bears and Althos had closed, the deity leaped over a powerful claw attack launched by one of the gigantic dire bears who had struck the instant the distance between them was less than a meter apart. Its claws missed the deity and instead smashed into the ground where the deity had just been. The force of its attack carved through the soil underneath the god.


    Up close the creatures must have been nearly 5 and a half meters tall without rearing back on their hind legs, and almost 4 meters wide. They were easily among the largest creatures Althos had ever seen.


    As Althos leaped over the attack he looked at the bears, before landing behind them. Neither side wasted any time reacting to the other, and Althos readied a spell even as both bears rushed him.


    He channeled the restorative energy of the healing school of magic in both of his hands, willing one spell to be cast twice, and hoped that the spell would end the encounter as quickly as it had the potential to.


    <hr>


    Ranthor carefully aimed one of his arrows at a bear locked in a struggle against one of the ghouls.


    He took a deep breath, focused his vision, and felt it zoom in on the bear he was aiming at. The powerful telescopic vision ability his master had resurrected within him was granting him a certainty over where his arrow would end, and once he felt certain that the ghoul wouldn''t suddenly move and get in the way, the orc released the arrow.


    The arrow sliced through the air, twirling beautifully in the night''s sky. It crossed a distance of several meters, whizzing harmlessly past the ghoul and sinking into the center of the bear''s eye. The bear roared in agony, being sent back by the force of the orcish arrow even as blood sprayed out from its eye.


    The ghoul didn''t let this advantage fade away without pressing it and threw itself forward at the damaged bear. Before the bear could react the ghoul was dangerously close to the soft-meat of the beast''s neck.


    It sunk its vicious and bladelike teeth into the bear''s neck and then yanked on the flesh it''s daggerlike incisors had caught onto. The ghoul''s teeth tore apart a significant portion of the soft flesh of the bear''s neck, along with a mouthful of fur. The ghoul spent a moment chewing the skin and fur alike, before swallowing it in plain view of the bear.


    The bear took a few steps back, before collapsing. The bear''s blood had splattered the ground where the beast walked, and it was going to spend its last few moments twitching as its blood continued to ooze out of its destroyed eye and torn open throat.


    3 of the bears who had attacked the orcs were now dead, and one had fled. Five remained.


    The ghoul didn''t waste any time celebrating its victory. Instead, it turned and leaped into combat with another bear, who now had the unenviable fate of facing two vicious ghouls.


    <hr>


    As a deity, Althos didn''t have a heart but if he did it would have been pounding as he unleashed the spell in his hands on the two bears whose jaws were wide open and zeroing in on him. The deity''s "Freedom of Mind" spell exploded outward and rushed towards the bears, promising to free their minds from the effects of the enraging spell that currently plagued them once it made contact with their bodies.


    [Spell Type: Healing


    Spell Name: Freedom of Mind


    Description: Undoes powerful mind-altering magic. This spell''s whole purpose is to free the mind from spells that alter perception, implant false emotions, and deceive the mind.


    Spell cost: 2000 magical energy per cast]


    The spell was nearly invisible as it was expelled out of the deity and had someone tried to see it all they would have seen were two bursts of translucent magical energy ripple through the air until they made contact with the bears and sink into their bodies. It quickly hit them since the distance between the three creatures was virtually nonexistent.


    Once inside of them, the spell began a battle to free the bears from the control and influence of the rage-fueling curse that urged them to slay those they perceived as their enemies: Althos and the wolves.


    Sensing the magic impact the bears, but also realizing that the bears weren''t going to recover in time to not hit him, the deity instinctually teleported out of the way, landing a few meters away from the bears as the two bears hit each other and collapsed into unmoving piles that ended up right next to each other.


    The deity looked at the bears to check in on them and found that they were unconscious, but as he checked their statuses he saw the following information:


    [Name: Ripper Bloodmoon


    Class: Forest Nobility


    Species & Status: Dire-Bear (Unconscious, liberated)


    Faction: Son Of Dread Bloodmoon]


    [Name: Mauler Bloodmoon


    Class: Forest Nobility


    Species & Status: Dire-Bear (Unconscious, liberated)


    Faction: Son of Dread Bloodmoon]


    He also received a quick notification that informed him of a pleasant surprise. He grinned as he read it and learned of an unexpected heroine.


    [Congratulations! The quest is nearly complete and in your decision to pursue the best possible options with regards to handling the various conflicts till now you''ve earned a special reward. It will be given to you once you speak with the wolves again.


    Regarding the lone uncorrupted bear: Silander''s timely intervention and decision to reach out to the lone non-corrupted bear who was dragged into the fighting is also a factor that will affect and influence the reward you receive. The quest now has another slightly positive modification: if you eliminate the remaining bears, or if you pacify them, the quest will be officially complete. To receive the reward please speak to the wolves once more. That will be when you "turn in" the quest and receive your reward.]


    Althos willed the notification away and teleported to the battlefield wherein his allies were fighting.


    <hr>


    Althos emerged onto the battlefield, impressed with what he saw.


    He saw multiple bear corpses, and his servants, worshipers, and allies all fighting their hardest.


    The brawlers were engaged in intense fights with large bears and for a second Althos considered letting them finish just to see where everyone ended up. But then he changed his mind, as he was feeling particularly impatient and wanted to just turn in this quest and be done with it, at last.


    The deity wordlessly cast a powerful paralysis spell, one of the many spells he had gained as a consequence of learning about the alteration school of magic. The spell consumed the entire battlefield and spread out in a circle centered on the deity, at the speed of sound. An unavoidable, powerful, totally unresistable spell.


    The entire chaotic field of battle, a place where moments ago a variety of sounds could be heard, fell silent. All around Althos warriors and bears fell to the ground, some in mid-air and in mid-strike.


    Even spells that had been sailing through the air, to heal friends and to pester foes, merely fizzled out of existence in the wake of the powerful spell Althos had cast.


    After checking that everyone was down, Althos silently created and cast a fusion of magical effects. He expelled a burst of powerful restorative energy that not only healed any wounds anyone in the area felt but also freed their minds of effects that charmed them, enraged them, or otherwise suppressed their free-will. The deity had just freed them from the grips of the filth demon''s final trick, and in doing so successfully completed the quest!


    He verified this with his own eyes, taking time to check the statuses of each of the living bears. Within a few minutes, he had checked and then double-checked the statuses of the bears. He had successfully freed each of them from the filth demon''s ability.


    The deity grinned. The expression on his face was one of a sort of delirious joy. He was in the throes of powerful, positive emotions as he reflected on the fact that he had successfully completed the very first quest he had ever received.


    The first time the deity spoke to his followers upon returning to the battlefield what he had to say was fairly simple.


    "Let''s go turn in this quest!"


    He took a few moments to magically transport his allies to where the wolves were laired. He did this by touching their shoulders, transporting them two by two, using an alteration magical effect rather than using any spell.


    He transported himself and Silander last while thanking her for her work and courage in approaching the lone bear and getting her to leave the fight. He recognized the bravery and kindness she showed at that moment and wanted her to know that he appreciated her.


    In the instant during which Althos and Silander were teleporting, Althos received a surprising notification.


    [Special Alert:


    New title acquired: The Honorable Liberator


    New title acquired: The Mercurial Alpha


    Your unusual actions and choices in clearing this quest have earned you two new titles rather than one. Bears will know you as "The Honorable Liberator" since you fought against them but once you learned you could liberate them you did. Wolves will know you as "The Mercurial Alpha" since you fought against their foes, killing some, while also healing others.


    It''s possible for these titles to change over time and based on your actions in the future. Wolves and bears will recognize you as a superior creature and be submissive towards you, though this alone doesn''t guarantee their worship. That said, making them worship you is now significantly easier]


    Althos audibly chuckled as he willed away this notification. Once he had done that, he was in front of the tree where he had first encountered the wolves.


    The wolves were now on the surface, looking at his followers. They recognized some of the deity''s servants and didn''t recognize others, but they weren''t hostile. They could most likely sense Althos'' scent on his allies. When they saw the deity the wolves bounded forward, excited to see their friend in one piece.


    Althos grinned at them and was quite happy to see them as well.

 Chapter 46:

    Althos may have happily grinned as the pair of wolves bounded towards him, but internally he wasn''t as excited as he felt he ought to have been at that moment. While the wolves approached him, the deity prepared to "turn in" the very first quest he had ever gotten. He reflected on the knowledge of what came next in a surprisingly melancholy way.


    And so with this, my final immediate responsibility to this world fades away doesn''t it? I mean... I''ll be back, I still have a so much to do here, but this was the final pressing task I needed to complete. What comes next? Is all that''s left here me uniting the orcs who chose to leave with their friends and then taking everyone else back? Back into the tomb of Agowraith? What waits for us... deep in that darkness?


    When the wolves bounded to a stop in front of him, he began to speak to them. He hid the melancholic emotions he was feeling and the dark thoughts he brooded on, instead choosing to keep his smile firmly visible.


    "It''s good to see you, friends. I successfully stopped and freed the dire-bears from the influence of the one responsible for all of this. I also subdued the ordinary bears who hadn''t already fallen at the hands of my allies. I believe with this peace may yet return to this area. What do you think?"


    Althos spoke to the wolves in their own tongue, his words coming across as a combination of barks, yips, and whimpers to his less linguistic allies. They watched him with a curious gaze and once he finished speaking to the wolves, their gazes fell to the wolves. They were clearly waiting to see if the wolves responded in kind, but they suspected that they would.


    One of the wolves, the smaller of the two immediately responded in the same tongue, and despite the fact that she spoke in her native, lupine language, the humanoids and extraplanars in her presencefelt that her tone was eager, energetic, joyful even. Though none of them understood what she was saying so they couldn''t be sure.


    "It''s over... And judging from the fact that what you said reflects what our systems told us, I suppose we owe you an incredible debt."


    Her words carried with them a heavy emotion. A palpable joy and legitimate relief that only came when someone truly believed that a dire emergency had passed. Deep, positive emotions.


    The other wolf moved forward and also began to speak.


    "This forest is a safer place because of what you did. Everything and everyone in this forest owes you a debt. They may not realize it, because the danger wasn''t yet in their territory, but what you did saved... well hundreds of lives."


    He had a deeper and quieter voice than his mate. He spoke slowly and deliberately. Similar to his mate, there was a deep emotion that could be heard in his voice, a powerful emotion that translated somewhat loosely even to those who didn''t understand the animal''s language of barks, whines, and yips.


    Althos'' companions watched the exchange with abject curiosity, and as they did so they were reminded that the creature they had joined up with was unlike anything or anyone else they had ever met.


    <hr>


    The scene before the party was a constant reminder of the absurdity of the deity who had entered and subsequently changed their lives over the course of the last few days. Their master, the creature who in many cases had almost ended their lives with but a handful of strikes, was an odd entity. A living deity. A creature who could speak with plants, fungi, animals, and extradimensional beings as easily as he could speak with any of the orcs who had joined him.


    As their master openly conversed with wolves, each member of the party silently reflected on the sorts of adventures they may one day reflect on if they decided to continue to live with and serve the deity. Though the exact imagery that sprung to each of their minds differed from party member to party member, each of them effortlessly conjured incredible images.


    Some of them envisioned diving deep into dark and dangerous oceans to either subjugate or slay massive ocean beasts. Others envisioned going into rain-forests and coming across lost tribes of amphibious humanoids and convincing them to praise Althos.


    Some imagined the sort of exaggerated imagery that came with thoughts of the other planes, they imagined themselves and Althos clashing with demons, devils, and celestials alike. They pictured Althos, Tristan, and Ravernagos leading groups of assorted creatures and coordinating to successfully counter an advancing horde of demonic horrors.


    They could imagine Althos on a battle field swinging a powerful sword, to parry the blow of a mighty Fey warrior. Or Gallow on an infernal plain going toe to toe with a fearsome beast from the depths of Infernius, while Althos holds back a crowd of devilish warriors with potent magic.


    Althos had taken them on an adventure that brought them face to face with two mighty creatures born of demonic hate and they were still alive. With him, they had met dark elves, and they had become unusual comrades of those same mighty magical people. They had faced down a pack of bears and lived to tell the tale while aided by ghouls the deity had conjured specifically to help them.


    The orcs had come to understand that being with Althos could mean a life of adventures and of impossible magic. It could mean a life of impossible myth-making adventures, and eventually maybe even an immortal existence, years from now.


    The orcs wondered what life with the deity would be like if just two days had been this wild. They wondered what sort of wonders awaited anyone who dared to stay with the young deity. They wondered what Infernius would be like, what sort of horrors lurked in the so-called "Tomb of Agowraith" that had yet to be discovered.


    They were divided as they considered what to do, and how to react to Althos'' offer to gain some illusion of control over their lives again after even the events of the past few hours.


    <hr>


    Althos and the wolves had fallen silent. At that moment the young deity received a new and lengthy notification.


    [Quest Complete.


    You have successfully handled the aggressive bears, located and dealt with the source of the corruption, and you even turned an emergency on its head to rescue powerful and lesser bears alike from the grips of a malicious ability used by an even more malicious creature. To call this a success is an understatement. You have truly earned every one of the rewards you''re getting.


    Rewards acquired:


    Progress towards the Animal sub-domain. You have aided 2 communities of animals with your actions here. To be able to exert the lowest tier of influence over the Animal sub-domain you must awaken and otherwise befriend a variety of animals.


    Experience towards the Friend of Nature power. Due to the way you handled that quest, the system is awarding you half of the experience necessary to level up this power to its next level, which makes animals even friendlier towards you and greatly improves your chances of being approached by non-awakened animals who seek to become your familiars.


    The special reward is still being decided. You will receive another notification when it has been decided.]


    Althos willed the notification away, with a smile on his face. Then he spoke again.


    "I am all too happy to be of assistance to you and the inhabitants of this forest."


    There was a sincerity in Althos'' voice that surprised the wolves. He followed it up by revealing a secret that he hadn''t revealed to the wolves, but mixed that secret with a hint of deception.


    "I was born here. In this forest. I am happy to be here again. Unfortunately, I can''t stay long but I am happy that my presence here can change this place for the better."


    The wolves were shocked to hear him reveal that this forest was where his life began. It was true, even if his particular wording was intentionally deceptive. Althos wasn''t born. He merely sprung to life in the forest, a few kilometers from where he and the wolves stood at that moment.


    There was another moment of honesty hidden in Althos'' statement. He was telling the truth when he revealed that he was happy to change the forest for the better. But there were darker intentions to the emotions that Althos felt. Darker intentions the deity was keenly aware of, but that he willfully kept hidden from others.


    This forest is more than where my life began. It''s home to a variety of lifeforms, many of which would make useful allies or servants one day. Fungi, wolves, bears, goblins, and other creatures call this place home. One day, when I have the proper domains under my influence, I''ll return here. I''ll make this forest mine. No one here may worship me now, but eventually, they will. Until then I''ve just got to be patient. Looking like a saint or a hero is just useful.


    At that moment the deity''s inner thoughts revealed a lot of what he had learned from the memories and thoughts he had absorbed while in this world, completing the quest the wolves had asked him to do.


    They revealed his patience which was a gift he had gained while absorbing elven memories, his understanding of what humanoids considered to be acts of kindness of compassion which he learned from Amelie''s memories of exploring the settlements of humanoids, and his new ability to truly scheme, a gift he had gained after learning from Gallow''s memories.


    The deity was a skilled actor, which was in and of itself due to a mixture of his innately high charisma as a deity, and the various memories he had absorbed of his worshippers acting to get out of various situations. He had learned from those who served him, and he would use that knowledge freely. It was such knowledge that informed his decisions to be deceptive and to keep his thoughts to himself.


    <hr>


    The deity did several small acts while chatting with the wolves. One of them was willing away the spell that conjured and animated the ghouls he had conjured to aid his followers. He did this because he didn''t feel like dealing with anyone who may have come across the carnage of the battle just to see ghouls standing alone in the desolate clearing, blood dripping from their claws and fangs.


    This had an unexpected effect, which Althos was alerted too when the spell was prematurely undone by the deity himself.


    [Alert!


    Your minions observed the battle, even in the midst of enduring enemy attacks. Because of this, they have memories, and their memories will be automatically transferred to you. Please stand by while this transference happens.]


    The deity practiced self-control and discipline when he was hit, seconds after willing away the notification, by the memories of his necromantic creations. The sensation of receiving new memories in this particular way was pleasurable, unlike the way he normally made copies of someone''s mind and gained their memories that way.


    It felt like someone was softly stroking his mind, and it took him exercising restraint to not let anyone know of the pleasure he felt at that moment.


    At this point, Althos was idly chatting with the wolves and so he had the mental breathing room to relax and play through the memories the ghouls had of their fight with the bears, as well as what they could see of what the orcs were up too during this time. The deity took advantage of this to lapse in the action to mentally unwind and play through what memories were in the minds of the ghouls.


    The memories themselves were quite fascinating. They showed a chaotic battlefield, while also highlighting key moments of the fight. One of the most distinct memories any of the ghouls had was of a thick arrow that sailed by the head of one of the ghouls and embedded itself deep in the eyes of one of the bears.


    Another distinct memory was that of the orcish brawlers learning from Raverangos and throwing themselves at the bears, something that when they did it lacked the same explosive power, but didn''t lack the grit, determination, or nerves of steel needed to do something as bold as charging at fully-grown bears.


    The orcs were still able to produce results with such gritty actions, as they wore heavy metal armor and had toned physiques that were capable of executing incredible acts of physicality. The bears who were subjected to their armed tackles were knocked back and the few seconds such techniques gave the party were useful for the magicians in the back of the battle whose supporting magic empowered allies and treated wounds.


    After assessing the memories for a few minutes the deity came to the conclusion that the memories the ghouls had of the orc''s fight against the bears were more exciting than the ones Althos had of his encounter and in that regard, he felt a bit jealous of his allies.


    The deity cleverly suspected that the orcs wouldn''t have liked fighting against the dire bears though. And that thought brought a wicked smile to the deity''s face.


    <hr>


    The deity and the wolves conversed for nearly half an hour. The deity learned from them though most of what they said related to local gossip.


    The actual main thing the deity learned from them he learned by paying attention to more than just their words. He studied their bodies, paid careful attention to the ways their muscles operated, and diligently took mental notes on everything from the physics of their fur to the composition of their fangs.


    The deity''s reason for doing this was simple: he admired their sleek forms and knew that in time he''d want to morph into a wolf again. When he next took on the form of a wolf, the deity hoped that the mental notes he took during this conversation would help him craft a lupine body that was truly powerful and intimidating.


    Eventually, though he ran out of words to say to the wolves, and they too ran out of words they felt comfortable sharing with him. When that happened the two sides bid each other a peaceful farewell and Althos gestured to his followers to follow him.


    He led them away from where they were, and the group began a casual saunter in the direction of the river where they first met the wolves. For once Althos was quite chatty, asking his followers to recount their battle for him. They took turns recounting their participation in the clash and describing in detail the ferocity of the enemies they fought.


    Althos was eager to listen to their exploits and unbeknownst to them the deity was able to tell when they embellished or exaggerated their glory due to the participation of his ghoulish minions.He wanted to see how their retelling of the battle compared to what the ghouls had observed. To the deity, it was a fun experience that allowed him to learn how they told stories as well as gave him a chance to observe their perceptions of themselves in a fairly natural environment.


    <hr>


    Althos''s hike to the small river where he and his followers first met the wolves, as well as killed the first bear he met, took him and his followers about half an hour. After that, another few minutes passed while the rugged party set up what passed for a camp.


    Their small camp consisted of a tiny fire pit that was lit and provided a minuscule amount of illumination in the grassy area near the river''s shore, an area littered with bedrolls and camping kits, and a small pile of fish bones with scraps of fish-meat still clinging to the sharp bones thrown away not far from the dim campfire.


    The mortals were universally in bedrolls, readying themselves for some shuteye after what felt like days awake. Althos had spoken to them already about this, but as they were gradually drifting off to sleep he took pains to remind them again of what would be happening tomorrow morning. He spoke to them, his voice soft and nonjudgemental, as they felt themselves struggle to stay awake.


    "Remember, tomorrow when you wake up I need you to have made a decision about your future. Will you be staying with me, and venturing into Infernius, or will you be returning to your friends and rejoining Talvin? Your choice is yours, but you need to commit to it."


    As he said "it" he felt the first of the orcs he had gathered to serve him, Bazur, drift off to sleep. His siblings and his the other orcs were quick to join him.


    Within minutes only the extraplanars and Althos were awake. The five of them, the sentinel demon, the imp, the soul orbs, and the deity weren''t chatty sorts, but the deity still had something he wanted to do while in the forest. Just one, relatively minor thing. So he issued the pair of his main servitors commands. One of the commands was quite freeing. The other wasn''t.


    "There''s still something I can do while we''re here. Salifinos, guard the camp. Raverangos, go on a hunt. I''m gonna go on a walk."


    The demon heard its master, nodded, and then sulked off into the forest. The imp grinned at Althos, and then repositioned itself so that it was facing the warriors who served Althos. While the imp had stared at him, Althos had a careful, stoic expression on his face.


    Once the imp looked away the deity began to smile, grinning as he felt free to do something he had wanted to do and waited to do for a while now, even though the night was already almost halfway over.


    Althos walked into the greater forest as well, going off in a different direction than Raverangos had gone. And then, once he had just walked past the first tree in the part of the forest not dominated by the small river, Althos activated his teleportation ability and was gone.


    <hr>


    Deep in the forest, there wasa deadly trap that had already resulted in numerous deaths that evening alone. The creature at the center of it all slowly searched its surroundings with a fungal tendril.


    After searching for a few moments the curious tendril found a fresh corpse. It leisurely wrapped around one of its own kills and began to slowly pull it towards the fungal mass responsible for its death.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    The gruesome fungus responsible for this sat at the center of a dangerous trap that was responsible for causing intelligent creatures to avoid the part of the forest it laired in. Its trap was simple: the fungus was a mutant variant of a common type of forest fungus that had developed a potent lure in the form of a brilliant fragrance it could emit at will.


    Unintelligent or just plain unlucky forest dwellers would be lured out by the scent, and upon bumbling into its territory would incite a reaction by the unintelligent fungal beast. The creature would either maw them with its titanic mass, or it would lash out at them with its thick tree-branch like tendrils until they passed away and then leave their corpses somewhere in its reach where it could consume them whenever it ran low on nutrients.


    The gigantic fungal mass was unique in the forest. It was the only fungal creature to have evolved past its stationary phase and become a mobile being. And that made it of special interest to Althos.


    <hr>


    The deity reappeared in a deeper part of the forest, so as to conduct an investigation into something that he suspected waited in that area. The area he emerged in was a part of the forest that was neither a clearing nor a part of the informal path that led humanoids with relative safety through the forest.


    He was in one of the deeper, more wild parts of the forest. An area not far from where he had watched his allies defeat one of the corrupted bears.


    He was surrounded by thick trees on almost all sides. As he breathed in he could smell a variety of different scents on the chilly forest air. He smelled the scents of a variety of animals, and of some trees, but he also smelled the lovely scent of a particular type of fungus, one he didn''t know the name of but it had caught his eye by being the lone green dot on his radar to move earlier.


    The scent was positively alluring. And Althos could sense that that was part of the dangers of the creature he had entered this area to find.


    He began to slowly and leisurely walk in the direction of the scent. He tracked it with the skill of a trained and experienced bloodhound. It led him out of the area where he was surrounded by thick trees and deeper into the forest proper.


    As Althos examined this part of the forest he realized with a start that this was a popular spot for a variety of animals. He could smell a mixture of scents in the air, and on the ground, he could see a surprising diversity of tracks to follow.


    The deity grinned as he realized that many of them led to the general direction green dot, at least according to Althos'' radar. Even at that moment, the deity was beginning to feel his excitement growing.


    The reason his excitement was growing was that something was in the forest. Something that he could sense, with his innate ability to sense fungi. But unlike the fungi the deity had seen with his own eyes, even the tiny fungi he had seen in the forest, this fungus was mobile. Which explained why Althos felt the need to see it with his own eyes.


    As Althos began to walk deeper and deeper into the forest, he allowed himself to shed his disguise. In the wild area of the forest, especially while alone, the deity had no reason to walk in his human form. Each step was accompanied by his artificial form losing more and more of its pseudo-humanity and returned to a more naturalistic design.


    <hr>


    The new monster that lumbered through the deep part of the forest was an odd creature. At first, he appeared to be human, but it became apparent that he wasn''t quite a member of mankind due to the unsightly nature of his new, transitory appearance.


    He grew in height with each passing step, even as he took on a form more terrible and clearly monstrous than any other form he had taken on to date. He didn''t fully understand this at that moment, but this new form had a reason and an origin.


    He had gained the strange new form he was transforming into as a result of the new fungal worshipers the monster had gained while exploring an underground tunnel earlier that night, and the bioluminescent nature of those same creatures. Their nature didn''t cause an immediate shift in his fungal form, but it would now.


    As he walked closer and closer to the strange creature he sought to make contact with, entire meaty chunks of his divine skin peeled off of his mighty bones and fell to the ground he walked on. Where the skin had been, other things sprung up in its place. A lot of his body now looked to be made of underground soil, the sort of soil that was perfect for mushrooms that lit up such areas.


    As he took more steps, mushrooms began to spontaneously grow out of his skin, emerging rapidly and growing to full height and width in seconds. The mushrooms seemed to serve as a sort of substitute to clothing, emerging and quickly covering areas where such plain visibility on a humanoid would have been deemed inappropriate though at this point incredibly little flesh remained for someone to make out anything untoward anyway.


    This replacement to his skin was far from the only thing that marked this form as something very different from humans. His face changed as well. His skin seemed to retract and tighten to his skull, while a thick fungal plate emerged to serve as an odd naturalistic helm and that would have blinded someone who needed eyes to see, but Althos adjusted to his strange helm quickly thanks to his remote vision power and his other senses making up for his occasional lack of sight.


    The deity was no longer just a walking hybrid of man and mushroom-like he had been in the tunnel. In the gloom of the forest, it was quite clear that the mushrooms that grew of his now very soil-like skin were now glowing mushrooms and he was becoming something far more monstrous. The glowing mushroomsilluminated his soil-like skin and also cast a soft green glow on the forest around him.


    The deity made his way through the forest, carefreely exploring the area while feeling his excitement begin to mount. He knew he was getting closer and closer to the fungal creature he was seeking.


    Eventually, he happened across the furthest corpse left behind by the fungal monster he had come to see. It was a corpse of a tiny bird.


    The little thing couldn''t have been more than 25 centimeters long, with a wingspan about twice that length. Althos examined it, gingerly touching its diminutive frame and exploring its body with his gilled fingers. He didn''t rely on sight, but instead embraced his fungal nature and used his other senses to explore and learn about the creature.


    His tactile investigation led him to believe that the creature died upon crashing into the ground, as an exploration of its final resting place alerted the deity to displaced dirt around it, and to the fact that there was a cut across its wing that was rapidly rotting away as if the thing was suffering from a necrotic venom. Althos touched the wing and felt it begin to disintegrate at his touch.


    Althos quickly felt satisfied with his investigation, and quickly returned to following his mental radar deeper and deeper into the forest so as to find the mobile fungi he knew lurked somewhere relatively nearby.


    In time he finally discovered the lair of the creature. He did this by following the scent of the massive entity, and stumbling across more corpses that gave him a general sense of where to go. The creature''s lair was in the center of another dense group of trees, and the trail of corses led Althos to right outside of where it nested when the beast was not in motion.


    Althos''s unique deific vision and periodic usages of his remote vision power allowed him to see through his fungal-plate helm without any difficulty. What he saw beyond the natural armor was a dense cube of trees with one open space to allow entry into the actual lair of the fungal beast. Althos stepped to it and stepped beyond it with just a few steps.


    <hr>


    For the past few minutes, the massive mass had been acting strangely. The normally passive creature had begun to... feel something. And these feelings were causing its tendrils to sway and swing about, as if in a simple-minded dance.


    Feelings beyond an imitation of rage at anyone who intruded on the territory it had dubbed as its own were alien to the fungal mass. But as Althos neared it, deep in its simple heart, it felt something better than its shallow imitation of rage. And it began to happily react to that.


    This was due to the euphoria that Althos'' proximity caused in fungi. His aura of fungal superiority gave any fungi in its presence increased awareness and intelligence, allowing them to gain the shallow mental faculties needed for worship and obedience.


    Althos'' nearing proximity caused the creature to become more and more active. Eventually, seconds before Althos appeared in front of the gigantic creature, it became so active that it even lifted itself off of its mass of tendrils as if to imitate a humanoid who was expressing shock or excitement after hearing a bit of important news, or to mimic a humanoid carefully looking for a loved one it was told would be arriving soon.


    <hr>


    Upon entering the lair of the beast Althos was shocked by two clashing scents. One was the thick, nauseating scent of animal corpses littered on top of each other that cluttered the floor. This particular scent was difficult to stomach, and Althos found himself envious that the fungi didn''t have the ability to smell.


    The other scent was the alluring fragrance that the fungal beast emitted. It was a much cleaner, far more pleasant smell that could entrance animals and creatures of lesser intelligence to follow it to its source. And its source was the fungal creature Althos could hear shuffling and perhaps even exercising atop a mound of bodies and its own mass of fungal limbs.


    This smell fought against the sickening scent of animal corpses in various states of decay and Althos felt that the attempted escapes of the various corpses he had seen littered around the area was likely caused by the fight between the two scents alerting a few particularly perceptive animals to flee, but in some cases they were too late.


    Althos looked up from the corpse-flooded floor and saw the fungal mass he had set out to find. He was surprised to see the massive thing acting as if it was waiting for him. It "stood" on its own mass of tendrils, and the way the creature''s massive form was angled revealed that it was absolutely searching for something. And at its sides, a few tendrils writhed in what Althos interpreted as strange joy.


    Althos examined the massive form of the creature with abject admiration. It was gigantic for any fungi coming in at just under 2 meters tall, and several more meters thick. Its mass resembled a massive purple rock riddled with holes and cavities with one notable exception. At the center of its rocky exterior there was a single area that was solid. It was situated roughly where Althos suspected the stomach would have been on a human or orc.


    This single solid area extended for about half of a meter. It was the one place on the creature''s hole-filled main mass that was solid-looking. Althos could tell there was something more to this weird area than it just looking solid.


    It had innumerable tendrils that extended several meters long, most of which its mass rested upon but others of which danced at its sides. A handful of thinner tendrils extended forth from the cavity-like gills that riddled the body of the thing. Most of its thick tendrils seemed to connect to the rest of its mass in ways Althos couldn''t quite make out due to the tendrils themselves obstructing his remote vision.


    At the center of the creature''s mass, there was an awkward area that Althos realized, after several moments of close examination, most likely served as the creature''s maw. This was odd to the deity, who knew of incredibly few fungi like this, fungi that possessed redundant limbs. It was the strange, solid area Althos had noticed earlier.


    Fungi consumed matter through the liberal usage of thread-like substances called hyphae, which they spread through their food. These substances broke down whatever they entered and sent the broken remnants of the matter to the fungi, who could more easily digest the broken remnants than the original structures the hyphae entered. Normally the hyphae extended from the fungi into the food-source, so to see fungi with this sort of physiology was odd.


    The maw was a thick area in the center of the creature''s stalk that seemed perfectly situated to spread energy through the rest of the body, whether it was fueling the tendrils down below it or the gills up above it.


    After examining it, Althos stepped forward, moving closer to the creature and composing a message in his mind to send to the creature. Within moments he had a message he felt was suitable.


    [Hello young one. I am the Fungal Lord. The guardian of all fungi.]


    He sent the message to the creature and noticed that the thing seemed to back away a bit moments after receiving the message.


    [Fungal... Lord?]


    Althos chuckled at the thing and grinned kindly at it, though his grin couldn''t be seen beneath the fungal helm that had naturally formed on his face.


    <hr>


    Fungi evolved in the presence of their lord. In the case of the fungal mass enjoying the benefits of its lord''s proximity, Its mind was expanding and evolving far beyond its limited instincts and the very few things it had learned over the course of its lifetime.


    This didn''t mean that the creature was becoming smart. That would assume it was intelligent in the first place. Rather the creature was taking incremental steps towards becoming intelligent. It was gaining real awareness of itself and its surroundings, moment by moment. Its reflections were basic, accurate but only in the vaguest sense.


    In front of Althos, the unintelligent creature regained control of one of its tendrils and used it to wrap around a corpse of a wolf. It dragged the corpse close to its cavernous maw and opened the strange thing. Then the creature transmitted a thought back to Althos.


    [This is... food.]


    After transmitting that thought, the creature was still for a second. Then it opened its maw, and Althos got a chance to peer into the eerie darkness that was the creature''s gullet.


    Althos watched as the creature''s maw began to shake. This was followed by a forest of connected hyphae descending or ascending from well-obstructed gum-like substances within the tops and bottoms of the creature''s mouth. The bound hyphae resembled a gruesome mockery of teeth.


    Althos curiously gazedat the fungal mass as ittossed the corpse into its maw and "bit" into it with its false teeth. The bound hyphae worked like teeth would and easily pierced and crushed the creature''s rotting meal. This created openings for the normally needle-like threads to pierce past the skin of the corpse and begin their work of breaking down the creature''s body for consumption.


    Another of the mass''s tendrils latched onto a deceased forest deer, a creature Althos could identify thanks to the various memories that surged through his brain, and threw it in Althos'' direction. The deity reacted to the move by using magic to effortlessly catch the flung corpse which would have otherwise sailed over his head.


    He sat down and he brought the corpse to him, to rest it on his lap. Althos wondered why the fungi did this for a moment before the creature expressed its own thoughts.


    [Eat. This... good... you... friend.]


    Althos smiled at the odd fungi and pondered its proposal for a moment. He had never eaten before. It was unnecessary since he was a deity. But his thoughtfulness lasted for only a moment.


    He shrugged his shoulders, and willed hyphae to sprout forth from his fingertips. His hyphae were thin, blue tendrils that seemed to sprout from somewhere underneath the soil-like skin of the deity''s arms and burst forth from within him.


    Once they were outside of his arms they shook off bits of his soil-skin, before beginning to grow as a form of movement to close the distance between them and the deer. Approximately 3 hyphae had sprung out of his arms and were sprouting in the direction of the deer.


    <hr>


    The deity''s hyphae weren''t natural parts of his body. They were constructed from magic and his connection to other fungi. Because of that, the thin fibrous things were preternaturally good at what they were intended to do. And their intention was to cut a path through the deer that allowed enzymes to spread and break down muscle, bone, organs, and anything else that could be consumed into easily digestible nutrients for Althos to feed off of.


    The thin things quickly surged towards the deer and effortlessly penetrated the thing''s skin using a combination of speed and penetrating power.


    He feltthe newest parts of his fungal form, his thin hyphae,sink deep into the muscles of the deceased deer, exploring the thing''s body while speedily spreading digestive enzymes that were most likely going to make quick work of the creature.


    Rather than be distracted by his odd form of "eating", at that moment Althos was mentally mapping the structure of the critter whose corpse was nourishing him. He was gaining a new understanding of the deer, an understanding that the goblin whose memories were responsible for teaching the deity what little he knew about deers until the moment he began to eat one, could have never had.


    His mind was expanding as his hyphae carved through the muscles of the deer in his lap. Had someone watched the thing, they would have noticed that what little bare skin of the deer''s was visible was rapidly changing color and decreasing in density, as the thing was rapidly being eaten.


    The fungal mass that had tossed the deer to Althos asked the fungal lord a quick question.


    [You... like?]


    Althos turned to the fungal mass and grinned underneath the fungal helm that covered his face. He thought about how to respond and decided that the simplistic language the thing had employed would probably be the best way for them to communicate. He closely mimicked it when he sent the mass his response.


    [Yes. I like. You friend. I... protect you.]


    The fungal mass was quiet for a moment. Althos continued his rapid consumption of the deer, his own hyphae continuing their relentless exploration of the thing''s corpse. When the response from the mass came it was quiet and solemn.


    [Yes... You lord. What is... lord?]


    Althos almost laughed as he spent the next few minutes, and eventually the next few hours having a philosophical and eventually theological discussion with the fungal mass. At some point during the conversation, Althos received two notifications.


    [New Species Knowledge Gained: Fungal Lurker


    Fungal Lurkers are mobile fungal masses that are one of the more common evolutions basic fungi can become. These are rare creatures who have low-levels of intelligence and often lurk in isolated, desolate locations far from civilization because when these creatures encounter humanoids, humanoids tend to kill them on sight.


    These monsters attractdiverse preythanks to their ability to produce an incredible smelling aroma. Once prey gets close to them, entranced by the sight they give off, they tend to hide in plain sight until they can hit something with their tendrils. Some of them have paralytic tendrils, but usually, all it takes them are a few good strikes with their tendrils.


    These creatures can be mutated quite easily and they can endure a range of magical or biological modifications. How they evolve can be modified through mutations they endure earlier on in their lifetimes and by where they spent their time prior to their evolution.


    It''s not difficult for them to be convinced of another creature''s greater intelligence and they are more than happy to serve another creature if that creature feeds them or allows them to feed on unfortunate victims who come close by. They can evolve into a range of fungal creatures, into stockier fungal-humanoid hybrids.]


    [Special Reward Announcement!


    Minor override: The original author of this announcement didn''t properly contextualize it. To clarify this and to ensure you are on the same page as the system, it''s important you know that the tree wolves who gave you the quest are evolved, grey-wolves. And the dire bears you saved are mutant offspring of a powerful bear and an influential spirit. Hence why this notification refers to both evolved creatures and mutants.


    Original announcement: As a reward for completing a quest that wasgiven to youby evolved creatures and then whose contents were shaken up by the interference of mutants, the system believes that you deserve an unusual reward. So because of that, the system has chosen to unlock some special systems for you as a god.


    Specifically, you are now gaining access to three special menus that are normally only accessible to high-level biologists and flesh-shapers, or gods with the right domains until their influence: the evolution menu, the mutation menu, and the templates menu.


    These menus allow you to make use of templates, mutations, and to modify evolutions of creatures who serve or worship you. Though... if you become stronger and gain the ability to influence the right domains, you may be able to use evolutions, mutations, and templates even on your enemies.


    Templates and mutations allow you to customize and modify creatures here and now. Though these things both modify creatures, how they modify them differs. Mutations are changes to a creature''s genetic code specifically. Templates have far more diverse origins. Some templates are magical, temporary changes. Others are permanent ones that stem from non-magical sources. Some magical templates are permanent. Some non-magical ones aren''t.


    Modifications to a creature''s evolutions are tricker than can or should be explained via system announcement. Long story short, they allow you to influence, limit, or even create evolutionary pathways for creatures capable of evolution. This menu also lets you see how close a living creature is to evolving, something that will be deeply useful for you if you decide to raise an army of super-creatures or want to examine your allies.


    Take your time later and explore these menus. They are all influential and they all matter.]


    Althos read through these notifications patiently and carefully once he noticed them. They intrigued him, but he didn''t want to try them out here. He wanted to have more to play with before he took a lot at these menus. The second notification, the so-called "announcement" he received filled him with questions.


    He saw it refer to someone, as the "original author" implying that more than a single... entity ran the system. He wanted to investigate, but he had absolutely no idea where to begin with that sort of universal questioning. He decided to content himself for now by searching through his memories, both those that were actually his and those he had access too from other people, to learn about the system.


    <hr>


    Eventually enough time passed that, the deity knew that he needed to return to where his allies were fast asleep. He politely bid farewell to his new friend, reaffirmed his decision to help and protect the thing, and began the journey home. He left early enough that he had time to walk there and arrive before his allies awoke. He left early enough that the moon was still in the sky, gradually beginning its descent.


    While on his way to his makeshift home, he wondered what his allies and servants had dreamt of. He didn''t know it, but they were dreaming of what their lives may yet hold, depending on what choices they made in the morning.


    The orcs who were about to make one of the most important choices of their lives, to be reunited with their own kind, or continue to journey and adventure with Althos, were dreaming of the sort of adventures they may have if they boldly decided to stick by their master and join him in life-or-death battles all over the multiverse.


    In their dreams their initial decisions were explored. In their dreams they inched closer and closer to where their hearts wanted them to go, one way or another. In their dreams they saw possibilities and consequences.


    In hours they would make their choices.

 Chapter 47:

    As the sun began to creep into view over the riverside encampment, rising above the nearby treeline, Althos felt prepared for the events to come. The young deity had spent the remainder of the past evening preparing for what he knew would be happening perhaps minutes, perhaps hours after the sun finished its rise into the sky.


    The deity starred out at the river, allowing himself to process the sadness he felt only in the privacy of the moments of solitude he had while others slept. He knew such moments were fleeting for the day.


    He could hear the noises of nature rejecting and hiding from his demonic pet, as the creature returned to him, and off at the river he could see the imp he had asked to guard the encampment cleansing itself. The strange creature bathed in the river, its nude form muscular and scarred as it luxuriated in the cool water of the river. The thought of any leftover ooze that corrupted the water that came from the filth demon the devil had watched Althos banish didn''t seem to bother the imp.


    Althos visually examined it''s body, studying it with the same precision and focus as he had studied the forms of the wolves that past evening. He took note of the body''s angular nature, the odd red pigmentation of the imp''s skin, and the diversity of scars that cluttered its naked backside like it was the messy canvas of a child playing at being an artist.


    Once the deity felt satisfied with his investigation of the imp''s form he turned away from it. He turned to look at his followers, some of whom he suspected would be leaving him today. They were still fast asleep, and that included Tristan and Silander, his two, mortal non-orc companions, as well as the only women who stayed with him and had physical forms.


    There were other women in his service. One of his mental advisors had a feminine voice and appeared to go by feminine pronouns, and he had unintentionally gained two female worshipers who were dark elves. They were named Milene and Qu''Ren and while Althos walked back to the encampment after meeting another fungus, this one a strange monster, they and their male companions reached their home-city the underground settlement of Undermoon.


    All four of the elves, including the non-worshiper, informed him separately that they had returned to their home safely. Althos had told them to keep him aware of what they were up too and reminded the elves that the sooner they begun their work to convert the city to his worship the sooner they gain their coveted shape-shifting power.


    He also took time to craft a personal message for Qu''Ren suggesting that good service here would provide her with an extra reward, one that appealed to her brand of megalomania.


    The party, aside from its non-mortal members, was sleeping soundly. Althos wondered what was occurring in their dreams.


    I could enter their dreams... Perhaps that''s a quiet way for me to remind them that there is no place I can''t see. No thought I can''t influence. Not even their dreams are an escape if I desire their eyes and ears. But is that the best way to retain their willing servitude? No... It isn''t. Probably.


    Maybe in allowing them to sleep undisturbed that''ll show them that I am not without my mercy. Perhaps that''ll be the key to convincing those who can be convinced to stay to remain at my side of their own volition. Perhaps kindness is what I need to show now. After all, I''ve already exhibited my power.


    The deity''s mind was a battlefield. He had taken the orcs for granted and only very recently, hours ago, began to struggle internally about their fates.


    He recognized their skill and had quietly come to enjoy their company though he had been less than vocal about finding their presence pleasant.


    He had intelligently made it clear that they weren''t escaping him but had he ever informed them that he liked them being nearby? Had he ever talked to them of his own volition? A handful of times, perhaps. And now the deity feared it was too late.


    I could tamper with their minds... reduce them to mush. It wouldn''t be hard after all...


    No! That is not the right move. If I do that then I''ll just be hurting myself. That''s why I''m doing this, right? To not hurt myself?


    The deity snapped out of it after remembering why he had stopped treating them worse than he had treated the dark elves. For all of his flaws, he hated the idea of hurting himself, and keeping the orcs with him when they could be more productive or more useful elsewhere would have constituted him hurting himself, to him if no one else.


    The deity had a somewhat logical mind, and unknown to him, mostly because he didn''t ask, they were quietly grateful for the simplistic logic he had employed in justifying giving them a choice. It was a factor that elevated the deity''s standing in their minds. The incredible powers that he had, again and again, demonstrated to them were also factors that made him experience yet another boost in their minds.


    But at the end of the day, the deity''s apathy towards his own decisions frustrated them. He had said they were going to stay with the other orcs, and then effortlessly seemed to forget about that, despite it being his decision. He was also cold towards the siblings, despite at times seeming to like both Ragnor and Bazur.


    In time he would come to accept that the best choice was to accept things as they were, with no immature intervention, or mind-breaking magic. This was a harder decision for him to accept than the decision to allow the orcs to consider leaving. Perhaps it was because this decision was real and in making it he was committing himself to honor the wills and wishes of the orcs, as well as accepting his own failures as a leader.


    He swallowed this bitter pill, and quietly committed to becoming a better leader who deserved subordinates not just because he was the most powerful, but because he earned the trust of those who followed him and because he could be relied upon.


    He had made mistakes early on, but it didn''t matter so long as he learned from them. He was a god after all.


    For each of the orcs, the decisions were easy to support. And not all of the orcs had come to the same decision. When they began to stir from their sleep, Althos felt nervous and wondered what farewells he''d be making in the next few hours or even minutes.


    Althos had less than an hour after the first orc began to slowly awaken. Bazur stirred and began to move around in his bed, but wouldn''t be out of bed for another fifteen minutes. It just so happened that the orc wasn''t a quick riser even if he was an early waker.


    <hr>


    It took around half an hour for the final orc to awaken after Bazur got out of bed ready to start the day. Gallow was the last member of his somewhat ill-fated raiding party to arise from his bedroll and join the rest of the party around the campfire.


    Once he was out of his bedroll and seated near the campfire, everyone turned to look at Althos. They were clearly waiting for the deity to initiate the conversation. All of the eyes were on him, and he looked back at them one by one.


    He was silent and he activated one of his divine abilities. By using it, his "Remote Viewing" ability and picturing Golorina, the lone woman in the orc''s raiding party, the deity quickly located the other members of the party that Althos had assisted days ago.


    <hr>


    Through his unusual divine ability, Althos was able to spread his senses far and wide. He detected the orc woman named Golorina quickly because she wasn''t very far from where he was. Once he found her, he used his powers to enter her mind as an observer and see what she saw. Of course, he didn''t let her know he had temporarily occupied her mind. He saw no reason to do so.


    When he looked through Golorina''s eyes, what he saw was a part of the forest he suspected wasn''t terribly far from where the party was located. He saw a quiet encampment, much like their own, though it lacked a campfire. At the moment Golorina was sitting and quietly eating a few hand-cut apple slices. She was far from alone, as around her various orcs were either eating snacks or looking for something to do.


    Althos could hear their activity in the background, as some of the raiders were sparring with each other, while others fired arrows at handpainted targets to sharpen their skills and to ensure they didn''t stagnate as warriors.


    Within moments Althos felt absolutely certain he knew where she was and could teleport his allies right next to her if that was what the orcs wanted. Satisfied that he wouldn''t be deceiving his servants, he quickly deactivated the power and left her mind.


    <hr>


    After deactivating the power Althos''s mind returned to his body. Once he felt properly himself again the deity turned to his followers and spoke.


    "I spoke the truth last night. I have used one of my powers to locate your allies. I have not informed them of my true nature, nor have I informed them about you. I didn''t speak to them. That is on you. Now is the time to inform me of your decisions."


    His voice was quiet, and the more attentive orcs, Bazur and Gallow, both swore they heard a touch of sadness in his tone. The deity was silent after he spoke, and he waited for them to speak.


    There was a full minute of silence before the first orc spoke. It was neither Bazur nor Gallow. Instead, the first speaker was the orc Anthus.


    The brawler turned to his master and opened his mouth to speak. He spoke his mind to the deity.


    "Althos... I recognize your divinity, and I will continue to serve you. With my friends. With my fellow raiders. With Talvin. I hope that this decision pleases you because in making it I believe I can sway more people to your side. I believe that we, that you, can begin the process of uniting the orcs across the world."


    The second the orc finished speaking a pillar of darkness engulfed him. At first, this alarmed the others, who nearly moved to interrupt Althos, knowing that this was one of his magical spells. But then they remembered that they had seen this strange magic in use within the cave of the dark unicorn named Qut. They calmed down when they remembered that this same spell seemed to empower and pacify the dark elves who it was used on.


    Althos had wordlessly activated it, and selected Anthus''s vestigial traits and brought them back to life. He also teleported the orc, using the magic for the first time without touching its target. When the orc rejoined his friends he''d be rejoining them as a stronger creature.


    The orc would have a second heart, the ability to transform his limbs into fleshy weapons, a thick coat of natural armor, and an ability to detect other living lifeforms so long as they had some measure of Qi. Althos reached out to the orc mentally.


    [I resurrected all of the abilities hidden in your blood and restored in you the powers your ancestors once had. This is both a reward for serving me and a way to remind you that you remain, my servant, just one I am willingly allowing to go on a wider leash. I shall remember what you said, that you''d be more useful to me with your friends than with me. Show me the truth in your words.]


    Althos'' tone was commanding, authoritarian and dark. At the moment the orc found himself explaining his circumstances to his friends who had immediately reacted to the orc appearing in the heart of their camp, but the part of him that paid attention to the god''s words delighted in the power boost even as he zoomed through the system''s notifications, and swore to himself that he''d, in fact, prove himself right to Althos and to the word.


    When the pillar of darkness faded from view and Anthus was gone, Althos was looked at with concern by Bazur and Ragnor. Althos looked back at them, a mixture of contempt and sadness coating his gaze. Then he spoke.


    "Anthus made his choice. I gave him his reward and sent him on his way. Reach out to him and you will see the truth in my words. I shall do the same to anyone else who wishes to join him."


    At first Althos'' gaze was leveled at Ragnor and Bazur, but during the deity''s last sentence he spread his gaze out equally to make eye contact with the others in the encampment.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    The orc''s siblings tested the veracity of the deity''s claim by sending their brother a message. Moments later they nodded when their sibling responded to their mental words. They were calmed by this, and though still wary they now suspected the unusual deity was being honest with them.


    Silence gripped the encampment again. Althos was perfectly capable of waiting, though each passing moment filled him with a bit more apprehension. Before a minute had passed, Ragnor opened his mouth to speak.


    "Althos, I wish to be a commander of your forces in the future. I intend to stay in this world and be one of the people who urge our kind to follow you. I do apologize for deciding to leave, but in doing so... I will be able to gain experience and build my reputation as a warrior among my fellow orcs. I believe and I hope that I may one day be invaluable to you."


    Althos listened to the orc. He quietly and calmly assessed the orc''s motives, listening and searching for signs of deception. After a few moments of contemplation, Althos believed that the orc spoke the truth and activated his vestigial resurrection power, targeting the orc. He also activated it on his brother, Bazur.


    He willed the orc who had just spoken away, sending him to join his sibling. A few moments passed, and the pillar of darkness that had descended around the oldest of the siblings faded away. This time Althos took the lead.


    "I take it you are going to join your siblings?"


    His voice was quiet, accepting this all in stride. Bazur looked at Althos, a surprising emotion flickering in his eyes: pity. The orc nodded.


    "Would you like an explanation as to why?"


    The orc''s decision to ask that question was an odd one. The deity looked at him and considered how to respond.


    Althos understood the power of familial connections. One of the creatures whose memories he had absorbed was Milene, a dark elf woman with a sibling of her own. Althos felt the kinship the two of them shared through her memories and thoughts. The deity may have been devoid of empathy on its own, but he wasn''t ignorant to the power of family.


    Althos was silent for several moments. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity but was merely a few seconds, the deity spoke.


    "No. I... don''t blame you for choosing to stay with your family. You only stopped fighting me and joined me after I defeated them and told you I''d heal them if you served me. Choosing to keep your family together is a decision that is consistent for you. I wish you well Bazur."


    Althos spoke fondly of their first encounter, eagerness sinking into his voice while he reminisced on what was possibly the scariest moments of Bazur''s life. He gazed at Bazur one last time, his cold eyes containing uncharacteristic warmth. Then he closed his eyes and the orc vanished.


    "And then there was two."


    He spoke, his voice soft, filled with a sense of sadness that permeated the campsite and he turned to look at his two worshipers. He had his suspicions about how this would go.


    Gallow spoke up, eager to cheer up the living god he worshiped. As he spoke he turned to look Althos in the eyes, aware of the surprising sadness the deity was feeling. Seeing the deity melancholic reaffirmed the choice Gallow had made.


    "Master, I''m staying with you. I want to join you on adventures, and see the sort of creatures you recruit to join you. I want to aid you and learn from you, while maybe even teaching you what I can."


    His voice was energetic, his eyes warm and his tone was eager. Althos grinned at him. This went a long way towards cheering him up. He was happy that the rogue wanted to stay with him, and after grinning at him for a few moments the deity wordlessly turned to the last orc.


    Ranthor was silent for a moment, wondering how to word what he was about to say. He wracked his brain for the right words and for the best phrasing. Eventually, he was satisfied with what he had settled on and began to speak.


    "Althos, you know that you are my god."


    The aforementioned deity nodded at the archer, acknowledging the truth of this claim, wondering where this would lead too but having a susipicion he would feel mixed emotions about it.


    "I wish to lead my kind in your faith. I wish to be an evangelist of yours. Please, allow me to return to my kind and teach them about your ways."


    Althos sighed. He suspected this would be the way this would go down, but he hadn''t believed that it would involve Ranthor becoming an "evangelist". The deity couldn''t hate this response, because of all the responses that involved leaving it was the only one to explicitly include a part about converting orcs into his worshipers.


    When the pillar faded away, Gallow was surprised to see Ranthor still in there. Ranthor was surprised to see Gallow and Althos, as well as the camp''s few remaining inhabitants, looking at him instead of his orcish brothers and sister in arms.


    When everyone turned to Althos, confusion plainly clear in their eyes, the deity began to speak, in annoyance.


    "If he''s gonna be an ''evangelist'' he needs to know what he''s converting people too! We''ve only established a few bits and pieces of what one form of... me-worship looks like. Orcs and dark-elves have very different cultures!"


    Everyone considered his words, and then they nodded. Althos wondered why people weren''t making a bigger deal out of the fact that Ranthor had two pairs of arms now, but he supposed the fact that the orc was still there took precedence in their minds.


    Humanoids are weird. He observed, with a neutral expression etched on his face.


    Althos spoke again, a malicious grin on his face.


    "Alright, gather round. If we put our heads together we can surely come up with something that will get orcs excited."


    The camp''s remaining inhabitants rearranged themselves, moving closer together and contemplating what a religion that excited orcs would look like.


    <hr>


    A lively discussion took place at the campsite that morning. It covered various components of religion and worship.


    "What can we offer successful orcs?" Asked one of the participants, a young half-devil priestess herself, in a mental message to the rest of the people and creatures gathered around the campfire.


    "Mutations and access to strength-enhancing templates." Responded the deity who was at the center of the chat. His response was met by stunned silence. He looked around, noticed the confusion on the faces of his comrades, and then he clarified.


    "As a special reward for the quest yesterday I gained the ability to mutate things, and to use the ''templates menu'', which basically means I can super modify creatures. I haven''t taken the time to check it out but I can almost guarantee it''ll allow me to make violent orcs even more violent and even more orcish."


    His companions grinned at him after he clarified. He smiled back.


    Minutes later another important question was asked.


    "I hate to ask this, but Althos... you know that lots of creatures eat fungi right?" Asked Gallow, having a reason to be the one to bring up the topic others in the party had considered asking the deity, who was the "god of fungi" after all.


    Althos looked at him and nodded.


    "Yes, I do. I realized it after searching through the memories of the dark elves. It seems they even grow some fungi precisely because of how they taste. Why?"


    The deity''s answer contained a measure of calmness and acceptance the orcs weren''t expecting. The deity''s outward behavior towards fungi hadn''t changed all that much, but they knew that their god was capable of considerable and unexpected violence.


    Gallow nodded at his master and began to speak again.


    "I was just thinking about how to encourage orcs to be guardians of fungi, which is something I assume would be pleasing to you." The orc''s voice was soft and nervous.


    He spoke again shortly after finishing his past statement. "Would you be opposed to commanding orcs to develop agricultural relationships with fungi? Having orcs plant and care for fungi, and eventually allowing them to devour them or otherwise use them?"


    This statement was carefully worded and though it might have seemed brave of the orc to ask, he was hoping that the god he worshiped would be reasonable. Althos considered the question, and the whole camp''s eyes were on him, even Tristan''s. He was translating things for her so she could participate as well, through their mental link.


    The god had searched his brain for a few moments before remembering something related to his fungal wards that gave him his answer. He remembered the traits of coprophilous fungi, fungi that released spores that coated nearby plants and were eaten by herbivorous animals, where they grew into their more mature forms after being excreted by their herbivorous consumers.


    Althos, wisely, realized that if he told his allies about the fungi that leaped to mind when he was asked this question they may be inclined to not allow their peers to eat fungi. He quickly decided he''d just find a way to get them to eat primarily coprophilous fungi as they began to eat more and more fungi. The deity began to speak.


    "I would allow such a thing. This practice is a part of nature after all. My role as the guardian of all fungi is not to overturn the natural world, but to protect fungi and allow the organisms to develop more positive relationships with humanoids and other lifeforms. I am not opposed to my worshipers developing positive, symbiotic relationships with my other worshipers."


    The deity gave a surprisingly complex answer to that question, but it was a positive one. Gallow and Ranthor looked at each other happily, and once he translated his answer for her, Tristan gave him her approval as well. The deity didn''t feel that he needed it, but he didn''t mind having it either. It reassured him that he was making the right choice.


    Towards the end of the conversation, the orcs brought up something that the deity was only familiar with through the knowledge he had gained from the dark elves.


    "What about sacrifice?" Asked Ranthor, the orcish archer and soon-to-be evangelist.


    "What about it?" Responded Althos, knowing full well what the orc meant, but wanting him to be clearer in his communication. Althos did after all know everything Ranthor knew.


    "Well, master, orcs believe that the strong gods deserved sacrifice. If you are a strong god, and I believe you are, it''s worth talking about. Should it be carried out? If so, how?"


    Althos considered the orc''s words. He thought about the concept of sacrifice and spent several moments in silence. Then the deity began to speak.


    "Sacrifice... I shall allow it. But, when orcs feel like having their first sacrifice to me, inform me ahead of time. We shall discuss the matter more, then. Perhaps it''s better to have this arise organically instead of trying to predict and control it. That said, I still wish to be informed as to what they would like to offer me so when your followers begin to discuss it make sure I am aware."


    Althos'' response was quiet and calm. Ranthor nodded at his words, appreciative of the flexibility of the deity.


    The end result of the conversation was that Ranthor had a much firmer grasp on what Althos envisioned worship of him would look like. It was exciting for the orc to know what the master thought of when he contemplated things like religion and his own worship.


    For Althos, by the time the conversation was over he had learned fairly little new information but he did gain knowledge as to what Ranthor as a cult leader would be like. The deity was appreciative of the chance to help organize the orc''s thinking, and vocalize components of what he, the object of faith at the center of this theoretical cult, would like any cult to him to be like.


    Much to his surprise, the deity felt excited about the future, as he nodded at his orcish worshiper and teleported the orc to his friends. Then he sat in silence for a few moments.


    <hr>


    After sitting still for a few moments the deity turned to his other allies. He looked out at the campsite and the creatures that surrounded him.


    He quietly commanded them to clean up the campsite, while also participating by retrieving the bedrolls left behind by the orcs who had chosen to join their fellows and teleporting them to those warriors.Soon enough the campsite was clean, and the fire was put out. After cleaning up their mess and clearing out any evidence of their stay, they looked at each other again.


    The deity was joined by the imp Salifinos, the half-devil Tristan, the great-frog Silander, the sentinel demon Raverangos, and the orcish rogue Gallow. He was also joined by two awakened soul-orbs who had become his familiars along with Salifinos and Silander.


    He reflected on the various memories he had steadily acquired while adventuring with the party and smiled.


    "Alright. There''s nothing else for us to do here right now. Are we ready to go to Infernius? To go back to the Tomb of Agowraith?"


    He asked this first question to the creatures who hadn''t been with him when he made it to the Cathedral of the Dark Saint. He asked the second to Tristan and Salifinos.


    A silence fell over the campsite, and after a few seconds, the inhabitants of the place looked at each other and nodded. Then as one they turned to Althos and nodded. The deity grinned. Then he issued his first command.


    "Grab onto each other. We''re just gonna go as one."


    The members of the party all grabbed each other''s shoulders. Once everyone was secured, and the orbs were close by so as to also be affected by the magic, the deity willed them to return to where he had been when he first left the dungeon.


    They immediately vanished, leaving behind no evidence that they had ever been there in the first place.


    <hr>


    An instant after they vanished, the party was surrounded by darkness. They had successfully reentered the plane known as Infernius and were where Althos and his infernal allies had been when they were teleported to him hours ago.


    The familiar, intense darkness annoyed Althos. The deity may have been back in the tomb, but he wasn''t who he had been when he first entered the wretched dungeon over an entire day ago. He was confident, had his allies, and was ready to make use of the full breadth of his powers


    The darkened lair of the dead had two sources of light within its long passageway. One of those sources was the tiny forms of the soul-orbs. The other was a familiar face who was immediately informed of their return and was gliding towards them: the floating skull who flew on green gases and guarded the dungeon and had inscrutably observed the once smaller party as it made its way through each chamber, trap, and puzzle that was thrown their way.


    Althos rolled his eyes at the approaching floating skull and wordlessly created an explosion of light centered on himself that flooded the annoyingly long passageway. Sadly, he was thoughtless as he did this and hadn''t warned his allies.


    His companions weren''t warned that this was the deity''s plan, so mere moments after they went from the light-filled campsite to the darkness of the tunnel, they were right next to an explosion of light that seemed to radiate out of the body of their master, and in response, they collectively hissed in annoyance as they covered their eyes to block out the intense light.


    "Sorry!" Responded Althos, who wordlessly used healing magic to alleviate the pain they felt. They issued various noises of relief as the pain subsided, and they slowly opened their eyes so as to see what the now lit passageway was hiding from them.


    Althos mentally chided himself and swore to not make the same mistakes again. After recovering, the party began to walk towards the skull in the distance, itself approaching them with a visible and skeleton approximation of a grin etched on its face.

 Chapter 48:

    The companions of the young god took in their surroundings bit by bit. After recovering from the suddenness of the deity unleashing an explosion of light in the formerly impossibly dark passageway, they were able to make out their now brightened surroundings. They walked as they took in their surroundings.


    They were crammed into a tight passageway, one barely large enough to contain them all, due to Raverangos'' height. The top of his head very nearly touched the ceiling of the passageway. The walls that surrounded them were black as if to better absorb any light that dared intrude on this place of darkness.


    The floor at their feet wasn''t black, but it was a shade of red so dark that it was very similar to the dark walls at their sides. Behind them, they could see far enough back to make out the stairs that led them to the higher level of the tomb, where Althos, Tristan, Salifinos, and the orbs had come from. Ahead of them, very far ahead of them, they made out the sight of the floating skull slowly approaching them.


    The tomb was eerily silent. Aside from their breathing, and the sounds of their footfalls on the processed stone that made up the floor of the dungeon, there were no sounds that dared intrude upon the silence that surrounded them. The tomb smelled of old rocks and ancient metal.


    <hr>


    Althos was quiet. He was, at that very moment, being introspective. His introspection was inspired by many things, but mostly by the conversations he had with the handful of fungi he had met and by the memories, he had absorbed from the dark elves.


    In quiet moments the god had reflected on the behaviors of the gods of the world beneath the world, at least as remembered by the dark elves. He remembered at all times that the dark elves thought them cruel monsters, but they were also mighty beyond belief and embodied whatever ruthless principles they believed in.


    I am a god. That means I embody power. It means I must be wise. It means I must possess confidence. I must aim to inspire awe and fear in mortals and anyone else who comes across me. And in the right people, perhaps I can make them feel a certain kind of love. At all times I must walk ahead and above those who follow me.


    <hr>


    The party was silent, but only to observers without mind magic at their disposal. Althos and his companions were about to begin a lively back and forth, through their extensive spider''s web of mental connections.


    [Reminder: That thing coming at us is a floating skull, and before you ask that''s what the system told me. It''s a servant of the thing that is... trapped in here. Presumably, that''s Agowraith.]


    Althos started off the conversation by referring to the freaky floating skull that was approaching them like they were approaching it. At this point the skull was still a good distance away from them. Raverangos was the first to speak after Althos'' reminder.


    [Is it... an enemy?]


    The mental tone of the demon indicated that it was genuinely unsure. Althos shook his head, but this time it was Tristan who responded. Her answer differed from what Althos would have said.


    [Probably?... Scratch that, it''s definitely an enemy. But it''s an enemy we may need to make use of. Somehow that thing can spit out soul orbs. We''ve seen it do it. I... genuinely have no idea how that works, but the soul orbs that are with us now came from that creature''s annoying mouth. If we attack it now we may have to wait before we can reach the end of this tomb.]


    Her voice resounded loud and clear in everyone''s mind. She sounded uncertain at first, but as she shared her thoughts with the party her mental voice grew increasingly confident.


    Althos knew that she was sharing her genuine thoughts with the party, so he didn''t bother to share his own once she finished her observations. Althos didn''t view the thing as an enemy, just as an aide to a mysterious creature. But he recalled why Tristan felt the way she did.


    Tristan had a secret connection to this place. Her father had perished somewhere in this dungeon, years ago. To her this place was more than a tomb or a piece of a dark prophecy related to the creature who was thought by people in her cult to be the savior of Infernius, this tomb and the dangers that lurked within it were obstacles she needed to overcome.


    Althos was the only one who knew her secret. He decided to keep it, for now, but not without informing the young half-devil herself.


    In the privacy of his own mind, Althos reflected on a variety of things.


    Tristan is still... herself. Though that makes her charming, in her own way, I should keep her on a tight leash for now. She still doesn''t know what I know. I suppose... now is the time to let her know what I know.


    He decided to send her a message.


    <hr>


    In the wake of Tristan''s declaration to the group, one of the few times the priestess had communicated with them so far, Tristan was feeling pretty pumped.


    To be here... where somewhere, somehow, her father was killed, evoked odd feelings. But she knew that this was a part of her destiny. Something she must accomplish before she becomes who she was meant to be.


    She was ready to pay whatever price she would have to pay to get revenge for her father and to become the cult leader she felt she was destined to become. She was about to learn a bit about the price she''d have to pay.


    Whatever had been in her mind before, was suddenly pushed out when Althos invaded it, in a rare moment wherein the deity decided to send her a private message. Her own thoughts abruptly vanished as she felt the cold will of the creature the very same being she believed was going to prove himself to become the second dark saint, penetrate her mind.


    [Priestess... I just want you to know that for now, I don''t mind playing your game. I know what this place means to you... how the very floor we walk atop may have once been stained with the blood of your father. I feel your pain. I feel your desire for... revenge? Justice?]


    Althos'' will, when concentrated and used to penetrate someone''s mind felt cold and invasive. It didn''t feel like a gentle brush wherein someone sent a message that somehow translated universally, it felt more like a way to use violence to force someone to understand what is meant. The mental version of being subjected to the affectionate touches of a sadist.


    Tristan quietly hissed in frustration, a sound her companions heard but pretended to be deaf too, since they assumed she was having a private conversation with Althos. The deity wasn''t done.


    <hr>


    Althos grinned in satisfaction as he heard the priestess hiss. But he had to chide himself.


    I suppose I may have been too cruel. It''s okay though. I can make it better. I wouldn''t want her to get too angry after all.


    Althos was still new to all of this. The deity, in realizing his cruel wording may have been a minor mistake he took it in stride, and his second message may have been a bit more verbose, but it was also kinder.


    [Make no mistake priestess. I am your... ally. Not your friend. Not even your master... yet. Just your ally. Though I suspect you will come to me, asking to serve me, sooner or later. I may seem... cruel, but it is all for your own good. I possess the power to grant you what your heart aches for. The revenge you crave. The restoration of Infernius to its former glory. I am... the dark sun that will end this longest of nights in Bastille and beyond. You know this already. And once we leave here, I believe that you will believe it.]


    Althos felt satisfied with this message. He quietly continued his reflections, taking on a more introspective attitude as he led his crew through the tomb.


    <hr>


    Within minutes they were merely a hundred meters away from the floating skull. As it approached them, Althos began to look behind it. And behind it, he could see something new. Perhaps another three hundred meters behind the floating skull there was an opening, that led out of this dazzlingly long passageway.


    Althos turned, momentarily just to see how far the group had walked. It took him a moment to process the distance behind him. When he realized that he and his allies, at least Salifinos, Tristan, and the soul-orbs, had walked perhaps seven hundred meters before he teleported to the mortal world, he felt awed. This passageway extended for over a thousand meters. It was just a long, straight shot.


    As far as Althos could see, and as far as he knew there were no traps in this passageway aside from the single trap right at the bottom step of the stairwell.


    If I didn''t know better I''d say this long passageway''s purpose would be to exhaust adventurers seeking to conquer this dungeon. But... that wouldn''t work on devils, would it? It shouldn''t, at least according to what Tristan knows about devils... Do they have limited stamina? And even if their stamina is limited, would this be enough to wear it down?


    Let''s say the purpose of this dungeon is to weaken invading forces... that would explain a lot. It wouldn''t work on me but on them... This place is a trap meant to allow something to feed on invaders. A sanctuary where something can take its time and grow and fester in solitary darkness, feeding on conquerable groups after wearing them down.


    At that moment, Althos sent his followers a message. He had correctly guessed the purpose of the dungeon. It was a tomb, but not Agowraith''s.


    [We are near the end of the dungeon. This place... it''s a prison. For anyone who ventures into it. In a sense, it is actually a tomb, just not for who we thought it was. Something is being reborn here, feeding on the occasional invader.]


    The instant after the last of Althos'' followers reviewed the message their master sent them, the passageway they were in began to shake. A peal of deep, grim laughter began to reverberate throughout the tunnel around them.


    After a few seconds of that haunting laughter, a deep,apathetic voice began to speak. They physically heard the voice, rather than feel it rattle around in their skulls.


    "Congratulations godling... you figured it out. Welcome to the place many believe is my tomb. Just between us though, this place is more like... a womb of sorts."


    Althos immediately received a useful notification that helped him make out the source of their troubles.


    [New Species Knowledge Notification: Undying Titan


    Undying titans are a rare breed of or occasionally an evolved form of giants that are able to separate their spiritual forms from their physical forms. This makes them similar to various forms of liches, but they can do this while their physical forms are alive, unlike liches who must die during the process by which they become liches.


    Undying titans are impossible to permanently kill so long as their spiritual forms exist. These odd entities are fond of constructing areas where they can feed creatures to their physical forms, or otherwise ensure their physical forms can regenerate or be regrown, while their spiritual forms safely hide elsewhere.


    Though this isn''t always the case, sometimes their spiritual forms are the forms of theirs that retain their intelligence, while their physical forms act like mindless brutes that retain the brutal power that is common to all titans.


    The spiritual forms of undying titans can be hurt by magic, and can''t be hurt by most physical attacks. Their spiritual forms have access to powerful magic and make dangerous combatants, much like how it''s difficult to outmatch a titans in terms of sheer physical power.


    Undying titans can evolve into greater forms of undead beings such as night-knights, greater-liches, or into other, incredibly powerful lifeforms.


    Known undying titans: Narcolept the Pretender]


    Althos nodded his head in understanding at the creature''s explanation. This was, of course, largely feigned. But the deity didn''t want to admit that. Though he did know a bit more of what to expect thanks to the incredibly handy notification he just received.


    He only had a basic knowledge of what was going on here, and that basic knowledge told him this was place was designed to be a death funnel. It was where adventurers went in, and only a limited number of them could pass through the exit ahead of him at a time. When they did, they were probably attacked immediately.


    Althos peered ahead of him and tried to see what laid beyond the opening but it was vague. He could see the same sort of floor ahead of him, and he could see what appeared to be the opening to a pit. The pit continued for a bit but after that, the deity could make out more floor, and eventually the same sort of dark walls that surrounded them.


    The deity realized whatever laid ahead of them was almost certainly the end of this dungeon. Althos could sense two creatures ahead of the party, beyond the floating skull. He knew that it was the two forms of "Narcolept the pretender", who judging from the name may have just made up the name of the tomb, or claimed it from another creature.


    Eventually, as the party proceeded forward, the skull met them. It was silent and began to float alongside them. Every single step of theirs brought them closer and closer to this dungeon''s dramatic guardian. Tristan reached out to Althos.


    [We''re getting closer and closer aren''t we? I can see the end of this passageway ahead of us. Do you know if that''s the end? Where we face... whatever it is that lies in here?]


    Althos nodded and responded to her question.


    [If I was a "betting man", I''d say yes. We''re minutes from meeting an undying titan. It''s two forms are ahead of us. It''s named "Narcolept the Pretender". Ready yourself.]


    As if in response to that message, the party felt a burst of energy fly towards them and then sail harmlessly past them. Althos'' enhanced hearing also picked up a sound coming from the area ahead of them. A sound like someone grunting as they climbed something.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    The party kept proceeding forward. It was only when they were less than fifty meters away from the exit out of this part of the tunnel that Althos began to prepare for whatever laid ahead of them. He stopped the party, extending his hand out to his side as a way to physically communicate that they needed to stop.


    He looked out at what was visible to him beyond the exit out of the long passageway. Althos could make out another gigantic area, but this time it was shaped like a massive circle with the huge pit he had seen earlier taking up much of its space. Now that he was closer to the end of the passageway he was in, he could see more of what laid ahead.


    He was pleased to see a glowing light radiating from a corner of the tunnel ahead of him. He guessed, correctly that that was the end of the dungeon. The glowing light came from another room, the room that contained the dungeon heart. A room just beyond the room with the pit in it, which was a room that according to Althos'' radar contained two red dots. Two enemies.


    At that moment it hit him that he was steps away from obtaining the power that would make it clear to everyone in Infernius that he was or was destined to become a new archdevil: the power to promote a devil and therefore transform it from one sort of devil, into another. This excited the deity more than perhaps anything else in his entire life had.


    <hr>


    Althos activated his assortment of divine powers at that moment. He cast blessings that enhanced physical strength and resistances and even used a small number of alteration spells on his followers so that they may more easily withstand whatever nonsense their mysterious enemy was about to use on them.


    At that moment he also targeted all of his companions with a single cast of his vestigial resurrection ability. Before he cast the spell he sent his allies a mental message.


    [This isn''t the tomb of "Agowraith". Or if it is, then Agowraith really is dead. What''s ahead of us is a creature named "Narcolept the Pretender". It is an undying titan. That means that we cannot and will not hold back. I am going to buff all of us right now.]


    Althos'' message suddenly stopped generated. Althos thought to himself, trying to clarify his own message before continuing.


    [All of you, Tristan included, will gain all of your vestigial traits resurrected at once. For some of you, that will mean dramatic boosts to your powers and significant changes to your appearance. Be ready for that.]


    He waited for his companions to nod at him. Once the last of them, Tristan herself, nodded, Althos willed for the spell to resurrect all of their vestigial traits, and cast it.


    Behind him, numerous cacoon-like pillars of darkness swallowed his friends. Althos hadn''t had a chance to check Tristan''s traits and he wanted to get out of this dungeon so he hadn''t before he cast the spell. He wondered what traits she''d get. He was also looking forward to the true power of imps that Salifinos was going to have a chance to demonstrate, even beyond the poison he helped the imp recover, a poison the creature still hadn''t gotten to try out.


    <hr>


    Tristan felt odd within her pillar of darkness. She fell to her knees as she felt... something pounding in her skull.


    The pain she felt was agonizing. It was like nothing she had ever experienced in her entire life. It was like someone was carving a hole in her forehead using a knife made of broken glass, and then pouring magma into the hole they were making. It took her all of her willpower not to pass-out. Which explained why she felt tears flowing freely down her face because otherwise, she''d have used her willpower to not cry.


    Her curse-eye was an incredibly powerful ability, but given its rare nature as both a physical ability with an external manifestation and its magical nature, it was positively agonizing to resurrect. Her mothlike eye made up of hundreds of smaller eyes, sat square in the center of her forehead. Each of the smaller eyes was a tiny, ruby-colored thing that made it look like Tristan had a bouquet of rubies placed on her forehead.


    That wasn''t the only place she felt pain though. Something was happening in her back. It felt like her bones were moving, trying to either escape from her or from something within her. She actually wailed when she felt something tear violently out of her body and through skin, muscle, and bone out of her back. Her companions didn''t hear her, aside from Althos, due to the nature of the pillar she was within.


    Her scaled, moth-wings emerged beautifully from her back. The wings themselves were white and had a wing-span about 3 and a half meters long. Sadly, at the moment they were covered in blood, and torn skin so they were stained a color that fused blood red with her amber skin-tone.


    The priestess'' muscles had also been expanded proportionally to help her be able to walk. That process wasn''t without pain, but in comparison to the other pain she felt it was but a drop in the ocean.


    From outside of the pillar, Althos wordlessly cast a spell on her that helped numb the pain a bit. When she regained full consciousness and her mind wasn''t a hellscape of pain and agony she''d be grateful to him for doing that. But at that moment, within the pillar of darkness, she was basically a big ball of pain and agony as she experienced a dramatic transformation.


    The magic she was gaining was easy for her to gain. It''s just unfortunate that until that point physical traits she inherited from her father never manifested. That said, the half-elf, half moth devil''s transformation was genuinely astounding.


    <hr>


    While his party members found themselves ensconced in pillars of darkness, and in the aftermath of casting spells that lessened pain on those of them who needed it, the youthful deity ran ahead of the party. He was unaccompanied and didn''t quite go all the way towards where the creature he hoped to make a foe out of stood but he walked to the area just beyond the hallway. He was curious and wanted a chance to converse with the being he suspected would prove to be an enemy if given the chance.


    When he arrived there he saw the eerie and spiritual body of the undying titan. The strange, otherworldly mass of the creature was looking in his direction and the thing quickly noticed him. It didn''t bother to approach the creature who in its eyes was nothing more than an overpowered boy.


    "So you are the infant deity who is messing up my home?" The titan asked, its voice filled with bizarre spiritual power. Althos chuckled and he prepared a response.


    "I suppose that''s one way to describe me." He said a wry grin on his face. The titan too began to smile, a smile that stretched thin the spiritual energy that made up its almost alien form.


    "Are you determined to clear this trial?" The titan asked, curiosity filling its voice. Althos considered the question for a second and as he did so he was strangely silent. There was a look of careful consideration on his face as he thought about different ways to answer it. It didn''t take him long to settle on the truth.


    "Yes, I am. There''s a chance it''s my destiny to become the lord of Infernius. And one part of that destiny involves me clearing this dungeon." He said simplistically. His conversational counterpart studied him, silently while it considered what to say to that reaction.


    "If you proceed down this path, your destiny will end. You will become my dinner. Nothing more, nothing less. An ignoble fate for someone as high-minded as you." The titan said to Althos. There was no arrogance in its voice, just honesty, and self-assurance.


    Althos mulled over this remark. He rubbed his chin as he did so, his hands moving idly to his face. When he next spoke it was to ask a simple question.


    "Why do you think you can defeat me? Is it... old age that fuels your self-assurance?" He asked, genuine curiosity coloring his question. This caught the undying titan off-guard and caused the odd being to spend a moment considering a genuine answer to its question. The titan''s response to the honest query asked by the young man talking to it was one of dangerous arrogance.


    "Because I can. You are a child. But I am not. In my culture elders are strongly respected and we stand supreme. You will fall by my hand. And I will eat you. The fact that you are a god means nothing to me. You are what... a few days old? You are puny. Though... if you flee this place and come back in a few eons, who knows what may happen?" The titan remarked, sustained and egged on by an ego that may one day prove to be its downfall. Althos considered the titan''s remarks for a second before commenting himself.


    "Your arrogance is stupid. You know nothing about me, save for that I am a god. And that I am young. My youthfulness is not a reason to discard my strength. I predict that in a few minutes you will see things differently. If you see them at all. If you insist on opposing me, then I recommend careful consideration of your life''s choices." Althos told the titan, his voice low and dark. He was being perfectly frank, and now that he had an understanding, albeit a superficial one, of the titan''s state of mind he decided that he didn''t like the thing.


    The deity spun on his heels and went back to where his friends, allies, and servants were ensconced in pillars of darkness. He now felt more comfortable fighting the titan, and didn''t suspect that the titan''s mind would be turned against fighting them.I suppose the titan will indeed have to fall.He told himself, never really doubting that he''d have to fight and probably even kill the thing.


    As he returned, the first creature he had ever awoken was in the middle of her own painful transformation.


    <hr>


    Silander, much like her distant sister-in-arms Tristan, fell to her knees within her own pillar of darkness. The young great-frog had lived a pretty lucky life and had never had to endure much pain. As she felt her bones move and shift within her body, that changed.


    The experience of growing wings and having them burst into place was an incredibly agonizing one. She felt bone-crunching pain rattle her consciousness and wrack her sense of awareness as she did her best to endure the pain.


    Her horns came in pretty easily relative to her wings. They weren''t at all like Tristan''s curse-eye. They merely grew spontaneously across her body. One emerging in the same place on her as Tristan''s curse-eye, and others emerging on her knees, elbows, and ones jutting out from the backs of her hands.


    Fortunately for her, the reality was that those were the only traits Althos had left unawakened. Or at least the only physical ones. The others easily awoke within her, as if they had been used minutes ago and had just now finished recharging, rather then them being spontaneous new features that Althos willed into existence from deep within her genetic code.


    <hr>


    Raverangos'' experience with growing wings was deeply different compared to that of its companions. But that was because its wings were made of magic. It was a perk of being an extraplanar creature, as opposed to a mortal one. Its wings were also considerably tinier looking than those belonging to the creature''s allies. Raverangos knew with but a glance at them that they still worked, even if they were tiny.


    Horns exploded across its body, but its horns were much smaller. They were more like spines than horns, and Raverangos could retract or expand them at will. Raverangos'' cruel mind could imagine a lot of uses for these spine-like horns and it grinned at that.


    The demon''s real transformation came not with the wings or its new horns and it wasn''t physical. Deep within it, new powers brought with them a significant leap in intelligence.


    Within the cacoon-like pillar of darkness, Raverangos''s experienced spontaneous bursts of newfound intelligence and willpower. Determination surged through the beast, and it felt more capable than ever of achieving its goals. But the creature realized with a start that it didn''t really have goals. It was compelled to try and change that, at the first opportunity to do so.


    The creature could sense a variety of new abilities hidden within it. It could sense its flesh growing more malleable and protean than its skin had been before. It could feel chaos within its hands, just waiting to be willed into existence and weaponized. It could even sense the emotions of the creatures that surrounded it. And their emotions made it hungry.


    A part of it wanted to take an unimaginably deep breath. It wasn''t sure what would happen if it did, but it knew that it wanted to.


    <hr>


    From within its own pillar of darkness, Althos'' other sentient extraplanar familiar, was being doused in magical energy. Salifinos felt its body burn underneath the incredible heat of magical radiation.


    Over and over again the creature was exposed to a potent energy that touched, seared, and altered it.


    The imp felt its brain and its mind gaining new properties and new abilities.


    [New skill gained: Make Contract.]


    [New skill gained: Call Inferior.]


    [New skill gained: Tame Vermin.]


    [New skill gained: Call Vermin.]


    [New skill gained: Protean Form.]


    It received an incredible variety of notifications, alerting it to new skills. Unlike the others, its notifications were almost entirely magical and often internal.


    It wasn''t a thoroughly unpleasant experience even if by the end of it the imp''s brain hurt and its vision was filled with green text-boxes.


    <hr>


    Within a few minutes, the pillars of darkness began to fade away. The creatures that were revealed in a handful of cases looked very different to how they had before.


    Raverangos looked less like a massive cross between bear and pig, and more like a wrecking ball with wings.


    Silander had bright, meter-long yellow wings and parts of her body now had their own long horns jutting out of them. At the center of her forehead sat a long purple horn, a horn that occasionally dripped poison. Horns of different colors came out of her other body parts.


    That said, both of their transformations paled in comparison to Tristan''s. She came out of the darkened cacoon as a vastly different creature than she had been when she entered it.


    Tristan''s habit was torn and the back of it was covered in staining blood. But it was torn due to the huge wings fell on the floor beside the girl. Massive white wings, that freely shed tiny white scales with even the faintest movements. Her wings were covered in blood and in torn amber-colored skin.


    That wasn''t her only new feature though. Her main eyes were closed, but in the center of her forehead sat a massive new eye. An eye the radiant color of a polished and treasured ruby looked out at Althos and the rest of his followers. A careful examination of this eye would reveal that it was made up of hundreds of incredibly tiny, sensitive, eyes.


    The priestess, even in her weakened state, radiated power. It was obvious that her vestigial traits were traits related to her heritage. Althos could tell that the external traits were tied to her father, a powerful moth-devil, and he curiously wondered what her internal traits were. He didn''t have the time to do an examination of them at that moment, because before he could, a loud vibration rattled the passageway and drew Althos'' attention back to the exit out of the passageway and towards the dungeon''s heart.


    A deep, pitiless voice spoke to them as Althos turned. It was the voice of the creature Althos had just ensured would act in a way that he wanted it too. The voice of Narcolept.


    "You''ve kept me waiting for so long. I can sense that after our little chat you powered up your servants... but such a sudden, desperate transformation can do nothing against my might. Your party''s newfound abilities won''t be enough to overcome my power. Now come. Meet your destiny. Meet... me."


    Narcolept spoke to the party. Althos looked into the strange area outside of the passageway and saw that something had emerged from the pit. A gigantic hand, larger than Raverangos in fact, and larger than the dire-bears Althos had encountered in the forest, was now straining on the ground right outside of the pit.


    Althos faintly detected a quiet rumble as something moved beneath the dungeon. Althos nodded as his companions and they began to move again. Althos quickly healed Tristan and used magic that enabled her to quickly recover her strength, so that they may proceed at the same speed.


    Upon reaching the narrow exit out of the passageway, Althos and his party heard the faint rumbling beneath them increase in intensity and volume and they worked to maintain their balance, so as to not fall. Seconds later, the elephantine head of the undying titan appeared, arising out of the huge pit.


    Another, much smaller ethereal thing rose out of the ground next to the pit. It was actually not much taller than Raverangos, but the physical form of the titan was lifting part of itself out of the pit and with each passing second it seemed to grow in height, even if its face was... less than complete. It seemed that for some reason the strange titan''s spiritual body had opted to retreat into the ground after it and Althos had spoken earlier.


    Althos and his companions readied themselves for battle. They were face to face with the two forms of the undying titan known as Narcolept the Pretender. Nacrolept''s ethereal, spiritual form spoke to them.


    "Forgive my... unbecoming appearance young ones. But know this: with the power I can sense radiating off of you, this little one right here will gain the power needed for it... for me to be able to rampage across the surface once again. After all, Agowraith only had enough strength for me to be able to reform my physical body to a certain extent. But you... you possess real power. Especially you, god of infants." The Pretender told the party, taunting them all but singling Althos out.


    And then the bizarre living obstacle turned to Tristan. Its eyes honed in on her, rather uncomfortably. It looked at her like it was eyeing a piece of meat, a rather delicious morsel. And when it spoke it sounded ravenous.


    "I see now that your father was just a snack. You... you are the entree."


    Tristan was the first to step into the area beyond the passageway. Provoked by the creature. She opened her mouth to speak, staring straight ahead at the half-formed titan-thing in front of her.


    "I''ve waited for this for a long time."


    After she said that, she turned so that she was facing Althos. She was shaking, trembling in fear and anticipation.


    "Let''s get this over with and go back to the Cathedral of the Dark Saint. I miss home."


    Althos grinned at her and stepped over the threshold into the arena like chamber.


    "I''m right here with you. This thing... doesn''t stand a chance."


    The deity began to radiate power. The half-formed Titan''s featureless face shifted slightly. If the thing had a mouth Althos suspected it would have been grinning at them.


    The ceiling of this part of the tomb rose at least thirty-five meters above them, and with each passing moment more of the weird titan lifted itself out of the pit and towards it. Even the head of the titan was larger than Raverangos by several meters. Althos readied himself for violence and heard his companions move into position behind him and Tristan.


    With but a flick of its wrist, the ethereal titan caused the floating skull that only a few of the party members could see, to abruptly vanish. As it faded into nothingness the floating skull seemed to frown slightly, which was a disconcerting sight to the few party members who noticed its sudden disappearance.

 Chapter 49:

    Perhaps twelve seconds had passed since Althos stepped up and beside Tristan. The half-devil was filled with emotion as she looked out at the scene before her, her eyes focused completely on the physical body of the undying titan. Althos could feel it leaking out of her heart. He thought about how best to calm her down.


    Would it be for the best if I just reach out and snuff out the life of the undying titan? It''s not like its a threat to me... I could easily just make it physical using my alteration magic, and then snuff it out that way... No, I don''t think that''d work. Well... not for calming down Tristan anyway.


    His mind was racing as he considered what the best route forward was. He was still emotionally immature and found the emotions mortal felt... tiring to try and deal with.


    He was tempted to reach out and touch her mind to try and calm her down that way.


    He ultimately decided that wasn''t the best idea. This was a private moment for her. It was on her to get what she needed to get out of it. He just needed to create the openings needed for her to exact her revenge.


    <hr>


    I''ve... waited so long for this.


    Tristan watched as the titan continued to rise out of the pit. Many meters away from her, the gigantic thing was mobile. It was slow, but it was still almost unimaginably big. The half-devil felt her heart beating out of her chest. She felt... fear.


    To be... meters away from his killer. In the same chamber even.


    She watched as the massive monster, larger than any other living creature she had ever seen, kept slowly pushing itself out of the pit. It wasn''t until the thing''s head was perhaps 9 meters out of the pit, that its chin rose just over the peak of the hole it was in. She felt... bloodlust.


    Someone who seems to have... fed upon him.


    She felt a veritable cocktail of emotions raging through her. Fighting for dominance. It paralyzed her. She felt her will to move forward slipping away, as fear of her own weakness, relative to her enemy, gripped her heart.


    At that moment, Tristan felt a hand fall on her should. Althos. She noted that his hand felt warm. It felt... strong. He lightly squeezed her shoulder, presumably to reassure her that she wasn''t alone. And then he spoke.


    "Narcolept... You seem to think you can do whatever you want. Why do you think that?"


    His voice oozed confidence. Tristan couldn''t see him, as her gaze was firmly glued right in front of her, but there was a look in his eyes that hinted that he was about to enjoy the violence that was moments from exploding throughout the chamber. And then the deity lifted his other hand.


    He pointed it at the weird titan. And he smiled. A cruel, predatory smile.


    <hr>


    The party stood inside of a gigantic arena-like chamber. The chamber extended long enough that even with a cursory glance the party could tell that the room was at least two hundred and fifty meters from one end to another. When they had first entered the chamber they all glanced at the ceiling and guessed it was at least thirty-five meters tall.


    The pit that sat in the center of the chamber was about fifty meters long and roughly twenty-five meters wide. The creature that was clambering out of it was at this point was almost comically tall, but the party didn''t intend to sit idly by while it got comfortable and battle-ready. After all, they were the bad guys.


    <hr>


    Althos, gradually becoming an opportunist, considered how to make this battle the emotional spectacle it needed to be for it to become the impetus for Tristan to become his worshiper.


    Should I take the lead here...? No. I don''t think that''d work.


    This was the sort of precise emotional manipulation the young god wasn''t used too but he knew this moment had potential. He could sense the emotions radiating out of Tristan. He could feel the nerves she felt.


    What if we pave the way for her to get revenge herself? Yes... yes! That''s a much better idea. Show her that not only am I incredibly powerful, that we are incredibly powerful, but that by my side she is powerful too.


    The young deity grinned as he came up with a basic objective to work towards. He was smart enough to recognize that that wasn''t a plan, at least not by itself.


    I guess that means we should start by disabling the physical form first huh? So long as it remains an obstacle we could get hit from behind. Alright... Let''s do this!


    The deity, after thinking things through for a few moments felt that he had had a breakthrough. He felt ready to go, and allowed himself to leave his own mind and assess the situation unfolding in front of him.


    <hr>


    Althos took stock of the situation. His eyes glided over the scene, looking for anything he could exploit. He took a few seconds to scope out the field of battle, and then calmly looked right at the titan. Althos spoke once again, confidently taking charge of the situation.


    "Gallow, get that hand."


    Many meters away from them, the titan was active. The chamber was filled with the noises of its activity, as it slowly came surging out of that hole in the ground.


    The titan was lifting itself out of the pit it inhabited. It had a single, absolutely gigantic, hand gripped tight to the edge of the pit and was physically pulling itself up. Sadly for it, the hand was in front of them, boldly unarmored. From behind Althos, his roguish minion smirked and leaped forward, daggers in both of his hands and bloodlust visible in his eyes.


    The titan itself was little more than a gigantic creature. Though its face was pointed straight upward, Althos had gotten a chance to look at it earlier and recalled what few features its face had.


    It had a weird, half-formed face. It had eyes, massive ones that take up nearly half of its face, and eyebrows but no ears, it had thick black hair but no mouth, no nose, and deformed ears that had ear pinnas but lacked a visible ear canal.


    Its hand was totally smooth with no visible imperfections, no bumps, and as far as Althos could tell a minimal amount of bone or muscle. Althos wondered how the thing could muster the strength to pull up its almost certainly impossibly heavy mass out of the pit it was in. He also, momentarily wondered just how tall the thing was.


    Then he snapped out of his daze and resumed issuing his commands.


    "Silander, do you think you can fly?"


    Behind him, the young great-frog tried to lift herself off of the ground. It took her a few moments, but after willing herself off of the ground for the fifth time Althos heard her wings begin to beat, and sensed her take-off behind him, feeling a tiny breeze from the beating of her wings. He chuckled and immediately after she began to fly, so did Raverangos.


    Nice! Good job Raverangos!


    The deity had an unexpected reaction to Raverangos, the least intelligent of his followers or familiars aside from the orbs, being proactive and lifting itself off the ground without being told. The deity quickly reined himself back in and spoke his commands to the two familiars.


    "Alright, you two. Go after that thing''s face. Give it... well give it all you''ve got! Keep it as preoccupied as you can."


    He felt uncomfortable commanding them to endanger themselves so directly, but he also knew that so long as he kept the spectral form busy and Gallow went after the thing''s exposed hand, odds are the others would do what they did best. He had to count on that. But the deity was also concerned about the spiritual form of the creature.


    <hr>


    How will the spiritual form move? If it has magic then it''s possible it''ll go in for a big attack right?


    Althos wracked his brain as he considered how to best handle the creature''s spiritual form.The deity had yet to clash with a magic-user directly, but a simple scan of his memories, coupled with the memories of his worshippers, showed him that magic-users tended to go for big attacks in fights like this.


    Will it launch an attack it thinks is a sure-kill? Or will it throw a massive attack at all of us to make it harder for me to block against?


    There was a tiny part of the god that looked forward to watching how the spiritual form of the creature planned to fight, but a bigger part of him was concerned about how to participate in the fight without taking up experience from his allies. Those thoughts and the emotions they provoked slightly annoyed the deity.


    After thinking about the situation for a few seconds, the deity realized that the creature seemed to be focused and fixated on Tristan. He realized that gave him a chance because odds are the thing would go after her first. He suddenly knew what to do.


    [Salifinos... Prepare an attack on this thing''s spiritual form. When the thing gets too heated, or when it feels that we''re ignoring it, it''ll come at Tristan with a focused attack. When it does, I''ll block the attack using flames. Use one of those handy new abilities you got and make sure the titan feels the burn.]


    Althos grinned, twisting slightly so that the imp behind him could see his smirk. The imp locked eyes with its master, and then suddenly knew why Althos tasked it with this task. It grinned right back and proceeded to wink back at its master.


    [You got it, boss. I''ll make sure the titan eats it.]


    Althos turned back so that he was once again facing the titan''s hulking physical form. He felt a bit more confident, now that there was a plan of attack.


    <hr>


    At this point, the spectral form of the undying titan began to rise again. And then the entity, falsely believing that it wasn''t being watched, since no one was looking at it directly, flew behind the party.


    It tucked itself into a tidy little corner of the arena-like chamber and began to will its magical, eldritch, energy to gather in its hands. Within seconds the energy responded to its call and traveled from where its ethereal heart would have been, if it had one, to its ethereal hands.


    The spectral thing rose its hands and watched as they began to glow with eldritch energy. The creature worked to control and focus the energy swirling in and around its hands into tiny pinpricks, hyper-focusing them. It took a few seconds, but the creature grinned in cruel satisfaction when it felt the energy was properly prepared. It spoke, saying words it hoped would haunt Tristan in her final moments.


    "Do you think you can just ignore me?"


    And then it pointed a single finger at Tristan and let loose the energy it had speedily prepared. A single, thin line of purple energy shot forth from the thing''s fingertip, streaking towards Tristan. But it never reached her.


    <hr>


    One second the ray of supercharged eldritch energy was surging through the air and the next, it wasn''t. Instead, a wall of flames engulfed the space between the half-devil and the spiritual form of the undying titan. The flames scattered the eldritch energy, and the spiritual form of the malignant foe the party faced hissed in annoyance. The flames audibly roared, clashing with the sounds of the titan lifting itself up, and Althos grinned.


    Althos didn''t even have to turn to face his opponent. Instead, the hand that had been on Tristan''s shoulder was now gently following the spiritual form of the titan. The air around the hands emitted a soft red glow as if to make it perfectly clear Althos was responsible for the flames. The young god spoke, his voice loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the roaring flames he had just willed into being.


    "Who said I was ignoring you?"


    Narcolept''s spiritual form began to growl, and it began to lift another finger, this time on its other hand. The thing was too focused on its targets, first Tristan but now also Althos, to realize that the imp it had spotted earlier was nowhere to be seen.


    Salifinos, Althos'' imp familiar, had begun to move in the seconds after the wall of flames burst into being between Althos and the undying titan''s malignant spiritual mass. The imp quietly flew to a place where it was right behind the walls of flame and could aim a magical blast of its own through the complex of fiery pillars.


    The imp quickly and quietly got into position and recalled the details of one of its new abilities.


    [Skill name: White-Hot Bolt


    Skill description: You emit a bolt of white-hot flames that cut through the air and immolate anything it touches. You can aim it and can control its speed. It continues until it hits a solid mass, passing through other fires and instantly melting water or ice.


    White-hot flames are the hottest flames of all and can cut through most forms of heat or fire resistance. This bolt of flames can superheat even other fires, raising their intensity and color just by passing through them.


    Cost: 1,000 magical energy per boltReading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    Cooldown: Can only be used once every 45 seconds.


    Note: Like most other skills, this is an upgradeable one. Each upgrade increases this skill''s speed, reduces its cooldown and cost, and increases the power of the skill.]


    The imp readied the skill in its mind, peered through the flames to ensure its aim was where it needed to be, and grinned. Then the imp activated its skill.


    A sizzling, sparking, tiny ball of milk-white fire appeared in the imp''s tiny hands. The creature looked at the spectral form of the undying titan, who was beyond the flames and undoubtedly preparing another attack and then hurled the ball of fire at the creature.


    In the seconds between the imp throwing the ball and the ball leaving its hands the imp willed it to be as fast as possible and hoped that it''d be enough to smash into the face of the spooky titan.


    The ball exploded out of the goblin''s hands, and into the maze of flames that stood between the titan and its prey. The flames that protected Tristan and Althos flickered for a second, as they dramatically jumped in temperature.


    <hr>


    The spectral form of the titan had been gazing beyond the wall-like column of flames and at Tristan and Althos when the flames suddenly transformed. They seemed to blink out for a second, before instantly reforming as much hotter, white flames.


    The titan''s spectral form turned to look right at them, only to narrowly react in time to throw itself out of the way of the ball of white fire that suddenly emerged from out of the flames, camouflaged by the very flames it had transformed as it sailed through the barrier Althos had created.


    The ball of white fire sailed right through where the titan had been and crashed into the corner the titan had been lurking in. The flames of the ball latched onto the wall, searing it and causing it to begin to melt. This illuminated the corner, casting an otherworldly white glow across the entire area, including the titan''s see-through form.


    In response to its corner being brightly illuminated by a ball of white hot flames, the titan''s floating spiritual essence flew off in a new direction while scanning the now white-hot barrier of flames that protected Tristan from it, to detect the source of that attack.


    Salifinos''s eyes never left the titan''s ethereal mass. Once the imp noticed that the titan was peering through the wall of flames, the imp began to wave. When the ghostly thing noticed the imp, the familiar began to speak.


    "You''re facing more than just Tristan and Althos! If you ignore any of us, we''re gonna make you feel some real pain."


    The titan''s ethereal mass issued an animalistic roar at that taunt. It was now at the edge of its patience.


    <hr>


    Moments earlier, Gallow had surged towards the titan''s physical hand. The hand was gripping onto the edge of the pit, and from a distance Gallow saw it as nothing more than a large target. Above him the orc heard the fluttering of two sets of wings, and hoped that that was the sound of his allies racing across the arena-like area and towards the titan''s face.


    As Gallow dashed closer and closer to the titan''s hand, which was more than twice as tall as he was, he reassessed his initial outlook on the hand. The orc gulped as the hand continued increasing in size as he got closer and closer to it, but the orc also quietly issued another prayer.


    I still don''t know how to do this, but Althos if you can hear me I am praying to request your assistance. This hand is... massive. Bigger than me. Bigger than your demon-pet. Big. Capital B-I-G, BIG. I don''t know if I have the physical strength needed to cut through this thing on my own. So if you could somehow bless me to be stronger, that''d be great.


    Every step brought him closer and closer to the titanic hand. And soon enough the beige-colored flesh of one of the titan''s massive fingers was all he could see. The orc threw himself forward, thrusting the daggers in his hands out ahead of himself, aiming to impale them on the titan''s finger.


    Elsewhere on the battlefield, Tristan began to shake. Beside her, Althos both heard and grinned at Gallow''s pragmatic prayer, and at Tristan.


    <hr>


    This thing murdered my father. Probably literally ate him too. And I''m scared? All I can do is stand here and be paralyzed by fear?


    Tristan had watched as all around her, her allies and Althos'' other servants swung into action. Only the soul orbs were beside her and Althos now.


    She watched as her distant comrades obeyed their master, and sprung into action. She heard Salifinos taught the spiritual form of the undying titan and she saw how Silander, Raverangos, and Gallow all dashed towards the titan''s physical body.


    Not just a demon and an orc but even a great-frog and an IMP are braver than I am. An imp who even boldly faces down an enemy, alone... And what am I doing? Just being... afraid.


    Tristan spent a moment being angry. Not with her foe, not with her allies, but with herself. Then the girl felt something new. Something else. A grim determination.


    What am I doing? Am I going to let my father, a noble devil-moth, be avenged by someone else? No. No!


    At that moment, she imagined something. An image filled her mind. An image of her using a spell to bring down the creature who even at that moment was plotting to feast on them. She turned and targeted the ethereal form of the spiritual mass that was clashing with her imp-companion.


    It should be me. I should be the one who out on the frontlines. So why aren''t I? I will help them win. I will defeat this enemy! I am not alone, and I am strong. I can overcome the enemies around me.


    At that moment, Tristan dashed towards where Salifinos was. Behind her, Althos smiled. This wasn''t a smirk, it was a soft and gentle smile.


    The deity felt something new within him. Something directed towards the girl. He struggled to put it into words, but he thought about it.


    It was warm and strong. A feeling that made him want to smile. He thought about it, while also considering where to go next. He froze while he did this. Eventually, M.A. responded to him.


    [You''re feeling pride. You''re proud of her. You let her recover from the fear that gripped her heart, on her own. And she did it. So now you''re proud of her. Which you should be. You should also go to help her.]


    That shook Althos out of his quiet soul-searching while he tried to figure out what he was feeling. The deity quietly gasped and ran off after the young priestess.


    <hr>


    Silander and Raverangos flew up towards the titan''s face. As Silander flew, small mist-like scales scattered behind her. As Raverangos flew, its beating wings emitted a dark and faint mist behind them. Both of the creatures'' gaze were at times locked on each other and at other times locked on their enemy, as they flew higher and higher.


    At this point, the Titan''s body extended close to 15 meters out and above the pit. And it was still pushing itself out of the hole. More than just it''s head was visible now too. A relatively thin neck had appeared, and even the tops of its shoulders were beginning to just jut out over the pit.


    Occasionally Silander stopped to try and use a combination of two of her new powers, the ability to control the properties of the mucus that covered her body in a slime-like layer of natural armor and the ability to exhale a breath of frigid air. She used these powers in concert to try and paralyze the titan, or to slow it down through freezing parts of its body. It wasn''t working so far.


    Damn it! Damn it! If any more of the thing''s body appears it may be tempted to try and lift up its other hand. If it does, not only are Raverangos and I in danger, but Gallow will be too!


    This was the first time she was lost in emotion. While she was frustrated, she stopped ascending. Ravernagos kept flying upward, ignoring the angry frog.


    If I can''t help out here, against a passive enemy... what is the point of this new power? I want to do something useful... I want to help take down this foe!


    Silanderwas shouting at herself in her mind. She felt frustrated and unuseful. She hated that. And so she took it on the creature in front of her.


    The flying frog lashed out at the titan''s unbelievably large body by hitting it constantly with physical attacks it just ignored. The oblivious thing just kept climbing and climbing. Silander wouldn''t stop launching ineffectual physical attacks, like punching or kicking, until she threw a punch that collided with the featureless skin of the titan in such a way that it sent a wave of pain through her own hand. When it did, she stopped and looked at her hand.


    That was when she was reminded of the horn on her hands. It was then that she wondered if perhaps there was something she could do. She began to hatch a violent plan, one that was inspired partially Ranthor''s vivid retelling of his fanciful shooting during the clash against the bears.


    Above her, Raverangos had its own bright idea. And the demon was about to get creative with its new horns.


    <hr>


    It took a few moments but eventually, after pushing its wings as hard as it could, the demon was flying above the titan. The thing''s massive face was inching closer and closer to the demon, but the thing barely seemed alive at all. Its eyes were glazed over and inactive, and it didn''t register the demon at all. Which was a mistake.


    The demon stared hard at the eyes of the giant, and then it grinned. The demon focused and willed its body to produce as many spine-like horns across its flesh as the demon could handle. After a few seconds of intense focus, the demon''s body, already riddled with spine-like horns grew even more horns. And then the thing looked straight down, aiming itself carefully.


    The demon smiled, its teeth showing, as it took masterful aim. The demon waited a few seconds, so as to ensure its prey wouldn''t twist or turn. And then the creature allowed itself to fall.


    The demon fell through the air, feeling little to no wind to knock it off course because it was inside of a dungeon, and picked up speed thanks to gravity. Several moments passed as the demon plummeted towards its fleshy destination. As it fell towards its intended target, the demon thought to itself.


    I gain a whole lot of intelligence. A basic understanding of physics even. And what''s the first thing I do with that new intelligence? Turn myself into a massive weapon and plunge towards a creature with an eye that''s bigger than I am... I kind of love Althos for having such a wacky life that I can fight bears one day, and do this the next!


    Demons love violence and pain. And this particular demon was about to inflict a lot of pain.


    A few more seconds pass, and thanks to the fact that gravity was tugging on the demon, and the titan was climbing up towards the demon, the demon violently collides with the titan.


    The demon''s weaponized mass, covered in horns, making contact with the softest part of the titan''s body, its eye, allowed Ravernangos to cut through the creature''s soft skin, and sink into the eye socket of the titan. The horns rip apart the eye, the further Raverangos sunk into it.


    Raverangos was meters deep inside of the head of the titan, and still going, due to the speed the demon reached, coupled with its body becoming a massive weapon designed to rip and cut apart anything that got in its way.


    The titan finally stops pushing itself out of the pit, and freezes altogether. The mind-rending pain of its eye being ripped apart actually took second to reach its brain. The titan needed a moment to process the sheer agony of the sensation of its eye being brutally smashed into, and then ripped apart by an invasive demon who cut its way into the titan''s head.


    Eventually, Raverangos stopped moving, and slowly realized that its body wasn''t hurtling towards the ground anymore. And then the demon suddenly heard the loudest sound it ever heard. An agonizing wail that decimated the demon''s ability to hear, and thundered throughout the entire dungeon, assaulting anyone in it due to its sheer volume and pain.


    <hr>


    No one saw Raverangos throw itself into the eye of the titan, but shortly after it happened they all felt the effects of it.


    Tristan, who had been closing in on the area where the fight between the spiritual form of the titan and the sneaky imp was going down, lost her sense of hearing altogether as a consequence of the agonizingly loud wail of the brutalized titan.


    Althos fell to his knees and tried to cover his ears to block out the intensity of the sound when coupled with his intense hearing. It didn''t help, the sound just seemed to ignore his futile attempts to block it.


    Salifinos hissed and roared in pain as a result of the noise, but didn''t recklessly attack because of it. The devil was proud of its new abilities and intended for the first victim of them to be the spiritual form of the titan.


    Gallow and Silander were right next to the wailing titan and suffering physical pain because of the sound. But Silander, who was higher up than Gallow, was treated to a lovely sight: the sight of the titan''s physical form beginning to tip backward.


    Gallow noticed the titan letting go of the edge of the pit. And the orc grinned, even as he processed the pain of the unimaginably loud wail.


    The titan was in so much pain that it had let go of the pit, and in a few moments would probably begin to either sink into the pit or sail backward and collapse, leaving just its head and neck exposed out of the pit. A second passed, and Althos scanned the battlefield as he recovered from the pain the wail of the titan inflicted on him. The deity noticed both what Gallow noticed and what Silander noticed and grinned.


    [Gallow! I''ll grant you a strength buff, charge at and knock the titan backward! Don''t let it sink all the way into the pit!]


    Althos sent a similar message to Silander. And then he executed his strategy. Wordlessly the deity healed every member of his party to offset the damage they took from the power of the titan''s vocal cords, and then on Gallow and Silander, he cast spells to increase their weight and their strength.


    Go on... Gallow... Silander... KNOCK THIS TITAN DOWN!


    Althos excitedly reacted to the idea of his worshipers slamming into the titan with enough force to push the thing over, and his exact thoughts almost radiated into the minds of his worshipers. But he contained himself and sent them a less loud message.


    [Gallow... Silander... knock down that titan!]


    Althos'' voice penetrated the brains of both of his followers, and they felt his will seep into them. They felt his excitement, and it merged with their own. The two creatures closest to the titan leaped or flew backward to give them enough space to get a running or flying start. And then the two creatures sprinted or soared at the titan, power surging through their veins and their weight increasing with each step they took or nanometer they drew closer to the titan.


    <hr>


    Gallow and Silander rammed into the titan at the exact same time, performing two vicious mid-air tackles to the creature. They each weighed several tons and with massive power surging through their tiny bodies at the time of impact and immediately began to push the creature.


    I can do this! I''ll take this titan down, here and now! Let''s defeat this thing!


    Come on! I belong here, with Althos, with everyone! I''ll push this titan down and then... together... we''ll defeat it!


    Both of the creatures were on similar mental wavelengths, and they pushed with all of their might.


    Althos watched as the combined efforts of his first worshiper and the orc whose life he once saved, began to tip the titan over, causing its head to no longer be over the safety of the pit but the cold, hard floor of the arena. Where it''d be exposed if it was unconscious.


    He grinned as his two worshiperspushedthemselves to the limit, even with the layers of spells he placed on them, and as the titan began to slowly, but surely fall backward.


    The creature''s long body began to move back, towards the other end of the pit. And then, as if to make the process easier, the thing began to fall on its own. And as a consequence, so did someone else.


    Gallow, feeling the pull of gravity began to fall, the darkness of the pit swallowing up his feet rather rapidly. But before any more of his body could vanish, Silander dove towards him and grabbed him by his shoulders. Apparently still feeling the effects of the strength buffs, the great-frog tossed the orcish rogue to an area beyond the pit, where he landed a few dozen meters away from the defeated and unconscious form of the titan.


    The titan crashed onto the ground on the other side of the pit, causing a tremor-like vibration to reverberate throughout the arena. The spectral mass Althos'' other followers were fighting against was so distracted it barely registered the collapse of its other form.


    Around the titan''s fallen form, tons of dust was lifted off of the ground and coated both it and Gallow who was close by, in a fine layer of dust.


    As one, Tristan, Althos, and Gallow realized they had bested the physical form of the titan. And then before they looked away, Raverangos leaped out of the eye of the titan, emerging from within the thing''s head and sailing several meters into the air. It beat its wings to give its leap extra height and landed on the thing''s relatively tiny forehead.


    The horn-covered demon was coaked in a sickening mixture of thick titan''s blood and clear interocular fluid. In a gesture of dramatic self-importance, it rose a thick hand raised to the sky as if to indicate that it was the winner of some private battle it had just fought in. Althos grinned at the drama of the gesture and wondered where the dramatic flair needed to plot out and make such a move came from.


    <hr>


    Behind the orc, god, demon, and great-frog, another battle was raging. The spiritual form of the titan was seething with rage, but was expertly and cautiously dodging magical attacks and assorted spells coming from the priestess and the imp.


    "This fight isn''t over yet..." The spiritual form said, gritting its ethereal teeth, and wracking its brain to try and come up with a strategy it could use to overcome the enemies that stood before it. Both of its foes were making use of brand new powers while demonstrating eerie ease and comfort with their abilities and each other.


    The devilish priestess smiled at the ethereal, translucent being she was clashing against. She responded to what the thing said, taunting it.


    "It''s not... yet. But it will be. Soon."


    As soon as she said that, her companion hurled another bright, white ball of flames at the spiritual mass that embodied the will and intelligence of the titan. The ball''s target sprinted through the air, out of the way and narrowly dodged the flames.

 Chapter 50:

    Althos, having watched as the titan''s physical body collapsed and having watched Raverangos emerge from within the annihilated eye of the thing, turned his attention to the titan''s spectral form. The thing was locked in a fierce battle with the devilish members of Althos'' party.


    Althos mentally reached out and "grabbed" his party members who were beside the unconscious form of the titan, and teleported all of them, and himself to the part of the arena wherein his party members were locked in a fierce battle against the lich-like spectral titan.


    In an instant, the orc, the great-frog, the demon, and the god, were reunited with their companions. The spectral mass that embodied the titan''s intelligence, magic, and hatred, noticed their sudden appearance. It calmly gazed at them, its eyes taking in the sight of them.


    It noticed that Raverangos was coated in thick blood, and seemed to drip intraocular fluid. It realized that the demon was the one who took down its physical form. Its ethereal eyes seemed to light up, glowing a deep and powerful shade of purple. And then the thing opened its ghost-like mouth. And roared.


    The sound the thing made was impressively noisy but it was nothing compared to the wail of the brutalized titan from before. The party members reacted in various ways while the thing raged due to the damage they had done to its physical body.


    Salifinos, in particular, was eager to allow the thing to rage. That gave the imp a chance to wait out the cooldown time for its new, favored form of attack: its white-hot bolt. It also unfocused the thing, giving the imp a chance to further study its target.


    Tristan, on the other hand, wasn''t relaxing or studying her opponent. She was mentally dashing through her abilities, old and new, and wracked her brain for any possible way she could strike at that moment, as well as any way she could buff her allies.


    Gallow, not having a particular method with which he could be useful in this magical fight, mostly relaxed. The orc was annoyed that he had due fairly little in this battle, but he did enjoy the sensation of tackling the gigantic titan''s physical body. At that particular moment, the orc wondered if there was a way for him to ever gain magical abilities of his own, perhaps through a special type of service to Althos. He figured he should ask Tristan or Althos after this battle ended.


    Raverangos delighted in feeling the rage of the titan''s ego. The demon sensed that the creature''s rage was mostly aimed at it, and that made it even more happy at that moment. The thing knew though, that since the battle was now going to be between magic users, its role was over.


    Silander, having a few odd abilities in her repertoire, suspected that she may soon be asked to join this fight as well, and readied herself for action. She found the idea of fighting again to be a bit thrilling, even though she wasn''t the most experienced combatant.


    Althos walked forward until he was beside Tristan once again. He placed his hand on her shoulder and gently squeezed it. His mind was calm, and he felt the end of this battle nearing. He spoke to the young priestess, his voice confident and soothing in the otherwise stressful situation.


    "So... how do you wanna do this?"


    At that moment, something about the deity''s voice filled Tristan with determination. She looked up at her foe, the raging ethereal titan and in a move that closely mimicked Althos'' moves, she grinned at her foe.


    <hr>


    The spectral titan raged for nearly half of a minute, before finally beginning to calm down. When it began to calm itself, it glowered at the party. The mystical thing called out to the power that circulated its ethereal body, crisscrossing its form like a web of veins, and began to prepare its next attack by trying to ready a potent spell.


    Althos moved forward, and mentally reached out to the thing. Instead of chatting with it, the deity quietly "put out" the magic that was circulating through the thing''s body at its behest. The creature itself, still somewhat enraged, and unaware of the deity''s quiet move, was shocked when the deity opened his mouth to speak.


    "What do you think is going to happen here Narcolept?"


    His voice was calm, suffused with the relaxed nature of the deity. He looked at the ethereal form of the titan, floating above the floor of the arena. Behind him his enhanced hearing made it clear to the young god that the physical form of the titan was down for the count. It was still alive, but it wasn''t conscious and Althos doubted that it would regain consciousness anytime soon.


    The ethereal titan looked at him, its purple eyes sizing him up. The arena was still for a second, as the titan pondered the deity''s question. Then the thing answered his question.


    "I''m going to defeat you. All of you."


    The voice of thing was deep, echoing throughout the arena and in response to it, Althos began to laugh. After the deity laughed for about a quarter of a minute, the sound haunting and eerie in the arena, he readied a spell in his mind and began to speak.


    "How? You now face our undivided attention, and if I wanted to, I could do this,"


    The deity cast the spell, aiming it at the creature''s arm and nowhere else. From the center of his forehead, a ray of transparent mystical energy shot out of the deity and sped through the air. The ray made contact with the ethereal form of the titan, even in mid-air. The deity had cast the spell the instant he said the word "this" so the titan had no time to react.


    [Spell type: Alteration


    Spell name: Spirit to Flesh


    Description: This powerful spell transforms spiritual matter to flesh. Equivalents of it that transform magic to flesh, flesh to magic, flesh to spirit, and similar combinations that replace flesh with metal or wood, also exist.


    Spell cost: 10,000 magical energy per cast.]


    Not even an instant passed, and the spell took hold. The ethereal titan flinched as it felt the power of the spell spread from the area where it took the hit, square in the center of its chest, and felt it wiggle through its body until it reached one of its arms.


    The arm in question, the titan''s left arm, was transforming before the eyes of both the party and the titan. The titan turned to watch as its arm from its shoulder to the tips of its fingers solidified. The titan''s face contained unabashed fear as it watched its spiritual limb become one of flesh and bone.


    All of the onlookers watched as bones formed where once only spiritual energy had been. Then muscles appeared on top of those bones. And then finally layer upon layer of skin appeared and completed the disturbing transformation. And then, as suddenly as the spell had taken hold, the arm with nothing to connect it to the creature''s spiritual mass, dropped from the titan''s spiritual body and crashed onto the floor.


    The arm was thick and heavy, so its fall and eventual crash caused it to disturb and blow away nearby dust when it smashed into the ground of the arena. Althos smirked at it, and considered piling on the horror by animating the thing, but ultimately decided that he had done enough for now.


    So instead the deity looked at his foe and smirked. He didn''t say anything, but the coldness and alienness of his gaze communicated his thoughts well enough.


    Althos knew that there was no scenario in which the titan survived the next hour. In most scenarios the deity imagined the titan didn''t survive the next five minutes. And such knowledge made the deity quite happy. Such a scenario meant that Tristan was closer to becoming a true priestess of his, and not just a cleric of a theoretical second dark saint.


    <hr>


    Did a god... just transform part of my body into flesh and bone? How... can I combat that?


    That was the first moment the titan legitimately considered that it could lose. Seconds of consideration later was the moment in which the titan realized it was going to lose. And that was the moment the titan knew it needed to come up with a plan. But it had spent too long either raging or trembling in fear because that was the moment one of its enemies decided to attack.


    The tiny red imp cackled wildly as a white-hot bolt of fire once again appeared in its hands. The small thing grinned at both its master, that grin one of happy satisfaction, and its opponent. The second grin was a macabre, malicious one. The fire-happy imp threw itself off of the ground and hadn''t yet released the fireball it casually held in between tiny palms.


    "I still have to make you eat this!" Salifinos shouted, eagerly closing the distance between itself and the titan. The titan ceased its introspective scheming for a second, totry and use the energy it had gathered earlier before it was attacked. It "released" that energy at the imp, believing its attack would hammer the thing and cancel out the ball of flames it held.


    No such thing occurred, and the titan was shocked to see that nothing exploded out of its body to slam into the flying imp. That was the moment the imp hurled its fiery payload at the titan, who didn''t have the time needed to dodge out of the way.


    The ball of fire jetted forth and flew through the air for less than a second, before making contact with the titan''s center of spiritual mass. The titan watched as the flaming ball transformed and folded to fit its imposing spiritual mass, fear, and shock in his eyes.


    The ball affixed itself to the titan''s muscled, spiritual torso and then wrapped itself around the creature''s chest. Seconds passed as the titan began to feel the pain of the fire licking its form, and then the fire spread. It quickly began to crawl across the thing''s remaining arm, and down its legs. Finally, once it was steadily immolating the rest of its form, the fires spread to the titan''s face.


    At this moment the titan began to steadily descend, its form still and slack. Eventually it landed on the ground, fell to its knees and was still.


    That was when the screeching began, an impressive feat considering the flames that covered its whole body, including its face. The titan began to emit some of the most pained wailing the party had ever heard. Unlike the titan''s physical form, this wailing was more intelligent and contained words intermixed with unintelligent sounds rather than just being the wailing of a wild animal or savage humanoid.


    Several moments of intense, mind-bending wailing passed and eventually the titan''s spiritual form fell unconscious as well.


    Tristan also fell to her knees as she realized that the battle was over. At last.


    <hr>


    Tristan was still as she processed what happened. She felt... powerless. Her contributions to the battle were almost nonexistent, and so was her faith in herself at that moment.


    A demon and an imp were the heroes who defeated the one who took my father from me...The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    She was despondent. She felt... weak.


    Ages ago he tried to map out the monsters here... only to be beaten by this thing. To be eaten. And eventually referred to as a snack. And what does his daughter do? Wait for years, and eventually lead people here, only for those people to win, without her help.


    Her mind was reeling from the shock of seeing a nefarious enemy, one she had hated since her father disappeared even if she didn''t know what it looked like, brought so low.


    Before her stood the unconscious form of the titan''s spectral mass, on its knees, laid low by a powerful fireball tossed by an imp. Behind her, on the other side of the pit, laid the unconscious form of the titan''s physical body. Around her, her allies and the creature who wanted her to serve him, waiting for her to move.


    When she didn''t, her mind too fragile and her ego too bruised, Althos walked in front of the titan''s unconscious form. He wordlessly examined it, and silently cast another, more powerful form of the spirit-to-flesh spell he had used earlier. This time the thing''s entire body was transformed. The spell was cast instantly, but the transformation process took an entire minute due to the amount of energy that was transformed.


    Althos contemplated what to do at that moment. He knew that there was no chance that the titan would live beyond the next hour. He considered having Tristan execute it, maybe even torture it a bit, and readily accepted that that was the best plan of attack. But he wasn''t done with the thing yet.


    Althos had a few questions to ask the entity, and the fact that it was close to death didn''t mean he''d allow this chance to expand his knowledge to slip away. He recalled and recast the same spell he had used to forcibly invade the goblin''s mind, aiming it at the titan. His secondary will emerged and quietly asked him what he''d like to do.


    Althos instructed the secondary will to encourage Tristan and to inform her that she was free to torture the thing as a way to vent her frustrations, but not kill it. Althos wanted to tell her to execute it on his own. He wanted his real-self, the self that was about to plunge into the titan''s mind, to tell her that himself. And then he allowed the spell he had just cast to take hold.


    Everything he could see went black for a second, while Althos'' mind synchronized with the mind of the defeated titan. And then a single feature was added to the infinite darkness that surrounded him.


    <hr>


    The changed scene around Althos reflected the brutal pain the party, Salifinos especially, had inflicted on the gigantic thing.


    Althos found himself in an endless, black void aside from directly in front of him. In front of him he saw an oasis-like area, complete with a small pond and a house. A pond that was on fire. Andthe house, also on fire.


    Althos grinned at the sight before him and began to walk towards the burning house.


    <hr>


    Althos'' physical form approached Tristan. The two locked eyes and Althos'' secondary will considered what to do in that moment. He saw the despondent priestess and wondered what words of encouragement he could give her. What words would rouse her spirits.


    "This victory is yours. Savor it. Learn from this moment, take a bit to mourn and recover... but also remember that come tomorrow you will be alive. And this titan won''t. And that the end of the day... that''s what matters. As long as you live, there''s a chance to build a better tomorrow."


    The two of them kept their gazes firmly locked even as Althos spoke. His voice was calm, confident, and his message was filled with simple truths. He could see tears forming in her eyes and he walked over to her and hugged her.


    Althos'' secondary will realized when he saw her beginning to tear up that maybe what she needed weren''t kind words but something more simple, physical touch.


    At that moment the half-devil, still wary of the godling, allowed herself to feel weak and returned the embrace. She began to weep into the deity''s arms.


    <hr>


    Within the mind of the titan, Althosrepeated what he did while in the mind of the goblin. The deity boldly strode up to the house and entered it.


    This time instead of finding himself in some meadow, the deity found himself inside of a replica of the arena-like chamber he was inside of physically.


    The ethereal titan was unconscious, even in its own mind, and sprawled out across the floor of the pit.


    Althos walked up to the thing, and quietly activated a single usage of a very shocking spell. Lightning flew out of his fingers and shocked the titan''s unconscious form. The deity waited a few seconds, before realizing that the titan wouldn''t wake up.


    He rolled his eyes and decided to take a far more aggressive approach. He questioned how to do this.


    [How can I just... break this thing''s brain?]


    And that was when he got a notification.


    [Are you willing to be maximally efficient in absorbing the knowledge of your victim and thereby risk breaking their mind?]


    He nodded and informed the system that he was more than happy to do that. The system responded quickly after that with a message alerting the young god to what was to happen next.


    [Response received and recorded. Beginning the memory and knowledge extraction process now. Preparing to return you to your body.]


    And then Althos was summarily booted out of the unconscious titan''s mind and teleported back to his physical form. He instantly reentered his body, only to find that Tristan was still holding him. He smiled at her, and spoke quietly.


    "It''s alright. It''s over."


    His gentle voice soothed her tired emotions, and relaxed her. He carefully and gently touched her back, beginning to massage it lightly to work out the physical tension she felt.


    A few minutes passed, and the girl ended the hug herself. She pulled herself away from Althos, backing away from the deity and looked away. There was a bit of color in her cheeks and Althos laughed, but only internally.


    He looked out and examined the scene before them. He made eye contact with each of his followers, and mentally checked in on them.


    He spent a few minutes determining that they were okay, and then he looked behind him. He spoke, while looking at the titan''s unconscious spiritual form.


    "Its time we finish this quest. I am going to go and claim the dungeon-heart. You all stay here and accompany Tristan. Tristian, begin to do... whatever you need to do to that thing. If you want to torture it, feel free. If you want to tear it apart, go for it. But we''re leaving this dungeon soon. Keep that in mind."


    Tristan listened to Althos and nodded at him. She began to walk towards the unconscious form of the titan. He began to look around the arena. He quickly spotted the source of the light from earlier, from before the fight.


    Located not quite at the other end of the arena stood an entrance to another chamber. A small, cylindrical chamber that contained a floating, glowing sphere. Althos grinned and didn''t walk towards it but instead hurtled himself there, using teleportation magic.


    <hr>


    Althos instantly appeared inside of the chamber. He turned around and saw his companions watching as Tristan threw a few test punches at the now physical form of the titan. He grinned as his enhanced hearing picked up the groans of the pained titan. Then he turned back and looked at the glowing, spherical heart of the dungeon before him.


    The thing was small, perhaps several centimeters tall and wide. It was beating, pulsing every few seconds like a regular albeit slow heart. It didn''t look like a heart though, at least not one belonging to humanoids. Instead, it was a perfect, white sphere that radiated wickedly bright light. Althos strained to look at it and approached it. He extended his hand forward so as to touch the thing.


    And with this... I complete another quest, don''t I? I wonder what happens next...


    What happened next was that the young god got another notification.


    [Do you wish to claim the dungeon heart of the tomb of Agowraith the Kingwhisper as your own? If you do, you gain possession of this tomb, you learn its history, you gain access to the dungeon master''s menu, and you complete the quest named "Conquer the Tomb of Agowraith the Kingwhisperer". And you gain control of any creatures, aside from boss-monsters still living in this dungeon. They become your familiars.]


    Althos grinned at the notification in front of him and told it that yes, he did wish to claim to the dungeon as his own. And when he did he was hit by a deluge of notifications.


    The deity actually staggered as he took in the mass of information that hit him. Perhaps the most shocking of which was the history-related notification that he received.


    [New Notification Type Discovered! History.


    History: The True Story Of The Tomb of Agowraith The Kingwhisper.


    This tomb is a dungeon, though it has since been corrupted from its original purpose. That''s due to the tomb''s intimate history with a historian, temptress, and seer who was the author who wrote the dual-history and prophecy that would become known as the tale of the Dark Saint and eventually, the tomb''s conquest by an odd undying titan.


    Agowraith herself designed this tomb to become a place wherein she, a rare type of devil known as an Owl-Devil, could rest until such a time when the second dark saint arrived. She made use of the dungeon-heart to create magical designs for a number of luxuries, from a range of chamber templates to other features that cost an incredible amount of magical energy, such as the tomb becoming mobile or even flying, to create.


    She even created a servant, accidentally making a whole new species, known as a floating skull, that simplemindedly recognized anyone who controlled the tomb as "Agowraith", stupidly believing it to be a title and not a name, and designed it to aide whoever controlled the tomb and the dungeon heart that powered it. Her servant was loyal, but not smart.


    She also created puzzles and traps to test the abilities of anyone who managed to get inside the tomb, believing that it was possible that one day more than one creature would possess such capabilities. She was wrong.


    Unfortunately, Agowraith herself met her end, in the very place she called her tomb, when an invader came. Three thousand years ago, this tomb was invaded, Agowraith herself killed by a sly creature named Narcolept, and the tomb was conquered.


    Narcolept, quickly seeing the potential in the tomb as a lair, set up shop here and didn''t change many of the settings in the tomb such as allowing it to keep its name and to intentionally send out dreams to devils and other sentient creatures far away so that they may be foolishly tempted to seek out the tomb themselves.


    Tragically, Narcolept did dismantle the features that forbade access to the tomb to anyone who couldn''t command an soul-orb, creating a failsafe that allowed patient devils to enter by automatically opening the door if they waited a sufficient amount of time.


    Narcolept successfully built a lair in the tomb, dismantling many of the puzzles within the tomb, simplifying the dungeon so that anyone who stumbled across the tomb would be brought to its pit safe and sound. Then the creature, an undying titan, would summarily devour those who made it to the "end" of the tomb.


    The massive monster would occasionally grow hungry and will the once mobile tomb to appear, open and inviting, to lone devils, or even mortals in Infernius, of sufficient strength. In time the vicious titan ate thousands of would-be conquerors, including high-tier devils and even a handful of heroes, emperors, and kings from a range of mortal worlds.


    The titan tricked the floating skull into believing this place was a prison from which it, ''Agowraith'' needed victims to eventually fuel an escape attempt and maintained that facade even when facing foes for simplicity''s sake.


    In truth, its physical form was weak for one of its kind, and so the thing''s spiritual body dominated the creature and its use of its physical form was to be little more than a distraction while it targeted magic users and drained them of power.


    Narcolept was a serial liar, and its lies were so powerful they corrupted and distorted the history of this place, even affecting the system itself. This tomb was supposed to be a testing ground to help the second dark saint. Instead, it''s become a final resting place for many great heroes, powerful devils, and tyrannical conquerors who set out to acquire mysterious "treasures" within the tomb''s fabled passageways.


    Narcolept itself was defeated only when it arrogantly thought it could handle a god. And even that wasn''t enough to kill. Even now, the titan rises. Well... not quite the titan.]


    Several minutes passed in the time that it took Althos to read the notification he had received. The last sentences of the notification alarmed him, and he teleported himself back to his friends.


    He was not at all surprised to see the spiritual, yet now still fleshy, form of the titan conscious again. But something was different this time. Among other things was the fact that his friends were covered in magically inflicted wounds and had been strewn about the arena, blasted by what was most likely magical energy.


    The titan was beginning to ascend off of the ground, its eyes cold and glossed over. Two types of energy radiated out of it, frigid energy coating and freezing the ground beneath it, while hot steam rose off of its shoulders. It opened its mouth to speak.


    "Well well well... I''ve finally found you, godling. And you''ve brought some friends? More than just that pesky little imp, I see. I''m so disappointed I had to borrow a mortal''s body to see you again little godling... are you scared of me?"


    The voice that came out of Narcolept''s mouth wasn''t the deep voice of the undying titan. It was the sinister voice of Paimon, the devilish overlord and true-devil who tyrannically lorded over the city of Bastille. Althos looked at the possessed body of the undying titan and allowed a neutral expression to fall over his face.


    "Paimon... we meet again."


    And with that, the second phase of the battle within the Tomb of Agowraith began. Althos received one more minor notification before he moved towards the one creature he''d consider a personal enemy.


    [Major Battle Alert!


    The system is suspending all non-major notifications until the battle is over. Once the fight is over, rewards and other notifications will occur as normal.]

 Chapter 51:

    Looks like I have another chance to make Tristan feel useful huh? I never thought I''d be glad to see Paimon, but hey... I can turn this surprising battle into a neat chance to see how Tristan fights, and to bring her another step closer to my worship, since the last time I tried it didn''t particularly work.


    With the unexpected appearance of his enemy, in the form of a possessor making a skin-suit out of Tristan''s foe, Althos saw a chance. He saw a thin opportunity to make Tristan feel useful. Althos quickly came up with a scheme to make his servant into his worshiper, but it would require her being at his side during this battle.


    <hr>


    Althos mentally readied himself for the coming conflict by first exploring his H.U.D. It was an odd choice, but it was not without reason, for he noticed two new updates to it.


    The first update he noticed was a barely visible icon located in the upper corners of his vision. This icon''s picture was of a stylized building and Althos knew, instinctually, that this was the dungeon master''s icon. He was tempted to click it, but recognized that that would give his enemy time to attack.


    The second update he noticed was one in the lower-left corner of his vision. This one just contained a number. At the moment the number was 7.


    It took Althos a moment to figure out what it was, but he quickly put together that it was a menu for his party members, after he mentally tapped on it and it expanded to reveal the names of his allies who had come to Infernius, along with health bars that revealed various injuries on each of them.


    The titan continued its slow yet steady ascent, and Althos had no doubt that the devil possessing it was readying something of his own. At this point, it had risen a meter off of the ground and was still rising higher.


    Althos raised his hands in front of him, mentally speeding through the vast codex of spells he had accumulated over the course of his escapades. Internally, the young deity found a few suitable spells and memorized their details. Then he spoke to the possessed form of the titan in front of him.


    "You''ll find that I''m not as weak, or as scared as I was when we first met."


    His voice was cold, betraying no emotion, and as he made eye contact with the fiend who lorded over the city he had escaped from days ago, his eyes began to glow a deep scarlet.


    He silently healed his party members using a combination of mental magic and healing magic, but only awoke one of them: Tristan. Then the deity refocused on the matter in front of him.


    At that moment Paimon, possessing the titan, opened the titan''s mouth. From the titan''s mouth, a massive, at least meter long, icicle formed and then suddenly was fired at Althos. The deity waved the icicle away, using a power provided by one his favorite sub-domains: teleportation.


    The icicle had been hurtling towards the deity, but after the deity waved the attacked away it was redirected and instantly vanished. It went from hurtling towards Althos to crashing into the pit and shattering into millions of tiny shards.


    He rose a single hand in the direction of the meat-suit Paimon was using as a puppet, and from out of his hand shot forth a dense explosion of vividly green radiant energy. Before the edge of the explosion could touch the possessed titan, Althos spoke again.


    "And the decision to face a god while possessing something is a bold, and stupid, decision."


    [Spell type: Healing


    Spell Name: Dark Exorcism


    Description: This spell uses radiant energy to target and weaken or if possible outright expel possessors from those hit by it. The radiant energy doesn''t heal the possessed person, but in exchange for that lack of healing the radiant energy that hits the possessor is considerably stronger.


    Spell cost: 500 per cast.


    Note #1: This spell lingers for a few moments, dealing radiant damage over time to any possessors who happen to enter the area where it was cast.


    Note #2: How this spell is aimed/manifests depends on the will of the user. If the user wants it to manifest like an explosion, it can, but if the user wants to fire it in a thin, straight line, that also works. As do countless other sorts of manifestations.]


    The burst of radiant energy was dodged by the devil, but the titan''s expression soured greatly while the devil threw the body it wore like an outfit backward out of the way. Its eyes maintained their lock on Althos, even through the fading burst of green energy. Althos grinned, his eyes glowing as he opened his mouth to speak.


    "Did you think this was going to be easy?"


    The devil willed the hand of the titan to rise and then twisted the unwieldy thing in the direction of the god. The titan silently mouthed a spell, and gouts of frigid air, complete with stinging pellets of ice and snow, shot forth from its hand in the direction of the deity.


    <hr>


    Tristan had been knocked out of sight by the titan in the wake of the devil possessing it and unleashing an area of effect attack. While away from the new battle, the young priestess had been healed by the power of the deity she served, even if she didn''t worship him just yet. She had been rendered unconscious, but the deity''s healing magic fixed that, just for her though.


    She slowly and steadily got to her feet, just in time to hear the loud noises that came from the titan''s fingertips as the thing expelled jets of freezing air at her master.


    She looked in the direction of the deity and saw him locked in battle, against her hated foe. She looked at Althos and saw that he was smiling, and watched as immense jets of flames suddenly shot out of them. The deity looked like he was having fun now.


    She quickly checked herself out, making sure she had sustained no permanent damage and then began to move in Althos'' direction.


    <hr>


    Althos noticed Tristan recovering, sensing it more than seeing it, and for a second he stopped expelling jets of flames just to help increase her chances of joining him unscathed.


    He pointed a single finger at Tristan dashing towards him and rose a hand in the titan''s direction to cast a pair of spells.


    [Spell Type: Illusion


    Spell Name: Targeted Invisibility


    Description: This spell sends out a ray of illusionary power. Anyone hit by that ray is rendered invisible until they attack or cast a spell.


    Spell cost: 750 magical energy per cast.]


    [Spell type: Mind


    Spell name: Enrage


    Description: This is a taunting spell, purposefully designed to infuriate anyone hit by it causing them to force their energy on the caster. This spell can be resisted, but resistance to it when it comes from a god is virtually impossible unless the resistor is also a deity.


    Cost: 250 magical energy per cast.]


    Althos fired a spell directly into the brain of the titan, and the ray of invisibility that shot forth from his fingertip smoothly hit Tristan, who felt it wash over her and continued her dash towards her master, unaware of what it did but also unafraid of it. Tristan vanished, and the undying titan''s odd, physical yet spiritual form, glared at Althos, then reared back and roared in deep anger.


    <hr>


    In his lair, a gigantic building that towered over the infernal city of Bastille, Paimon hissed in annoyance as he felt the mind of the undying titan attempt and then fail to wrest back control of its body from him. He audibly heard the titan''s roar, as the dumb mortal attempted to snatch back control of its body from the dark devil currently possessing it.


    "Stop it you stupid beast!" Paimon hissed, clutching his head as the mental roar of the titan rattled his skull from the inside.


    Paimon was seated beside a strange device. In the center of one of the rooms within his tower, there was an arcane invention, one of the few the devil had installed in his lair. He was seated beside it and looked down on it.


    It was a massive crystalline bowl, over a full meter in height and half as wide that was currently filled with an odd red fluid. The red fluid wasn''t blood, but rather an alchemical mixture designed to function as a powerful, perpetually active, scrying spell.


    The tool that the devil used to keep tabs on his opponents and occasionally as a material component to possess someone or something to send a message or assassinate a rival.


    Paimon recovered and resumed control over the titan after reeling from its attempt to take its body back, just in time to enter the thing''s vision and see Althos leaping at it, while a ball of vivid green radiant energy lit up his palm.


    <hr>


    In the few seconds that the undying titan was attempting to become the master of its body, Althos cast another iteration of the dark exorcism spell. He willed it to function like he had seen the imp''s white-hot bolts had functioned: as balls of energy that he could hold and aim before firing.


    The spell manifested as a swirling orb of vivid green energy that clung to the deity''s palm. The deity grinned and launched himself at his enemy, wondering if his foe would manage to dodge the attack.


    He sailed through the air, quickly crossing the distance between himself and the titan, and his grin grew wider with each passing fragment of a second.


    When he was a few meters away from the thing, he rose his hand in its direction and hurled the orb forward. The titan roared, its voice furious as it threw itself back to try and build some distance from the orb before the thing exploded. This time, the attack didn''t miss.


    The moment the orb left the deity''s hand its glow intensified. And then the thing burst open, suddenly unleashing its stored energy. The resulting intensely green explosion as the energy expelled outward was so strong that Althos was knocked back, but the deity was grinning as he sailed towards the ground.


    While in mid-air he looked at and saw the facial expression of the undying titan contort in pain as the energy bit into the devil possessing it. That made the deity grin wider.


    Before Althos'' eyes, even as he fell through the air, the green orb created a strange, grass green, cage-like area to trap the titan in and to immolate the devil lurking within the titan. The energy seared the newly made flesh of the titan''s once ethereal form, and as Althos watched it the creature began to bleed from the intensity of the attack.


    <hr>


    In his lair, Paimon roared in pain as he felt the effects of Althos'' spell pierce through the decimated remnants of the brain of the titan, and attack the tenuous connection he had established with it that allowed him to dominate it in the first place.


    Then the spell turned on the devil himself, sending mystical shockwaves through the connection he had made with the titan and attacking his mind and body through it. The devil had to swallow devilish ichor, the blood of all devils, that he would have otherwise vomited out.


    At that moment Paimon learned a harsh lesson: the spell called "Dark Exorcism" didn''t just target and slam a connection a possessor made, it attacked the possessor themselves. That was a painful lesson for the arrogant devil to learn when he just wanted to tease Althos with the knowledge that he could see the young god wherever he went through the layer.


    <hr>


    Althos hit the ground hard but quickly recovered from the shock of slamming into the hard ground of the arena. He got up and turned just in time for Tristan to reach out to him, place a hand on his shoulder and then quietly speak.


    "I''m right here with you. Let''s defeat this thing... Paimon, presumably... together."This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    When she placed her hand on his shoulder, she reappeared and grinned at him. He smiled at her, his smile a much softer one than the usual predatory expressions that crossed his face, and nodded.


    "I haven''t had time to check out your new abilities... mind telling me what you got? The ones that aren''t obvious, anyway."


    She laughed and began to mentally scan her newest powers. The titan was still in agony, still dealing with the aftermath of the spell it got hit by, so she felt safe talking for a few moments.


    "Sure! I got a variety of traits. In case you can''t tell, I got... moth-like traits from my father as my physical traits. There are a few traits that aren''t plainly visible that I got, that I''ll tell you about later. It turns out my mother was a cleric too, and through her genetics, I got a lot of powerful cleric-abilities."


    Althos heard her voice and tone change slightly when she spoke about her mother and he wondered about that. He knew from the knowledge of hers that he had taken she didn''t know much about her mother, so perhaps it was a bittersweet surprise for her to gain stronger cleric-sourced powers through vestigial resurrection. She wasn''t done talking though, so Althos quietly continued to listen to what she had to say.


    "I learned about these things called ''domains'' and ''sub-domains'', that you probably already know about. One of my new abilities allows for a god or creature of similar power to grant me access to any of their domains or sub-domains. That''s probably the most... immediately useful ability."


    She says, grinning at Althos, while the two of them hear their foe gradually trying to gain the strength or the rage needed to bust out of the area it is trapped in.


    Althos wondered how to do that, but quickly figured it out.


    <hr>


    The deity mentally went through the process of opening up his menu that allowed him to see the status of his allies. It only gave him basic information, but it was enough for now. By mentally clicking on Tristan''s name, a pop-down menu revealing various options was shown to the deity.


    He quickly clicked on her class, it was revealed to be "Cleric", and then he was shown a variety of abilities.


    [Party member: Tristan


    Class: Cleric


    Class-Related Abilities: Divine Domain Usage, Heal The Living, Heal Extraplanars, Channel Radiant Energy, Channel Dark Energy, Miracle, Bless, Desecrate, Conscerate]


    Althos tapped on the ability called "Divine Domain Usage" and found that when it was expanded to reveal information about itself, it was empty. Althos quickly selected one of the subdomains he had the ability to exert influence over, the sub-domain of teleportation, and granted her access to it.


    She suddenly giggled as she felt a wave of power surge over her body, her voice quiet and soft as she shuddered from the quick investment of power Althos had just performed. Althos turned to look straight ahead and saw that the cage holding back the possessed titan was starting to fade, and the titan hadn''t yet been freed from the possession.


    Paimon, through the titan, now glared angrily at them, rage permeating his gaze. The devil, gaining an ever-increasing tolerance to the pain of the spell began to chant. The distance between Tristan and the titan was too great for her to be able to hear and understand what it was saying, but Althos could hear it. Althos came up with a scheme at a record pace, and shared it with Tristan.


    "I''m gonna force Paimon out of the titan. When I do, I need you to use your new power to expel him out of the dungeon. Then I can kick him out, while not kicking out the titan''s spiritual body."


    The priestess, upon hearing Althos'' plot, nodded at her master.


    <hr>


    The undying titan was quietly muttering words of power.


    "I am calling out to the twisted blizzard, the unending winter, the mightiest lords of the glacial worlds."


    Around it, the temperature of the air was beginning to drop suddenly and dramatically. The power it was gathering was significant, and the two who stood below it, were aware of that fact.


    "Allow me the chance to wreak havoc upon the world using your eternal frost, and the power to freeze my enemies and feed their souls to you."


    <hr>


    The scene in the arena was a dramatic one. A humanoid and a god stood on the ground planning a powerful strike to bring an end to the battle they were locked in, while above them their foe, a large creature with the basic body-structure of a humanoid but impossibly pale skin and towering height floated through the air.


    The humanoids wore the clothing of a priestess, the god wore the clothes of an adventurer, and the towering humanoid-like creature had no clothes on. There was an aura of power coming off of the god, and an aura of winter radiating off of the towering humanoid-like creature.


    The two on the ground readied themselves for the next stage of their plan, and then Althos brought his hands together and took aim at the titan.


    <hr>


    Once Althos felt comfortable knowing that his attack would hit its intended target, the deity activated an unexpected power. Althos sent out a mental link so powerful that it manifested in the form of a long, silver chain that shot out of the deity and pierced the undying titan''s possessed mass. The titan ignored this unorthodox form of attack.


    He willed his own divine energy out of himself and along the silver chain, until it infused the possessed creature. The titan, who hadn''t reacted to the chain piercing it, did react to the act of being infused with divine energy.


    The creature stopped chanting. And then its skin began to darken. Althos'' dark divine energy began to quickly surge throughout its body. And then Althos'' mind invaded the titan''s once again.


    <hr>


    Althos felt his mind entering the titan''s once again. He found himself in the strange void-like area he had been in before and marveled at the sight before him.


    In front of him, he saw the house and pond he had seen earlier. They weren''t on fire anymore. Instead, the pond was dried up, and the house was burned down.And Paimon was there too.


    The true-devil grinned at Althos as he noticed the deity''s intrusion. His cat-like eyes were aflame with intrigue and curiosity about the deity.


    Althos examined the devil before him, actually taking in details about the devil''s form this time, unlike the first time they met.


    The devil had a deep blue skin tone, the color of the deep seas. He stood about two and a half meters tall and had horns jutting out of his head. His body was covered in the mental approximation of rich, silk robes he wore loosely.


    He spoke to his foe, his cat-like eyes sparkling with over-confidence.


    "Well hello there."


    Althos didn''t speak to his foe. Instead, the deity without an iota of hesitation cast a spell.


    [Spell type: Mind


    Spell name: Punishing Possession


    Description: This spell, when cast on a creature who is actively possessing another creature punishes the possessor by prohibiting them from returning to their body until a few minutes after the spell has been cast.


    Cost: 5,000 magical energy per cast.]


    Althos grinned at his enemy as he the devil realized what had just been done, and then Althos used magic to forcibly expel the creature from the remains of the mind of the undying titan.


    Then the deity sent a mental message to his servant, commanding her to be ready.


    <hr>


    [Tristan! Paimon is about to appear! Ready yourself, and teleport him out of the dungeon the instant you see him.]


    An instant later, the titan''s mouth opened and a surge of magical energy flooded out of it, accompanied by a new ethereal body. This time the ethereal body wasn''t of the titan itself, but an ethereal shape belonging to the overlord of the city of Bastile, who came surging out of the titan while roaring in irritation.


    Tristan didn''t suffer from hesitation, and instead the girl mentally zeroed in on the true devil''s see-through visage and activated the divine sub-domain she had access to.


    She pictured the devil''s thought-form vanishing from sight and slamming into the sandy ground right outside of the dungeon.


    Her ability took a second to activate, during which Paimon was alerted to the fact that he was being targeted by the ability and turned to look at Tristan in shock, while dramatically shouting "NOO!" at the half-devil just in time to vanish from sight.


    I... I did it! Paimon, our most dangerous foe is gone and it''s because of me! YES!


    Tristan''s mind was an excited place at that moment, and she wordlessly watched as the titan''s body reacted to being empty of any intelligence. It did so by beginning to fall, slowly and harmlessly.


    The titan''s unconscious form slowly descended to the ground and then lay still on the floor. It was still, not breathing but definitely still alive.


    Althos''s mind returned to his body, just in time to watch the last bits of Paimon fade from the dungeon. The deity grinned and immediately pulled up the dungeon menu.


    <hr>


    [Hello! Welcome to the dungeon menu! Given the situation, we can tell this is an urgent moment. What would you like to do right now?]


    Althos quickly read through the notification and informed it that he''d like to lock the dungeon to anyone not currently inside of it.


    [That is absolutely something we can do. Shutting down all 1/1 dungeon entrances right now.


    3...


    2...


    1...


    All dungeon entrances are now locked. No creature not in the dungeon can enter it. Would you like to summon the dungeon-aide, one "Floating Skull" to your side?]


    Althos grinned upon reading that notification and was immediately met with another.


    [The major battle is over. Paimon has, for the time being, been defeated and has decided to retreat to plot his revenge. Processing rewards for completing the quest right now. The first and most vital reward is now yours: the ability to promote soul-orbs and transform them into imps.]


    Althos took a deep breath upon reading that, and chose to summon the floating skull to his side. It came into existence next to him, exactly as it had looked before but now it silently waited for its new master to talk.


    <hr>


    Rather than talk to it, Althos approached Tristan. He smiled at her, but his voice contained a dizzying mixture of emotions.


    "You did it. You and I defeated our shared foe, and now... how do you want to handle the titan?"


    She looked at him wordlessly and then walked over to the undying titan. She held out her hand and spent some magical energy to will a thick, mystical sword, with its point facing the ceiling of the chamber, into existence in her hand. She walked over to where she could look down on the titan''s head and then flipped the sword so that its point was facing the titan''s unconscious form.


    She examined the thing''s face. It had handsome, masculine facial features, and skin that in some places was dark and in others was impossibly pale. It had an impressively thick neck, matching its remarkable height which was why she had summoned an impressively thick sword.


    It had a muscular body, even in its physical form. Because of its flesh and muscles, she wondered if she''d have the strength needed to kill it in a single blow.


    She shook her head, doing away with the hesitation she felt as she stood over the thing, and then swung the sword. She aimed to decapitate it and brought the sword down over its neck for that express purpose.


    <hr>


    And with this... I finally avenge my father. With this single sword strike, I take my future and make it my own!


    She felt a variety of emotions as the sword plunged through the air and towards the titan''s neck. But when the sword bit into and then, rather quickly, through the creature''s skin she only felt one emotion: elation.


    No longer is my future defined by ties to my past. With the help of my allies I have removed this dark stain on my history, and now... I can move to remove the dark stains that are harming Infernius.


    Thank you Althos... I''m glad you''re the second dark saint.


    That moment was the very first moment Tristan truly believed that Althos was the second dark saint. It was the moment she went from being hopeful that he was destined to unite and rule Infernius, and the moment she became convinced that that was part of his destiny.


    She unsummoned the mystical sword she had used to decapitate her hated foe, and then she looked at the headless corpse of the spiritual form of the titan. She grinned as she watched the bodyless head begin to drip blood.


    She visually confirmed that the head was fully detached from the body, and then considered what to do next. There was a part of her that wanted to sit down and take a second to breathe and process what she was feeling, but she knew she''d have a chance to do that soon. So the priestess turned to go to the physical, unconscious, half of the undying titan.


    As she walked, she noticed her allies beginning to awaken from their assorted states of unconsciousness. She wasn''t all that interested in them though, mostly because she suspected that Althos would have been saved them if they had been in real danger. The fact that he wasn''t worried about them, probably meant she shouldn''t be.


    <hr>


    Althos had quietly left Tristan when he watched her mystical sword slice through the titan''s neck. He was grinning as he walked towards the undying titan''s physical body, accompanied by the floating skull that once stood against him as a foe.


    Information was flooding his brain at that moment, information about and information from the undying titan as he approached the unconscious, physical form of the creature. And the more knowledge he processed, the more excited he grew.


    He was hoping that there might be a secret reward waiting for him, a reward he would be able to see with the usage of his "detect souls" spell once he got close enough. The deity quietly re-cast his necromantic "detect souls" spell mid-walk, a spell he would normally wordlessly cast during his downtime but since he had been battling constantly for the last few minutes he hadn''t had time to cast it during the fights.


    Upon the spell reactivating his eyes began to glow and he was filled with eldritch knowledge. When he reached the pit, he began to float above it rather than taking the long route along its side.


    It wasn''t until he was flying over the pit that he saw something he had been hoping to see. Inside of the physical form of the undying titan, there was a variety of undigested souls. Souls that Althos could identify even from outside of the creature''s gullet.


    Althos began to look through the souls within the titan''s stomach, searching for two souls in particular. The souls of Agowraith the Kingwhisper and of Nefarious Devil-Kiss. The maker of the tomb, and Tristan''s father respectively.


    The deity quickly found them, having had to search through just a few souls before tracking them down. Althos, floating above the physical form of the creature pointed a hand at the thing and then cast "Harvest Soul" twice.


    And then he thought about it for a second and began to cast the spell over and over again until he had acquired a small fortune in souls and the titan''s stomach was empty.


    <hr>


    Tristan, walking along the edge of the pit to get to where the other half of her hated enemy awaited her, watched as Althos floated over the thing''s unconscious body. She watched as he rose his hand and began to just float there, still.


    She was too far away from her master to be able to see the spurts of darkness that occasionally leaped from his hand to the stomach of the creature, invading it and stealing away the souls it had stockpiled and was slowly devouring. She was too ignorant of the potent magic the deity possessed to imagine that the creature was in-effect saving the immortal essences of hundreds, possibly even thousands of people.


    She never, in her wildest dreams, imagined that the deity had just acquired the souls of both the tomb''s legendary maker and the soul of her father. And today was not the day she''d learn about this mysterious fact.


    <hr>


    Althos helped himself to the contents of the undying titan''s immense gullet. He eagerly scavenged the defeated titan''s undigested meals, exploring and finding souls from a variety of different creatures while he was floating over the thing and spamming the spell over and over.


    It took him several minutes to finish the process, more than long enough for Tristan and his other followers to get where Althos'' victim had crashed and passed out. Once he finished the process, Althos received a surprising notification complete with a question.


    [Alert: The soul domain wants to initiate a conversation with you. Would you like to allow it to do so?]


    This notification shocked Althos, who took a second to recover from it, and then immediately told the system that he was fine with the domain talking to him.

 Chapter 52:

    Althos, floating over the unconscious body looked at the scene unfolding before him. His servants and worshipers had gathered around the unconscious body of the titan and were most likely waiting for him to join them. He looked at them and then spoke.


    "Tristan... this is the moment you exact your revenge. Do what you will. The others shall do as you command, just this once. Use them to do... whatever you wish to your foe. Be creative. I have some godly matters to attend too. I shall join you soon."


    His command surprised them. The warriors, extraplanars, and assorted creatures Althos had made into his servants had noticed that the spiritual form of the titan was gone and knew that something must have happened while they were unconscious. They looked at each other, wordlessly exchanging thoughts and then as one turned to Tristan and nodded at her.


    Althos grinned and wordlessly flew upward so that he may have a moment of privacy. As he flew upward his sole companion was the floating skull who he had become the master of after conquering the tomb. He ascended until he was out of the sight of his followers and waited for a message from a new voice. Sure enough, after waiting for a few moments he did hear a new voice enter into his mind and speak to him.


    [Greetings Althos. I am the embodiment of the domain of souls. It is nice to meet you.]


    The voice of the domain of souls was a soft one, one that was neither particularly masculine or feminine. Althos, though a bit excited about the surprise development of a domain proactively reaching out to him that wasn''t an evil domain, wondered what compelled this domain, in particular, to reach out to him.


    Though the young god had a suspicion that he knew why the domain wanted to talk to him. He kind of hoped that he was wrong about his suspicion.


    [Greetings. It is nice to meet you too. I can''t help but be curious about why you''re reaching out to me though.]


    Those words, honest and naive as they were, caused the new voice in Althos'' mind to begin to laugh softly. The laughing went on for a few moments before fading away gently.


    [Althos, I am the embodiment of the domain of souls... I approached you to learn about you, especially now that you have gained a small fortune in souls. I thought it best to approach you and hear from you directly about your plans with those souls.]


    Althos sensed that the domain had more to say. He waited quietly while the domain considered where to go next in terms of its conversation with the young god. After a few moments, the odd voice returned, ready to engage Althos in conversation.


    [What do you plan to do with those souls? The ones you freed from the titan''s physical form.]


    Althos answered without a bit of hesitation.


    [I plan to resurrect Agowraith and Nefarious. Possibly a few of the others as well, given that some of them were leaders, generals, and priests. With the others... I''m unsure.]


    There was a silence on the mental line as the soul domain''s voice considered how to respond to that frank declaration. Althos wondered if there was a "right" answer the thing was looking for, but also figured that he had no real reason to lie or even the knowledge necessary to lie in a way that would be beneficial to him so the truth was his best bet.


    The thing knew little about the deity, mostly that he was a deity if it was being honest, but didn''t hate his honesty. There was something about Althos'' tone and his lack of hesitation that made it clear that he wasn''t lying.The voice spoke to Althos again after it considered the truth of Althos'' words.


    [Why do you wish to resurrect those two specifically?]


    Althos thought for a second before responding.


    [Agowraith was the creator of this dungeon. She also seemed to be someone who sought to aid the second dark saint. Or at least someone who knew about the coming of the second dark saint. I wish to bring her back and to see what she''d do with her second life. And she was a historian and an oracle-like seer. If I gain a copy of her mind as I have from my other followers... who knows how much wiser I''d become?]


    This was the truth and it was also a reasonable desire for a deity who was moved largely by the pursuit of knowledge.


    He went silent while considering how to explain why he sought to resurrect Nefarious. Eventually, though, he did communicate with the domain again.


    [Resurrecting Nefarious is about two different things. I wish to reward Tristan for her work here and elsewhere, and I wish to return a powerful ally and leader to the cult of the second dark saint. Plus in resurrecting the moth-devil I can potentially gain a new servant.]


    The truth was, his desire to resurrect Nefarious came about almost entirely out of his desire to transform Tristan into a true worshiper of his. Though such an act like resurrecting Tristan''s father, to an ignorant onlooker, might have seemed like an act of kindness it was first and foremost an act centered around a selfish desire. That said, nothing the deity had said was factually incorrect.


    The soul domain thought about Althos'' response for a few moments before responding itself, questioning Althos further.


    [I see... Do you actually how to resurrect something?]


    Althos with his trademark honesty was quick to respond.


    [Nope. Intuition leads me to believe that if I master healing magic, alteration magic, or perhaps some combination involving divine magic, and the proper domains I should be able to do resurrect them. But... I''m guessing that it''ll be a challenging, long-term task.]


    If the soul-domain physically manifested its manifestation would have been nodding at that moment. Althos'' intuition was spot-on, and the process for gaining the divine ability to resurrect someone was a grueling one. The soul-domain quickly began to speak.


    [Resurrecting someone is... deeply challenging. It requires significant control over healing magic, divine magic, and a combination of domains including mine, the restoration domain, and the life domain. Many deities were confused by the distinction between the life domain and the restoration domain, but the life domain only refers to living things, things with souls. The restoration domain, on the other hand, includes anything and anyone who can be broken.]


    Althos nodded, unsurprised that something as significant and powerful as the act of resurrection was not something to be taken lightly. He also appreciated learning the identities of two more domains, both of which sounded seriously powerful. That was when the soul domain spoke again, this time asking a question.


    [What domains and subdomains do you have influence over?]


    Althos explored the list of domains and subdomains in his mind for a moment. Then he responded.


    [I can exert the lowest tiers of influence over the knowledge domain, the sub-domain of hand-to-hand fighting, teleportation, the faith domain and I have mastery over the fungi sub-domain. I am not far from completing a quest for the domain of magic, and I have completed a quest that has pushed me down the road to mastery over the animal domain. I''ve also spoken to a mysterious domain, perhaps the domain of evil or of oblivion.]


    The soul domain was impressed with the quick learner. It was intrigued by the last thing that the deity revealed, but would conduct its own investigation into that later on. It then asked a question that the other domains and sub-domains would undoubtedly like to hear the answer to themselves.


    [That is impressive. What would you like to become the "god of"?]


    Althos stopped for a moment and considered how to respond. As he floated over the arena, hovering directly atop the pit, he reflected on the question. Shortly thereafter he gave a surprisingly ambitious answer.


    [Knowledge. I seek first and foremost to know all things. Though I suspect that in time I will become the ''god of'' other things as well as a natural consequence of knowing all things or pursuing the ultimate goal of knowing all things. If I had to guess, I''d assume that over the course of becoming the god of all knowledge I will also become the god of say... invention, magic, and time. And who knows what else?]


    This answer provoked another peal of laughter from the soul domain. It quickly began to speak again, its voice carrying more energy and enthusiasm than before.


    [I like that answer! Is there anything you wish to not become the god of?]


    This question intrigued Althos. The young god reflected on it for more than a few moments. The silence between the two odd creatures, a disembodied voice, and a young god, was strange but not uncomfortable.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    [I don''t know. I possess more knowledge than it appears to many of my servants, and with the knowledge of the titan being absorbed by my mind right now, my knowledge is increasing. So far I don''t know anything I''d prefer to avoid ruling over. I definitely have my preferences, but if I were offered the chance to become the god of something, even something random I don''t think I''d turn it down.]


    The soul domain could respect such an answer. It thoughtfully considered Althos'' words for a few moments. It suspected, like Althos and a few of the more talkative domains, that Althos was in fact the only, possibly even the last, god in existence. And unlike the other domains, the soul domain knew that Althos was in Infernius very slowly working towards becoming an arch-devil.


    If the deity ultimately proved successful in such a task it''d mean that he was capable of becoming more than just a god. If that was the case, then who knew where Althos'' destiny laid? The soul domain contemplated that for a few moments, before ultimately deciding that it had nothing to lose by giving Althos a very small boost.


    [Since you want to eventually gain the power to perform a true resurrection, a power which no creature in existence currently has, I will go ahead and grant you access to the very lowest tier of influence over souls. This gives you a power, which previously eluded you: the ability to communicate with souls. That said... those souls in your possession are weak right now. Let them rest, and wait until they start to speak to you. From here, if you truly want to eventually perform true resurrections then you need to continue studying magic, and meeting and mastering domains.]


    Althos nodded at the voice in his head. And then thought about it for a second, and explicitly affirmed his gratitude to the domain.


    [Thank you for this. I will not forget this act of kindness. It''s genuinely kind of you to do this and I recognize that. How may I continue to improve our relationship and gaining more powers related to souls?]


    The soul-domain thought about this, appreciative of the wording of the question. Meanwhile, Althos abruptly received a notification.


    [Feat gained: A Friendly Relationship


    Benefit: Domains and sub-domains recognize you as a personable sort and feel more comfortable approaching you proactively to chat or drop hints about the sorts of powers influence over them grants you.


    How much progress your actions make towards the next tier of influence over each domain or sub-domain increases as a result of this feat and this feat stacks. Your likelihood of gaining quests related to domains or subdomains as you do actions related to the domain or sub-domain increases.


    Method of acquisition: Befriend or entertain more than two separate domains.


    Note: This is a handy feat that is actually a necessary part of gaining influence over some domains, most notably the domains of diplomacy and peace which are parts of building an evil empire or a functional evil society.]


    Althos grinned as he willed away the notification. It was good news for the young deity, and he was grateful for his weirdly friendly attitude given his own apparent preference for evil and violence. Shortly after he willed the notification away his new pal, the soul-domain, spoke to him again.


    [For now, interact with souls. When the interactions are suitably noteworthy I''ll see fit to incrementally push you further along the path to the next tier of influence. I''ll also put in a good word about you to other domains who may feel like chatting with a living god. It''s been... a long time since a god traversed the multiverse.]


    Althos listened to the odd voice and nodded.


    [Okay! Thank you. I learned a lot during this chat. Please, feel free to stop by anytime and talk.]


    Althos'' response contained a surprising amount of respect and sincerity. Moments passed and the young god wasn''t sure how he knew this, but he could feel the presence of the domain leave as quickly as the domain had started chatting with him.


    And again, the deity was alone. Aside from the skull, but he barely registered the skull as any sort of entity.


    <hr>


    The deity descended to the floor of the arena where the titan''s physical form was now a corpse. He smiled savagely as he drew ever closer to the floor, having spent a few minutes up above the arena lost in conversation with his new friend and now enjoying the sight of his gathered party.


    He eventually landed on the floor of the arena and immediately laid his eyes upon the titan''s corpse. The gigantic thing was now thoroughly headless and Althos had long sensed its heart cease beating. He was pleased with what he saw and quickly congratulated his followers on the successful battle. He was in fact quite proud of the creatures. The battle was tough but they were now stronger for it.


    Althos himself was also stronger for having participated in the battle and having completed his quest. Now he was going to prove that. The deity willed the two soul orbs who served him to appear before him. They did so quietly and quickly. As they appeared before him he readied himself for what was to come next.


    And with this... I will prove that I worthy to walk the path of an arch-devil. I will prove that I possess the power to promote devils. This will forever change the future of Infernius.


    Althos reflected on this moment, recognizing the seriousness of it. The memories he had taken from the titan, and the knowledge he had taken from Tristan during his first excursion into the tomb gave him a considerable amount of awareness concerning Infernius and he was keenly aware of the seriousness of the moment before him.


    Tristan and Salifinos quickly realized what was to happen next, and they drew closer to the creatures involved in the deeply profane act that was about to unfold before them.


    <hr>


    The two soul orbs were genuinely happy to appear before their master. They danced around the young deity eagerly sharing their pictographic thoughts with each other. Althos watched them, a smile on his face for a few moments. And then without a word of warning the two spheres stopped moving. Althos had begun the process of transforming them into imps.


    The two things began to suddenly and erratically vibrate, thrashing through the air in front of their master. One of them began to float higher while vibrating and thrashing around, and the other began to descend. This painful-looking process lasted a few minutes, before the orbs themselves to began to turn into spheres of eerie, total darkness.


    Althos watched this with a sinister smile, while his followers watched with a variety of expressions etched onto their faces.


    <hr>


    For the soul orbs themselves, this process was sudden, unannounced, and not comfortable. The small things were barely alive, but they were still a sort of living creature, capable of growing used to a routine. And this was not their routine.


    For them, the process stole their freedom of movement, one of their greatest freedoms, and then suffused them with incredible energy and power, relative to what they were used too.


    The tiny soul-orbs, smaller than the average imp, were suddenly and irreversibly filled with powerful dark energy as they felt Althos reach out and touch them. They were comforted by the touch of their master, but the process of suffusing them with dark, infernal power was still an uncomfortable one.


    Shortly after the process began, one of the two had its first true thought.


    This... is...


    Its early thoughts were fragmented echoes, singular words that it heard its master say.


    Weird...


    The observation was simple but accurate.


    Painful...


    Another simplistic observation, but like the one before it, it was also an accurate one.


    At this point, the soul-orbs were beginning to truly change. The orbs of darkness their external forms had become were unorthodox cocoons that protected them while they underwent a series of rapid, permanent changes.


    First, they grew skeletons. Which hurt. Hundreds of tiny bones were created to help form the frame for their new forms.


    Second, their muscles grew atop the bones of their skeletons. This process was much faster than the first one had been.


    Then their skin grew over their muscles, giving their muscles a layer of protection from the cruelty of the elements in Infernius.


    The last part of their bodies to be created during their mystical metamorphosis was a variety of organs and appendages. Some of these were external, like eyes and their tails. Many of them were internal, like their hearts, lungs, and guts. Of course, theirs were much stronger or more flexible than those of mortals like their eyes, which could peer through darkness, magical or otherwise.


    Despite the gigantic physical differences between a soul-orb and an imp, the biggest and most substantial changes that occurred to the soul-orbs as they transformed into imps were mental.


    Both of the imps were infused with basic knowledge about Infernius, granted knowledge of simple spells, and unlike any of their predecessors, they sprung to this second phase of their lives possessing the same potent poison as Salifinos.


    The dark cocoon around the twin imps began to change its shape and size to accommodate their new forms, minutes after their transformation into imps had begun. Now the dark objects were not orbs of darkness but were shadowy silhouettes modelled after tiny humanoids with wings and tails with blank, featureless faces.


    <hr>


    Althos and his companions watched the process unfolding before them. Althos and Salifinos were deeply excited to watch the process, and had any of the others been looking at them they would have seen two pairs of eyes alight with excitement and with curiosity. The others were not as excited, though they also had somewhat pleasant expressions as they watched the process and were filled with morbid curiosity as to what the next step of the process would be.


    After several minutes had passed the dark, vaguely humanoid-shaped silhouettes began to change color. At this point, the things had been humanoid-shaped for a few minutes, and they quickly became vile colors. One of them became a light blue the same shade as when someone began to choke, and the other became a sickening shade of green.


    Mere seconds after their silhouettes changed color, the imps themselves suddenly and truly sprung to life. As the things began to come life, their faces spontaneously generated, and the critters took their first glances at the world around them, physically seeing things for the first time rather than using immaterial organs to sense the world around them.


    Both imps looked at each other, and then at Althos. And then they threw themselves at the young deity, quickly wrapping him in an uncomfortably warm hug. This, of course deeply surprised both Althos and Salifinos.


    "Master! We can finally think! We can finally talk!"


    The two once orbs, now imps were apparently very vocal. This caught Althos off guard, but he didn''t find it particularly unpleasant. Salifinos, on the other hand, had a distraught expression on his face, one which became more concerned when the new imps opened their eyes, saw him next to Althos and spoke to him too.


    "Hey! You''re our cousin! Salifinos!"


    This made Althos, Tristan, and even Raverangos all audibly laugh, though the imp in question was not at all amused by this unexpected and confusing development. He reacted to them by practically roaring at the two critters.


    "What are you little ones talking about?"


    They looked at him with neutral expressions and simplistically responded by speaking in unison.


    "You''re also a familiar. That means we''re family."


    Salifinos heard this explanation and sighed as though the imp were already exasperated with the two newcomers. The imp looked at Althos and then spoke to the deity.


    "They are... odd."


    Althos laughed and made an unexpectedly good point in his rebuttal.


    "They are babies. They are also awakened creatures, like Silander, and they entered this stage of being as familiars. All of those traits make them... experimental."


    Salifinos heard that considered it, and then grudgingly accepted its factual, albeit unusual accuracy.

 Chapter 53:

    The next few minutes were spent when Althos began connecting the new imps to the others via the gradually expanding network of mental links that allowed for communication even when it should have been prevented due to linguistic barriers. This network was becoming more and more extensive and it was perhaps the first thing Althos had invented in his life.


    Althos waited and watched while the two imps introduced themselves to the other allies, servants, and familiars. They were spritely things who possessed undeniable energy and were strangely friendly. Althos found their chattiness and friendliness unusual but definitely not bad.


    "Althos, what''s this?" One of the little things, the blue one, asked while pointing to the floor of the arena. The blue-skinned imp had a curious gaze and a noticeable tendency to ask a variety of questions.


    "That''s the floor. In that case, it appears to be made of a type of paved stone but other places have different types of flooring." Althos, demonstrating surprising patience, took the questions in stride and responded to them with the calmness of an experienced parent.


    The imp asked questions for almost a quarter of an hour, before seemingly becoming satisfied. When the tiny thing went silent, the arena itself fell silent as well. That was around the same time that Althos finished connecting everyone and creating an expanded connection that allowed anyone to speak to the entire party at once.


    Althos felt satisfied with his work and turned to his allies. He used one of his favorite abilities, the ability to speak the universal divine language that could be understood by anyone to communicate what he wanted to do next.


    "Since we met we''ve hopped from one event to the next. For now, I think it''s time we head to the Cathedral of the Dark Saint, rest for a bit and take a few days to do some research into what we need to do next. We need to research the next trial the Second Dark Saint must overcome so that, when we''re ready we can continue proving my... dark sainthood."


    This surprised his party members who had begun adjusting to the deity''s go-getter attitude but none of them found the plan disagreeable. In minutes the party was ready to begin the walk back to Tristan''s home and to arrive there as victors.


    Soon enough they began the trek back to their new home.


    <hr>


    The trek back through the dungeon was uneventful, as the dungeon had lost a significant amount of its features due to the approach the titan took to ruling over it and the party''s infernal members had cleared out what little remained on their way to the arena. While on the way to its exit Althos busied himself by carefully scrutinizing his new dungeon menu.


    Althos had quickly and politely interacted with the menu for a few moments before it took him to a status screen, a big text box split into three parts.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    Dungeon Status:


    Current living occupants: 8. Dungeon master''s party plus the scorpion


    Other occupants: 1 Floating Skull (aide to the dungeon master)


    Current floors: 2


    Total floors: 6


    Entranceway: operational, empty


    Room 1: Soul-Orb training, operational, temporarily occupied by the dungeon master''s party and the scorpion.


    Passageway: Operational, empty


    Stairwell: Trap status, operational, empty


    Long passageway: Operational, empty


    Arena: Operational, empty


    Dungeon-Heart Chamber: Operational, empty


    Dungeon ownership: Property of Althos, the Fungal Lord


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>


    Dungeon''s in-use features:


    1: Deceptive Entrance


    2: Accessible Dungeon-Heart


    3: Deceptive Chambers


    4: Alternative History


    5: Trapped passageway


    6: Major locking mechanism


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>


    Dungeon''s Archived Features:


    1: Rejunvitation chambers


    2: Dungeon mobility


    3: Creature Creator Framework


    4: Guardians (1/5 available at the moment, more can become available with the proper investment of magical energy)


    5: Spa floor


    6: 1 floor devoted to training combat skills


    7: 1 floor devoted to practicing communication skills


    8: 1 floor devoted to honing administrative skills


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    The titan really did a number on this place... Originally it had 6 floors? A spa? Rejunivation chambers? This place was basically a small town onto itself in its heyday. Would it be possible for me to return this place to the way it was originally laid out? If so... it might not be the worst idea to find some way to fuse this place with the Cathedral and make a larger base.


    As Althos contemplated that, the dungeon menu itself chimed in.


    [Hello Althos, if you would like to restore the dungeon to its original layout, the layout both envisioned and at one point created by Agowraith all you have to do is ask to restore the dungeon. If you want that it can happen. It will take a few days though, and the proper investment of magical energy but... you have an unlimited amount of magical energy so it''s basically free for you.]


    Althos was surprised by this and informed the menu that he''d love that.


    [Excellent! The renovation process will begin as soon as you exit the dungeon. It will take... about two weeks. Once it''s done you''ll get a notification that informs you that the restorations are completed.]


    Althos did the mental version of a nod, acknowledged the menu, and then shut it off. The rest of the trip back was fairly uneventful, and it went by faster than it had taken the original party to arrive at the dungeon. Within an hour and a half, the party had arrived back at the Cathedral of the Dark Saint.


    <hr>


    When the party was within view of the Cathedral Tristan grinned at her home and quietly said, "There it is!" as she began to speed towards her home. At that moment the party was atop a hill and to speed her return home the young priestess actually leaped and glided back to her chapel.


    She was accompanied by the other flying members of the party, which was everyone but Gallow. Althos, taking pity on the orc, helped him get there first by teleporting him there. One moment the orc was at the top of the hill, and the next he was at the entrance to the chapel.


    Within moments the entire partyhad arrived atthe closest thing they had to a fully operational base of operations. The newcomers to Infernius were invited into the chapel to take a look around and actually familiarize themselves with the place. They were accompanied by Salifinos and Tristan who had volunteered to give them a quick tour.


    Althos was pleased that they indulged their curiosity, and took the moment to remain outside and scope out the terrain.


    <hr>


    The area directly outside of the chapel was exactly like its surroundings. A desert.


    I expect nothing and yet... I''m still disappointed.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    It took the deity a quick flight around the premises to confirm what he had suspected given his past travels in this area coupled with the glances he had taken before. He and his companions were surrounded by an ocean of sand.


    This isn''t useful, or defendable at all really. I should fix it.


    His next thoughts were about solutions. He considered how to modify the area in a more mundane way but quickly realized he had fairly little knowledge in that regard. So he decided to try out a creative, magical solution. While he was in mid-air he aimed at the area surrounding the chapel.


    What if I just...


    He gathered mystical energy in his palms. He looked out at the area he was targeting, a complete circle around the chapel that extended for a few hundred meters in every direction. He clearly pictured it in his mind, hyper-focusing on the boundaries that he had created for the magical effect he was about to will into being.


    Modify the area with magic?


    He pictured two importantthings happening to the area he was targeting. The first thing he imagined happening was that a powerful barrier would be erected along the boundary line he had mentally created. This barrier would prevent foes from getting near the chapel, as well as would deflect projectiles lobbed at the thing.


    He spent time carefully crafting this barrier, thanks to the knowledge he had acquired from Qu''Ren, one of his servants and a powerful magic-user. Her knowledge of mystical barriers enabled him to learn the process of crafting a wide-ranging barrier would serve him well.


    The second thing he pictured happening was that aside from the chapel itself the sandy area within the boundaries of the effect would transform. He pictured the majority of the sand transforming into verdant soil, perfect for planting both fungi and more conventional crops. He envisioned a bit of the sand transforming into water that he could use to care for the crops and fungi he''d be planting in the soil he was creating.


    He needed to feed Silander, Gallow, and Tristan and he wouldn''t have been surprised if his servants didn''t feel comfortable eating fungi given his power over the things. He also wanted to experiment with the properties of a range of fungi and thought this was the perfect area to plant ingredients he could use in the future.


    Once he had those things in his head, he rose his hands above his head and released the mystical energy he had contained within them. The energy exploded outward. So much energy was released from within the deity that the mystical explosion he created manifested visually as golden spores materializing around him and slowly descending to the ground far below him.


    Wherever the spores touched, the effects Althos had willed to happen, happened. In some places, the spores touched the ground and instantly transformed the sand into water. In other places the spores transformed the sand they touched into healthy soil or even small trees. Some spores gave birth to giant mushrooms, bioluminescent ones like the ones Althos had befriended in the tunnels into the World Beneath the World.


    The spores that made it all the way to the edge of the boundary Althos had mentally established quickly melted in the air, and where they melted the air itself began to glow a soft shade of yellow. Before Althos'' eyes, his powerful magic was creating an intensely powerful barrier and transforming the chapel''s surroundings into the first patch of healthy land the layer had seen in thousands of years.


    He received two surprising notifications at that moment.


    [New magic knowledge gained: Ecomancy


    Ecomancy is the most complex school of magic that falls under the "basic" umbrella of magical schools. This school of magic relates to the manipulation and the transformation of the environment.


    Spells in this category are capable of transforming cities into vibrant forests, deserts into deep seas, and mountains into canyons. Each spell in this school costs a tremendous amount of magical energy to cast, but the effects are truly epic.


    Masters of this magic can transform entire countries or continents with but a single spell. The strongest users of this form of magic could create entire cities in the blink of an eye.


    You can now mix and match ecomantic effects with other effects, and you actually already have. You used an abjuration effect to create that barrier you erected around the chapel, and abjuration is an advanced school of magic. Unfortunately, that is not enough to gain knowledge of abjuration magic as the process for being able to do that is a bit more involved than the process was for gaining knowledge of basic schools of magic.


    Ecomantic spells known: zero.


    Ecomantic spells gained: Create badlands, Create corps, Create canyons, Create dunes, Create minerals, Create cave, Convert biome, Convert region, Obliterate region, Create lava, & 200 more.


    Your mastery of the innate mystical energy flowing through you and the source of your infinite magical energy has increased tremendously. Anti-magic weapons and properties no longer negatively affect you. Your spells can now be super-charged, making them twice as strong.]


    [Alert: You have completed the side quest previously called "GAINING INFLUENCE OVER THE DOMAIN OF MAGIC."The rewards for that quest are now yours.


    Reward #1: You are now fifty percent done with the tasks needed to gain the ability to exert the first tier of influence over the domain of magic.


    Reward #2: You may now bless anyone attempting a spell from the basic schools of magic. Your blessing reduces the cost of the magic by an amount you decide that caps out at 50% and increases the power of their spell by an amount that caps out at a 30% boost in power and effectiveness.


    In practice, this means you can make the cost of the basic heal spell a measly 10 magical energy per cast and that you can make it heal its target for a total immediate recovery of 26 health per cast. There are adult humans for whom that''d be all of their health. Recovered at once.]


    <hr>


    Within the chapel, the party had split in two. One group, Althos'' mortal followers and the demon, were with Tristan. Unsurprisingly the imps were together.


    Both groups sped through the chapel, exploring different rooms at the same time. Tristan was within the nave, explaining the functions of each part of the main chamber of the chapel to the relative newcomers toreligion. Silander and Gallow were deeply interested in it as they were mortal worshipers of Althos. Raverangos listened attentively but the demon wasn''t a worshiper of Althos yet, it was just a familiar of his.


    Salifinos taught his "cousins" about the assorted items gathered in the sacristy. He diligently answered their endless stream of questions, while doing his best to show them every corner of the room. He did his best to mentally justify their incessant questions.


    I must be a good teacher for these new, little ones... their curiosity is annoying right now, but who knows? Maybe it''ll lead to them becoming excellent at the jobs Althos gives them.


    The imp demonstrated a surprising amount of patience. But his patience wasn''t new. It was very much a learned trait.


    Being with them reminds me of trying to teach Modred magic... he wasn''t a very good magician, he was just very charismatic when he was at the height of his career. No... it''s not fair to compare the two. Modred was bad at magic and just wanted fame. I wanted to teach him but he didn''t want to learn. These kids want knowledge. A lot of it. They want to be taught.


    The imp''s thoughtful analysis of his past master''s laziness distracted him for a few moments. It took the imps whining at him to snap him out of it.


    <hr>


    Althos admired his handiwork and took in deep breaths as he slowly descended. He had a greatly enhanced perception of the deep mystical power that flowed through him, coursing through every centimeter of his body. He explored the energy within himself while slowly descending to the transformed ground of the area around the chapel.


    Within a matter of moments, the area he was meters above had transformed from a desert into a farmlike area, hundreds of meters across. The patch of greenery was a welcome sight in an otherwise all-encompassing sea of sand, and fortunately, there were hills between Bastille and the chapel that naturally protected it from view by anyone who sought it out.


    Althos looked out at the impressive area that was now permanently marked as being his territory, and he wondered what his allies would think. He wouldn''t have to wait long to find out though.


    He landed directly in front of the chapel his allies had gone into, an area that was mostly windowless so his allies hadn''t yet noticed the tremendous changes that had taken place.


    The deity spent about twenty minutes peering out at the vast region he had transformed, visually exploring the newly modified area before him. It was at the end of those twenty minutes that his allies emerged from the chapel, wondering what had become of their master.


    As they exited the chapel, they looked at their master and were surprised to see him radiating an aura of golden mystical energy just outside of the chapel. Then they were doubly shocked when they saw what had become of the area surrounding their new home.


    The deity had performed an act of incredible mystical power in the minutes they were gone. Around them plant life grew freely and rapidly, surging through the newly created soil and causing trees, fungi, and crops of various sorts to rapidly emerge from the healthy dirt that surrounded the chapel.


    The creatures in Althos'' party slowly walked out of their building and into the odd farmland that their master had created. To their left, they could see a thick field of various types of fungi, some of which seemed to glow various colors. To their right, they saw large trees and fields of maneuvered soil that seeds could be planted in.


    There were a few mystically generated ponds in the area, sources of clean and fresh drinking water for the inhabitants of the chapel. There appeared to be no animals, but the party wasn''t entirely sure if the massive area transformed by their master didn''t also come with any mystically created critters.


    Before their very eyes, odd fruits and other crops grew out of a small handful of the fields already, which was perhaps the most shocking thing about the display of incredible magic their master had executed. They were speechless.


    Althos turned and looked at them with a smile on his face. "Do you like what you see? I figured since we have... several mortals living here, we should have food and water that we can grow ourselves right?"


    Their young master looked unusually deific at that moment. His skin had a golden glow that went well with the waves of golden energy he''d let loose every few seconds. After they fell silent he quietly added something to his last statement.


    "Oh and I completed the first quest I need to complete in order to master the domain of magic. I now have knowledge of all ten of the basic schools of magic. While I was doing this I gained knowledge of the last school of magic: the school of ecomancy."


    He spoke with a bit of pride clear in his voice, and his eyes contained a shocking amount of joy at his work. Althos had always had a soft spot for nature, and his expression at that moment really cemented that.


    That was how the party began their days of research, information-gathering, and cooperation in the name of Althos'' future dark sainthood in their new base, the Cathedral of the Dark Saint.

 Chapter 54:

    For the first time since he had left the forest Althos lived more or less peacefully in the dark chapel. The young god and his allies passed the nextfivedays doing a variety of tasks throughout the chapel and in the surrounding area.


    Althos spent most of his time outdoors, calmly and quietly tending to the gigantic area he had manipulated and transformed with his powerful nature magic. Though it surprised his companions, who were used to the deity''s violence and adventuring, the deity took to peace and a stable lifestyle quite naturally.


    Tristan retreated to the chapel and spent most of her time there. She poured over what few books she had in her possession, and frequently struck up telepathic conversations with fellow members of the Order of the Dark Saint.


    Althos, while combing through her books, had told her that convincing them to accept him or even visit the chapel themselves was probably the next important thing the party could do, while she worked on uncovering more details about the second trial Althos needed to complete.


    The imps swiftly took over the nave of the chapel and created their own small school of devilishness. Salifinos spent hours teaching its two young students. The three of them passed the time by vividly discussing the history of Infernius, the devilish hierarchy, and valuable techniques imps needed to ingratiate themselves into mortal circles and push mortals towards structured evil.


    Gallow passed the time by aiding Tristan with what he could, and occasionally practicing his new abilities, the ability to camouflage himself, read minds, and peer through illusions. The rogue even trained with his master, asking the young god to come up with complicated illusions for him to peer through. In exchange, the orc helped Althos harvest crops and transport them into the chapel for the mortals to eat.


    The orc felt his relationship with his master improve and expand bit by bit, with the young god working with him to hone his skills and the orc keeping him company from time to time. Of all of the party members, Gallow was the only one to prioritize spending an equal amount of time inside and outside during these days of peaceful research and homemaking.


    <hr>


    Althos gave Raverangos, who was very much an out-door demon and not an indoor one, a series of tasks to do. The god knew his pet too well to ask it to help him when it came to doing non-violent tasks so the demon''s role was to patrol the boundaries of the territory and Althos would send it on hunts twice a day.


    Sending the demon to patrol the boundaries of the barrier the young god had established was busywork. Althos'' barrier would hold and the deity knew it because of his enhanced control over his own magic. But the hunting was not busywork.


    Althos had carefully instructed his pet to leave whatever it hunted alive when it returned home. Althos studied the critters Raverangos rounded up, saving a handful of them while allowing Raverangos to devour others. The young deity did not awaken the creatures he mercifully let go, but he did bathe them in divine energy.


    He established a pattern quite quickly. He''d send out Ravernagos to hunt twice a day, and when the demon returned to him he''d carefully scrutinize whatever his pet had brought with him. He''d allow it to devour half of whatever it brought home and save the rest of the creatures in the demon''s clutches.


    When it came to the critters he saved, he''d do a few things to them. The first thing he''d do was heal them, curing their wounds and undoing the harm Raverangos had done to them. Then he''d bathe them in divine energy.


    This was a dramatic process that''d fill them with potent magical and divine energy, in more than a few causes causing them to evolve then and there. Althos then explored their minds, creating a copy of them, and wiping their memories. He wiped their memories entirely.


    He then gave them over to Silander. He had resurrected within her the ability to speak to animals, and she used this ability to preach to animals in Althos'' care. At first, it had been a joint effort by the two of them, for the first two animals that Raverangos had captured. After that Silander quickly demonstrated a knack for this sort of work, leveraging her status as Althos'' first awakened creature and first mortal familiar, to inspire awe in the creatures of the desert.


    On their first night in the chapel, Althos and Silander sat down and discussed Althos'' curiosity about the desert and his plans for her ability to speak to animals.


    <hr>


    Within the chapel''s nave, Althos and Silander sat in a pew the night that they had arrived at the dark chapel. Silander waited for her master to speak first, because he had been the one to summon her, hinting that he had a plan for her. She didn''t have to wait long. Her master turned to her and quickly began to speak.


    Althos'' voice was quiet as he spoke. "Silander, I have an important mission for you." He said, gazing intently into her eyes. The young great-frog stared back, wanting to know her master''s intent and desiring to get started with the mission he wanted to assign her too. She quickly responded to him.


    "Yes awakener, what can I do for you?" Silander''s voice was quiet, still having a bit of difficulty speaking the words of humanoids. This had been a constant problem for the young amphibian, but Althos knew how to fix it.


    "You can speak your language. I can understand it and I don''t want you to be in pain. Only you to accomplish what I''m going to ask you to do." His voice was soft and filled with concern for his familiar related to her obvious discomfort with humanoid languages. It hinted that the god cared for her, a realization the frog was not oblivious too.


    She listened to her master and stopped trying to speak in the words of humanoids. So instead she spoke to him in her natural tongue. "Master, please. What do you need me to do?" Her language was an odd one, the language of the frogs was one that involved deep, croaking noises and required listeners to interpret the amount of time between sounds as a part of communication with distinct, recognizable meanings. Fortunately, Althos'' ability allowed him to do so.


    He looked at her and grinned, enjoying the sounds of her natural way of communicating. "I would like to use your animal speech ability, one of the abilities I resurrected within you. I''ve been thinking about its applications for a while now and I want to use you as a cult leader in your own right. I want you to help me gain animal worshippers and for you to be one of their leaders. Would you like that?"This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    Althos'' voice conveyed his excitement at this thought. What felt like a long time ago, when she was first awakened, Silander knew she wanted to worship her awakener, Althos. She told him as much. Now as she looked at him, his eyes dazzlingly dreaming of a future where animals of all sorts worshipped him and where she led them, she was delighted.


    She smiled at her master and spoke in her native tongue. "I''d love that. I will do my best to be a leader of a movement in your name and in pursuit of your goals. If you''ll allow me, I''ll convert every animal I can and unite us all, across species boundaries, in your worship."


    Althos grinned at her, happy that the first creature he had awoken turned out to be such a devoted servant. And then the two of them spoke about tactics.


    <hr>


    The two decided to not lie to any potential followers. They focused on honesty, on demonstrating Althos'' power, and on converting creatures to Althos'' worship based on the creation of mutually beneficial relationships. Althos wanted to help his worshipers, he wanted to make their lives better and safer. And in exchange, he wanted their devotion and service.


    Silander asked her master an impressive barrage of questions so as to help her decide what to tell any creatures she was asked to convert.


    Her inquisitive barrage included hard-hitting questions that touched on the relationship between different sorts of animals that may be united in their service to Althos but be on different ends of the "prey-predator" dichotomy. She also asked about Althos'' feelings towards aiding worshipers in evolving into other forms of monsters.


    His response to the first question reflected what he had once said about his followers eating fungi.


    "I am a deity of nature. I know that eating and being eaten is a part of nature''s cycle. I will aid those who are devote in their service to me, but I do believe in the importance of knowing thyself. A creature who seeks to serve me and to be protected by me must know themselves as they know me. They must be strong or swift and they must seek to become stronger or swifter."


    Althos considered how to respond to the second question, but it didn''t take long for him to reach his answer.


    "I wish to aid those who wish to follow me. I will give my followers the tools to strengthen themselves, including the key to evolve in a way they wish to evolve in. All they must do is approach me and ask me for assistance. If they obey me, I will aid them."


    The two of them must have spent nearly an hour and a half sitting atop that pew, Silander asking questions and her master answering them to give her an honest understanding of the deity and his goals related to divine leadership of animals.


    Surprisingly, Althos had told her not to mention the possibility of awakening them. The deity demonstrated unusual patience and explained that he felt it was worth picking and choosing special members of each species to awaken as opposed to awakening them all. He did this because he wanted to see what sort of creatures both awakened and unawakened servants would evolve into without his non-divine interference unless they explicitly asked.


    By the time the conversation was over, she had a much more thorough understanding of her master''s state of mind. She was grateful for the time he took to give her this new mission and his reassurance that her natural language was a great language in its own right, something she hadn''t heard from anyone until that point. His indiscriminate nature was one of the things the great-frog loved about the man who awoke her.


    <hr>


    Silander''s true and heartfeltdesire to serve Althos enhanced her charisma and it conveyed to animals in her presence that Althos was an odd, and unique master. In time her sermons, combined with the divine energy of the god himself flowing through them broke any hesitationthey initially had towards becoming Althos'' servants. Usually this took a few hours. They inevitably found themselves convinced to become minions at least, and often worshipers of the odd deity.


    This labor of love that fused the work of Raverangos, the decision-making of Althos, and the skills of Silander, resulted in Althos gaining servants that ranged from small to large scorpions, to lizards, and even desert foxes. None of them were awakened,but the divine energy flowing through them caused about a quarter of them to spontaneously evolve.


    Perhaps the biggest consequence of this was that it meant that Althos gained eyes and ears that went far and wide across the desert. The creatures Althos spared universally became familiars that served the young god across the desert because he released them back into the desert after they had been converted into his servants.


    Althos also welcomed creatures into the remade area surrounding the small chapel, freely inviting prey and predator alike to drink of the water sources he created. Animals from all over the desert came to the chapel to drink. They knew not to attack any of the creatures they saw, as Althos always appeared before them and warned them not too.


    They were also free to eat some of the fungi he had planted in the fungal gardens he made close to the chapel. From time to time some of them would eat the wrong fungi, and they''d pass away in the gardens. Althos used their corpses as fungal beds, and due to his powers to speed fungal growth more and more beds of assorted sorts of fungi appeared in the area near the chapel.


    On the fifth day since the end of their adventures in the tomb of Agowraith, Althos found himself in one of the many fungal gardens he had carefully created.


    <hr>


    Althos proudly examined the fungi with a hawklike eye. He had cared for the majority of the fungi blooming in the verdant soil by hand and he had fertilized them using a variety of bones and organic matter. The fungal garden in front of him was the result of his own patient handiwork.


    It blossomed beautifully, and the fungi in it were remarkably active creatures. There must have been dozens of them, of all sorts. Most of them were small, but a few of them were meters tall. Most of them were pitifully still, but some of them were incredibly animated and expressive things.


    Althos watched as perhaps the single most animated of them, a gigantic monster that he was very pleasantly surprised to find growing in a garden he had created last night, extended fleshy tendrils outward in search of food. He kept his eyes on the tendrils. The things tapped the ground around them, hoping to snatch a snack.


    After a few moments of careful searching, the tendrils retreated to their home, underneath the cap of the single biggest mushroom in the particular garden Althos found himself in.


    Althos laughed as the thing''s tendril meekly returned to their default position which was a defensive one that protected the mushroom''s stalk. The thing approached him and rubbed the cap of its shromy form against him. He patted the thing''s cap and smiled at it. He spoke, gently and soothingly to the thing.


    "There, there... you''re a hungry thing aren''t you?" He said that, while searching his person for something suitable to feed the fungal monster. Much to his disappointment after searching his person for a few moments he realized that he couldn''t find anything to feed the creature.


    The creature who was eagerly nuzzling itself against him was a baby fungal lurker, strange fungal beasts who normally only emerge as an evolution of lesser fungi. For some reason, perhaps due to his mastery of the fungal domain, one of the powerful creatures was grown in his fungal garden. This made him quite happy but he truly didn''t understand why it was that the thing had appeared as the fungal equivalent of a newborn in a garden he had created from scratch.


    The creature had rapidly grown, and he had made sure to feed it hand-selected meat. The deity could sense the creature''s power and wondered what would happen if he raised it carefully and painstakingly. He hoped to find out over time and for now, was content to raise the thing like a dotting parent.


    The deity wondered what to do with the rest of his day, and came to an interesting realization.


    If I have some free time today... I should go visit the dark elves!

 Chapter 55:

    Minutes after leaving the fungal garden where the baby lurker dwelled, Althos sent his allies in Infernius a surprising message.


    [I''m going to go visit the dark elven city of Undermoon for a few hours. I''m mostly going to go see what our other allies are up too and maybe pay a visit to a member of their high-council. I''ll be back before tomorrow.]


    This caught the assorted servants Althos had acquired off guard, but none of them thought the idea was bad. They swiftly wished him well, and quickly thereafter the deity teleported to the city by accessing the memories of Qu''Ren and using them to visualize her bedchamber. While he teleported he changed his shape into the handy, dark elven disguise he had crafted at the end of the time he spent with his dark elven followers.


    Six days after the climatic events that happened in the forest, the dark elves had themselves settled into a routine of sorts back in their home city. A routine Althos was now minutes from disrupting, at least for Qu''Ren, as the young god tended to do to routines.


    <hr>


    Early in the morning the sixth day since Qu''Ren, the dark elven witch who had organized and then somewhat informally led the eventful excursion into the world above the city, met her master the witch was slothfully lounging on a cushion made of spider silk.


    Her eyes gazed lazily and smugly at her own nude form, staring quite lovingly at her reflection in a mirror. The dark elf was a firm believer in many things, but the thing she believed in above all else was her own power and beauty.


    She had a waify body, tall and thin, but that only enhanced her elegant appearance. Her skin was the same color as an onyx gemstone, and the sight of her nude form hinted at the pleasures her body could offer to anyone who was lucky enough to have the chance to lay with her.


    The arrogant and powerful witch was so lost in her own beauty she didn''t even notice when the creature who had enhanced her abilities and promised her even more power in exchange for service and worship appeared in her bedchamber. The deity was plainly visible even from where she sat while she lovingly admiring her own features, and yet it took her several seconds to actually realize that the young god was there.


    He had abruptly appeared in a small section of the lightless room and stood there, waiting for her to notice him. Several moments passed, and in those moments the deity''s eye wandered the large room.


    <hr>


    So this is a dark elven bedchamber? I''ve seen this place before, thanks to Qu''Ren''s memories, but this is the first time I''m seeing it in person. It''s quite impressive really.


    The bedchamber was a large, circular chamber with a deep pit in its center. Assorted furniture, often adorned with motifs of various creatures native to the world beneath the world, were located throughout the room.


    Qu''Ren''s bed sat right in front of one of the stone walls of the chamber and atop it sat a scattered mesh of pillowy cushions. The dark elf hadn''t been attended by any of her servants yet, due to how early in the morning it was, and so her bed was a reflection of herself: a wild, erratic mess.


    Not far from her bed and the woman herself sat an overlarge mirror. She used that to stare at herself, the powerful emotion in her own gaze revealing the profound depths of her self-admiration. Though in fairness to the dark elf, even Althos quietly acknowledged her beauty. He didn''t feel what others often felt towards her, a sort of carnal longing, but he could respectfully and truthfully admit she was quite lovely.


    At that moment, her gaze was focused on a single part of her womanly body. She examined the shape of her curves and the youthfulness of her small breasts. She rather obsessively fixated on her breasts, watching the things rise and fall in time in response to her concentration and will that she determined that the spells that kept them lively were working. Shortly after that she finally noticed the deity standing in an unoccupied section of her room.


    Rather than be alarmed by the deity''s abrupt appearance, she smiled coyly at him. He had again taken the form of a more muscular and masculine version of the dark elf named Drow, one of her comrades, and she found herself wondering why the deity appeared before her. She opened her mouth to speak, her soft dark lips purring out her words.


    "Why hello there master." She said, slowly and sensually speaking each word, with a special emphasis on the word "master". Her deity grinned at her, as his eyes slowly took in the sum of her physical form.


    "Is there any... special reason you''ve decided to enter my bedchamber?" She asked, her eyes lustfully admiring the muscular physique of the deity she was more than happy to serve, in more than one way.


    <hr>


    The dark elven form he had taken was not immune to the influence of the domains the deity had influence over but only one domain affected his appearance at that moment. When he was first creating that form, the deity had chosen to allow the subdomain of hand-to-hand fighting to influence it. That granted him the appearance of a dark elf with an unhealthy passion for fist-fighting, a rare dark-elven brawler.


    The deity''s dark elven form was an eerie replica of the warrior named Drow, but with a few distinct differences. The first difference this form had when compared to the form of the dark elven warrior who inspired it was that this form was far more muscular. Drow himself had the sinuous muscles of conventional dark elven warriors who often tended to be lithe and skinny focusing on skill as opposed to focusing on raw strength. Althos didn''t.


    Althos in his dark elven disguise had the dangerous and powerful looking physique of a human berserker. He also had long, white hair, which differed from Drow''s in that though Drow''s was the same shade of white as the dark elven warrior, Drow''s was considerably shorter. Althos'' hair went to the top of his shoulders, whereas Drow''s went to the top of his neck.


    <hr>


    Qu''Ren had spent more than a few minutes imagining that powerful body on top of her own since first laying her eyes upon the powerful-looking pseudo-dark-elf days ago. But sadly for her, the deity wasn''t as easily distracted as the dark elf witch was, and he waved off her advances.


    She pouted at him, disappointed by the deity''s uninterest in pursuing carnal delights. He chuckled, the sound soft and unbefitting his physical appearance at that moment. Then he opened his mouth to speak for the first time since quietly invading her bedchamber.


    "Get ready. I''m going to be exploring the city today, and you''re accompanying me." He said, commandingly. He spoke the soft, sensual language of dark-elven kind quite easily. His tongue naturally caressed the proper syllables and the words escaped his lips with the slyness of a natural speaker. It was odd for the dark elven witch in his company, but she didn''t dislike it.


    She nodded at him, annoyance plainly visible in her eyes, but it wasn''t the only emotion evident in her gaze. There was a playfulness there too, and perhaps even a sort of excitement.


    So Althos wants to see the city he wants us to quietly conquer for him? Beyond the context of our memories? That makes a certain kind of sense, but I wonder why he hasn''t visited here before... Or has he?


    On her own, she came to the conclusion that the deity could have visited the city without her. She thought to ask him that directly but then realized that he might not answer one way or another. Fortunately, the deity was inside of her mind, quietly reading it thanks to a spell he was experimenting with and decided to respond to her thoughts.


    "This is the first time I''m exploring your city. I''ve been busy building a base far-away from here, with my other allies, and today was the first day I''ve had a real chance to come here. I also didn''t feel like visiting the city as an outsider, which is why I decided you''d be my guide while I was here."


    She nodded in understanding at the deity''s words and felt satisfied with his explanation. Wordlessly the witch cast a spell that conjured a keen sound.


    The sound, a sort of hummed note, was loud enough to escape the chamber and reach the servants who waited for her summons down in the rooms below the witch''s chamber. Within seconds the pit began to emit a soft glow, and Althos heard footsteps coming from beneath them.


    Qu''Ren considered explaining what was about to happen, but then she recalled that she gave the god before her a copy of her mind, including all of her memories. The deity''s perfect calmness hinted that he knew what was about to happen and when the first of the servants emerged from within the pit and the deity barely acknowledged them she knew he had explored her memories and was familiar with the retinue of servants who were streaming into the chamber.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    She watched him for a few moments, intent on observing his reaction to them, curious as to how the deity would react to lower class dark elves as opposed to the nobility he had encountered so far.


    His cold indifference to them is... becoming. It fits with how a deity, the most powerful of creatures, ought to act. A noble amongst nobles.


    To Qu''Ren, herself a noble, his apparent apathy towards dark elves of lesser social stature than herself was the right attitude. At that moment when she looked upon him, she beheld what she thought was a dark elf who understood the importance of social structures and of class systems.


    <hr>


    Qu''Ren was misreading Althos. She was fundamentally misunderstanding him and though she didn''t know that, he had absolutely no problem with how he was being misunderstood. Rather than pretend that the servants of the witch were beneath his notice, he carefully studied each of them.


    The deity gleamed every detail of the entourage that magically ascended from the pit. He memorized everything from the colors of their eyes to the number of hairs on each of their heads. He was just doing it magically so as to avoid notice by any of the creatures he was studying.


    The deity was using a handy oracular spell to view the servants of the witch from very close up. The spell basically gave the deity an extremely focused magnifying class.


    He was silent, and still as the servants approached the witch and as he noticed them. They noticed him, but a career of beatings hand-delivered by Qu''Ren herself taught them better than to openly question their mistress over the identities of the rare few she thought worthy of allowing into her bedchamber. None of them approached him or even acknowledged him.


    The servants reached their mistress and quickly began the flawless execution of a routine they had mastered centuries ago. Althos would wordlessly watch the routine for close to half an hour.


    It took the duo an hour on the dot to leave the thick stone building Qu''Ren called her home and enter the actual city. Over the course of that hour, Althos watched Qu''Ren''s servants dress her, accompany her to a dining chamber, and watched her eat a meal consisting of subterranean critters artfully filleted and expertly grilled to suit the exquisite dark elven palate.


    <hr>


    Althos took his first steps out of the home of one of his newest servants and into her family''s estate while feeling the cool welcome of chilly air. The air kissed his face and his unarmored chest, more so than any body part covered in warm armor. He grinned and quickly felt himself adjust to the chilly, stagnant air of the enormous cavern.


    He smelled the earthy scent of solid cliff-stone waft through the air. It was pungent, inescapable and after breathing it in for a few moments the deity knew he''d never forget it. It had a rock-like musk to it, the sort of smell that someone could taste. He was glad it wasn''t unpleasant but he was also grateful that his form of eating was unlike the ways that humanoids ate.


    At that moment the deity decided to look directly upward. His powerful vision allowed him to peer hundreds of meters into the sky before he saw the natural ceiling of the cavern. The cliff the estate was jutting out of eventually fused with the ceiling, becoming part of the grand tapestry that covered the entire city of Undermoon and significantly more than that.


    The inky ceiling shrouded the city and the estate in a layer of darkness that didn''t deter the dark elves. They were more than well-adapted to darkness, their eyes not needing light to see. However, their slaves often did. So the city out in the distance was well-lit, revealed to those who needed lights by an illuminated sea of torches and magical lights. This transformed it into a bright spot, relatively speaking, in a sea of darkness.


    He was now surrounded by the estate of Qu''Ren''s noble family. Right behind him lurked the home that housed the family''s leaders, where he had just come from. Directly before him there was a stone pathway that extended a few dozen meters, and then there was an open gate. Beyond that gate was empty air. The path stopped at the end of the open gate, leading to a sheer and sudden drop-off.


    He took a few more steps forward, towards the open gate, and then turned around. He saw the building that housed Qu''Ren and three other, similarly built but smaller buildings in cliff-side openings close to and also behind it.


    The smaller buildings all stood two dozen or so meters tall and almost 35 meters wide, with the building that housed Qu''Ren measuring almost twice that. He admired the dimensions of the home, recognizing that it was larger than the chapel he had made into his home base in Infernius was.


    Qu''Ren noticed him admiring her home, and waited for the deity to grow bored of staring at the place of his own volition rather than tearing him away from the sight of her home. Perhaps a minute passed before the deity turned around to walk towards the exit out of the estate''s exit after he committed its sight to his memory.


    When he reached the edge of the open gate, he quietly walked off it and allowed himself to slowly fall using magic. He smiled as he felt wind rush up at him and he leisurely enjoyed the sensation of the world coming up to greet him as he moved through the air, towards the ground.


    Shortly after he fell and began to slow his descent Qu''Ren got back to his side and then allowed her own fall to slow thanks to the powerful elven magic she artfully controlled.


    The one encounter the pair would have before they reached the city came as they left the guarded neighborhood Qu''Ren lived in. It happened right before they would have made it out of the neighborhood. It was initiated by a cautious guard.


    <hr>


    "Halt! Stranger, this is guarded territory and I''ve never seen you before. Who do you work for?"


    The source of these inquisitive questions was a stern-looking dark elven warrior dressed in organic, chitinous armor. He was safely tucked away inside of a mobile guard post made up of thick, roughly shaped and tempered vanadium and had shouted at Althos as the young god''s shirtless form passed by the outpost.


    The dark elf guard pushed himself to sound intimidating, but he only just barely managed to avoid having his voice crack as he attracted Althos'' attention. Althos looked at him and saw a dark-skinned lad in armor that looked a touch too big, carrying a spear that looked a tad bit too heavy.


    The guard''s face was smooth and untested by the cruel tests of age, suggesting that he was but a youth roped into a job Qu''Ren''s memories indicated Althos should have thought would be uneventful most days. Althos felt something akin to a pang of pity as he looked into the elf''s eyes, but he also felt a sliver of respect for the elf.


    It''s not bad to be brave enough to attract the attention of strangers who posed the risk of being nobles when you aren''t noble yourself. Takes guts to do this job in this sort of cruel environment. Kind of a mistake trying to stop me though... And that''s without Qu''Ren at my side.


    The deity knew the young guard wasn''t a noble. Even without the whisper of Qu''Ren''s knowledge in the back of his mind telling him that he could tell. He knew from his interactions with the dark elves that he had met, that no noble dark elf would be so fearful while reaching him out to someone as undignified as a brawler.


    In a society as hierarchal and traditional as a dark elven society, only non-nobles had to fear physical reprisals from those they disrespected. Only non-nobles would feel the indignity of a fist cracking their skull because they angered a barbarian. For anyone else the risks were of a different sort, gambles didn''t come in the form of fistfights but rather they came in the form of magical duels and challenges to one''s nobility.


    Althos considered responding but instead of him addressing the guard, Qu''Ren, who had been right behind him did the speaking. She peeked her head into the view of the dark elven guard, resting her head on Althos'' shoulder. She looked into the guard''s eyes and scowled. She briefly considered expressing her displeasure at the guard''s interruption of the pair as they walked to the city.


    Instead, the dark elf decided to do something that would ensure no other guard interrupted Althos when he was going to and from her home. She expressed that Althos meant something to her.


    "This is Althos. He is my lover. You''re lucky that today we are together and I am in a good mood, but if you or any of the other guards do something like this again, bothering or obstructing him, let me assure you that I will not be merciful."


    The guard almost leaped out of his skin as she spoke to him. The guard ignobly nodded at her, energetically indicating that he understood her and would obey her wishes.


    She smiled at him after he indicated that he understood, and then gently kissed Althos'' obsidian colored cheek, so as to demonstrate the closeness she shared with the deity in a society with a cold view towards public displays of affection. Qu''Ren was individualistic enough and strong enough to care very little what the society she was in, thought of her behavior so she paid that consideration no mind when she acted out and did things like this.


    The sensation of her warm, soft lips on Althos'' cheek wasn''t a bad one, and with a start, the god realized that that was the first time he''d ever been kissed, something the memories he had been given by other people told him was a big deal.


    When he turned to her, his eyes a bit wide, she giggled. The sound was surprisingly girlish coming from someone who even by dark elven standards was not young.


    <hr>


    Qu''Ren was having fun at that moment. Her thoughts were flirtatious and truly were those of someone who had just started seeing someone.


    Kissing him is nice. He is warm, and his flustered reactions are cute. He is fun to tease... I wonder if that was his first kiss?


    In the seconds that quickly passed the dark elf realized that that probably was his first kiss given his age. She grinned at him, and winked, feeling as though she had secured a victory for herself at that moment since she had stolen a kiss from a deity. After a fewmoments, the deity just sighed and smiled at her.


    <hr>


    The pair quietly continued their walk towards the proper parts of the city, away from the homes that housed the most arrogant and insufferable members of the city''s nobility, many of whom would have accused Qu''Ren of being perhaps the most arrogant of them all. And who knows?


    If they made that accusation they may have had a point because kissing a god without their permission was something only an exceedingly arrogant person would have done. Yet Qu''Ren did that, and she and that same god were now walking towards the city''s grand marketplace.

 Chapter 56:

    Althos quickly discovered that the crowded streets of Undermoon were lined with quiet gossips. He discovered this as he and his worshiper, the witch named Qu''Ren, draped an arm of hers around one of his. The deity didn''t mind this, and in fact, being the center of attention openly and publicly as he and Qu''Ren were at that moment was kind of exciting.


    He heard a series of comical whispers, as he was led deeper into the city by one of the newest members of his unusual religion.


    <hr>


    "Qu''Ren and a man? A newcomer to the city no less?" Whispered a female dark elf and noted local gossipmonger, her voice filled with the excitement of having discovered a new scandal. She quickly rushed to all sorts of lurid conclusions, her own cheeks coloring as she pictured the pair in undignified positions, engaging in carnal delights. She openly stared at them, and Qu''Ren actually smiled at her and waved. Althos laughed at this, but only internally.


    The gossipmonger had just left a small indoor marketplace, leading several newly purchased slaves of various races by tugging at cruel leashes made of what Althos realized was freshly shorn orc flesh, riddled with pain-inducing enchantments.


    The slaves who slowly walked after their new mistress were a racially diverse group. There were dwarves, goblins, and even a healthy-looking human with the build of a trained soldier from a country with an effective military, all wearing assorted rags and terribly damaged clothes.


    The gossipmonger herself didn''t find Althos'' form particularly attractive, because she preferred that her men be slender and delicate looking. She knew of Qu''Ren''s proclivities for lumberjack types, with thick arms and even thicker abdominal muscles.


    Minutes later, Althos heard another fascinating whisper. This time it wasn''t a woman who whispered it, distracted by the beauty of Qu''Ren, but rather a man who recognized the attractiveness of Althos'' muscular form.


    "He''s not bad looking..." Whispered a male dark elf who sat at a restaurant Qu''Ren and Althos passed by. The elf''s eyes boldly explored Althos'' muscled form. This comment and the gaze of the elf stood out to Althos.


    The god subtly touched the elf''s mind out of curiosity to see what sort of memories and experiences made him brave enough to say something like that, enabling him to not see a lot of the elf''s other memories in exchange for finding plenty of memories related to sex and sexuality.


    The dark elf''s mind was littered with hedonistic memories of sensual indulgences that involved a variety of partners, male, female, and even a small number of sexual experiences with creatures whose genders weren''t as simple as "male and female". The deity was only able to experience some of them in the instant that his mind touched that of the elf, but it was enough.


    This was fascinating to Althos, as the deity had little experience with creatures whose sexual preferences extended beyond experiencing attraction to members of other genders. He knew such creatures existed but hadn''t met them until that point.


    The dark elf was named Rinor, and the deity quietly committed that name to memory. Althos knew that in time, he''d be able to experience the breadth of those memories himself, once he was recognized as the city''s patron god and its overlord.


    <hr>


    Minutes after Althos first touched Rinor''s mind, while the god was still lost in thought, Qu''Ren nudged him and pursed her lips, using them to point straight ahead. Althos recognized that this is her way of getting him to refocus. Of course, Althos was already aware of what she wanted him to notice: the pair were about to enter the city''s grand marketplace.


    Stretched out before them stood a gigantic open-air bazaar, and for the next few kilometers, Althos'' vision was dominated in equal parts by impressive crowds of dark elves and their assorted slaves, and by the imposing sight of innumerable stalls, stores, and collections of items for sale properly stored underneath colorful tents.


    A cloying, powerful scent filled the air around the elf and the god. It filled their nostrils and coated their tongue. It''s a thick scent that came about as a fusion of thousands of bodies, only some of which were hygienic or even perfumed recently, and as a result, the scent they created when brought closely together was an unpleasant one.


    The area was also incredibly loud. Althos could make out and process hundreds of separate conversations in over a dozen distinct languages, only some of which the deity had heard before. He could understand each word the people spoke around him in a distance that equaled hundreds of meters.


    Even before he actually entered the market, the deity heard bits and pieces of juicy gossip that were quite fascinating to him.


    <hr>


    Nearly a hundred meters away from the god stood two fellows who were underneath a thick, rainbow-colored tent, watching a reptilian humanoid cook a thick piece of meat. Two elves salivated over the food, watching it with ravenous eyes. From where he stood, Althos couldn''t quite identify the sort of meat the chef was cooking, but that wasn''t what attracted the attention of the god anyway.


    Althos had heard one of them utter the word "Asylum", and that drew the god''s mental gaze. He knew what an asylum was, because of Milene''s memories.


    And that knowledge, made him have an interest in the city''s asylum, a dismal place that housed a litany of dark elves who suffered from mental illnesses to an extent that they were deemed dangerous in a society made up of wicked creatures pursuing wicked goals. He wanted to see first hand what sort of foul, wicked dark elves were kept in such a place.


    The deity listened as the two elves spoke to each other. They to each other whispered quietly, careful to keep their conversation unheard by others.


    "The Moonlit Asylum? What''s happening to it?" The one who spoke had a fearful look in his eyes, something Althos could only tell by using the same magnifying-glass like spell he used to spy on the servants in Qu''Ren''s estate.


    "Something that the guard captain wants to keep under wraps. The place is under quarantine. It seems that the guards who are guarding the place have been guarding it for a few days now. But... they can only keep this quiet for so long."


    The one who just spoke was the taller of the two elves, he wore the plain robes of a normal commoner, but he had dense muscles that were more like Althos'' muscles than the muscles of other dark elves.


    The deity suspected that the elf was a monk, presumably a disciplined member of a local order that sometimes purchased medicine from Milene. Of the elves Althos knew, she had the most knowledge about the order of skilled hand to hand fighters native to the city of Undermoon and she also knew that most dark elven cities housed an order or two of the fascinating fist-fighters.


    Althos figured he should pay the Aslyum a visit, at some point in the future. During the days of peace in the chapel in Infernius, the young god realized that he had begun to walk down the path needed to influence the domain of madness, and he knew that the Aslyum was a place that housed those who were deemed mad.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    This is good to know... I may pay the Asylum a visit soon. He thought, intrigued by this bit of gossip.


    Minutes later, the deity heard another bit of fascinating gossip.


    At that point the young god was already inside of the marketplace, accompanied by his ever-present guide. The two of them had wandered close to a small goblin who was in the middle of a ferocious debate with a dark elf wearing the dark uniform of one of the city''s few academies of magic.


    "You... try... to... rip me off!" Shouted the vendor, her purple eyes aglow with rage as she mentally readied another verbal "barrage" to lob at the young dark elf. The dark elf stood her ground, her clothing billowing around her as she looked down at the tiny goblin and called out to a tiny fraction of her power.


    "Listen here you little savage!" She said, her anger unbecoming of a young, possibly noble dark elf. Her azure-colored eyes were glowing with annoyance, and Qu''Ren watched their interaction with undisguised interest. She was close enough that both of the creatures were aware of her, but their anger was getting the best of them and they hadn''t actually checked out who she was, only that she was there close to them.


    Althos could hear them but was indifferent to their discussion. His attention was focused elsewhere, farther away.


    Across the paved street from where Althos and Qu''Ren stood at that moment was a tiny, open-air smithy. The smithy was open-air, and the face of the business was a dwak, a member of a mutant race that split off from dwarves when the species was divided over whether or not to venture the world above, the land of skies and dreams.


    One of the eye-catching features of the creature was its eyes, or rather what it had in place of eyes. Rather than have multicolored eyes, with different parts being different colors like most other humanoids, the dwak had crystalline orbs where its eyes ought to be. Althos looked at the thing, too far to be seen by him, and noticed that this particular dwak had dark sapphires where its eyes ought to have been.


    The dour-faced fellow was clothed in a soot-covered apron and his bearded face was covered in sweat. He was focused on the work in front of him, rather than his acquaintance; a young orc covered in the same sort of organic, chitinous armor that the guard who had interrupted the god earlier was wearing. The orc was waiting for the older dwarf to finish sharpening his blade and spoke to fill the air. Sparks flew off of the blade as the dwarf held it against a spinning wheel.


    While waiting for the dwarf the orc spoke in the common tongue of the world beneath the world, his throat uncomfortable producing the range of sounds needed to speak intelligible words. "The captain of the guard is doubling the number of guards stationed at the city''s dungeon." There was an emotion in the orc''s voice, a tremble of excitement.


    Althos wondered why that was, and fortunately, the old dwarf was both well-enough to hear the same tremble and also curious enough to wonder the same thing. The dour-faced dwarf spoke and the emotion in his voice revealed a rather venomous attitude "Do you care to share why that is, or do you want me to die not knowing the answer to this mystery?"


    Althos grinned at this, liking the quick wit of the elderly dwak. He listened as the orc chuckled, the creature''s status as a slave-soldier apparently not depriving the being of a sense of humor. The orc began to speak again.


    "It''s because we''re beginning to prepare for this month''s sacrifice." This was news to Althos, which meant that it was most likely news to his dark elven followers. He knew what it meant though.


    "Oh? So we''re preparing ourselves to try and summon a big one?" The dwak asked the orc, a glint of curiosity readily visible in the thing''s crystalline eyes.


    The orc nodded and grinned at the dwak. "Yep. We''re hoping the sacrifice will be enough to call a greater demon to the world. We''ve got a few... choice sacrifices this month." There was a certain hunger in the voice of the thing when he said the word "choice", and Althos wondered why that was. But more than that, the young god wondered what about the sacrifices necessitated the sort of protection these particular sacrifices were to be put under.


    The deity considered just reading the mind of the orc but then realized that this would make a fun test for his servants. So the deity did a really quick mind-reading of the orc, just to make sure he knew what at least one of the sacrifices would be.


    <hr>


    The deity didn''t get to see words when he read the mind of the orc, like he usually did when he performed surface level mind-reading, but instead, he saw an image.


    The image that entered the deity''s mind, copied from the mind of the orc, was of an inhabited prison cell. The prison cell itself was thin and dark, only barely large enough for a thin humanoid to have a few meters with which to move around, possibly to prevent muscular atrophy.


    The cell contained a single inhabitant, a thin and unhealthy looking elven man, dressed in dirtied yet opulent looking robes. In the image in the deity''s mind, the elf glared at his captors, his eyes and his skin were both equally pale. The look in his eyes revealed a certain strength of spirit, yet what skin was visible to the orc from whom the image was sourced was bruised and looked harmed.


    The elf wore an unusual piece of jewelry, a sort of eerie pendant that placed a thin emerald square in the center of the elf''s forehead. The thing seemed to cover the elf in a small, fading barrier of grass-green energy that the still image in Althos'' mind only barely captured.


    Althos, while still peering at the mental image, realized that the creature he was looking at was a non-dark elf. This was a bit of interesting trivia, and Althos knew that he''d be able to test the abilities of each of his dark elven followers by challenging them to uncover this juicy bit of information.


    He quietly composed a simple message and sent it to each of his worshipers within the city. It was a quiet, simple test of their skills. They were to find the identity of the sacrifices the city guards were hiding from the people. The deity withheld that he already knew the identity of one of the sacrifices, and pretended that this would be new information for all of them so as to get them to take it seriously.


    It took the three elves a few moments to respond to the message, with all three informing their master that they''d make it a priority to find out who or what was to be sacrificed.


    <hr>


    The deity would spend the next two hours cavorting around the marketplace with his guide. He quietly started playing a role, upon observing the behavior of other heavily built males in the marketplace. More often than not they were the muscle of more daintily built women, guarding their mistresses and intimidating the rare few people with the backbone to resist the wills of the matrons of dark elven society.


    Althos passed the hours acting as both a protective muscle to the witch and as her new lover, occasionally being the recipient of public displays of affection. A handful of those displays left lingering marks on the deity''s skin, with her lipstick staining the deity''s cheek, and his neck.


    At some point, the deity made the choice to embrace it, and by the time he felt satisfied with his initial exploration of the city he had become the source of a lot of tales, a few of them being wildly blown out of proportion and hinting that the young god was a sort of lovestruck brute entranced by Qu''Ren''s beauty.


    Althos internally laughed at those rumors, not minding that some of the elves in the city thought that he, a god, had a childish infatuation with the odd elf he had lured into his service with the promise of power.


    So today I went to a new city... I encountered a lot of new creatures... I left a big impression on a number of city residents... All in all, not bad for just a few hours of work.


    The deity then felt that it was time for him to go home. He had gained a lot during this little excursion, learning a lot about the city he sought to conquer. When he and Qu''Ren had almost returned to her estate, the same place that her nephew and niece lived in, he informed her that he was about to head home.


    This provoked another pout from the witch, but she didn''t object to it. The deity grinned at her, and spoke just before he vanished.


    "I actually had fun today. I won''t forget our little trip. I learned a lot, which was my objective, and it was fun to practice acting. I may come back sometime, but get your relatives and work on converting this city. The sooner it becomes mine... the sooner shapeshifting becomes yours."


    And seconds after that the deity was gone. He had wordlessly cast an advanced teleportation spell and vanished, returning to his home base in the second layer of Infernius. Qu''Ren was alone once again.


    That was quite fun and with that, I can guarantee everyone will be talking about me for a few weeks at least... The witch''s selfish thoughts were etched on her face, but she was alone so no one saw them. She grinned greedily as she reflected on the victories she had achieved today. She would think about them the rest of the way home.

 Chapter 57:

    Althos was calm and quiet as he was transported across dimensions. He was bathed in cosmic and dimensional energy while he flew through an assortment of different dimensions, getting quick glimpses at them.


    For nanoseconds, while en route to Infernius, he could see serene paradises, floating cities bathed in positive power, and all manner of powerful armies amassing to either defend their home dimensions or to try and conquer and sack other dimensions. This intrigued Althos, but he had already seen them hard at work before. He knew what to expect to see, so this revealed little new information to the deity.


    Soon enough, before even a second had passed since Althos cast the spell, the deity found himself back in front of the darkened chapel he called his home base.


    <hr>


    Althos was quiet as he entered the chapel, emerging into the narthex without so much as uttering a single word. Behind him, he could hear the lively garden and safe space he had created be filled with the activity and noises of having dozens of wild animals be in the same, single space. Even when they were interacting peacefully they were still raucous creatures.


    Althos could see into the chapel''s nave from where he stood in the center of the narthex and was surprised to see Tristan be accompanied by a stranger, an imposing creature who stood perhaps three meters tall, just a bit shorter than Ravernangos.


    The thing had a mostly human appearance, aside from its powerful draconic wings that were compressed and close to its back so as to not take up a significant amount of room. It was naked, its muscular form exposed to all, and apparently sexless.


    Another thing that betrayed its devilish nature was its thick silver horns which jutted forth from its head. In one of its hands, it held a massive mace, a thick club that at its tip contained a large sphere made of obsidian covered in spikes, nails, and other pointed tools.


    It spoke to Tristan, speaking the language of Infernius and in a tone that conveyed both excitement and impatience. At its side floated a single, pink soul-orb. The thing lazily drifted through the air.


    "Tristan... if what you''re saying is true, then soon the whole dimension will be forced to recognize the legitimacy of not only this supposed second dark-saint but also of our order. We may be... years, months, weeks, or even mere days from becoming a legitimate player in Infernal politics." The thing said, its voice cracking as it felt the excitement flow through it.


    Tristan, who hadn''t yet seen Althos responded to the devil. "What I''m saying is true! He is the second dark saint and when he gets," At that point, the girl turned and saw Althos approaching from the narthex. "He''s here!" She said abruptly, and the devil accompanying her turned to see Althos.


    The young god had quietly shifted into the form he first had when he entered the realm of Infernius, and had begun to walk towards the pair while they were talking. The deity kept walking towards them, and after the pair acknowledged him they began to walk towards him as well. In seconds the three stood face to face.


    Althos politely nodded at Tristan, who grinned at her master and greeted the second devil. "Hello, I am the second dark saint. I am a true devil, but unlike any other true devil. My name is Althos, and I am prepared to prove the claims of my priestess." He said, his voice stern and commanding. The strange new creature examined him, its beady, black and altogether too small, eyes measuring him up. After a few moments, it spoke.


    "I see that your words are sincere. How do you plan to prove this?" It said, its voice overflowing with curiosity. Althos received a notification about the creature''s species, and wanted to see it but knew this wasn''t the time. He willed the notification to become transparent, not willing it away or out of sight but preventing it from obstructing the conversation.


    Althos then responded to the strange devil. "That soul-orb. I can promote it." He said, confidently. As he spoke he gestured to the pink thing that leisurely floated through the air next to its master. This response quite intrigued the master of the orb, who quickly responded to Althos'' proclamation, its eyes widening as it spoke.


    "Can you really? If you can... that''d be pretty indisputable evidence of your claim and your legitimacy." Its voice was filled with awe, an unusual emotion for the powerful devil to feel.


    Althos grinned at the creature''s reaction. But before he did anything else, he spoke again. "I introduced myself earlier... yet you haven''t introduced yourself. And that''s despite you being here in my territory. I''m willing to forgive it, but only if you correct the mistake." There was a power in Althos'' voice, a fusion of both a quiet threat and a reminder of the deity''s power. While he intimidated the strange devil in front of him, he quietly promoted the devil''s soul orb.


    The devil took a step back as the god in front of it began to exude an air of power and malice, freely revealing undisguised hostility. The devil was quick to correct its mistake. "I... I-I apologize oh sir true-devil. My name is Qigog. I am a representative of the true-devil named Cania, the mistress of the city of Tort, located in the sixth layer. She too is a member of the Order of the Dark Saint."


    Althos took in that information, and then the hostility on his face melted away to reveal a mask of calmness and even quiet joy. The abrupt change caught the devil off guard, but Tristan who was beside it was distracted by the thing''s transforming soul orb.


    The pink orb was currently undergoing the exact same process as what happened to Althos'' two soul-orbs, but without the boosts of having been exposed to potent divine energy like the deity''s own orbs had been. Because of this, the process was much faster.


    <hr>


    This time the process to promote the soul orb from orb to imp took a matter of seconds, as opposed to minutes like it had with the god''s own little orbs. Perhaps half a minute passed before a newly promoted imp stood before Althos, Tristan, and Qigog.


    The tiny thing, bigger than it had been as an orb but not by much, bowed its head to the young god, and then lifted off of the ground and floated to its master side. This time rather than have a distinct color like Althos'' own created imps did, it had the same basic red skin as Salifinos but it was a lighter shade of red than the god''s dependable familiar.


    Qigog examined the imp, studying it with a careful gaze. Eventually, after the devil was satisfied with its study of the promoted creature, it turned to Althos and spoke. In its eyes, there was a profound respect for Althos that had not been there before.


    "So it''s true then... you really do have the power only possessed by true arch-devils. You can promote devils. You are the... as of yet, unrecognized and uncelebrated archdevil." There was a genuine reverence in the things voice as it spoke. Both Althos and Tristan were shocked that the thing could speak so reverentially.


    Althos smiled, the expression different from his usual grins. There was a level of joy in his smile, genuine happiness that stretched from his mouth to his eyes. "Yes, I am." He said, his voice soothing and reassuring as if he were a parent comforting a child who had been lost.


    The devil''s gaze turned from Althos to Tristan. Its black eyes peered into her own for a few moments. It was silent as it starred at her, reassessing its judgment of the priestess in light of the new information it possessed. The creature fell to one knee in front of her, and began to speak.


    "Priestess... I was unsure of your worthiness to be one of the leaders of the order and for that I must admit you have proven me wrong. I am a proud creature, and it is that very pride that allows me to honestly admit my own mistakes. You truly do deserve to be one of the leaders of our cult. Thank you for allowing me to see the future lord of Infernius, in the days before he rises to the height of his power."Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    The creature''s voice conveyed its sincerity and Tristan acknowledged the devil with a soft smile of her own. She spoke to him, briefly.


    "I don''t blame you for doubting me. But I do hope that you and your mistress recognize Althos for what he is... an archdevil."


    Her voice was soft, serene, and happy. The devil she was talking too quietly nodded in consideration of her words. Althos felt as though the creature in question already had recognized him for what he was, but he knew that convincing the assorted leaders of the order would be more challenging than convincing lesser members.


    Then the creature turned to Althos and began to speak to the dark deity.


    "Sir archdevil... I was given a message by my mistress to give to you just in case Tristan turned out to be right. I know the details of the second trial you need to pass."


    This news got an immediate reaction from Tristan and Althos. Their eyes snapped to the devil''s bowed form. The devil took a breath and then continued speaking.


    "The second trial is the trial of usurpation This trial challenges Althos to go, alone, and select champions among the living creatures in this desert and make them into leaders of their communities. This trial is about giving power to those with the ambition and the intelligence to take devilish deals and using those devilish deals to dynamically and efficiently seize control of communities for Infernius."


    Althos grinned as he heard the devil explain the conditions of the quest. At that moment he received a quest notification, and another sort of notification.


    [Quest: The Trial of Usurpation


    Objectives: Throughout the desert, there exist communities of various types of creatures. Find three of those communities, and approach three ambitious individuals within them. Convince those creatures to part with their souls, in exchange for your aid in enabling them to seize control of their communities through "honorable", formal means.


    Reward: The ability to promote imps into other sorts of lesser devils.


    Progress: 0/3 ambitious individuals identified


    0/3 ambitious souls acquired


    0/3 communities usurped.


    Note: "Honorable" means include public duels, votes, and other legitimate, recognized means of gaining power.]


    [New Devilish Power Explanation: Devilish Deal


    A devilish deal differs from a mortal deal. A devilish deal is a significant, binding agreement that can take on a variety of forms and ties a devil and a mortal or anyone else who makes a deal together. Both parties in the deal agree to an exchange of goods or services. The strongest devils can offer a litany of services or goods to a range of mortals. In exchange, mortals can offer something of equal value, which most often is their soul but doesn''t have to be.


    A devil has the power to invest cosmic meaning into a contract they''ve written up or had been given by another devil. They can also invest power into their words and into an oath they create when they want to have a more powerful and legally meaningful verbal agreement than mortals can create.


    When a devil creates a devilish deal, both or all parties involved in it are alerted and are told the consequences of agreeing to the deal. It is an absolute, mighty agreement between parties that ties them together.


    Any conditions that would otherwise impede the party that could accept the deal are temporarily wiped away while the party considers the deal. Children cannot accept a deal, though the age at which a creature stops being a child depends on the species in question.


    An active-deal is a deal that has conditions that the devil-deal-maker has yet to fulfill, which means that if the non-devilish party to the deal dies before the devil fulfills their end of the bargain than the deal is effectively voided.


    Inactive deals are deals that have been completed on the end of the devilish-deal-maker, but with mortal or other parties who haven''t yet died, assuming the other party(s) to the deal offered their souls in exchange for the devil''s services or goods.


    Lesser devils are limited in their power, the resources at their disposal to make deals tempting to other parties, and even the number of active-deals they can have at any single time. This is part of why lesser devils serve other, mightier devils, who can empower them to have more deal-slots at their disposal and can ensure that they have the means to make deals with parties of greater interest to devil-kind.


    True devils and arch-devils have a lot of resources at their disposal as well as significant personal power they can offer to anyone who they tempt into turning over their immortal souls in exchange for the fulfillment of easy, temporary, mortal aspirations. They can also have an unlimited number of active-deals in play at any single time.


    Note: This is a combined notification that actually contains the summarized information of a collection of different devilish powers related to the simplest deals a devil can make.


    Limitations: What you can offer a potential party to a devilish deal is limited to what you are capable of doing yourself since these deals cannot contain falsehoods. I.E.: in your current state, you cannot make a deal that requires you to perform a true resurrection of a loved one for the target, though that could change in time.]


    Althos decided that after reading about devilish deals, and his new quest, that that was the perfect time to read about the sort of devil Qigog was. He undid the transparency he had caused to make the first notification he received during this conversation readable.


    [New Species Knowledge Gained: Mace-Devils


    Mace-Devils are powerful, medium-tiered devils who tend to be found in service to greater, true, or even archdevils as guardians, messengers, and soldiers.


    These humanlike, winged devils are fond of the large maces they wield and they prefer to leisurely spend their time engaged in simple, repetitive tasks, or out on the fields of battle. They tend to devote themselves to powerful masters, and they are slavishly loyal to those masters.


    In the past, Infernius was different and devils could climb the ranks of the infernal hierarchy on their own. Now only soul-orbs can naturally, spontaneously evolve. In the old age, one''s personality in life determined how far they could eventually climb, and what sort of devils they eventually became while climbing the infernal hierarchy.


    The sort of souls that eventually became Mace-Devils were simple-minded but effective solders who used war hammers and maces in battle. Many souls eventually became Mace-Devils and stopped evolving due to the whims of their masters. The oldest of these creatures, or the rare few who made a conscious choice to not evolve any further became True Mace-Devils, powerful, hulking paragons of their kind.


    Mace-Devils could naturally evolve into other waring devils, soldiers specialized in either certain tactics or who fought using a range of different weapon types.


    If a particular devil were well-suited to becoming types of devils like Mace-Devils and Sniper-Devils, combat-specialized types, they may eventually become Krieg-Devils, the highest rank of warrior devils, beneath Vizier-Devils in terms of symbolic importance, but in actuality, these mighty generals and warmongerers were the potent commanders of vast infernal armies and to their masters Krieg-Devils were every bit as important as Vizier-Devils.


    Known Mace-Devils: Qigog.]


    Althos willed the notifications away, and he felt satisfied with the knowledge he now had. He politely thanked Qigog for this gift, nodded at the imp he had created through promotion, and then left the chapel to reflect on the knowledge he had acquired.


    <hr>


    Within a matter of moments, Althos was once again back out in the fungal gardens. The deity quietly watched the various creatures that walked, skittered, and crawled through the gardens he had created by hand.


    He was calm as he reflected on the second trial of the dark saint. He was secretly excited about the idea of subjugating entire communities of creatures to his will, and especially this odd, efficient way of doing so.


    I wonder what sort of deals I''ll get to make in the days to come... It''d be nice if I could gain some strong servants this way.


    His mind raced with the possibilities laid out before him. At that moment he decided to do some of the initial reconnaissance and intel-gathering he''d need to do to be able to learn where applicable communities were located throughout the desert so that he could speed through this quest.


    He quietly reached out to the minds of the menagerie of animal servants he had gathered and devoted his prodigious will to quickly scan their brains for knowledge of settlements located throughout the sprawling desert.

 Chapter 58:

    There was a lot Althos didn''t like about deserts. Sand. And sand. Oh and sand. But there was something the young deity did like about deserts: they were quiet. Their stillness and relative silence was something the deity came to appreciate during his trek across the layer''s gigantic desert.


    The deity was walking across the desert, alone, as he been told to do. He accepted that quite easily, figuring that his powers and intelligence were more than enough to handle this quest.


    He had set off about an hour ago. At the time of his departure, it had been mid-day, but that wasn''t too important given the fact that this layer was in a state of perpetual nocturnal darkness.


    He carefully inspected the mental radar and minimap that were part of his H.U.D. and noted that none of them marked any creatures nearby as creatures who had settlements or complex social structures. None of them were marked with the necessary color, purple, that would alert the deity if they were targets the quest deemed acceptable.


    At the beginning of his trek, he received a notification about an update to his radar that would enable him to identify quest targets with just his radar by marking them as purple dots. It was a useful ability that he intended to use a lot.


    Althos quietly stopped his trek across the desert, when five dots appeared at the edge of his radar and were moving towards him. He looked in the direction his radar indicated that they were coming at him from, and noticed that it was the top of a great dune hundred of meters away from where he was.


    Althos wasn''t sure at a glance, but he was pretty certain based on their movements four of the creatures were fighting or hunting the scorpion.


    Are... they fighting each other? If so, this may represent a nice break from the monotony of this trip.


    The deity began to walk towards the dune, curious as to what he''d gain after this upcoming encounter.


    <hr>


    The small hunting party dashed through the desert. The canine-like humanoids savagely, gleefully, and speedily, gave chase to their quarry, who was now dashing to escape them.


    The pack of jackal-headed humanoids chased their prey, a massive but wounded scorpion, across the vast expanse of the desert. All four of the bestial humanoids carried two weapons in their pawed hands. They carried a melee weapon, like stone mallets or amateurishly forged swords in one hand, and a ranged weapon like a net or a slim crossbow in the other.


    The scorpion they were chasing was bleeding, open wounds leaving a trail of slick blood on the sand beneath its many legs. It was a gigantic scorpion, over a full meter tall, and several meters long. Its black carapace made it stand out against the yellow sand it was sprinting over. It was dragging its tail behind it, the gigantic appendage having been damaged by a well-aimed crossbow bolt that one of its hunters fired at it when the pack began their hunt.


    The scorpion skittered across the sand, dodging bolt after bolt, and thrown net after thrown net. The scorpion had been injured, but that didn''t make it slow. The thing was proving to be quite a nuisance because it was exceptionally dexterous, and running over the sand didn''t bother it. It dodged their attacks with ease, but it knew that if it stopped to fight them it would be defeated quite easily since it couldn''t use its stinger and none of them were injured.


    The jackal-headed creatures began to grow excited when they noticed that their prey was slowing down. The reason the thing was slowing down was that all five creatures were beginning to climb a sand dune and the scorpion was the only one far enough and small enough to noticeably feel the impact of the sandy slope. But it didn''t stop running.


    <hr>


    While approaching the dune, and the creatures on his radar, he got close enough to them for his radar to be able to identify one of them. The creature that was the closest to him was a massive scorpion, a creature he had learned about during the days of peace he had had after conquering Agowraith''s tomb.


    Days ago he had watched a lesser scorpion he bathed in divine energy, after the thing began to visit his fungal gardens, evolve into a dire-scorpion and had received a species knowledge notification about the things. They were gigantic, powerful scorpions, but still regular, killable creatures as anyone could tell merely by observing the battle the scorpion not terribly far from Althos was in.


    It seemed this one was still weak enough to be hunted by some creatures he had yet to encounter named "Jackaloids", which he assumed were some kind of fusion between a local predator of some kind and humanoids.


    Before he knew it, Althos could hear the sounds of a hunt echoing across the vast emptiness of the desert. It was muffled sure, thanks to the dune blocking much of it, but it was still pretty clear.


    He could hear loud animal noises, noises he suspected came from the scorpion, and he could hear the howls of the creatures who were chasing it down. Every passing second brought all five of the creatures closer and closer to him. He grinned morbidly as they drew ever closer.


    <hr>


    The scorpion was very clearly slowing down. It was losing the steam and adrenaline that had enabled it to dodge the numerous projectiles of its enemies, and each attack the pack of jackal-headed men launched was dodged by a slimmer and slimmer margin. But it could see the top of the dune ahead of it, and it knew if it reached the dune''s peak going down the dune would be easier than climbing it.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Not only was the thing slowing down due to a loss of energy, but there was also the simple reality that climbing the slope of the dune was taking a toll on its legs. It was still pushing itself as hard as it could and it wasn''t far from the top of the dune. Behind it, it heard a familiar sound: the sound of a net being tossed at it, and the thing mustered the energy to perform another dodge.


    At the same time as the creature leaped to dodge the net, a new figure emerged. In front of it, it was surprised to see a figure ascend the dune from the other side, a single, odd-looking winged creature. The figure saw it and smiled.


    <hr>


    When Althos reached the top of the dune, thanks to his quick walking speed, he looked to its other side and saw the creatures he had come here to meet.


    Frantically sprinting up the dune was a single heavily injured dire scorpion, a gigantic thing with an injured but still dangerous looking stinger. It was being chased by four loosely armored humanoids whose bodies looked like the bodies of tan, muscular humans, but with the heads of long-eared, sharp-jawed canines.


    The creatures pursuing the scorpion speedily climbed the dune while launching ranged attacks at their quarry. Althos had ascended the dune just in time to watch one of the hunters fling a thick looking net at the scorpion.


    Althos beat his wings once and the gust of wing that his flapping wings generated slammed into the net and sent it sailing backward into the sand, empty. Then Althos healed the scorpion with but a wave of his hand, not even bothering to watch as the numerous gaping wounds that covered its body quickly faded, leaving strong chitinous plates in places where its blood had been leaking out each time the thing dared to move.


    The scorpion''s tail slowly began to rise, regaining its former vigor, much to the shock and mild horror of the creatures who had been pursuing it. Althos grinned as the creatures hunting the scorpion realized that their lives had just gotten a lot harder. And that was before they truly noticed him. He reflected on the fact that the jackal-headed things were not applicable quest targets according to his radar.


    These little warriors are not applicable targets for my quest for some reason... Oh well, I''ll make them mine anyway. They may know something I don''t about this desert. Plus I''d like to know more about them anyway. They are fusions of humans and some odd desert creatures. Researching them may yield some neat results.


    The deity felt like researching new creatures and gaining the knowledge only locals would have of the desert so he quickly settled on making the creatures his newest servants.


    Althos began to speak, speaking in the universal tongue that gave everyone present an understanding of what the future archdevil was saying.


    "Well... All of you look like you could be useful. So I''ll be proactive, and make all of you mine."


    It was only when he spoke that the jackal-headed things looked up at him and realized he was there too. The creatures looked conflicted, nervous even. And that was before Althos began to radiate power.


    Althos allowed some of his power to leak outward, radiating just a touch of his limitless magical energy and allowing it to coat the sand at his feet.


    His eyes glimmered dangerously as he quite literally looked down on everyone present. All five of the creatures recognized the devil before them as an unbelievably dangerous creature before he even began to move. And then he took his first steps towards them.


    <hr>


    The deity considered how to make the creatures his in the most efficient way. He wasn''t sure if they would bow to him on the basis of his superior power alone. So he decided to try out a new type of spore. He willed the spores inside of his body, spores which were perpetually prepared to be fired at any time, to mutate and change types.


    [New Divine Power Explanation: Mind-Control Spores


    This potent power transforms the considerable host of spores dwelling inside of Althos into dangerous things that practically ensure that anyone who inhales them becomes a servant of the fungal lord. Upon using this power any spores that Althos exhales, injects or otherwise uses against any living creature become powerful tools of mind-control, that clash against the wills of those who''ve inhaled them.


    Those who lose their mental battles against the spores become dominated by the fungal lord for an hour.


    Cooldown: This power can be activated once a day, but so long as it''s active, any and all spores launched by Althos are mind-control spores. There is no time limitation on it.


    Note #1: Creatures who fail to resist the power of the spores have their wills eroded bit by bit. This doesn''t just have the effect of making them more likely to lose future battles of the wills against the spores, it also slowly warps them into worshipers of the fungal lord, who willingly and eagerly obey the commands of the guardian of all fungi.


    Note #2: Creatures whose wills have been totally taken over by the effects of these spores will seek to live the rest of their lives in ways that empower fungi, including perishing in a way that results in their bodies giving rise to fungal creatures after their deaths, and to do things that honor the mightiest of mushrooms and the most fetid of fungi: the fungal lord.


    Note #3: This power can be upgraded through repeated uses and as a reward for completing fungal quests. The more it''s upgraded the harder it is to resist, the longer the effect lasts, the shorter its cooldown, and the faster it overtakes the wills of those who fail to resist it. Upgrading this power holistically improves it.]


    Althos grinned at the creatures and in his mind, they were all already his. He felt the spores underneath his skin mutating and laughed as he readied himself to fire them at his opponents.


    The deity''s eyes had been sheer black orbs until that moment. But the moment the spores he intended to use to dominate the creatures before him were ready, the deity''s eyes began to glow a bright shade of green.


    The deity reeled an arm back and then swung it wide, coating the air his hand passed through with hundreds of tiny spores. The air that was now infected with the spores had a slight green tint to it, a similar albeit less intense shade than Althos'' own eyes.


    He wordlessly cast a single spell from the evocation school of magic, a spell that conjured a gust of wind and aimed both the spell and the spores in the direction of the creatures he thought he could have fun with. The green-tinted air sailed towards them, sped on by the magically conjured win and collided with the creatures.


    Two of the jackaloids instantly collapsed into the sand and began to convulse, frothing at the mouth. The other two were frozen stiff, and Althos quickly realized that they were clashing with the spores they had ingested. The sight of the struggling jackaloids made Althos smile.


    And the deity noticed that the scorpion was also frozen stiff. He wondered if the thing would successfully win the battle of the wills it was locked in. He doubted it.

 Chapter 59:

    The fungal lord blesses you with his spores...


    All five creatures were momentarily trapped in a prison of their own making. They were experiencing lucid, fungal infested visions, and hearing the soft, satin-like, whispers of the spores that were wracking their brains.


    Service to the lord is bliss...


    Each of their visions was different, with all five predatory creatures having lived different lives and seeing different visions of fungal madness. The visions were also pacifying, soothing things that made it difficult for the creatures to muster the energy needed to resist the powers of the spores.


    Experience fungal euphoria...


    The quiet whispers of the mind-altering and will-eroding spores clashed quietly and effectively with the minds of the jackaloids and the dire-scorpion. The creatures all had weak minds, minds that were being


    Submit...


    <hr>


    Althos quietly walked to the creatures in front of him. They were still, either frothing at the mouth or still. He examined them, wondering what was going on, and spent a few moments grabbing their weapons.


    He grabbed one of the jackaloids simple swords and studied it carefully. He looked at the roughly-made handle, his eyes peering at and through it. He admired the construction of the thing, respecting the efforts that it took to either make or acquire swords in the desert.


    This was the first time the deity had ever held a sword. He visually investigated the simple iron blade, carefully studying it and quickly coming to the conclusion that he liked it.


    This is mine now.


    But then he wondered if he should prepare a substitute weapon for the jackaloid. He thought about for a few seconds, before realizing that he probably should. The deity sighed and set to work magically preparing such a weapon.


    <hr>


    We serve the lord... there is no escape unless you submit...


    Over the last few moments, the whispers of the spores had taken on a considerably more aggressively tone. But the visions remained the same, unchanging, unique, and calming.


    There is no need to resist. There is only the sweetness of submission.


    The creatures felt their wills diminishing in the wake of the spores'' relentless assault on their psyches. They felt their wills breaking down, and found a small part of themselves wondering what submission would be like.


    <hr>


    Althos used the sword in his hands as a model off which to base the sword he was going to create using magic. He had spent several moments studying each observable detail that he could, and when he was convinced that he could make something close to it, the young god began researching his surroundings to see what he could make a sword out of. He was disappointed but also unsurprised to find that all that surrounded him was sand.


    I''ll just... make something suitable out of sand I guess.


    The deity sighed and then got to work.


    I guess I should make a glass sword? Glass is formed from sand right? Superheating it?


    The deity carefully thought about how to proceed. And then he began to use magic to manipulate the massive pools of sand underneath and around him.


    <hr>


    Your wills are weakening... The hour of your submission draws near...


    The creatures who were trapped in their own minds fought the spores that invaded their brains but they recognized that the voices in their minds were right.


    Why fight it? Why resist when you could give in?


    They felt an increasingly large part of themselves want to submit to the deity. They felt the pleasantness of the deity''s mental touch begin to manifest itself more plainly. They shivered in pleasure as the spores began to corrupt and erode the part of their brains that handled pleasure, and began to exert themselves by inflicting agonizing pleasure on the creatures.


    This is unpleasant solely because you resist. Once you cease your pointless resistance this will become sublime pleasure that you will continually feel in our lord''s presence.


    <hr>


    The deity visualized the basic shape of a thick looking blade, including the handle, and willed the sand he had gathered to form that shape. He watched, focused, as grains flowed freely through the air until they collided with each other. In time the deity watched as the sword began to look more and more focused.


    The blade was easy to make, but the handle needed to be thicker than the sword''s cutting edge. The deity concentrated as he formed the sword in his mind, willing his spell to plunge into the ground and explore the depths of the desert, depths long-buried underneath tons of sand. As he did that the deity was also scrying the world underneath his feet.


    He was casting three spells at once. He carefully concentrated on the sand in front of him, while fusing wind magic with scrying magic so that he could find something thicker than sand with which he intended to form the sword''s blade to form the handle.


    After a few moments, and after diving into the depths of the desert beneath his feet, he found iron ore. He grinned and increased the intensity of the wind spell he was using to comb the depths of the desert. The spell he was using slammed into the deposit and hit it with such force that the thing was wrenched out of the ground and sent sailing upwards on a nearly transparent cyclone.


    The ore appeared in front of the deity, emerging from within a newly formed hole he had created with his magic. It sailed upward, out of sight and took a few moments to begin to fall back down to the ground.


    Nearly half of a minute passed before the ore reentered the deity''s view and landed on the ground close to him. The deity grabbed it using his mind and began to silently slam it with flames, watching as the thing began to melt in mid-air, transforming from solid ore to molten liquid.


    <hr>


    The first of the jackaloids to submit to Althos and the spores fell to its knees minutes after it had begun to fight for its mind. Of all of the creatures who had been fighting to retain control over their bodies and to remain the masters of their own minds, it was the least intelligent.


    Submission is... bliss.


    The creature nodded as the spores seized control of its brain. A wide, stupid grin appeared on its canine face. Its tongue lolled out of its mouth vacantly, as if pulled by gravity. Its body went slack as if it were a puppet whose strings had just been cut, and it fell to its knees. The look in its eyes was one of euphoric idolatry, its gaze turned at Althos reverentially.


    The other creatures quietly noticed that their companion, or their foe in the case of the scorpion, had fallen. They were both unable and unwilling to do anything to aid the creature, as the voices in their own head were softly eating away at their own resistances to the soft power of the deity before them.


    Althos had finished transforming the small iron deposit into the amateurish handle he was making for the sword and was transforming the sand into a sharp glass blade. He turned and looked at the jackaloid who had fallen to its knees. He beckoned the creature to come forth and the thing did, getting up and running to the side of the devil god briskly.


    The creature came right up to the god and then fell to its knees again. It placed its head down on the sand, and its fur caught many grains of the stuff, trapping it. Althos gently patted the thing''s head, grinning at his new pet. At this point, one of the deity''s hands was blasting the sand floating in the air with flames, while the other treated the jackaloid like a newly adopted pet. And in a sense, the thing was.


    While the deity was petting the thing that was now its newest minion, he also broke into its mind and stole all of the creature''s knowledge.


    There''s no need for you to selfishly cling to all of your knowledge and memories. After all, you''re mine now and nothing of mine keeps secrets from me.


    He didn''t bother to try and make a copy of the thing''s mind. After all, he knew that if the thing''s mind broke it was no skin off his back. He''d simply repair the thing''s mind, or use his spores to control the creature. The deity valued knowledge above all else, including other living things. Nothing mattered more than the pursuit of knowledge to the god.


    <hr>


    The deity''s mind was quickly flooded with new visions, new memories, and alien thoughts due to his invasive actions. The experience the young god had with gaining incredible amounts of new knowledge quickly, made itself clear through the ease with which the young deity''s mind began to adjust to the foreign additions to his brain.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    The deity gained a sort of intimate familiarity with the creature who was on its knees, a creature whose mind was now a blank canvas. After he recovered from the suddenness of the jackaloids memories, thoughts, and knowledge, the deity wondered if it''d be possible for him to create new memories from scratch. He was surprised to hear a familiar voice respond to his vague curiosity.


    [Hello Althos. Yes, it is possible to create new memories. What exactly are you thinking of doing?]


    Althos was pleasantly surprised to hear the voice of his mental assistant for the first time in a while. He grinned as he formulated a response.


    [I would like to replace the memories this jackaloid had, with memories that are more convenient for me. I''ll create conditions under which I don''t have to re-dominate them again and again. Instead, I''ll make it so that this one feels as though it and its allies have always worshiped me.]


    Althos was then pleasantly surprised yet again to receive a two-part notification.


    [Double notification:


    Two new menus have been created. The first menu is the memory creator menu, which as its name implies allows you to create new memories and implant them into targets. Usage of this menu grants influence over the domains of deception, memories, and when used to create particularly powerful memories can grant influence over other domains.


    The second menu is the religion menu, which is an evolution of the worshiper menu you already have. This menu has been created because you''ve gained a variety of titles and are likely to gain another one with your next action. By using it you can create new holidays, create artifacts, create miracles, create new rituals, manage tributes and sacrifices given to you by your worshipers, and assorted other things related to religion.


    Oh, and you can access your divine realm. You''ll learn more about that later. It''s a dimension you have complete and total control over. Well... one day. When you''re a stronger deity than you are now.


    These new menus are the first of your advanced menus, they have distinct icons in your H.U.D., but you can just access them with a thought. Use them wisely, as becoming familiar with them and with other advanced menus is the part of how you advance as a god.]


    [What''s a ritual?]


    Althos asked, genuinely curious, and it took just a second for his angelic advisor, the orb angel Samyaza, to let him know.


    [Rituals are a fairly special, fairly powerful, form of magic. The sort of creatures who could create and cast them on their own are the sorts who vanished long ago. Gods, archdevils, archfey, old-ones, and other such creatures. They can produce unique effects, similar too and often more intense than divine magic, and some of them are usable by weak creatures if the creators of them wanted them to be.]


    Althos nodded and sent a quick message of appreciation to the quiet orb angel. Then he turned back to the main notification.


    Althos read over the notification once, then again to be sure he understood it, and then he willed it away. He grinned at it and willed open the memory creation menu. As he was reading through the notification that alerted him to the creation of the menus he was mentally alerted that the spores had successfully ensnared all of the jackaloids, but that the scorpion managed to resist the spores. That surprised and delighted the deity.


    Huh... I suppose there might be some worth in making the scorpion actually mine. It''ll make a nice new pet.


    The deity looked openly at the scorpion, but rather than wait for it to regain its focus he instead opted to explore the first of the newest menus that his schemes had created. Within seconds he had familiarized himself with the menu, which was a part of him and his mind, and he began the rigorous work of creating logical, intelligent memories.


    <hr>


    The scorpion broke free from its mental prison, and the lucid visions the spores inflicted on it, and as its vision expanded from outside of its brain, it was shocked to see Althos staring openly at it.


    The deity''s gaze was still, calm and unfocused. In actuality, the deity was more focused on using its new memory-creation menu than he was interested in taming the scorpion. The overly large creature considered skittering away, but even as the thought crossed its mind the deity cast a single paralysis spell on it, which its own system alerted it too even as it took hold.


    The creature couldn''t move forward or back but it could gaze at the deity. The deity in front of it stood imposingly and leered down at it, a grim grin etched on its face. He was now present in the moment, but his mind was split as he continued the work that came with creating thousands of hours of memories.


    Althos''s eyes regained their usual focus after a few moments passed and the deity''s gaze fell fully on the scorpion. The deity grinned at it, his eyes filling with an unpleasant combination of mischevious malice and open curiosity.


    I suppose I should just make it an offer? Given that I''ve just saved it from the jackaloids it''ll probably be a bit easier


    The deity wasted no time creating a mental link with the dire-scorpion. In the brief moment that he set up the mind-link his green eyes turned an icy shade of blue before reverting to the verdant green, they had become when he used his mind-controlling spores.


    [Hello there. I see you managed to overcome my spores. That''s quite a feat.]


    The scorpion was alarmed by the sudden words that appeared in its mind, and the eerie, quiet voice that suddenly resounded throughout its mind. Althos heard the shock in the scorpion''s mind and quietly chuckled.


    [It''s me. The creature looking up at you. I know that you''re intelligent and I know that you''re capable of understanding me. I saved you from the jackaloids and now they serve me.]


    The jackaloids started slowly getting to their feet behind the scorpion and Althos could feel the anxiety the creature began to exude thanks to both his powerful vision allowing him to see the creature begin to shake slightly and the fear visible in its various eyes. He also sensed the creature''s emotional state, which revealed the depths of its terror.


    Althos considered how to proceed carefully.


    This thing''s terror maybe... a bit of a liability. I don''t want it terrified. I want it to realize that being with me, being my servant is the best route forward. What can I do now? Would faith be a good tool? This is... definitely a faith moment.


    He activated the domain''s subversive power with but a thought and watched as a nearly invisible, light-blue gas began to exude from his pores and into the surrounding area.


    It swiftly invaded the hill the deity stood on and began to roll down the hill. It effortlessly struck the scorpion, who was unable to resist this particular power''s more subtle effects. Althos waited to receive a notification he was familiar with: the one that would alert him that his power was taking hold. Within seconds it was.


    <hr>


    The dire scorpion was an intelligent creature. It was a sentient being. But its thoughts, particularly in moments of fear and in moments of awe were simple. Powerful emotions left no time for complexity, and a dire-scorpion in Infernius only survived if it knew that and embraced it.


    This... creature... powerful.


    It recognized Althos'' terrible power in a really simple, instinctual way.


    This... creature... dangerous.


    Althos couldn''t quite hear the creature''s thoughts, but he more or lessguessed them. The mist that the deity conjured smacked the creature in the face, and almost immediately began to alter the creature''s thoughts.


    Power... good. This creature... good? No... this creature... bad.


    The scorpion resisted at first, putting in an admirable effort. That resistance was short-lived. Just until Althos messaged it again.


    [The jackaloids won''t hurt you. No one here will... if you join us. And that''ll be the least of your rewards. I am a god. An actual, literal god. Join me. Serve me.]


    An... offer? A chance to... not die?


    The scorpion mulled the offer over. The deity pressed his advantage.


    [I could kill you, but your ability to resist the spores is intriguing to me. I could like you. Joining me and serving me is a good opportunity for you. You''ll get more food, and you''ll get a chance to meet more scorpions. If you''re lucky... you may even evolve.]


    The scorpion, being a determined pragmatist, quietly weighed the pros and cons of the deity''s offer.


    Food... other things like me... a chance to evolve? That''s... a good... offer.


    Althos saw the gears in its mind turning and realized that the faith domain was doing its job. He grinned smugly as he realized that the scorpion was moments away from joining him. He sent the thing one final message, knowing it''d be all that was needed.


    [If you want to join me... just direct your thoughts towards me. I''ll be able to hear them. And when you''re mine, you''ll undergo a ritual I''ve created, a ritual that will boost your powers.]


    At that moment, Althos opened up the religion menu and began to come up with a new ritual. It didn''t take him long at all since he was, in essence, just codifying what he did to Silander.


    Once he finished the speedy process he quickly looked over the ritual he had created. And at that same time, he received a message from the scorpion. It was a simple message, one that the deity expected he''d see.


    [Hello... I... accept... offer.]


    This made the deity quite happy.


    <hr>


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>Ritual Creation</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>Ritual Name: Birth Of A New Mind</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>Ritual Type: Modification</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>How Often Can This Ritual Be Done By Worshipers? Once A Day, unless otherwise authorized by Althos.</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>Description: This ritual creates a new and empowered sort of familiar. It does so by bathing a living, wild creature in Althos'' divine energy and then casting awakening on it. Creatures affected by this ritual are transformed, their minds expanded, and their bodies infused with divine energy. They become loyal to the person who oversaw the ritual, or to anyone designated as their new master by the ritual''s overseer.</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>


    Effects: Creatures who are subjected to the ritual become advanced familiars, powerful creatures who are mentally bonded to the ritual''s overseers or those who the ritual overseers designate as the recipient of the advanced familiar. They become Althos'' worshippers, their abilities are improved, their intelligence is increased significantly, and they gain access to advanced evolutions.


    This ritual''s effects are permanent unless undone by Althos himself, though the creatures who oversee the resulting familiars can free them from their mental bonds. Creatures can try to resist the ritual, but it''s impossible to resist if the ritual is done by Althos.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Althos activated two distinct powers at once. He targeted the scorpion with the newly created and codified ritual, and he hit the jackaloid with a lifetime of false memories. The jackaloid''s mind went from being empty to being filled with tens of thousands of hours of false memories almost instantly. The deity was alarmed to receive a new, surprising notification for afflicting the jackaloid with a series of false memories.


    [New Title Acquired: Lover of Lies.


    This is a powerful title that you can be known by, by any of your servants or worshippers. You''ve acquired this title by pulling off one of the ultimate acts of deception: the creation of a lifetime of lies that you''ve inflicted upon an unfortunate victim. This was an act of considerable evil, and it''s amused many different domains and subdomains. Upon using it for the first time, a few feats might be gained immediately.]


    The scorpion felt two powerful sensations overwhelm it at once. Its mind was assailed by the potent mystical powers of the awakening, and its body was invaded by the incredible energies that flowed through Althos, in a bizarre and powerful synchronization that rendered the thing immobile.


    Althos grinned as he watched this happen. He was relieved to have a distraction from the serious notification he had just received.

 Chapter 60:

    Althos watched, curiosity visible in his eyes, as his energy surged through and mutated the dire scorpion. The creature''s body vibrated and a series of strange, low-frequency hums radiated out of the thing''s carapace.


    Before his very eyes, the creature who had endured and resisted his spores was growing in size and in width. He himself was visibly delighted with the creature''s new and changing size, and he heard the thing''s mental anguish as it underwent the transformation he was inflicting upon it.


    <hr>


    Pain... This... hurts. But I feel... stronger.


    The scorpion''s simple mind was effective for the purpose of enduring and analyzing the pain and changes it was undergoing.


    The scorpion''s body had increased in length, width, and height by at least a full meter each since the process had begun to warp it. Its carapace was thicker, its stinger was longer and filled with far more potent poison, and its pincers were now not only denser but also covered in venomous, hair-like spines.


    <hr>


    The scorpion was not the only one undergoing significant changes at that very moment. Althos had taken the initiative and had just finished absorbing and replacing all of the memories, secrets, thoughts, and knowledge of the jackaloids.


    The deity did that in about an instant thanks to his creative usage of his assorted powers. In the following instant, he grinned and froze as his mind was assailed by the sensation of hundreds of thousands of hours of memories flooding his mind at once. He shivered in delight and closed his eyes so that he could focus on visualizing the memories now entering his brain.


    The jackaloids themselves had empty minds for just an instant. Their memories were almost immediately replaced by fabricated memories made by the young god, memories which were often identical to each other and were just from different angles.


    Among other lies, the deity had made himself an object of their worship in these entirely fake lifetimes. So through this, the deity gained new worshipers almost immediately, and as he felt their devotion to him increase as memories flooded into them, he knew this was an excellent tactic that would enable him to swiftly make entire populations into his minions.


    The jackaloids gradually rose to their feet and moved over to their new master, bowing before him and acknowledging his might in the much same way as their fellow had. Althos grinned at them, recognizing their devotion and feeling the power of the emotions they directed at him, even though no words were exchanged between them.


    "Now... all we must do is wait."


    Althos said, referring to the scorpion struggling through the ritual Althos had inflicted upon it, before looking at the cruel-looking sword in his hand. It was only partially complete, a handle and a short made of imprecisely created glass blade were complete but nothing else had been completed in time.


    The deity shrugged and then handed it to the one who dropped the sword the deity now possessed. The one who had dropped the sword was the third to fall to his spores and his mind-erasing powers and the creature then looked reverentially at the sword its master and god had handed to it.


    [Alert: The jackaloid perceived this as an act of kindness, the bestowal of an artifact. All jackaloids who hear of this act of kindness will afford you more awe and respect than they would have otherwise.


    Also: new species knowledge alert.


    Jackaloids are the shape-shifting descendants of evil extraplanars. Their ancestors mated with jackals, savage canines who live in deserts and other temperate areas and they are the results. They traveled with their extraplanar parents to other dimensions and worlds aside from the one they were first born in. Now they roam the multiverse.


    Jackaloids are evil, like their ancestors, and they form nomadic packs that allow them to safely harry anyone they deem inferior to themselves, which is most people and creatures. These mobile menaces have three forms: a human form, a jackal form, and a hybrid form that fuses the lower body of a human with the head of a jackal. All of their forms are powerful, but they are at their strongest when in hybrid form.


    These creatures once worshipped ancient evils, creatures like demon lords, archdevils, and the stranger, sometimes hostile eldritch entities once known as the Outer Gods and even the Great Old Ones. Their fanaticism should not be underestimated, nor should their ability to tap into their ancestry. Many jackaloids who worship something become its clerics, bards, or Dark Nights in the service of their dark masters.


    The extremely rare few jackaloids who can evolve, evolve into the same sort of creatures they are descended from. This means that they are the rare sort of evolving creature whose evolution isn''t affected by their personality, or their choices in life, but purely by genetics.]


    Althos read through the notification, nodded solemnly at it, and then willed it away. When he did, he realized that the scorpion he had been watching was now utterly still. The deity looked at it and hit the thing with a single, direct usage of the faith domain''s subversive power.


    <hr>


    My mind... is expanding. I can feel myself growing wiser and more aware.


    It was true. The awakening the dire scorpion had been subjected too was greatly and rapidly expanding its mind. Rather than its body undergoing the most drastic change, it was its mind that was the most warped by the ritual.


    The scorpion was still as its mind was flooded with knowledge, its vocabulary expanded, and it made aware of the great god it was now irrevocably tied too.


    It gained an intimate awareness of its proximity to its master, and its senses were improved to the point that it gained a vague awareness of the litany of powers at Althos'' disposal, many of which the deity could have used to wipe it out of existence. It was made aware of how merciful Althos was, to both it and to the jackaloids who were now on their knees before their new master.


    Master is... powerful but also a giver of opportunities. He has given me an opportunity not only to live... but to grow. I must serve him faithfully.


    The indoctrination the scorpion was undergoing was effective, but it also never deceived the thing. At no point did Althos'' ritual give the arachnid false information, it simply spoke the truth about Althos and the assorted powers at the god''s disposal.


    The deity had only been alive for a few weeks but he was already unimaginably strong. He had awoken and evolved creatures, he had done the impossible by forcefully promoting a pair of soul-orbs into higher ranked devils. He had united devils with a demon. He had saved a forest from a filth demon.


    His powers and his actions had changed the universe, in thus far small and localized but still significant and in at least two cases utterly undeniable ways.


    As a part of the ritual, the scorpion was given an awareness of this, and it made the creature loyal. That, coupled with usage of the power of the faith domain that Althos was fond of, easily created in the scorpion a genuine devotion to Althos that turned the creature into a legitimate worshipper of his with no difficulty at all.


    Althos, after examining the scorpion and confirming that the creature was still alive, turned back to the jackaloids once more.


    <hr>


    These things are fanatics huh? How neat. I wonder if I could make them, or their allies into some sort of specialized worshipper...


    Althos, his interest in the jackaloids'' fanaticism evident in his eyes, looked at the creatures on the floor before him.


    He wondered how to take advantage of their devotion, but realized that he simply lacked the knowledge needed to do so. And for now, he couldn''t quite change that. It annoyed him, but he simply marked it as something he''d take advantage of when he was more knowledgeable.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    I''ll just... take advantage of this moment to gain some worshippers.He quietly thought to himself, using the possibility that he may yet acquire more power as a means to cheer himself up.


    He motioned to the jackaloids that it was time for them to rise up, and when they did he was pleasantly surprised to see the scorpion also begin to move again. The thing rose up, bringing itself up to its full height, almost equalling that of Althos himself. The deity wasted no time sending the thing a message.


    [Why hello there little one.]


    Rather than wait for it to respond, the deity instead connected it and the jackaloids, and the jackaloids and it, forming a whole new chain of mental links. This chain was separated from the chain of mental links that he had created and was running that united him and his other, older servants.


    I may connect this chain with the other chain, but for now, I''ll keep them separate. The deity thought to himself.That''s a lot better than creating one massive chain. It''s just a lot more manageable than keeping these folks separated. Right?


    Althos thought for another second, debating whether or not it may benefit him to connect everyone. But then he quickly came to the conclusion that his initial decision was right. Yes, it''d be too noisy and confusing if everyone were suddenly connected via a single mental link. This is the right move.


    The creatures who were suddenly connected were confused as they felt the effects of the connection take hold. The scorpion looked wearily at the jackaloids, who looked back at it in confusion since their memories had been wiped and replaced.


    The last thing they remembered, was that their deity had personally summoned them to this barren part of the desert and they had just completed their trek to find their master. Althos looked out at them, and his eyes began to powerfully shine. The air around him grew colder and brighter. The creatures before him looked at their master, confusion still visible in their eyes but it was now mixed with a healthy amount of awe.


    To the jackaloids, he sent the following message: [Hello servants. I''ve been waiting for you.] And to the scorpion, he sent another.


    [Greetings little one. I''m excited to see you remade, and practically radiating power.] His compliment was true, the scorpion that stood before him was far stronger than it had been minutes ago.


    His eyes were alight with assorted emotions, some of which were ambition, happiness, and desire. Others included curiosity, patience, and hope. Needless to see, the deity''s mind was hard at work. He was using his multiple wills to have more than one conversation going on at the same time.


    One of his wills spoke to the jackaloids. [Little ones... you are the faithful. You are the chosen. I see in you, my will made manifest, and that loyalty... that faith will be rewarded, if not today then soon.] The voice that penetrated the minds of the jackaloids was a slow, smooth, and powerful voice.


    His other will spoke to the scorpion. [I am excited that you have joined me willingly. And now you are not alone. The jackaloids are now my worshipers. And none of them will ever bother you again. In fact... I believe we may just make more of them my worshipers.] This voice was rough, harsh, cruel-sounding even if it spoke gentle words. [I''ll make them revere you. So please, follow my lead.]


    The scorpion nodded at the god it now worshiped and spoke through the link the deity had created. [I''ll follow you, oh Mercurial Alpha.] It said, which made Althos laugh internally.


    So that''s the title it got? Not my Fungal Lord one? How odd.The deity laughed, but he was honestly mystified as to why that was the title the scorpion received. That said, he accepted it and turned his attention fully to the jackaloids.


    <hr>


    Before he mentally spoke to the jackaloids Althos took a deep breath and concentrated. When he next manifested the power of the faith domain it was intensely powerful, almost immediately causing thick tendrils of blue vapor to waft off of the deity, and begin rolling down the hill towards the jackaloids.


    It didn''t just surround them this time. The potent power very literally entered them, entering their ears, their nostrils, their mouths, and even seeping into small cuts that only those with the most acute vision could detect.


    The power afflicted the jackals with potent visions of their deity''s divine power. Their eyes clouded over as they were subjected to visions, in much the same way as they had been before their memories had been wiped. These visions served to confuse them and lessen their ability and any desire they may feel to resist whatever Althos was about to say next.


    [These are troubling times. Your pack has fallen off of my dark path. And for that, they must be punished. They must be brought back into my dark embrace, after being held accountable of course. I chose the four of you to join me in this task because you all are special. Your devotion to me has not gone unnoticed my children.]


    Althos was now speaking powerfully, his mental words ringing out in their ears, empowered by the impact of the faith-domain based assault he was subjecting them too.


    The jackaloids made yipping sounds of pleasure, pride, and joy to indicate that they understood their master and were delighted to know that their service had not gone unnoticed. Althos smiled at their display. And then all of a sudden everything, but Althos, froze.


    <hr>


    It took the deity a second to confirm that everything was frozen. He almostheardthe sudden silence, but that wasn''t the tipoff. What actually alerted him to this strange development was when he looked behind himself, after waiting for the sound of jackaloids to return for nearly a quarter of a minute.


    When he turned around to look behind himself he saw grains of sand floating in mid-air, because right before time froze a chilly gust of wind was blowing past them, disturbing and uprooting grains of sand.Well this is strange.The deity thought to himself, confused and curious at the same time. Then he received a notification that cleared this up.


    [This is one of the administrators of The System. A domain that has been enjoying your adventures so far has intervened so as to help you in a minor way.


    The time-domain has frozen time for but an instant because one of your new worshipers is about to recite your dogma, but you see... you haven''t made a dogma yet so they don''t and won''t know what to say. That can be easily corrected though.


    Dogmas are basic tenets of a religion, your religion. Worshipers can recite it as a means to hone their obedience and devotion to you and as a way to pursue penance for a minor offense against you. Your task now is to create your own dogma.


    Normally dogmas would be related to your domains and subdomains but you are currently basically acting as a deity of deception. And in doing so you''ve accidentally stumbled across a neat opportunity: as a deity of deception, you can make your dogma pretty much whatever you want. And you''re intelligent... think of this as an opportunity to shift the future of an entire settlement.


    Dogmas are created for and revolve around your titles. In this case, you''re creating the dogma for the Lover of Lies title, which happens to be the title the jackaloids know you by.


    Be creative.]


    Althos absorbed what he had just been informed of. He wasn''t oblivious to the fact that this confirmed that someone ran The System something he had suspected may have been the case before this, but he was more focused on the here and now of what to do next.


    Dogmas huh...The deity''s mind ran a mile a minute as he considered what to do with this chance. He pondered it for what felt like a few minutes. Eventually, he managed to articulate several distinct objectives.


    I want faithful creatures. A race whose fanaticism I can exploit and direct. I want shapeshifting creatures who can gather knowledge for me and destroy anyone who decides to be my enemy. I want creatures who view devotion to me as a facet of daily life.


    I want creatures who respect those who seek to go further in their devotion to me. Whether someone seeks to become a cleric of mine, a dark-night, an oracle, or even becoming wards in my service, I want creatures who organize their culture around my will.


    The deity, having figured out his goals for the dogma set about constructing it. Oddly, now that he had some base awareness of what dogmas were, he began to instinctively understand how to create one. He began the process of sending a message to the system.


    [My dogma is as follows:


    Faith and knowledge are the keys to greatness. It is not enough to have one, one must have both. And the ways to acquire both are varied. It is true that greatness can often be gained through the swinging of a sword, and someone can be converted into a believer in the wake of a successful battle, but greatness can also be gained through intelligent wordplay and reasonable discussion.


    Deception involves intelligence in action and those not smart enough to see through a disguised form or an untrue word are lambs who can and should be led, be it to the slaughter or to the temple.


    Our natural or supernatural skills are gifts given to us by the Lover of Lies to be used in service to him. In exchange for faithful and successful service, we can expect greater and greater gifts and powers, as well as more responsibility and yes, more opportunity.


    Service to Althos means gaining knowledge and sharing it, not only with him but with others, and subverting others so that they too may become his servants.


    It also means cultivating cultures that recognize his greatness, reward devotion to him, and correct those who fail him or are unfaithful when possible, or purge them when not possible.]


    Althos read through the dogma, reviewing the message he was preparing to send. A quick review of it left the deity feeling satisfied with what he had read. He smiled and then sent the message. He turned around and prepared for the world to return to normal.


    Within a matter of moments everything around him was in motion again. The deity heard one of the jackaloids begin to mutter something under its breath, in its canine language of yips, growls, howls, and other bestial noises.


    "Faith and knowledge are the keys to greatness. It is not enough to have one, one must have both."


    The deity heard the language, automatically translated it in his head, and recognized the first passage of the dogma he had just created for the Lover of Lies. He grinned at the jackaloid and began to continue the speech he had mentally created to excite the creatures.

 Chapter 61:

    Althos listened as the jackaloid adherent who was muttering under his breath continued to mutter the dogma the deity had just finished making. He enjoyed the sound of the words as they left the canine-like creature''s lips. He felt the beast''s devotion flow into him. He allowed himself to enjoy that sensation for a moment as he gathered his thoughts.


    After a few seconds passed the deity focused and continued his speech from earlier. [If only all jackaloids could be as devout as your packmate here.] He thought, transmitting the message to the minds of the jackaloids with a bittersweet expression on his face to help persuade the creatures before him that the mental words were genuine.


    Then he pretended to refocus. [I have come to you because I believe in the sincerity of your devotion. I believe in the genuineness of your sacrifices. I acknowledge the power of the knowledge you''ve gathered and given to me, as well as your peers. Those things have moved me. Because of that, I want you to be exempt from the punishment we will mete out to your pack.] He said to them, his gaze falling on each of them, and his eyes appearing to glow proudly at them.


    The jackaloids weren''t actually the wisest of their pack, and they were under the influence of the faith domain, so they easily believed the words of the deity. They stared at their lord in awe, eating up the words of the deity.


    At that moment the deity considered how to really make this dramatic. Then he quietly began to come up with a scheme. What if I make it seem as though something has happened to the creatures who aren''t them? Something that makes it so that they don''t remember me? Something I can correct? That would make them feel valuable, wouldn''t it?


    He reflected on the possibility of constructing a quick scheme for just a second longer. As he did so he came up with more reasons to do it. This would allow them to rationalize why no one else remembers me in their settlement. It would also make them special in the eyes of their peers, as they were the few who resisted whatever corrupted the memories of their allies. That was enough for the deity to decide to come up with a scheme.


    The deity''s scheme quickly began to take root in his mind. It came together in seconds, as a consequence of his newfound deceptive abilities.


    [I fear that something has happened to your pack. That maybe they are suffering underneath a sort of spell that prevents them from remembering me. But with your help, we can correct that.] He said, intending to instill in them a firm belief in themselves.


    He continued his mental words. [With your help, I can undo the insidious magic that has taken your kin from me. And then we will punish them, just a bit, for making this necessary in the first place] Althos said, his voice stoking newfound anger within the jackaloids, anger leveled in part at a mysterious and faceless enemy and in part at their packmates for failing their shared master.


    [Together, we will correct the rest of your pack. We will save them from this terrible fate.] Althos said to them, in the way of the mental connection he had built that connected them all. [Your mission is to aid me and each other in achieving this goal.]


    His words echoed throughout their minds and the creatures, practically docile puppies in his presence, readily agreed to aid him.


    He smiled down at them, satisfied that they had agreed with him with little resistance. Before he began to ready himself for what came next, he pondered the potential of the strange deceptive power he possessed. Deception is... powerful. With this, there''s a lot I could do quite easily. He thought about its strengths for a few moments. And then he began to debate himself.


    Is honesty better than deception? Which should I focus on? He pondered that for more than a few seconds. With my cosmic power deception isn''t just lying... whose to say that I can''t rewrite history? Especially if I ever gain influence over the time domain? With deception, I may gain great power quite easily. His mind was racing at that very moment, having seen how easily he gained new worshipers through deception.


    But I seek knowledge... and there''s a limit to the knowledge I could gain if I focus exclusively on deception. He realized that with a start and grimaced as he considered it. I need... both. I must not lose sight of that. Power without knowledge, the sort of power to be gained through deception, is not what I seek. He realized, accepting this after a few seconds of deliberation.


    With that he refocused on the scene in front of him and commanded the jackaloids to follow him, speaking in their native language for the first time. He mentally commanded the dire scorpion to do the same.


    He swiftly began to walk, walking in the direction of the camp of the jackaloids, where more of the creatures laired and would soon become his worshipers as well.


    <hr>


    The deity and the strange retinue he had gathered followed him through the desert. They spent hours wandering over an unknown number of sandy dunes, through vast expanses of sand-covered planes, and more all underneath an artificial night''s sky. Above them, the false moon shone eerie purple light down on them.


    The deity was unbothered by the heat of the desert, but he was mildly annoyed by the sensation of sand underneath his feet. He did his best to ignore that minor inconvenience, and to soldier on. Eventually, he gained the ability to ignore the discomfort the sand inflicted on him.


    The scorpion speedily followed its master, keeping up with him with relatively little difficulty thanks to the energy flowing through its veins. Not far from it were the jackaloids, who themselves were energized and renewed by the presence of their deity. They also scrambled up sandy dunes, raced across desert plains, and worked to stay close to their master.


    No words were exchanged between the three distinct types of creatures while they wandered the desert. It was only when hours had passed, that Althos thought to reach into the mind of the scorpion and acquire a copy of its memories for himself. He did this stealthily, choosing not to destroy the thing''s mind in his wake, and he did it quickly.


    He gained an intimate knowledge of the scorpion as a consequence of this action, but he didn''t gain much else. That said he still appreciated the knowledge that now filled his mind about the scorpion. He now knew all that was known about the scorpion he had turned into his newest familiar, and familiarized himself with the knowledge while inching closer and closer to the jackaloid camp.


    <hr>


    After several hours of endless walking and ceaseless exploration, Althos and his new servants began to approach the camp. The first sign of it in the distance, beyond at least one group of towering sand dunes, was the sight of smoke rising into the air beyond the dunes. Althos saw the smoke and was encouraged by the sight of it.


    He was certain that it was the location of the jackaloid camp due to the memories that swirled through the part of his mind that organized all memories he had, regardless of whether or not they happened to be his memories.


    At the moment he saw the smoke he was in the center of one of the vast flatlands the desert had in abundance. He and his worshipers didn''t mind this, as these areas gave them chances to merely walk instead of having to climb. He nearly doubled his speed once he saw the smoke, and the creatures behind him struggled to keep up with their divine master.


    The deity raced forward, slowing himself just enough to be followed closely by the creatures who served him. It took him just minutes to cross the vast flatland before him, and begin to climb the dune closest to him. Upon reaching the foot of the dune, his enhanced senses confirmed the proximity of the jackaloid camp, and his mental radar alerted him to the presence of exactly two dozen jackaloids in the nearby camp.


    He was encouraged by this, and it pushed him to rush forward. While rushing forward he used magic to restore the stamina of his followers, and in seconds he had reached the top of the sand dune that stood between him and the camp of canine-like creatures.


    He looked down from his perch at the zenith of the dune, to peer into the camp and was overjoyed by what he saw:the homes of dozens of soon to be worshipers.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    <hr>


    Below Althos was a tiny camp. He could see every part of it from his unusual spot at the top of the dune. The camp consisted of a single small but well-tended campfire that emitted the telltale smoke Althos had spotted earlier, as well as a number of tiny yurts placed in a protective circle around the campfire. The campfire was clearly looked after but from his perch, Althos saw no singular attendant in place to watch over it.


    The deity continued his observations as he heard his followers racing behind him. They pounded the sand beneath them with their footfalls and Althos chuckled as he heard two of the jackaloids almost lose their footing for an instant due to the speed with which they were clambering to the top of the dune.


    Althos wondered if the other jackaloids heard his servants, but then quickly realized that he didn''t care if they knew that he was coming. It makes no difference to their ability to resist me after all. Why should I care if they are aware of my presence, while I wipe out their memories? They will soon be mine.


    At that moment Althos was enjoying the power of the title of the Lover of Lies while acting in a way that it empowered that particular title. The domains and subdomains that benefited from that title, deception, illusion, and a handful of others, enjoyed the deity''s attitude as he readied the assortment of powers he''d use to quickly turn the jackaloids into the newest and most loyal members of his cult to date.


    After a few moments passed, Althos was joined by the five creatures he had transformed from hunters and hunted into his newest servants mere hours ago. The deity didn''t gaze upon them, but he did give them a few seconds to naturally recover their energy. Then he wordlessly used his magic to cure their fatigue, his magic breathing life, and energy into them once more.


    Then the deity took the lead once again, beginning the walk down towards the camp of jackaloids. His followers eagerly followed after him, and only one had a question for him. The young dire scorpion who was now an awakened familiar of his sent its master a mental message. [Master, what do you seek to do to these creatures?] The thing asked, curiosity filling it.


    [I will make them mine. Ours, really. Do you know what I did to the creatures who were hunting you?] The deity asked, well aware of the answer.


    [I do not if I am being honest.] The scorpion responded, knowing that its master predicted it would be ignorant of the powers the deity used to bend the jackaloids to his whims, and rightfully figuring that honesty was, in fact, the best policy when it came to Althos.


    Althos nodded subtly at the thing''s truthful declaration and grinned even though the scorpion couldn''t see it. Then the deity communicated, sending the scorpion its thoughts. [I wiped their memories. I then replaced them with memories of my own creation. In the memories I constructed they have always worshiped me. This and more is easily within the scope of my abilities.] Althos said, being forthright with his familiar.


    The dire scorpion peered at Althos, stopping in its tracks for a few seconds. It thought about what the deity had just told it and then asked two questions.


    [If you did that to them, how can I know you haven''t done that to me? And that you won''t?] The questions were audacious, bold, and Althos respected the creature for asking them. The deity took a second to think about how to answer them.


    I''ll just be honest. Honesty, in this case, makes me look good. The creature assessed the situation he was in. He very quickly realized that the question was easy for him to answer honestly because the truth made him look good. Then he set about answering it.


    [Think. Can you remember a part of your life in which you didn''t know me?] The first part of the deity''s response was an instruction to the arachnid. The deity knew the answer to the question already and had asked it to lead the scorpion to rationally think about its situation instead of asking endless circular questions.


    In seconds the scorpion answered its master. [Yes I can.] Its response was simple and honest. Althos responded almost immediately to the scorpion.


    [That''s your proof. I haven''t stolen any of your memories, and in fact, I saved you from an eventual defeat and then death at the hands of the jackaloids. You are not my enemy. I do not need to deceive you. Instead, I will strengthen you. I will make you more than you could be on your own.] Althos said, his words honest and he even allowed his emotions to flow into his voice, to make his words more persuasive.


    The recipient of the message considered what the deity said. In time, as Althos and his worshippers neared the bottom of the dune and the area just beyond the camp of jackaloids, the scorpion readied another mental message. Within seconds it sent its thoughts to its master.


    [I apologize for my question. It was out of line. I appreciate that you didn''t touch my memories and I recognize why you decided to take and twist the memories of the jackaloids. I believe, after hearing your explanation, that that was the best move. But... you didn''t answer my second question.] The scorpion''s mental voice was filled with respect for the deity, and caution surrounding what happened next.


    Despite the respect and caution, it felt towards Althos, it still voiced its concern. Althos grinned yet again. This is a smart scorpion. Acquiring it honestly was definitely the right choice. Althos thought to himself, as he thought about how to respond to the second question the thing had asked him.


    It took him a bit longer than last time to answer this question quite simply because it was a harder question to answer effectively and in a way that promoted loyalty.


    [I aspire to become a deity of vermin, among many other things. I want to inspire genuine, and honest loyalty in vermin of all sorts, including scorpions. I want to earn your devotion and invoke in your kind feelings of love, loyalty, and awe. I think the best way to do that would be, to treat you with respect, empower you all, and work to improve conditions for your kind.] The deity''s answer was confident, well-reasoned, and honest.


    So this is... my new master? If he means what he says then maybe he''ll achieve his goal one day. And if he does... who knows what may happen to creatures like me. The scorpion thought to itself, after hearing the deity''s response and assessing it for a few moments.


    As the scorpion was mid-thought the party reached the edge of the campsite. The deity in front of it came to a stop and rose his hand to gesture to his followers to stop. In front of the party stood a number of yurts arranged in a protective circle around a tiny campfire that was obscured from sight due to the dimensions of the objects that housed the jackaloids. These yurts were perfectly still, but the deity knew they were far from empty.


    Then Althos began to emit canine-like noises loud enough that the yurts in front of the party went from being silent, still places, to the sites of sudden, explosive movement. The party heard and in seconds saw the frenzied activity as the jackaloids, now alerted to the presence of intruders, reacted to the sudden closeness of unknown interlopers.


    In a matter of seconds, the tanned doors of the yurt closest to the party burst open and three jackaloids that were taller and more muscular than the ones that had hunted the dire scorpion emerged from them, carrying an assortment of weaponry on their persons.


    They looked at the party with rage and confusion, their hands tightly holding onto their armaments. They were all in their human form, something unusual for their kind who normally preferred their hybrid form.


    They were clearly caught off guard, but unlike other members of the mobile settlement, they appeared to not have been sleeping. The yurt contained two male jackaloids and one female. Althos knew their names at a glance, thanks to the memories of their packmates.


    Althos knew that two of them had been mating when he interrupted their coitus with his wild noises, because of the fact that they smelled of sinful bodily fluid and the fact that they were nearly naked, their bodies scarcely covered by ragged loincloths.


    Althos grinned at them and then spoke in the canine language of the jackaloids. "My children! I''ve missed you." His voice, to those unfamiliar with the language, sounded wild and animalistic but in the ears of the jackaloids was clearly intelligent, grammatically correct speech. This mystified the creatures, who took a step back towards their yurt in confusion and fear.


    The one of them who hadn''t been mating snarled at Althos, and hunched over, as if preparing to shift into a form it felt more comfortable battling in. It inched closer and bared its weak, man-fangs at him, which provoked a response from one of the jackaloids he had turned into a worshiper of his.


    The creature moved from behind Althos, to out in front of him in an instant, and menacingly threw itself quite close to its fellow jackaloid. It snapped in anger at the savage warrior. "How dare you snarl at our master!" It barked, its voice alight with rage at the disrespect its packmate had shown to Althos.


    Althos grinned at it and spoke softly to the thing. "There, there... I am feeling merciful tonight." He said, smiling and closing his eyes as he enjoyed the pride he felt in his newest servants. His next words were directed to the jackaloids who had yet to join him.


    "As you heard me say before, I am feeling merciful tonight. Surrender and return to my dark embrace and I shall only punish you a little bit, for falling victim to a ruse that wiped me from your memories." He said, his words stern. The jackaloids that weren''t his worshippers looked at him with genuine confusion and fear in their eyes, unsure of what he was talking about.


    While he said that he touched the minds of the three jackaloids and teased them. He gave the creatures a faint sense of something akin to deja vu, so as to suggest that these creatures had somehow forgotten his true identity and to make them doubt that this was the first time they had met.


    He grinned sardonically at them, his gaze making them begin to question their instincts. The creatures were unsure of what to do, and behind them, others in their pack began to steadily exit their own yurts.


    In a matter of moments, two dozen jackaloids looked at him, unsure of who he was or what he wanted. Their eyes were filled with a variety of emotions, the most common of which were confusion, fear, and anger at what a handful perceived as an insulting prank.


    Althos'' eyes lit up with delight as he studied the creatures in front of him. And then he opened his arms wide as if preparing for an embrace. "I''ve come home, my children!" He said in the ancient tongue of the jackaloids, his eyes taking in the sight before him with joy and pride as he readied himself for a period of intense activity that''d undoubtedly reward him with faithful new worshipers.

 Chapter 62:

    The jackaloids stared in stunned silence at the creature who called them his "children" and informed them that it was "back home". The creature was a towering monster, with asymmetrical skin and features.


    They understood the thing, as it spoke flawlessly in their language, but they couldn''t make sense of what it had said to them. Its words were confusing, as they knew of no way in which this being could have been their father, nor did they know of a way in which their encampment of yurts could be its home.


    Some of them readied themselves for violence. Those of them that were so inclined pulled weapons out of the loose leather armor they wore, be it bows and arrows, clubs, swords, spears, or other sorts of equipment. The pack was a pack of warriors, and they were would always fight for their home from any invader, even one who claimed to be their father.


    Those of them that didn''t pull out their armaments wondered how the odd creature would react to their defensive display. They wondered if it would act, now that it saw them ready themselves for combat. The creature did act, but not violently. Instead, it began to laugh. A cold, loud sound, that echoed across the sandy flatland the yurt camp was in.


    <hr>


    Althos laughed, the sound eerily echoing across the sandy area the jackaloids called their current home. He laughed at their paltry display, the attempt made by the bravest and most foolish of the creatures to lift up their arms in quiet defiance of his power.


    It''s cute that they think that that would... intimidate me? Put me on edge? He thought to himself. He laughed for a few seconds, before abruptly ceasing his laughter. I suppose I should make it clear that I mean them no harm. He realized, aware that he hadn''t made that clear and that to those who were rightfully skeptical of his claims lifting up their arms was a rational if ill-advised move.


    "Children!" He said, his voice once again booming across the desert that surrounded him. The jackaloids, aside from the few who already worshiped him, all jumping back in response to his voice as the canine words escaped his lips.


    "I have not come to harm you. I have come to heal you. I have come to free you! Yes, I am a liberator. A god who shall free you from the chains of ignorance that keep us at arms, and spear, length." He said, his voice piercing deep into the hearts of the jackaloids. To really bring the effect of his acting and deception home, the deity gathered magical energy in the palms of his hands and allowed his hands to glow in front of the creatures.


    The effect was significant. Ember like energy wafted off of his hands and drifted to the ground at his feet. It dyed the sands near him an assortment of colors. It was beautiful to look at, and the deity allowed it to persist for several moments so as to demonstrate that he wasn''t magically limited like they were.


    He could hear some of their thoughts as he did this, and smiled.


    That''s... some real power. Thought one of them, in the animalistic language they spoke.


    Look at it waste magical energy like that... what does it mean that it can do that? Wondered another.


    I don''t like that it can do that... if it''s weird flame-like magical energy does that to sand, It thought, looking at the sand at Althos'' feet that was glowing and changing color, I''d rather not discover what that energy can do to skin or fur.


    Althos chuckled as the various assessments of his mystical display came in from the full encampment. Many were impressed with the show. Some were frightened. Others were intrigued.


    While he did that, he also created copies of their memories, thoughts, knowledge, and secrets. That greatly expanded his awareness and understanding of their species. It made him feel far more confident in his plot, while also revealing to him the depths of the ignorance of the pack he was making his own.


    Once the last creature to give an impression of some sort of the display had accidentally revealed her thoughts Althos began to speak again.


    "I understand your confusion little ones!" He said, confidence dripping into his voice again. "It''s as plain as day to me. You see, I suspect... no, I am sure, that someone robbed you of your memories of me. I believe that I can restore them. If you''ll let me." Althos said, allowing emotion to subtly enter his voice at the culmination of the last sentence he spoke.


    He grinned internally, chucklingly deviously to himself and no one else. This is a good plan. He thought. All I have to do is create a few memories each that have me in them and implant them into the minds of the jackaloids. He felt positively delightful and deceitful at that moment.


    If I want too, I could even whip up something for some of them that show Paimon attacking them and robbing their memories, to whip them up against him. He deviously thought to himself. He felt himself enjoying deception more with each passing moment. This was nothing particularly new since he deceived his first mortal followers when he first met them.


    The jackaloids were still silent, assessing the deity. Althos began to slowly lose patience with their skepticism, learning first-hand that successfully deception often required some measure of patience, and spoke up after about a minute of silence.


    "Allow me to prove my claims to you! Not only do I have Martez with me, who remembers and worships me," Althos said, moving to the side and then gesturing to one of the jackaloids behind him, "I can also heal one of you right now, in front of everyone. I''ll heal the chosen person, and they''ll confirm that I being forthright." He declared, grinning broadly at the pack before him.


    The jackaloids looked at each other and began to whisper amongst themselves. So as to help them feel comfortable, Althos willingly moved away from the yurt containing the trio of creatures who had first shown themselves to him. He backed up a fair amount, putting many meters between him and the encampment, and he told his worshipers to reunite with their pack.


    <hr>


    The scorpion sent a quite message to its new master. [So what do you think happens next?] The thing asked, its mental voice chilly and dispassionate. Althos looked at it, its legs scuttling towards him and away from the encampment.


    The deity quickly answered his newest familiar. [They send a creature over here, and I trick it.] He told the thing, curious as to who the pack would send. Althos, being a deity, could hear the discussion they were having in the encampment and chuckled as he listened in.


    The voices in the encampment were trapped in a fierce debate. Althos heard them bickering and grinned as he heard them throw a range of arguments at each other.


    The pack was fiercely divided, as each yurt happened to contain a different family of jackaloids that had only banded together for the sake of convenience and not any actual sense of unity. Because of that, in moments like this, each family put their own interests above the interests of the pseudo-community.


    Though Althos was grinning, his mind was still racing at that moment. He found himself criticizing the social structure of this pack. Having a group of families live in close proximity just because its convenient is no way to create a cohesive society. He sagely thought to himself. How should I correct that? He questioned. As he questioned that, he heard even more heated shouts come from the encampment.


    "It was your son who ordered those ones," When the jackaloid who was shouting said that he gestured towards the creatures who now worshipped Althos, "To go hunting right? Then doesn''t it make sense that your son be the one sent out to go and see if this odd... thing is telling us the truth?" The jackaloid said, practically barking the last few words.


    Althos happened to know, thanks to the memories he stole, that that particular jackaloid was the mate of one of the friends of Martez, the jackaloid that Althos had given the partially complete sword earlier. She wasn''t done either.


    "If he''s gonna bully those smaller than him into hunting, and they bring back invaders, then he needs to take responsibility for his actions!" She said, her voice filled with righteous indignation. Her outburst was funny to the young god who listened to her from a distance.


    At this point, that jackaloid''s father spoke up, his own rage being after being forced to endure the rage of this smaller, younger jackaloid for too long. "Shut up! There''s a monster watching us and you''re over here thinking about yourself! and your friends? This endangers us all. It should be you who goes out there and faces that... thing!" He said, and Althos could practically picture the older creature, red in the face from heat and humiliation. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Althos terrified them, and he didn''t hate that. His form was definitely odd, and he could see why it invoked such fear in them. He assumed that part of why his form was so scary was due to their own ignorance.


    His theft of the memories of the jackaloids who had been tormenting his new familiar revealed that at least not all jackaloids were aware of the existence of devils, or the fact that this desert was situated in Infernius. It was surprising news to him, but he took it in stride, and he had assumed that the creatures before him were young for their species.


    In fairness, the deity hadn''t met another of their kind until just now. He had no way of knowing that the whole pack shared the ignorance of the ones he had already tamed. That changed while he scanned the minds of the jackaloids earlier.


    Now he knew that they were all ignorant of the reality they were in. Ignorance really is a sad fate... He thought to himself, in an uncharacteristic moment of something loosely resembling pity.


    At that moment, one of the jackaloids approached him. It was a male jackaloid, who wore a leather breastplate but had nothing covering its legs and lower body other than his thick, matted fur. Althos smirked at him as he approached, trying to muster courage and stride intimidatingly over to the stranger who had invaded his home.


    The jackaloid began to yell as he approached Althos, his voice carrying across the sandy flatland.


    <hr>


    "Stranger! I am Atl. Our pack has seen fit to nominate me to go and test the veracity of your WILD claims. I am the one of us who selects who goes out on which hunts. I will be the one to stand firm in the face of your... healing." He said, snarling at the deity.


    Atl was trying to intimidate the young god into confessing that this was all a scam. The deity, unfazed, stared blankly at the jackaloid for a few moments, and then greeted him with surprising warmth.


    "I''m glad someone''s coming!" He said, energetically. His excitement was genuine, and it was clearly communicated in the joy in the deity''s asymmetrical and heterochromatic eyes. The jackaloid stared at the deity, disappointment spreading across the thing''s face as he took in the genuineness of the deity''s reaction.


    Soon enough the jackaloid was within arm''s reach of the young god. Althos smiled at him and focused pure magical energy into the tip of his pointer finger. The finger began to emit a soft amber colored light. Then the deity lightly tapped it against the forehead of the jackaloid. It was all for show.


    That... that looks like I''m casting healing magic right? The deity mentally questioned, before actually doing what he set out to do. He touched the mind of the jackaloid, and forcibly transmitted fabricated memory after fabricated memory into the simple creature''s mind. And as he did so he also examined the thing''s decayed vestigial traits using his parallel will power.


    [Spell activation occurring: Vestigial Examination


    Performing scan of the creature named Atl.


    Scan complete in 5...


    4...


    3...


    2...


    1...


    Scan complete.


    External Traits:


    Enhanced limited shifting


    360-degree vision


    Mundane weapon resistance


    Muscular manipulation


    Internal Traits:


    Animal speech


    Scent Shifting


    This is a wide-ranging assortment of powers, with the most powerful being the ones related to manipulation. Both scent-shifting and muscular manipulation are potent powers that allow for Atl to deceive opponents and then deliver a range of devastating blows.


    Enhanced limited shifting is unusual and powerful because it allows for Atl to gain greater control over his ability to shape-shift. With it, his body becomes a far more malleable and creative thing he can use to attack opponents in surprising ways. For example, he could throw a punch with his fist in human form and then open his hand, mid-swing and transform the appendage into a claw to scratch an opponent unexpectedly.]


    <hr>


    Atl froze as his mind was flooded with memories. Powerful memories snuck their way into his brain and exploded into the forefront of his consciousness.


    He "recalled" Althos. He recalled meeting the devil-deity for the first time. He recalled being blessed by the thing. He remembered the dogma the deity made all of his shape-shifting worshipers recite by heart. The dogma of knowledge, deception, and shape-shifting.


    He remembered a lifetime of blessings and struggles that he and his pack had undergone in the desert, protected and aided by Althos'' mercy and wisdom. He remembered the knowledge that the creatures had taken from other desert dwellers and had given to their master. The praise they had earned from the creature.


    The jackaloid fell to his knees as his mind reeled. It''s... true. All of it. He realized, heartbreakingly.


    And then the jackaloid''s mind reeled again, as Althos sent another set of memories into the creature.


    This time the thing "remembered" Paimon. It learned of and also grew terrified of the true-devil who lorded over the city of Bastille. It "remembered" a savage assault on the encampment that never actually happened. An assault wherein Paimon and a small army of humanoid looking devils laid siege to the encampment.


    The memory was vivid, a scene filled with scents, sights, and sounds. Atl could remember the smell of the devilish overlord, could hear the creature''s haunting laugh in his mind, and would never forget the sight of those cat-like eyes. It left an undeniable impression on him, one he swore he would never forget.


    That assault ended with the dastardly true-devil seizing each of the jackaloids by the throat and viciously tearing memories right out from their very minds. Memories of Althos and the blessings he had bestowed upon them.


    This bastard... came into our camp and quietly stole us away from our master! Atl thought, the simpleton falling for the fabricated memories quite easily. Althos sensed the rage building within the creature. He sensed the cornucopia of emotions the thing was feeling, the grief over what had been lost, and the joy at what had been restored by Althos.


    "Welcome back... my son." The god said, his voice soft and kind in the ear of the jackaloid. He embraced the creature, truly acting as if he were a parent reunited with a son lost ages ago. The jackaloid began to cry, wet tears dampening his face.


    Far away from them, the other jackaloids witnessed this sight and they felt a bit of their skepticism fade away. They watched, their eyes wide with wonder, as their emissary became convinced of the truth of the claims of the mysterious newcomer. Some of the younger ones, ones inspired by Atl, found the display moving enough on its own.


    Their minds rejected their former skepticism and they wished to be "reunited" with Althos, in the same sense their friend had been. They were, after all, young creatures whose skepticism wasn''t tempered with experience but came from a place susceptible to peer-pressure and group-think.


    Althos and Atl began to walk back towards the others. Both creatures were grinning broadly, and Althos had created an illusion to make it look as if tears were welling up in his eyes as well. That further softened the hearts of the youthful jackaloids in the camp.


    <hr>


    Over the course of the next three hours, Althos carefully met with and "healed" the jackaloids individually. He carefully and deviously modified both actual memories the creatures had, as well as freely infected them with fabricated memories using the knowledge he had gained from them and from the jackaloids who were already his worshipers.


    He also resurrected a single vestigial trait in each of them, and used his fabricated memories to make it look like the trait he had resurrected in them was actually a blessing he gave them at birth. Though some of them needed some convincing that Althos was actually a deity of theirs who they had forgotten, none of them truly resisted him for very long.


    I think it must be the power I reawaken within them... He thought to himself after converting the 5th jackaloid to make a weak-hearted attempt to cling to the truth and not believe Althos'' deception. He noticed that the creatures stopped resisting his fabrications after they began to explore their new abilities, and the more they liked the abilities the more easily they took to praising their new god.


    The whole thing went off with a hitch and at last, the deity was face to face with the oldest jackaloid in the pack.  The grim-eyed geezer and the deity were inside of the shape-shifter''s yurt, which was the one closest to the still-burning fire. They were alone, and the silence of the yurt was only interrupted by a loud chorus fervently reciting Althos'' dogma from outside of the yurt.


    Althos looked at the elderly creature, and carefully appraised him. The geezer stood a full two meters and three-quarters tall, taller than the other creatures in the camp and only a bit shorter than Althos in his present form. He wore a full outfit of painstakingly hand-crafted leather armor. His fur was almost entirely white as if to reflect his age.


    He was in his hybrid form, his lower body that of a conventional human but his upper body covered in fur and his face completely canine. He had deep-set amber-colored eyes that starred at whatever his focus was with determination, wisdom, and an undeniable pride.


    The two creatures stood face to face, sizing each other up. The elderly canine-man fearlessly looked right into Althos'' eyes and the god stared back. Neither of them blinked for a full minute.


    Althos saw a lot of things in the elderly shapeshifter. He saw wisdom. He saw pride. He saw knowledge. He also saw someone he thought might have had the potential to be a good servant even without the deception.


    So he decided to explore that idea. He thought for a second about what to do to test that idea out.


    "Before I heal you... would you like to accompany me on a hunt? Maybe see my other, non-restorative powers, first hand." Althos asked, his eyes shining with amusement and curiosity. The jackaloid looked at him, expecting a lot of things but not that.


    Soon enough the wizened jackaloid quietly nodded at the deity. And then the man spoke. "You know what... sure. After all, I''m gonna be ''healed'' soon, so I may as well go make some more memories before I regain what you and others claim I lost." The jackaloid said, almost chuckling grimly at the deity.

 Chapter 63:

    Althos and the wizen jackaloid quickly exited the elderly creature''s yurt. The rest of the pack and Althos'' newest familiar were awaiting them. Althos made eye contact with each of them and then he spoke.


    "Listen, everyone! Camaxtli," Camaxtli was the elderly jackaloid. "My pet, and I are going on a hunt. We will be back soon. Until then... go back to your yurts."


    The creatures in front of Althos nodded at the deity and then began to slowly drift back to their own yurts. Althos didn''t doubt that they''d be discussing what memories he infected them with, and possibly what "blessings" they had been bestowed.


    Shortly after the last of the jackaloids retreated back to the privacy of their yurts, Althos, the deity''s dire scorpion familiar, and Camaxtli ventured into the sandy wilderness.


    <hr>


    Forty minutes into their trek through the desert, Althos'' mind began to wander. At that particular moment, the trio of creatures was in the heart of a part of the desert that was flat.


    The creatures had explored the sandy waste in silence. They had walked over an entire kilometer away from the encampment of jackaloids and hadn''t been followed so they were in the midst of a fairly peaceful hunt.


    Camaxtli carried a single spear in one of his hands, the thing''s frame not made of wood but of bone, and a handaxe in his other hand. Althos carried the simple sword he had taken from one of the jackaloids during their first encounter in one hand, and his other hand was free of artificial weapons. He wore no armor and because he was in his odd true-devil form his thick muscles were on full display.


    The scorpion''s body was free of any artificial equipment or armor, and the thing preferred it that way. During the journey into the sandy wastes, the scorpion and Althos spoke freely, using their mental connection, and the thing made it abundantly clear that it liked its natural weapons and armor. Althos could respect such an attitude and told it that he wouldn''t force it to fight in a way that made it uncomfortable.


    All three creatures wandering the desert were lost in their own minds. I wonder if this thing can even hunt... Thought Camaxtli, not even trying to hide his skepticism. He seems... strong physically but strength alone does not make one a good hunter. Camaxtli mentally reminded himself, his eyes gazing over the strange form of the self-proclaimed "father" of the jackaloids.


    I wonder what sort of creatures we could find in this desert... Thought the dire scorpion familiar, eager to try and hunt something with its new powers.


    Should I deceive this one? Althos questioned, wondering what to do about the jackaloid who was wondering the desert with him. It''d be nice to have one ally amongst the jackaloids who knows the truth... Althos thought to himself.


    In time the deity refocused and decided to inspect his allies. He noticed that his pet was fine, enjoying the trek and mentally hoping to have a chance to test out its new powers and size in battle in the near future.


    On the other hand, Camaxtli was skeptical of Althos, and his thoughts laid bare this skepticism, even as the young god starred at him.


    "Camaxtli... I sense that you have thoughts. Observations. Care to share them?" Althos asked, his voice polite and his curiosity genuine. Althos could have read the mind of the creature but decided not too.


    If I want creatures to worship me of their own free will I should give them a chance to share their thoughts of their own volition right? He thought to himself when deciding not to read Camaxtli''s mind.


    If I decide to reveal the truth to Camaxtli, then that makes it important that I earn his trust, which would be a slow process. Althos thought to himself, aware that the route he may choose would require patience. But it''d be nice to have one creature here be my worshiper truthfully and in full awareness of my deceptive powers. Althos also thought to himself, chuckling internally all the while.


    Camaxtli thought quietly to himself for a full half-minute before opening his mouth to speak. When he opened his mouth to speak, a confident smirk was etched on his canine face. "I was just curious if you could actually hunt." The thing said, his amber eyes lit up with cruel mirth as they starred directly at Althos'' own heterochromatic orbs.


    Althos looked at the jackaloid and then spoke. "Would you care to experience my strength firsthand?" The deity asked, stopping all movement aside from opening his arms wide as if to invite the jackaloid to strike. The jackaloid stopped as well, looking at the deity for a moment. He considered what Althos said, and then lifted the spear he held into a position from which he could properly launch the weapon at Althos.


    [Don''t interfere.] Althos sternly warned his pet, sensing that the jackaloid was a strike first, talk later sort and figuring that the canine-humanoid hybrid would strike soon. He was right.


    The distance between the deity and the shape-shifter was measurable in meters, and Althos grinned as he saw the muscles on the jackaloid''s hand twitch in the instant before the spear was lobbed at him. The spear was forcefully hurled at the deity thanks to the strength of the jackaloid who had spent a lifetime surviving to old age in the harsh desert.


    The thing sailed through the air, having been thrown quite beautifully, and in moments was close to Althos. The deity didn''t fret, however, and plucked the thing out of the air with his empty hand in a single, fluid motion.


    <hr>


    The jackaloid wasted no time, attempting to close the distance between himself and the god while the deity pretended to be focused on the spear. He lunged forward while shifting into jackal form to compress himself and minimize the area in which he could be attacked by the speedy deity.


    Althos considered what to do for a moment.Should I swing my sword...? No. If I did and I couldn''t control it, and I can''t perform a true resurrection... the end results would be bad. I should just do what I''ve been doing till now: use my body as my weapon.Althos thought to himself, quickly coming to the conclusion that using his own limbs as weapons was his safest bet.


    The deity was still, now confident and watchful since he knew what he''d do, as he now openly turned his attention to the jackaloid. His quarry was quickly closing the distance between himself and the god, and that made Althos smile. Before the creature could strike, it found itself in the range of Althos''s long legs and was still too far to lash out at the deity.


    Althos didn''t hesitate, launching a single powerfully aimed kick at where the canine shape-shifter was heading before the creature even realized he had entered Althos'' own area of attack. The kick faced no air resistance due to Althos willing away any impediments to its power and sped through the air before coming to a harmless and abrupt stop millimeters away from the jackaloid''s nose.


    The jackaloid''s eyes opened wide as he misstepped due to the kick, and tumbled into the sand right next to Althos. Althos turned around, his back exposed to the creature, and then spoke. "My body is my weapon. Make no mistake Camaxtli, I am at least as good a hunter as you are." He said, his voice confident, calm, and self-assured.


    "If you don''t believe me I''m more than happy to do this all day." He said, smirking even though the creature couldn''t see him. The confidence in his voice communicated the same emotion his smirk did.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    Camaxtli''s head dropped and the creature conceded, silently, that there was a chance the deity''s power was real. That attack just now would have killed me... The jackaloid realized with a start, instantly conceding this fight to the deity.


    That doesn''t mean he''s a god but his power is at least greater than mine. The canine-creature confessed, quietly. The jackaloid was proud, but pride isn''t the same as stupidity or arrogance and the main reason Camaxtli had survived so long was that he differentiated the three.


    I... don''t know if I''ve ever been so close to death.The jackaloid confessed, to himself and no one else. His eyes were wide as he reflected on the experience.


    Althos looked at the warrior and acknowledged that the battle was over. It was at that moment that he received a surprising notification, one which would delight him due to its length and what it revealed.


    [Alert:


    Your unwavering dedication to acquiring knowledge and your constant usage of your own body as a weapon, especially when you have the choice to use another weapon and you decide to use your body anyway, has caused you to gain your first class and your first level! You are now a first-level monk. Congratulations!


    Of course, as a deity you being a level one monk isn''t the same as a mortal becoming a first-level monk. This is primarily to indicate that you have demonstrated a pattern of behavior that aligns with the behavior of other members of this class and that the system recognizes your actions. That''s not to say that there aren''t any benefits to this though.


    Mortals who possess the ability to see class levels and investigate stats can see your class levels and deities don''t have a cap on the number of classes they can have or the total number of levels they can gain, though eventually gaining the necessary experience to level up becomes nearly impossible.


    Deities in the past have used classes and class levels to gain the respect of mortals they wished to convert to their worship, and they have used classes and class levels to build certain types of orders dedicated to their service and worship, such as monasteries, temples, covens, martial fraternities, and more.


    Classes themselves refer to the titles the system has given to quantify and categorize people who share types of powers and skills.


    Over the course of your life, you''ve meta witch, a rogue, brawlers, archers, an alchemist, an oracle, and people who are becoming clerics and scouts. You yourself were called a druid by various sorts of people and creatures. Each of those things are classes.


    Class information alert: Monks.


    Monks are fearless creatures who not only train themselves to fight using their own limbs or occasionally specialized weapons, they are intelligent and worldly creatures who value the pursuit of knowledge. That is what separates them from less academically inclined limb-users like brawlers.


    As a monk, you fight by training your body to be a powerful weapon and the few non-natural weapons used by monks are weapons that amplify the damage your limbs can cause. Some monks use weapons like brass knuckles or bagh nakhs, beast-like claw weapons which humanoids affix to their knuckles, as ways to empower their own deadly blows but many make the choice not to do that. Monks who follow a different path surely exist but they are quite rare.


    Gaining the right kind of experience and leveling up the monk class brings with it skills and abilities that empower one''s body, so-called hard skills and abilities. Eventually, monks also gain access to skills related to qi, the air-like lifeforce that flows through all living creatures. These are often called soft skills and abilities.


    Beyond that, there are specialized paths available to monks that grant them a range of powers, from hardening their bodies to ironlike levels, to granting them increased dexterity, or specializations which increase their knowledge and ability to learn. After all, being a monk isn''t just throwing punches or dodging blows.


    To learn more, work hard and level up! As you level up this notification and the monk entry in your codex will increase in detail and in length.]


    Althos smiled widely at this. It was a pleasant surprise and it made him grateful for his tendency to use his fists, and legs to lash out at those determined to oppose him. But he knew that he wasn''t quite done yet. He willed away the notification and turned back to look at Camaxtli so that he could be sure that the fight was over. Althos quickly spoke.


    "Are you ready for us to continue our hunt? Or do you want to head back for now?" Althos asked, his voice cold and arrogant. Camaxtli heard the arrogance in Althos'' voice and though the creature had to fight to swallow his pride, he eventually agreed to head back to the camp. His fear didn''t help him here.


    The three creatures began their trek back to the camp, Althos quite satisfied with the whole thing and Camaxtli frustrated at his weakness. The scorpion was quietly annoyed that it had yet to experience combat in its new body. Fortunately, that would change on the way back to the encampment.


    <hr>


    A creature skittered over a seemingly endless patch of sandy wasteland in the Infernian desert. Its multiple legs carried it quite speedily over the wastes, and its variety of eyes gave it the ability to detect any sort of obstacles in its way long before they would have obstructed its journey.


    The thing had swiftly moved out of the way of a variety of obstacles that may have otherwise slowed its journey thanks to its clear and magnified vision.


    It dodged corpses that were only shallowly buried in the sandy sea, it avoided traps set up by other scorpions and miscellaneous desert dwellers, and earlier that day it had even changed directions to avoid a rare patrol of devilish warriors who roamed the wastes looking to capture non-humanoid creatures for the inhabitants of Bastille to torment and torture.


    Such constant redirections did have an unexpected effect: it caused the girtablilu, a scorpion-person, to be on a collision course with the jackaloid encampment. A collision course the thing would become aware of if it climbed just one more sandy dune, a dune it could already see. A dune it was approaching. A dune that already had climbers walking over it, from a different angle. Its angle hid it from the sight of the hunters, rendering them unaware of its gradual approach.


    <hr>


    Althos still wasn''t sure how to handle the elderly jackaloid, and it was only when the girtablilu entered the edge of Althos'' radar and continued its generalized approach towards the party that the deity seriously considered whether or not to make this so-called hunt into an actual hunt.


    He sensed the creature that was approaching the party and decided to scan the mind of Camaxtli, to see what the elder would think of an actual hunt taking place. He stopped the party while he did this. They were nearing the top of a sand dune, one that obstructed their sight of the encampment. All of this confused Camaxtli, which didn''t help the wizen creature''s pride.


    Why have we stopped? Oh, heck if I know! I sure could use some stress-relief... And something big to attack. Fighting something real dangerous may help my pride recover.Camaxtlithought to himself and unknowingly to Althos as well, anger and hurt pride dominating his emotional state. Althos chuckled and continued to read a bit more of his mind.


    Giving something a good stabbing would definitely let me vent some of this... anger in a way that at least gives the tribe more food.The elder thought, revealing a surprising concern for the rest of the tribe. This rare selflessness brought a smile to Althos'' face.


    That second thought really sealed the deal for Althos. He nodded, an odd gesture that no one present understood, and moved the party in the direction of the creature. The scorpion-person was rapidly approaching the party, but since the party stood near the top of the sand dune and the scorpion creature was coming at them from another angle, only Althos could detect the approaching creature, and the creature could not detect them either.


    As it drew ever nearer and as the party began to sense the noise it made as it traveled through the desert, Althos smiled and turned in its direction. In a matter of minutes, time that passed with the party members trying to identify the noise the creature was making as it stampeded across the desert, Camaxtli began to question what to do.


    If I can''t defeat Althos... how can I defeat this?Camaxtli wondered his pride in tatters after meeting and losing a fight to a god. This annoyed Althos who was not the patient sort.


    I won! Why don''t you just serve me already!?Althos impatiently asked himself, even as the scorpion-creature drew closer and closer.I thought canines respected strength...Althos thought to himself, inaccurately assuming jackaloids were canine-like, due to their relationship to non-shape-shifting jackals. It was an inaccurate thought, one which would have greatly annoyed many jackaloids if they ever happened to hear it.


    And then, as Camaxtli was in the middle of throwing himself a pity party, and as Althos was impatiently wondering why jackaloids weren''t like beasts like the scorpion who served him,beasts that served the strong, the scorpion-person drew ever closer.

 Chapter 64:

    Less than two minutes after Camaxtli began throwing himself a pity party, the girtablilu became visible to the party members for the first time. The massive man-beast came at the party from an angle, emerging not from the top of the sand dune they were slowly climbing, but rather unintentionally racing at them from a perpendicular angle.


    The creature noticed them, long after they detected him approaching and made the decision to attack the three creatures almost immediately. His thick pincers rapidly opened and then snapped shut in an effort to intimidate and disorient them.


    The girtablilu was a gigantic creature, with the lower body of a massive scorpion and the upper body of a thickly muscled ebony-skinned man. He held no artificial tools, but his human upper body had the rippling muscles of a powerful barbarian. He wore no armor and his dark skin was fully exposed to the harsh elements of the desert.


    He had a startlingly handsome face with sharp, predatory features and high cheekbones. His eyes were the lightest part of his face, as they were pure white orbs that contrasted sharply with the rich darkness of the rest of his human-like upper body. His eyes were calmly and methodically assessing the party even as he lunged at them, speedily skittering over and across the dune.


    His scorpion-like lower body was covered in vibrant rust-colored chitin and was around five meters long, though it was just a meter tall. He had numerous composite eyes, something which distinguished him from actual scorpions, that covered the forward-most part of his body, the section that in actual scorpions would be the head or the cephalothorax. His version of a cephalothorax also had a second mouth, which he could use to eat as easily as his human-like mouth.


    The scorpion lower-body also had powerful, meter-long claws that ended in intimidating-looking pincers. The pincers were constantly opening and snapping shut, producing a loud and disorienting sound as the powerful things impacted repeatedly.


    His tail was the single longest part of his body. The thing extended for several whole meters and ended in a bulbous stinger that glowed a dark amber color, filled to the point of bursting with deadly venom. As the scorpion raced across the dune at the party, the stinger swung back and forth hypnotically, but no one in the party looked at it.


    His numerous chitinous legs carried over the desert at a blistering pace and within seconds he was meters away from the party. His stinger reared back took aim at the jackaloid as the man-half of the body focused his attention on Althos.


    Althos, not often one to initiate battle, scanned the creature''s mind. These creatures look weak and delicious! The thing was excitedly thinking to itself, as it dashed closer and closer to them. It eyed them hungrily, though most of its attention was on Althos. That did make sense though after all the deity was the largest person in the party.


    Should we fight...? Althos wondered, before remembering how Camaxtli was feeling. He weighed Camaxtli''s feelings and the fact that the creature was a bloodthirsty predator dashing across the desert on some unclear mission, vs his tendency to not initiate battle unless something was attacking first.


    But the thing plans to lash out... You know what? That''s enough of a reason to fight! The deity quickly reasoned and then the deity began to grin.


    Althos opened his mouth to speak as the thing moved closer and closer to the rest of the party. "Let''s do this!" He said, excitedly. His eyes glimmered with excitement and he flexed his muscles, mentally readying himself for battle.


    <hr>


    Camaxtli noticed that the man-scorpion''s stinger seemed trained on him quite quickly because he saw the scorpion half''s eyes trained on him when the thing closed in on the party.


    He readied himself just in the nick of time as the stinger lashed out almost the instant it got within range. Oh damn it! Camaxtli thought to himself, as he leaped towards the stinger and shifted into his shorter jackal form in mid-air. He felt the force of the blow even as he managed to avoid the stinger itself, while slightly touching the thicker tail.


    He was able to minutely dodge the sting and stuck his landing behind the scorpion, this time not tumbling through the sand. He was now behind the creature, and Althos and his pet were in front of it. Unfortunately, his armor and his spear alike were now in the sand, away from him because he had to abruptly transform.


    The jackal that landed behind the scorpion was now out of the creature''s sight but not out of its mind. It swung its lengthy tail madly behind it in an effort to catch and harm the jackal, but the creature was willing to stay behind the mad-monster and wait for a real chance to fight.


    <hr>


    Althos and his newest familiar faced down the girtablilu even as its tail lashed out behind it, depriving it of one of its strongest weapons. The deity and the scorpion he had tamed felt confident even as their opponent leered hungrily at them.


    The creature''s human eyes were focused on Althos but its scorpion eyes stared down the dire-scorpion. It was surprisingly still as it wondered what its opponents would do next.


    [I guess I''ll handle the man-half and you take the scorpion-half?] Althos mentally asked his familiar. While Camaxtli had thrown himself through the air in an effort to dodge the first attack of the girtablilu Althos had checked his pet''s mental state and was surprised to find that the scorpion was excited, not scared.


    [I can do that.] The scorpion responded, clacking its own pincers together as if to further indicate excitement. Althos grinned but quickly and sternly gave it a warning.


    [If this thing proves to be too much for you, prioritize your own safety.] He instructed the thing, his mental voice proving to be surprisingly stern. The scorpion beside him nodded. Althos noticed the nod and threw himself at the monster in front of both of them.


    Althos jumped at the scorpion, his speed aided by a few flaps of his wings and easily surpassing the thing''s expectations. As he sailed through the air towards the thing it brought up its pincers to try and block his approach.


    Althos effortlessly sped past them before they could intercept him and the deity forcefully landed on the scorpion''s lower body. This caused the creature''s lower body to crash onto the ground, unable to support the deity''s weight for a moment due to it being unprepared for him to suddenly be on top of it.


    This dramatic motion gave his pet a chance to throw itself at the lower body of the distracted creature, effortlessly reaching it due to the strength of its own legs, and in its first strike Althos'' pet managed to rear its stinger back and then jab it at one of the scorpion half''s eyes. The stinger viciously sliced through the air and effortlessly embedded itself in the monster''s eye.


    The blow easily tore apart the eye and causing it to begin to leak thick, purple blood. Additionally, the stinger began to pour painful venom right into the monstrous form of its enemy.


    The girtablilu reared back in pain and intended to use its pincers to slam into the dire scorpion. It never got the chance because it telegraphed its movements and Althos, noticing what was about to happen, stopped it by aiming a powerful kick at the joints of one of the monstrous claws. His kick penetrated the protective chitin that shielded the monster''s limbs and inflicted significant damage to it.


    This caused the girtablilu to hiss in pain and the human-like upper body of the creature lunged at Althos, its massive arms poised to brutally attack the deity. Althos grinned and rushed across the creature''s lower body to close the distance between him and the man-half of the monster he was facing.


    When he was close enough to strike he threw two simple but rapid punches at the creature. One of the punches was aimed at the thing''s muscular abdomen, and the other was aimed at his handsome face. Both connected splendidly, and the man half of the girtablilu was sent reeling back by the forth of the deity''s blows.


    Althos laughed, the sound cruel, as he pursued the form of the girtablilu''s human-like upper body. "Is that all you have?" He asked, his voice loud as he raced across the thing''s armored lower body, "If you attack me, and my followers you need to be stronger than that!" He howled, his voice loudly disturbing the normal silence and stillness of the desert.


    When he got close enough to strike again he leaped at the chest of the creature and lashed out with an aimed knee strike. His knee collided with the creature''s abs and Althos heard the distinct sound of ribs breaking. As Althos looked at the creature''s face, he was surprised to see it forcibly vomit blood, blood which landed on Althos'' chest.


    <hr>


    Camaxtli, still in jackal form watched Althos and his pet fight the monster while dodging the enraged tail that swung around behind it in search of him. The tail swung rapidly, its thick form difficult to dodge when coupled with its speed.


    Damn it... damnit! Camaxtli thought to himself as he leaped over a particularly low swing of the tail that was attempting to collide with him. The jackaloid was feeling increasingly helpless, unable to do anything but dodge the relentless, perpetual motion of the venomous tail and the deadly stinger that was hunting him.


    I want to contribute. Camaxtli thought to himself, his rage filling him with determination and focus.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    I want to do... something! Camaxtli roared internally, his thoughts threatening to leak out, as he began to shift his focus from the fight Althos and the dire-scorpion were in, to the motions of the tail that sped through the air once again closing in on him.


    The more he focused, the more the tail, which until that point was hazy and out of focus, began to come into view. It began to show itself to him, its rust-colored chitin standing out against the bright yellow sand and the purple-tinted sky above them. It was that focus that enabled him to dodge the next sweep of the tail, this time coming at him from an angle. Moments after that the jackaloid''s mind was entered by a foreign presence, a new presence. Althos'' presence.


    [I can feel your rage. And your focus. Do you want to shed your inability to fight back? Do you want... power? The power to fight, not just here but anywhere?] Althos asked, his eerie voice ringing in Camaxtli''s mind. Camaxtli didn''t hesitate in responding, his intuition hinting that because he could hear the deity in his mind, the deity could somehow read it.


    [Yes. I do want power.] The elderly jackaloid thought, his mental voice ringing loudly across the desert, louder than the sounds of battle and the roars of the monstrous girtablilu. Camaxtli heard Althos laugh, not externally or physically, but in his very mind. The sound was chilling.


    [What would you do, for the power you seek?] Althos asked, his voice penetrating the deepest and most secretive parts of the mind of the long-lived jackaloid.


    <hr>


    I have lived a long life. But now... I am growing weak. My body is decaying, not quickly, but I grow weaker by the day. By the hour. Camaxtli thought to himself. This knowledge colored the actions and attitudes of the jackaloid. It informed his every waking decision.


    My pack will soon know that I am weakening. And when they do... they will not be kind. Camaxtli thought, having seen firsthand how other decaying jackaloids were treated by their kin when he himself had been a younger creature.


    It''s true that that scares me. But so does the thought of the pack being without an elderly voice of reason. The jackaloid thought, even in the middle of the battle, as he evaded the scorpion''s tail which was rampaging around him in a fruitless search.


    Age is not a weakness! But it does have a delibating effect on the body. The jackaloid confessed, agitated by that knowledge. Age was his enemy. It had always been. When he was younger it kept others from trusting him, believing him reckless, when he was middle-aged it gave him a limited amount of time with which to be at peak condition, and now that he was older it was eating away at his physical might and mental acuity.


    What would I do for power? Well... it depends. The jackaloid thought as he slid under the tail, dodging its vicious attempts to bludgeon him.


    I''d do a lot for the power to fight back. But if "fighting back" just means defeating this monster, I wouldn''t do anything asked of me, just a reasonable number of things. On the other hand... The jackaloid thought, pondering the question.


    If I could gain the power to rage against the effects of old age... the effects of time itself on my body... I''d do anything. The jackaloid realized, the realization surprising to even the one who made it. Althos heard this and grinned.


    [You''d do anything? I can work with that.] Althos asked the first sentence, then told the jackaloid the second, all while grinning.


    The man-scorpion fighting Althos grimaced at that grin and felt fear pump through his body, much like pain did from Althos'' knee-strike and like alien venom did from the sting of the dire-scorpion. At that moment, another of the scorpion-half''s eyes fell victim to the deadly sting of the dire-scorpion.


    <hr>


    Althos, even in the middle of fighting the man-scorpion activated his codex and began to scan through the list of healing spells at his disposal. He wasn''t feeling pressured by the monster in front of him so it wasn''t challenging for him to both fight and read through the codex at the same time.


    The codex manifested itself as a translucent list of spells that appeared in Althos'' vision so as to not prevent him from seeing the enemy he was fighting. He began to quickly scan the spells at his disposal.


    I''m looking for spells that can restore the body. Spells that can undo the effects of age. The deity thought to himself, racing through dozens of spells per-page. He found a lot of different interesting spells, including spells that could heal someone from diseases and spells that can temporarily increase strength, but finding spells that fought against age were tougher.


    Althos was beginning to lose hope when he reached the end of the first part of the codex. The page was marked with surprising words.


    [This is the end of the codex''s list of healing spells that are available to deities with level 1 knowledge. Preparing the list of healing spells available to deities with level 2 knowledge in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...]


    At that moment the codex felt like it expanded, through the feeling was more a metaphysical facsimile of growth meant to represent that Althos'' expanded knowledge had increased the magical tools at his disposal. That made Althos grin, even as he countered a right hook thrown by his enemy. After doing that he moved to the next page of the codex and began to speed-read the spells it revealed to him.


    This new list of spells were all considerably more advanced and powerful than the basic spells had been. They included spells that minutely healed even someone''s very soul. And that was quite intriguing to Althos, who quietly instructed his parallel will to cast them on the still-recovering multitude of souls in his possession, souls he had taken from the digestive tract of the undying titan while completing the quest to be able to promote soul-orbs into imps.


    As he mentally did that he allowed himself to take a single punch thrown by the man-scorpion in front of him. He reeled back from the force of the blow while grinning and casting healing magic on himself. He had felt pain from the blow, but only for a single instant as his healing magic quietly healed him and numbed the pain till it was gone completely.


    The blow he had taken encouraged the man-scorpion who now charged forward, attempting to pressure Althos. The deity chuckled, and locked eyes with the monster in front of him, his heterochromatic orbs scaring the white ones of the man-scorpion.


    As he did this he kept up his search for an appropriate spell until stumbling across one about halfway through the selection of healing spells at his disposal.


    [Spell type: Healing


    Spell name: Age Is A State Of Mind


    Description: This immensely powerful healing spell defeats the effects of aging. Though nearly impossible for a single mortal spellcaster to use, this powerful spell undoes the negative effects of aging on the body. By casting this spell on a creature a spellcaster infuses them with an incredible amount of magical power that restores their body to its peak physical condition.


    By using it on an elderly creature who is enduring the effects of advanced age it is possible to turn back the physical clock on their body for decades or even centuries depending on the type of creature. This spell shows its power best when used on elderly knights, monks, or beasts.


    Spell cost: 100,000 magical energy per cast.


    Note #1: Under ideal conditions this spell can be used to promise someone immortality. But it''d take an immensely powerful magical creature to do that.


    Note #2: This spell doesn''t end the effects of aging, nor does it prevent someone from dying of natural causes but it basically allows for someone to regain the body of their youth.


    Note #3: This spell can be used to undo crippling wounds or injuries that take away someone''s ability to walk or move a limb. It does not restore lost limbs though, though cheaper spells exist in this same school of magic that can do that.


    Cooldown: This spell can only be used once a day.]


    Althos read over the spell and grinned at it. Perfect! This is exactly what I was looking for. He thought to himself. And then he mentally messaged Camaxtli. But before he did he activated the strange power of the devilish deal, targeting Camaxtli so as to eliminate any possibility in the jackaloid''s mind that the god was lying to him.


    Camaxtli got a surprising notification and willed it away right after reading it and right before Althos messaged him. It informed him about the inability of the deity to deceive him for the time being.


    After that and over the course of the next minute, Althos told Camaxtli what sort of creature he was and even informed the jackaloid about the true nature of the things he had done to the shape-shifters packmates, including the creation of the first dogma made by the deity. He was positively forthright with the canine, who was still dodging each of the creature''s swipes with its tail.


    He also told the jackaloid that he had read his mind, and knew everything about him. That annoyed the jackaloid, but he knew it was the truth. No point in pretending otherwise. The jackaloid thought to himself, angered once again by his inability to fight back, but at least somewhat grateful and humbled by the deity''s interest in him.


    <hr>


    Deception involves intelligence in action and those not smart enough to see through a disguised form or an untrue word are lambs who can and should be led, be it to the slaughter or to the temple. Camaxtli repeated to himself, amused at the truth of it, seconds after Althos finished his explanation of his true nature, as he watched the girtablilu continue to futilely try to knock him out with its tail.


    It''s a good dogma for a creature like Althos... Camaxtli thought, surprisingly respectfully. It was just after this observation, that the deity approached him with his offer. Althos'' voice rang out in Camaxtli''s mind once more.


    [Camaxtli... serve me. Worship and serve me and lead your kin in the worship of me and, and I shall not only restore your body to its prime, but I shall also see to it that you are treated with the respect you deserve by your kind. For as long as you wish.]


    Camaxtli was aware that the power of the devilish deal was still active, and thus that Althos meant what he said. This was no game, it was an earnest attempt to recruit the jackaloid. The jackaloid only took a few seconds to make up his mind.


    [Althos... If you restore my body to its prime and elevate me to a position of legitimate respect among my kin, I shall worship and serve you loyally and eagerly. I shall obey you in all things, even leading my kin, but that itself is not my desire.] Camaxtli informed the deity. Althos grinned, and immediately targeted Camaxtli with the spell. Then, with the same ease as pulling a simple trigger, Althos cast the spell.


    The resulting explosion of magical energy caused Camaxtli''s body to begin to shine and radiate a ridiculous amount of bright light that coated the dune in blinding mystical energy. While the light blinded the man-scorpion and the dire-scorpion, Althos took that moment to dash forward and finish the battle against the monster by reaching into the thing''s chest with a simple thurst of his arm and steal the beast''s heart out from its chest.


    His hand had entered the thing''s chest from the front and brutally exited it out the back while clutching its thick, still-beating heart. Althos grinned as he took a second and crushed the dense organ in his hand, causing blood to splatter even further across the back of the girtablilu, and causing it to coat even more of his arm.


    While doing this he also castHarvest Soulon the dying thing, even as the last of its life fled from its body. His grin was maintained as he promptly absorbed the very same soul he had just earned. He felt its power surge into him, causing him to shiver involuntarily for a moment. But the shiver came and went almost instantly.


    "And that''s that." He said, not bothered by the powerful light that illuminated the darkened desert around them. He turned his gaze to his new companion and his soon-to-be faithful worshiper. He could peer through the blinding light and watched as it restored the jackaloid''s body to its youthful handsomeness. He wondered what his newest worshiper would look like when the spell was completely finished remaking his form.

 Chapter 65:

    [New Species Knowledge Gained: Girtablilu


    Girtablilu''s are one of the higher-tier evolutions of creatures like scorpions and dire-scorpions. They are a fusion of humanoid and scorpion, with a powerful upper body of a human or human-like creature, unless they''ve been mutated whereupon they may have a different sort of humanoid upper-half and the lower body of a gigantic and powerful scorpion.


    About a quarter of girtablilus are feral creatures whose humanoid upper-bodies are unintelligent and not in control of the rest of the body. These sorts of girtablilus are powerful monsters who tend to be creatures who were born as weaker life-forms who spent a good portion of their lives defeating innumerable powerful enemies to get where they are now, painfully evolving from lower forms to a much stronger, far more bestial form.


    The other three-quarters of girtablilus, usually ones whose parents are girtablilus, tend to live in isolation from other kinds of creatures. They form isolated, yet sophisticated civilizations in jungles, deserts, and towering mountains. These creatures have complex social structures and are easily capable of forming the most powerful civilizations in the isolated and dangerous territories they seem to prefer.


    Both distinct types of girtablilus are cunning, dangerous foes just in different ways. Stealthy or disciplined girtablilus tend to come from the more civilized stock of the species, and powerful but wild martial warriors tend to come from the more animalistic type of girtablilu.


    Both types of girtablilu are skilled poison users and display awe-inspiring mastery of their bodies. And both types are capable of producing the rare example of their kinds capable of using magic, with the bestial type producing girtablilus who are naturally adept at manipulating nature and conjuring illusions. On the other hand divine and arcane magic are typically used by girtablilus with civilized minds and hearts.


    Only the strongest of girtablilus are capable of monstrous evolution. The rare few who evolve become quasi-mythical monsters who are the scorpion-equivalent to therianthropes, humanoids capable of shapeshifting into powerful beasts. Girtablilus who evolve lose their monstrous forms and instead become capable of fooling men, or scorpions at will.]


    Althos, having received that notification shortly after he began to wait for his powerful magic to finish working its wonders on Camaxtli, willed the notification away. Then he sent a message to the as of yet unnamed dire-scorpion familiar he had swayed to his side hours ago.


    [You are likely to evolve into the same sort of monster we defeated just now. A girtablilu. How does that make you feel?] He asked, curiosity seeping into his mental voice. The scorpion walked climbed up the corpse of the fallen hybrid monstrosity and arrived next to Althos before it responded. It took its time, which explained the length of its response.


    [To have the powers of both a humanoid and a scorpion excites me. This monster was powerful, and though it fell in battle to us it was only because of you that we defeated it. I have no doubt that if I one day acquire that power myself, I shall become a true terror on the battlefield and become a greater servant of yours, oh savior.]


    The scorpion''s thoughts were accurate, honest, and humble. Althos quite liked that answer and nodded at the impressive creature he had acquired as his newest true companion and servant.


    The scorpion beside him shielded its eyes with its own thick pincers, as the light that was radiating off of the elderly jackaloid was still glowing. It was a byproduct of Althos'' own potent magic, and the powerful spell he had cast on Camaxtli, the oldest member of a nearby pack of jackaloids that Althos had deceived into his worship and service.


    The deity had struck a deal with Camaxtli, gaining Camaxtli''s truthful worship and service in exchange for two things: firstly, elevating the shapeshifter to a position of influence within his pack and secondly, undoing the effects of aging so that the jackaloid may continue to live without suffering the harmful effects of aging and also be a powerful member of the jackaloid pack.


    The light had been emanating from Camaxtli''s body for several minutes now and it was only just beginning to dim ever so slightly.


    <hr>


    So this is what truly powerful magic feels like huh? Camaxtli thought to himself, his body bathing in the light that surrounded and temporarily blinded him. It is amazing... Camaxtli observed, awe filling him. That was unusual for the jackaloid, who wasn''t the pious type or the sort to be inspired by power, at least until that moment.


    The light was not merely healing him or offering him a temporary reprieve from the aches and pains that accompanied the harmful aspects of old age, it was strengthening him, seemingly banishing the aches and pains altogether. Every moment he spent blinded by the glorious light he felt his muscles hardening, regrowing to their former glory.


    At that moment he was in his jackal form, his body that of an ancient canine, his form positively riddled with scars from battles that happened long-ago yet helped cement his reputation as a skilled and ferocious fighter. His form was widening, yet his fangs were growing harder and his muscles were regenerating, which was an odd and thankfully rather pleasant feeling.


    So this is something the gods can do... Camaxtli thought to himself. The jackaloid, like all members of his species, had grown up on folkloric tales of the cruelties of the gods and knew that his species were once favored servants of assorted powers of evil, creatures like ancient demon-lords and the long-vanished arch-devils, creatures who were known to fight against gods of light.


    At that moment Camaxtli''s form was changed without the creature''s consent. The process was instantaneous and barely noticed by the jackaloid himself. He changed from his jackal form to his entirely human form in an instant, happening much faster than the process did whenever the jackaloid himself willed his form to change.


    The jackaloid stood, naked, while still surrounded by the glorious, restorative light. He was unaware of the fact that the light radiated outward from him, only that it subsumed his vision and blinded him to the outside world.


    His human form was that of an elderly man, a warrior whose violent pastime kept him fit well-beyond his prime. He radiated an air of self-assurance and a sort of brutal joy that enabled him to be at his happiest when engaged in battle. As soon as his form had changed the light set to work on undoing the harmful impacts of age on the elderly creature.


    His face was covered in wrinkles, wrinkles which seemed to just vanish the longer the light surrounded and healed him. His various muscles had been beginning to vanish as age ate away at his ability to engage in extended physical activity, yet the light undid that as well, restoring his muscles to their previous solidity, and healing his long-lost flexibility.


    Even his mind was being healed by the light, regaining its former quickness and its own sort of flexibility underneath the glorious glow of Camaxtli''s new lord and god.


    At that moment, as he felt his mind regaining so much of what it had lost to the endless flow of time and age, Althos spoke to him. Althos'' dark voice crept into his mind even as his mind was being restored to the greatness that allowed Camaxtli to truly appreciate the wonder of the deal that he made with the god-devil.


    [As your mind is being restored, I want the first thing you remember and take to heart be that service to me is always rewarded. Service to me will not be forgotten. If you serve, and in your case, if you lead your kin in my service, I shall reward you.]Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    Althos'' dark voice sinisterly whispered in Camaxtli''s mind, as the light that surrounded the jackaloid began to dim. Moments later Camaxtli could see again and was surprised at the first sight to grace his now youthful eyes: Althos and Althos'' familiar on top of the corpse of the girtablilu, and Althos'' arm covered in thick, purple blood.


    "Welcome back Camaxtli. I am very excited to see you." Althos said, a cruel grin etched on his eerie face. His eyes were glowing with devious delight, and he seemed to emanate an air of mischevious malice.


    "Come. Let us return to your home. To my people." Althos said, his voice echoing across the sandy dune. Camaxtli nodded, and the jackaloid silently began to walk in the direction of the encampment once again. As did Althos and his pet.


    Althos walked off of the hybrid of man and scorpion, and without even turning used magic to lift the thing''s body into the air. He carried the corpse behind him with ease, despite the fact that it must have weighed several tons.


    <hr>


    Minutes later the party reached the circular and nomadic home of the jackaloids. The three creatures were now bonded, having experienced the trials and tribulations of battle together and they entered the encampment in unison as if to indicate their respect for each other.


    Althos was still magically carrying the corpse of the girtablilu when the trio entered the encampment, and casually dropped it near but not on top of the campfire the encampment circled. The massive thing''s collision with the ground caused a shockwave of sand and sound to explode outward, rousing some of the jackaloids to come out and face whoever had entered their camp.


    The noise the collision caused also roused the few jackaloids who had gone to sleep after they were "reunited" with their master, and within minutes they were dressed and outside, face to face with both their god and the rejuvenated elderly jackaloid, whose youthful form was only recognizable to other, less but still noticeably elderly jackaloids.


    Upon seeing Camaxtli''s youthful form they rushed forward, ignoring the corpse of the massive and monstrous girtablilu, or even stepping onto and over it to get to Camaxtli, eager to question how he had regained his youth. In confusion and concern Camaxtli turned to Althos, with a look that communicated his thoughts just as clearly as if the jackaloid had sent the deity a mental message.


    Althos placed a hand on Camaxtli''s shoulder and moved to speak himself.


    "I have restored Camaxtli''s youth as a reward for his decision to be my faithful servant and I have decided that he shall lead you all. In the wake of Paimon''s attack," Althos said, referencing and reinforcing the deceit he had decided to go with to explain why the jackaloids had "forgotten" him. Then he continued to speak.


    "I believe it is necessary to protect you all more directly than I had in the past. This is one part of my plan to ensure no other enemy can do to you what Paimon did." Althos said, simplistic confidence and a lack of hesitation lending credibility to the lie.


    The other jackaloids looked to each other and muttered quietly. But much to Althos'' surprise, they weren''t muttering words of disagreement or disapproval. They were muttering thoughtful praises of their "father" and of his "chosen son". Althos grinned at them, and then he spoke once again, this time his voice conveying a more jovial tone.


    "Children, we have the rest of our lives to stand up and wonder what to do next. But we have a perfectly good girtablilu corpse right here that I say we cook and we eat." He said, his voice carrying across the sandy encampment. As soon as he said the word "eat" a loud roar of approval and hunger echoed across the area the creatures temporarily called home.


    Althos grinned as some of his children pulled knives out of their armor and lunged at the corpse, to hack and slash the thing into more manageable pieces that would cook more easily than if an attempt was made to cook the entire thing at once.


    <hr>


    The hour that passed after Althos'' explanation of Camaxtli''s restored youth was the first time in the deity''s life that he attended any sort of celebration. A small number of the jackaloids busied themselves by preparing the corpse of the girtablilu for cooking and consumption, and the rest of the jackaloids gathered around the campfire underneath the artificial moon that lit up the desert.


    The festivities started off quite solemn, with jackaloids recounting the sort of folkloric tales their species passed down from generation to generation. They sat around the campfire and regaled the youngest members of their pack with wondrous and terrifying stories of ancient archdevils and demon-lords, the sorts of beings their ancestors worshiped and served.


    It was while these tales were being recounted that Althos received a delightful notification.


    [Alert: Your cult has surpassed 50 worshipers!


    Your worshipers have been active, spreading tales of your glory which touched the hearts of their fellows, and when combined with the results of your subtle infiltration and rapid conquest of the pack of jackaloids have pushed your total worshiper count to well over 50 creatures.


    Your orcish and dark-elven worshipers have increased in number, with Ranthor and Milene being the two creatures who deserve the credit for that. Because of their work and the ways their minds were affected by your actions, they''ve managed to create tiny cults that have granted you progress towards influencing new domains and subdomains.


    Ranthor''s firsthand experience with your might has caused the orc to call you the great dark lord, which is also now a title of yours, the dark and bloody deity who shall unite all orcs and grant their species a singular purpose once again.


    This has led to Ranthor gathering a flock of his own and through his efforts, you''ve gained 10 new orcish worshipers, the majority of the orcish raiding group who fought alongside Raverangos against the spell-singer who now worship you as a creature of unity, darkness, battle, and power. That same group has now recruited more orcs, some of whom number among your new orcish worshipers.


    One of the newcomers, a traditional warrior clad in heavy metal armor and wielding an imposing bastard sword in battle, possesses a disposition suitable to becoming a dark-night, which is a first among your worshipers.


    Milene is revealing herself to be quite the evangelist in the city of Undermoon. She has spent her time in the city arranging meetings with both prominent common families and lesser noble families throughout the city and has been stoking their ambitions, for the sake of leading them to her workshop. When they are in her workshop she tells them about you.


    Milene has spread the word of your nondiscriminatory nature and your ability to empower the ambitious. She has asserted that you restored power lurking within her genes and hopes that when you appear in Undermoon you do this for the congregation she has gathered so as to empower those of them with the ambition to usurp the existing order.


    Numerous dark elves unhappy with their lot in life, particularly males but also some women, and even some slaves who aren''t dark elves but live in Undermoon have flocked to her, and her workshop is more popular than ever. She is also gathering tithes in your name, with a plan to give them to you when you next appear before her.


    Over 17 dark elves have taken to worshipping you, though they are less faithful right now than your orcish worshipers or your jackaloid worshipers. Once you appear before them that may change.


    A dozen non-dark-elf slaves are considering praying to you in the days to come, due to their ambition, but are fearful of the consequences since they don''t know much about you or how to pray in general.


    Five of the slaves are humans, two are kobolds, three are goblins, one is a dwarf and the other is a gnome. They are all ambitious, in their own ways, so Milene''s portrayal of you as a lord of the ambitious and as a non-discriminatory deity appeals to them.


    Another follower whose work has been greatly useful is Silander, whose sermons have resulted in over a dozen different desert-dwelling animals converting to your worship. Her passionate praises have resulted in the baptisms of birds, scorpions, canines, lizards, and other sorts of desert-dwelling fauna flocking to you.


    Because of your own efforts and the efforts of Ranthor, Milene, and Silander you''ve gained the power to use the powers of your worshipers. This means that among many other things you can now effortlessly take on the form of a true jackal, your skill as an alchemist of intermediate level is guaranteed, and you can generate soul-weapons.


    The more worshipers you gain the more powers you''ll gain access too. The next major milestone is 500 worshipers. The special reward you''ll get for hitting that number is a secret.]


    Althos finished reading that lengthy notification and then willed it away, all while grinning. At this point, the first bits of the girtablilu that had been cut off and placed near the campfire to be cooked were ready to be eaten. Althos watched as the most delicious bits of the monster was given to Camaxtli and his pet.


    He himself was offered some by a reverential jackaloid, but he declined it and instructed that it be given to the youngest and smallest jackaloid in the pack. He was obeyed without question, and the child who got the gift looked at Althos and grinned. The deity grinned back, his mood elated not just by the feeling of awe he felt stir within the child''s heart, but also by the new assortment of powers he had gained thanks to the work of his servants.

 Interlude: Acknowledging The Faithful

    Deep in her dark workshop, the dark elf Milene was in the midst of physical labor. Her soft hands dexterously handled a pestle, a blunt club-like instrument which in the case of the one in her possession was made of the dense bones of a beast native to the world beneath the world. The pestle was used to pound and crush things as part of the potion-making process.


    At that moment the dark elf was using the pestle to laboriously grind down a mineral that contained healing properties when ground to a fine powder and mixed with water.


    The mineral was stubbornly refusing to fall apart in the wake of her calm and steady pounding. The effort was making the young evangelist work up a sweat and was gradually wearing down her patience.


    The young dark elf possessed an eerie and haunting beauty, even as she pushed both herself and her instrument to strike more accurately, and more furiously at the edges of the mineral whose stubbornness she was beginning to take as akin to a personal challenge.


    Her dark, full lips were upturned in an annoyed scowl that turned her particular sort of beauty into beauty like that of a tyrannical queen who was hated by her people for her attitude but grudgingly admired for her physical beauty.


    She wore a simple outfit, undergarments which molded her more womanly features to a shape that distracted weaker willed men, as well as some women, underneath a simple smock designed to prevent her from getting dirty while she worked. The simple smock still accentuated her beauty, because the thing clung to and drew eyes towards her finer curves.


    The early signs of an anger-fueled tantrum contorted her gaze so that her brown, humanlike eyes were unnervingly sharp. Her anger caused her new psychic powers to flare outward, unconsciously and beyond her control. Her powers stretched into her workspace in search of objects to uplift and things to upturn.


    A few moments of searching, fueled by her flaring temper, resulted in her mysterious, often uncontrolled or unconscious sort of telekinesis finding nothing it could free from the tyranny of gravity. It was while her psychic power was roaming her workspace, finding that everything was tied down, secured or otherwise impervious to her powers that her master reached into her mind.


    [Hello Milene. You have brought several of Undermoon''s citizens and even their slaves to me. The work you''ve done has not gone unnoticed. I want you to know that. I value the work you''re doing. It brings me joy to know that more dark elves are coming to me, through you.]


    Althos said, informing her of his feelings regarding the work she''d done since she left his side. Then his message continued.


    [Their hearts are not yet fully mine, not like yours anyway, but with each meeting you''ve held they inch closer and closer to joining you, your aunt, and Drow in heartfelt worship.]


    Althos'' message filled the young dark elf with hope. In an instant, the powerful voice of her master drove out the impatience she felt towards the stubborn mineral. And he replaced that emotion with a series of new ones.


    All it took to chase away the impatience that Milene felt was a few words, a small number of short sentences from her master. Now new emotions raced through her heart, surging through her veins with each palpitation of her heart.


    Althos recognizes my labor! She realized, for the first time since she began luring the ambitious to her workshop. That knowledge filled her with a deep sense of joy and pride in both herself and the work she had done.


    It made her dark cheeks flush as her powerful and magical blood rushed there, and elsewhere, fueled by the knowledge that her master was happy.


    The others don''t yet truly believe in Althos'' power... but they will soon! She thought, determination being one of many emotions she felt surging through every fiber of her being.


    Qu''Ren, and Drow also truly worship Althos... but Mianthus wasn''t included in that statement.She thought grimly, seconds after Althos first spoke to her. The thought came as the excitement she felt at her master''s words began to fade, and her mind regained its ability to make calm assessments.


    I must convince Mianthus to join us.She realized, wanting her brother to be one of Althos'' faithful worshipers and servants. The determination she felt to bring him into Althos'' fold was heartfelt and powerful.


    The emotion came from a place deep within her, the same place from which her admiration of Qu''Ren sprung and the pride she felt in being part of a significant noble family. It was the result of potent pride that only came about when one fused the arrogance of nobility with a deep desire to achieve a goal. It was more heartfelt and ran deeper than the childish determination that compelled her to pound the mineral in her cup-like mortar into a fine powder.


    I will convince Mianthus to join us.The dark elf told herself, sure of her ability to do so. Her desire to do so came about as a result of the mixing of the familial love she felt for her brother and the mixture of admiration and infatuation she felt towards Althos.


    It makes sense that we worship Althos. He''s a god after all.She sometimes reasoned, weakly attempting to justify the powerful feelings she felt towards her divine master.


    In actuality, though Althos compelled powerful emotions in all of his followers her feelings towards the deity sprang from the way his magic touched her.


    His mind and his magic had corrupted and mutated her mind, though the mutation was unintentional and unknown even to Althos. His magic had entered her, and then easily corrupted and subverted her will, bending her heart to his whims from the first time he awoke a vestigial trait of hers, her slowly growing telekinetic powers.


    She finally refocused after thinking about her brother and realized it wasn''t befitting Althos'' dignity as a god for him to send her a message and for her not to respond. She spent a few moments composing a message for her master, and then sent it, transmitting the contents of her mind and of her heart to the one she worshipped.


    [Althos, though it brings me endless joy to know that my work is seen and that my labor produces something you value, I do not deserve such words of praise. Your glory, even when not experienced directly, inspires those who aspire to greater heights. All I do is tell them of you and they do the rest themselves.] Milene confessed, her words true, but also perhaps overly dismissive of her role in the process.


    Althos chuckled, the sound transmitted across the mental connection he and the dark elf shared. He sensed how little she thought of herself, and took it upon himself to correct that as a way to reward the work she had done to expose dark elves to him.


    The deity began the conversational work needed to reassure her of her value to him, and to the people who''ve come to him through her.


    His words, which he had learned by analyzing the clever manipulators and leaders like Qu''Ren and Camaxtli whose memories and knowledge he possessed touched her heart, and moved the dark elf, filling her with an increased and more realistic sense of self-worth.


    The conversation the two began in the wake of Milene disparaging herself lasted for hours and would result in the dark elf viewing herself far more confidently. But she was only one of the three creatures Althos reached out to that night.


    <hr>


    In the moments Milene was pounding the mineral in her mortar in the city of Undermoon, the orc Ranthor was examining tools of his own. The orc''s day was coming to an end, and it was like many other days the orc had had since he reunited with the other raiders, including Althos'' first servants.


    <hr>


    A typical day for the orcish evangelist in the forest that his divine master sprung to life in, began with a hunt. He wandered the woods for an hour or so, waiting to stumble across local wildfire. So far he had never failed to find a rabbit or two to snare for the raiders. As their numbers grew, so too did the size of his prey. He considered this a blessing from Althos.


    Upon returning to the camp he went to the carefully watched fire and gave the spoils of the hunt to the orc in charge of butchering the raiders'' food. The orc, a thin and sniveling thing, was a sadist who was an artist with a butcher knife. The creature was one of the first orcs to praise Althos and ingratiated himself with Ranthor quickly.


    After that Ranthor quietly went off and examined his tools and oftentimes the tools of orcs with worse sight than his own. He spent a few hours doing this, tending to the items the orcs used in pursuit of a range of missions across the forest.


    The orc''s day got interesting only after completing this most mundane of rituals. It was after he tended to the items of the raiders that he began his daily sermons. He loudly extolled Althos'' values to any of the orcs passing by, praising the deity, whom he referred to as "The Dark Lord" for his caution in battle, his mighty martial powers, and the magic he expertly wielded in battle.


    He also praised Althos for his ability to empower those who worshiped him, his desire to unify creatures, especially orcs, under his banner, and his kindness in keeping families together. After a few days of this behavior, the orc was joined in this tradition by other orcs who had become the deity''s worshipers.


    They did this for hours, while the other orcs ate and did the duties they performed when the raiders weren''t in a state of warfare. Some of Althos'' newest followers even did this while they fulfilled their own assigned duties, turning their work into religious exercises.


    When the sun began to set, Ranthor would go and perform one more check of his items and the items of anyone else who had entrusted their gear to him for maintenance.


    The last thing he did was eat dinner and shortly afterward go somewhere close to the fire to sleep.


    <hr>


    Not terribly far from the city of Undermoon, in the forest that Althos sprung to life in, Ranthor sat on a patch of grass and expertly examined the tools he used in battle. Behind him, the sun was gradually starting to descend.


    The orc, who worked as both a hunter and an evangelist had carefully laid out an assortment of the tools of his martial trade in front of him and his skilled eyes expertly studied each of the items before him.


    The smallest tools were the ones that were closest to him. Right in front of where he sat were numerous arrowheads and arrows that he had gently placed on soft grass. They were both orcish variants of the ammunition, and arrows he had taken from slain humans which were obviously of lesser quality than the ones that hailed from his people.


    He carefully examined each of these things he had built or collected, taking his time to studiously search the ammunition for any defects that may impede their performance and thus bring down his own ability to cull whoever the group of raiders called their enemies during their next battle.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    Though he was studying arrows and arrowheads, a bit further away from them were a number of knives. These knives were made of different metals, with some being simple cooper tools suitable for little more than inflicting bleeding cuts, and others made of much finer material like silver.


    Even further away from the orc than the knives laid his bow, a fine thing designed for long-range sniping or to be used to rain terror on distant enemies. It was something that had been a gift from the human who taught him archery, and because of that, it was the one thing in his possession that he obsessively maintained.


    The bow was incredibly clean, far cleaner than the orc himself, and the orc''s second set of arms unconsciously inched towards it. The orc snarled and mentally recalled the limbs when he noticed that they were stealthily approaching the bow, fingers twitching in sneaky delight.


    Perhaps the biggest reason for the orc''s success in converting his fellow orcs to the worship of their master was his second set of arms and the strange weapon they often held. The orc''s thick, muscular second set of limbs were often used to hold and fire the soul-weapon, a powerful bow made of Ranthor''s own soul that he could now conjure thanks to a blessing bestowed upon him by Althos.


    The first night that the orc was reunited with his fellow raiders they had been impressed by his secondary set of arms, only to be told that they were a gift bestowed upon him by his master. They questioned him and eventually, Ranthor opted to demonstrate the other gift Althos had bestowed upon him, his soul-weapon, which led to many of the orcs wanting to know more about Althos.


    It took them a handful of nights to decide that Althos was worth worshipping, and when they did they joined his flock. At the time that occurred Althos was adjusting to life in the dark cathedral and was focused on working with Silander to gain eyes and ears in the desert.


    Ranthor''s eyes had just begun to drift towards examining the knives he used to dissect what he hunted when Althos'' voice reverberated throughout his mind.


    [Ranthor, I am pleased to see that you are doing as you told me you would. It brings me great joy to know that our time together has transformed you into such a skilled evangelist.]


    Althos'' mighty voice penetrated the orc''s psyche and sent his emotions awhirl. But the deity wasn''t done.


    [Your efforts to convert orcs is producing results, and I am happy to inform you that one member of your cult has the potential physique and attitude to become a dark-night, a powerful leader and mighty warrior in my service.]


    The deity''s revelation excited Ranthor, who knew that it was his labor that led whichever of the orcs Althos was referring to, to the dark lord in the first place. Ranthor didn''t really understand what a dark-night was, but even Althos didn''t have a meaningful understanding of the term beyond it a powerful warrior devoted to him so it made sense that the orcish follower of the god knew less.


    Althos, while in the middle of the celebration with the jackaloids, created a copy of Ranthor''s memories so that he may familiarize himself with some of the newest creatures to worship him.


    The deity, an experienced expert at memory copying and mind manipulation, nearly instantly absorbed the memories he had gained and unbeknownst to Ranthor grinned as he learned that Ranthor had been preaching the exact faith of unity, strength, mutations and vestigial traits that the group had created shortly before Ranthor reunited with his allies.


    The orc, had built upon the building blocks of the faith the party had created and was beginning to transform it into a unifying faith that centered around orcs and their kin being unified in service to Althos, but the underlying tenants Althos, Gallow, Ranthor, and the others had discussed were clearly present in Ranthor''s mini-cult.


    And that wasn''t the only surprise the deity learned of through Ranthor''s memories. While taming the area near the dark cathedral, Althos had gained a surprising worshiper.


    [I''m further impressed now that I''ve gleaned an understanding of what you''ve begun to build here. You truly are hard at work bringing me orcish servants. Warriors, archers, a new magic-user and even the female orc have come to me because of you... You''ve done well Ranthor.]


    Althos decided to allow his emotion to be communicated over the mental connection the god and the orc shared, and Ranthor''s heart raced as he felt the sincerity of the god''s words. The orc quickly composed a heartfelt message of his own and sent it, mentally, to his master.


    [Master... Thank you for agreeing to let me be reunited with this band, my band. I swear, they shall be just the first of an uncountable amount of such bands to dedicate themselves to serving you and striking your enemies.]


    Althos grinned at this, and the jackaloids who were in his presence thought he was grinning due to a joke told by a jackaloid who was eagerly testing out his comedic material on his fellow canine-shapeshifters. They didn''t find it as funny as they thought their master and divine father did.


    <hr>


    At the moment that Althos made the decision to contact the third member of the aforementioned trio, Althos'' first familiar Silander, was tactilely exploring her new suit of armor. Hours had passed already since he spoke to Milene and Ranthor.


    Silander, a great frog and the very first creature to undergo the process that eventually became known as the dramatically named "Birth Of A New Mind" ritual, ran her padded hands over the handmade suit of armor she and the rogue named Gallow completed a few hours earlier.


    Her tactile exploration of the armor that covered her lithe form led to the young thing''s batrachian hands swiftly brushing up against every nook and cranny of her odd form. At various moments the brush of her fingers against her more sensitive body parts caused a faint blush to emerge across her face but she never let herself be distracted by the womanly feelings that fluttered in her chest when her young fingers accidentally brushed the wrong body part.


    She quickly memorized where the armor was naturally thickest, realizing that her imperfect tailoring had been corrected in part by the skills of the more dexterous orc who had aided her. Because of his corrections, the places where her mistakes might have otherwise been disastrous became places where the mistakes were instead just minor or even merely cosmetic.


    That knowledge gave her the leeway to appreciate how she looked and the chance to appreciate the aesthetic appeal of the neat, asymmetrical armor she donned.


    What the great frog, a creature that was basically a frog the size of a human child, wore could only be described as "all-organic". The armor clung tightly to her skin and was made of equal parts leather and chitin. The armor covered both her upper and lower body, hugging her snuggly and offering the first of Althos'' evangelists a unique sort of physical protection.


    The upper half of the handmade armor was made of thick chitin, chitin which she and Gallow had gathered by dissecting the sacrifices creatures she preached to and made into Althos'' worshipers had offered Althos and left near the edges of the territory that Althos had transformed days ago.


    The lower half of the armor was made of tanned leather, leather which was the same color as the chitin which covered Silander''s small chest. The leather also came from sacrifices offered by creatures who sought to receive the blessings of the creature she served and worshiped.


    While Althos was doing other things, Silander and Gallow quietly brought their heads together and began a collaboration to transform the things left behind by enthusiastic worshipers of Althos into something useable and they had just finished the first item on their list: a working suit of armor.


    Silander tested the usefulness of the suit by first testing its flexibility. The young great-frog practiced moving her clothed limbs to see if the suit reduced her range of motion. She started off slow, gently extending her arms and then her legs in a range of directions. Much to her surprise, the armor didn''t resist her and she didn''t it feel balk at any of her motions.


    She slowly began to speed up, and complicate her movements. She did her best to mimic the complex motions she had seen Althos'' first servants, the orcish brawlers who now resided with Ranthor, do while battling. The suit of armor flowed with her and refused to impede her movements. She smiled as she began to bravely believe that maybe her handcrafted suit of armor might be viable equipment.


    She was in the middle of throwing a few punches and kicks as if practicing a form of dance-like martial arts when Althos'' voice entered her mind, interrupting the moment that served as both her training her skills and testing of her equipment.


    [Hello Silander, I see that you are having fun with the sacrifices.]


    Althos'' tone was light-hearted as his voice first entered Silander''s mind. The deity was, of course, aware of the choice by animals to leave behind sacrifices to him, and he himself hadn''t been sure of what to do with the things, so he didn''t hate that his first familiar decided to convert the skin and chitin of the creatures felled by Althos'' animalistic worshipers into something useful.


    The young creature responded to her master, slightly afraid but knowing that it was likely that the deity''s reaction to her actions matched his tone: mirthful. [Hello master, we''ve eaten the meat of the sacrifices, but their fur and their chitin... we didn''t want it to go to waste. So we decided to make armor out of it. If that displeases you, please level your frustration and displeasure at me and me alone.]


    The great-frog was honest to a fault, not one who was particularly adept at the range of skills needed to be an adept deceiver. Althos laughed, the sound picked up by Silander because the deity willed it so, and then began to speak. His voice was light and kind, swiftly reassuring her that she wasn''t in trouble.


    [I appreciate how forthright you are Silander. I am not displeased. I am... mildly concerned that something that was a sacrifice for me was something you decided to use without consulting me at all, but I suspected such an event may come to pass. So long as you actually use the armor you''ve made and so long as you tell me if you desire to use sacrifices made to me in such a way again, I shall overlook this... oddity.]


    She nodded in response to his words, transmitting the emotions that came with such a gesture to her master. He smiled, allowing her to feel the warmth of the action, and thereby reassure her that he would stay true to his word. Then he began to speak again, his voice maintaining its warmth.


    [I wanted to come here and praise you. The creatures you''ve transformed into my worshipers are spreading across the desert and revealing all manner of sandy secrets to me. Without you such discoveries would remain, at least for the moment, beyond my reach. I value the work you''ve done and am happy that you''ve convinced so many different creatures to come to me.]


    His words were powerful, sincere, and made Silander feel both joy at her service, and surprising pride in her work. She hadn''t just brought creatures to Althos, her work revealed secrets to him, knowledge which he valued above all else, and even brought the rest of them food and other valuable supplies.


    But Althos wasn''t finished yet. The deity was about to reveal something to her. A task for her, one that required the sort of touch only she could provide.


    [I am approaching you with a new, minor mission, because you are the only person currently at the cathedral that can accomplish it. Can I trust you?] Althos asked, his voice peering into her mind. He was delighted to find no self-doubt and instead a sensation of curiosity mixed with self-assurance.


    [Yes you can master.] She told him, eager to see his will fulfilled.


    <hr>


    Althos, while in the encampment watched the jackaloids with abject curiosity and a surprising amount of joy. He watched as the things engaged in their own odd form of comedy. He watched as they chatted to each other and to him. He watched as they shared fables, myths, and even their own original stories inspired by the fables they told their young and their own lived experiences.


    He spent hours in their company and enjoyed every minute of it. It''s true that his mind was partially elsewhere, conversing with his three evangelists, but he was still present in the moment. He engaged the jackaloids, conversing with them and even evoking awe by demonstrating a few of his own powers.


    He had also conversed with his advisors and asked them about classes and monks. In doing so he learned of things like monasteries, places where monks train and hone their skills while also honing the philosophies that drive them forth into the world, and the settlements that sometimes sprung up around them. And in learning about monasteries a fire was lit in his strange heart.


    This fire, among other things, inspired the scheme he was about to put into action. He composed another message to Silander, trusting her to be one of the faithful executors of this particular plot.


    [Silander, I have acquired new worshipers.] He told the great-frog, before summarizing what had happened with the jackaloids. Her reaction was to laugh, particularly at his dogma, and then she muttered sincere praise which exalted his talent at deception and magic.


    And then the deity revealed the actual plot that he was eager to implement. [I am planning to send the jackaloids to you all. If I do so, your task will be to aid them to integrate into the area and then create a monastery. Between the cathedral and a monastery, especially when one realizes that plants can grow in the area near the cathedral, civilized creatures can actually live in the area. Soon it could start to create a town.]


    There it was. The deity was inspired not by monasteries by themselves, but by something else. Towns. Civilization. Althos was scheming to create a settlement. A settlement to rival the city of Bastille.


    Silander couldn''t see them, but Althos'' eyes were aglow with devious delight as he thought more and more about the scheme. Silander, ever-eager to see the will of her awakener come to fruition, eagerly agreed to do her best to ensure this scheme comes to pass. And Althos communicated the plan to the jackaloids, who were still in a jubilant mood.


    "Children! It is time that I reveal more about my plan to protect you from the predations of the scoundrel Paimon." Althos said, allowing feigned rage to infuse his voice as he spoke in the canine language of the shape-shifters who thought themselves blessed and protected by Althos, a deity of knowledge and deception, a trickster god.


    "It is time that I give you a real home. And I know just the place." Althos said, a wide grin etching itself easily and eerily on his handsome face.

 Chapter 66:

    Deep in the desert, a young true-devil watched as a roving pack of canine-like monsters neared the edge of his impressive sightline. He was joined by three monstrous companions, one of which was a powerful dire-scorpion who was sleeping behind the devil and his other companions.


    The other companions were two of the canine-like beasts who themselves had originated from the pack that the group watched gradually disappear in the distance, in their jackal forms.


    The creatures who silently watched the canine-like monsters vanish stood or sat where the pack had just been, and as such they could still smell the scents of cooked girtablilu, and the scents that clung to the skin of humans, and canine-fur. They could still see the tracks of the recently departed pack of monsters who were now kilometers away due to a surprising lack of wind where the encampment had once stood.


    The pack was obeying their master, the true-devil who had quietly watched their departure and were heading in the direction of the cathedral that Althos and his companions controlled. Althos grinned to himself as he saw the last of them vanish, and then he turned to examine the newest members of his desert-dwelling party.


    The two canines who had stuck with him and his odd dire-scorpion familiar were the members of their pack who had most ardently refused to leave his side. He had gently tried to persuade them to stick with their families, but he eventually relented to their stubborn wills and very different reasons and allowed the things to stay with him.


    The jackaloids were unusual in their pack in that they were in the minority of creatures in the group who preferred their jackal-forms as opposed to their hybrid or human forms. The two things clung closely to their master, in a way not unlike the dire scorpion who also served Althos and at the moment they were patiently sleeping behind their shared god.


    One of the two jackals had golden-colored fur and groomed himself to the point that his fur was well-maintained and clean even in the desert. His companion was more feral and lackadaisical about her appearance, and her fur was a rust-like shade of red. Grains of sand freely flowed from her fur when she moved and covered her paws with each movement she took.


    Althos''s hands reached out and stroked the heads of the two creatures, gently petting them. Both of them grinned, their canine-like faces not quite giving off the same air as humanoids when they grinned, even though both of the creatures were delighted to feel the hands of their master stroke their facial fur.


    This took place for a few moments before Althos quietly spoke in the language of the canines. "Come children. The desert is calling our names." He said, his mind filling with thoughts about the quest that he had set out into the desert nearly a day ago to complete.


    The creatures, responding to their master, arose and waited for him to lead the way. Behind him, the dire-scorpion Althos had turned into his familiar hours ago, rose from its slumber and took a moment to ready itself for travel deeper into the desert.


    And then the party quietly departed, venturing into the unknown and possibly uncharted desert wastes, in the opposite direction of the pack Althos had tamed and turned into his newest minions.


    <hr>


    While wandering the empty wastes, Althos'' mind turned to the quest he was hoping to make some progress into soon. The first things that crossed his mind were thoughts of confusion.


    I should have made some progress towards the quest, yet I didn''t any notifications indicating that I made progress. Althos thought, his mind exploring the quest-menu and double-checking it to verify his statement.


    When he had double-checked that no progress was made, he felt annoyed and sighed in irritation. If his followers noticed this, they were silent about it.


    Why didn''t I make any progress? Althos wondered. He decided to reread the quest details while he led his companions deeper and deeper into the unknown expanses of the desert.


    [Quest: The Trial of Usurpation


    Objectives: Throughout the desert, there exist communities of various types of creatures. Find three of those communities, and approach three ambitious individuals within them. Convince those creatures to part with their souls, in exchange for your aid in enabling them to seize control of their communities through "honorable", formal means.


    Reward: The ability to promote imps into other sorts of lesser devils.


    Progress: 0/3 ambitious individuals identified


    0/3 ambitious souls acquired


    0/3 communities usurped.


    Note: "Honorable" means include public duels, votes, and other legitimate, recognized means of gaining power.]


    He examined the text carefully, searching for what may have caused Camaxtli to not count. It took him a second to arrive at the two caveats that he suspected may have caused Camaxtli to be disqualified, as it were, from the quest.


    Camaxtli didn''t want to lead the jackaloids. He recalled with a start, realizing that his servant wanted in his own words for his body to be restored to its prime and to be treated with respect by other members of the pack, but the elder very specifically stated that leading the jackaloids wasn''t his desire. But that was the first thing that in essence disqualified Camaxtli, not the only thing.


    Shortly after that Althos realized the second reason Camaxtli and the jackaloids didn''t count towards the quest. It was a word he hadn''t noticed when he first received the quest. "Formal". I elevated Camaxtli, and the jackaloids accepted it but it wasn''t as if the jackaloids themselves chose Camaxtli as their leader, through a public vote or any other way of choosing a leader. Damn it. I guess autocratic things like that don''t qualify huh? The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    These realizations annoyed Althos, but the devil-deity quickly realized that it made sense for a quest given by a dimension dominated by creatures of law, deals, contracts, and darkness to be particular and strict in the wording of the quest it gives to the creature who seeks to enact change within it. I''m gonna have to follow these quests to the letter, aren''t I? The deity, rhetorically, asked himself.


    After coming to those realizations Althos focused on the journey he was undertaking with his companions.


    <hr>


    Minutes after introspectively reflecting on the specific demands of the quest, Althos looked at his companions and turned his senses on them, to pick up what information he subconsciously filtered out. He was mentally aware of their conditions, like their health and stamina, at all times but he hadn''t yet visually studied them while in motion.


    The jackaloids in their jackal forms were at his sides, keeping pace with him. They trotted with confidence, self-assured and conscious not only of their location, but also the terrain around them. They seemed to plan each of the steps they took, their eyes glimmering with wicked and predatory intelligence.


    They were eerily silent, unlike any canines that Althos knew of either through first-hand means like the wolves he had encountered in the forest of his birth or through second-hand means like by the knowledge and memories he had taken or been given by a range of creatures. They didn''t bark and their paws made no sound as they crossed the desert.


    The creatures also didn''t seem to sweat, but Althos figured that was because the party wasn''t dashing through the desert. Instead, they proceeded at a leisurely pace, but they also weren''t stopping or slowing down. They were perpetually beside Althos as if guarding him against an unseen threat.


    Desert-dwelling predators, especially nomadic ones, can definitely handle this much at least. The deity thought, rightfully figuring that at their current pace the creatures would be fine.


    The eyes of the jackaloids were constantly in motion and one of the few sounds the creatures did make was an occasional sniffing sound. Althos had far more sensitive senses than they did, but the creatures were still actively scanning their surroundings with their eyes and sniffing the air.


    The beasts faces constantly darted back and forth, as if they suspected something was always nearby, just out of the reach of their senses. Althos knew that if nothing else, there wasn''t anything with a soul nearby but he didn''t want the creatures to rely on him so he let them perpetually scan their surroundings.


    His dire-scorpion familiar followed closely behind the trio of creatures. Its multiple legs skittered across the desert, carrying it so easily it was like it was gliding.


    The leisurely pace of the party suited the thing, as its body was far heavier than the bodies of the jackaloids, so it took more energy for it to keep up with the party. That said, a pace this leisurely was no problem for the thing even if they walked for hours.


    The heavily armored arachnid''s carapace blocked out much of the desert heat and kept its organs cool and safe from the warmth of the desert. To it, the party was going on a casual stroll through the desert it called home. And to it, the fact that it was doing such a thing while accompanied by jackaloids was incredible.


    <hr>


    So this is what it means to serve a god huh... The dire-scorpion thought, absorbing the fact that it was now in an informal pack with jackaloids and a creature who served a god.


    As its many legs found purchase on thick blankets of sand its mind was constantly in motion. It considered the absurdity of its current life, a life where its master took it on adventures and together they, and whoever else joined the deity, went on hunts. A life where they battled powerful monsters like the girtablilu regularly.


    I look forward to it. The scorpion thought after a few moments of consideration, happiness and a desire for adventure, for battle, and for even more delicious food like girtablilu meat, clouding its judgment and leaving an impression on its heart.


    <hr>


    The jackaloids were lost in thought as they trotted across the desert. One of them, the golden-furred male had very distinct, selfish reasons for accompanying his master.


    If I''m with father then surely no dastardly devil can steal my memories! The creature rather selfishly thought, when asked why it wanted to accompany the devil-god. Althos'' deception and the power of the memories he instilled in them while tricking them had evoked different reactions in each of the jackaloids.


    Some of them, like the golden-furred creature who stood beside his master, had been terrified of the creature Althos filled their minds with images and memories of.


    The golden-furred jackaloid was no brave warrior. He was a yellow-bellied coward. Althos knew this of course, and the god was aware that it was this fear that drove the thing to refuse to leave his side. Althos didn''t mind this though, because it meant that the thing would forever worship him. He hadn''t really tried to dissuade the thing from accompanying him, though he had acted like he had.


    On the other hand, the savage jackaloid who was on the other side of Althos had a wholly different reaction to the thought of Paimon and his schemes, real or fabricated.


    Master''s enemy is the enemy of all jackaloids. As a warrior, it is up to me to stand by master as he faces down his foes. Paimon is the greatest of those foes. To retreat to safety and join others who worship master, is to abandon my duty to aid him and to flee from chances to face down real foes. The red-furred jackaloid was a warrior through and through.


    In her eyes, Althos wasn''t merely a father of sorts to the jackaloids, but a master. Her response to the false memories transformed her mind and made it akin to a domesticated dog who had always served her master loyally and faithfully.


    Because of my duty, and the duty of others like me, master found us worthy. Worthy enough that even after we failed to defend ourselves from Paimon he came back to us instead of abandoning us. She reasoned. I will not abandon him. Even if it is just he and I, the master will never face enemies alone, be they singular individuals or whole armies. She swore. She had no way of knowing that her words, her thoughts, were known to the one she referred too as "master".


    In her eyes, it made perfect sense for her to seek to serve Althos by staying at his side and serving as a bipedal warrior, a hunting hound, or anything else her master may need. After all, in her mind, it was clearly because of the service of warriors like herself and her fellow warriors that Althos came back at all and brought the whole tribe back to him.


    Althos learned how his false memories created this distorted view of reality only after the rest of the red-furred jackal''s pack began to ready themselves to head to the dark cathedral, only for her to swear to stay by his side. At that moment, after quickly making a copy of her newest thoughts, the god momentarily considered re-editing her memories, but despite his own protests and weak attempts to convince her to join her companions, he didn''t dislike her warped loyalty.


    And sowhat it took for the female jackaloid to cement her place at her master''s side was a commitment to an oath she swore to herself, for the few minutes her master tested her. And somewhere in her warped mind, she was aware that her master was testing her. Even then she sensed that he wasn''t being heartfelt in his efforts to keep her with the pack. Which had made it easier for her to resist her master''s pleas.


    The party ventured deeper into the purple-tinged desert.

 Chapter 67:

    After a few hours of marching through its bleak wastes, the devilish desert Althos and his party were within seemed to stretch on to infinity. The party of creatures who wandered through it quickly came to find an endless hike through vast flatlands and the occasional dreary climb over a sand-dune incredibly monotonous.


    Althos was the only person in the party with a reprieve from this boredom. While he was physically enduring the same uninteresting walk as his companions, he was able to mentally access the three menus the deity had yet to touch. Althos looked through his Heads Up Display, or HUD, and readied himself to tap the first of the icons he had yet to activate.


    The tiny image that was supposed to represent this menu in the deity''s mind wasn''t an image at all. Instead, it was multiple images that were displayed in rapid succession and showed a creature spontaneously growing bigger and stronger. This menu was the mysterious "mutations" menu.


    Althos mentally tapped it, the activity not involving him actually making any physical motions, Althos saw a message spring to life in front of him and greet him.


    [Hello! Welcome to the "mutations menu". Before proceeding any further we must perform a quick scan of you to see which mutations are at your disposal. Scan commencing.]


    Althos willed away the notification and then patiently waited while the menu "scanned" him. This wasn''t the first time such a thing had occurred and he even did it to other people, whenever he identified vestigial traits in his followers or other creatures he heard the system say it was "scanning" them so he had some idea, via context, of what that word meant, even though he didn''t actually particularly understand it.


    That said, his understanding wasn''t necessary for the system to do its thing and in seconds he received another notification.


    [According to a preliminary scan you are the young god known as "Althos". This is the "mutations menu". The next few notifications are all pre-programmed, and their purpose is to inform you about the nature of mutations.]


    Althos didn''t have time to assess that notification intellectually, because the instant he willed it away he received another notification.


    [This menu is one of many menus accessible to gods who interact more regularly with mortals and allows gods to rapidly transform mortals in massive ways. Mutations are biological changes that can wildly change creatures, as well as be passed down to the children of mutants.]


    Althos read this, willed the notification away and assessed his temporary surprise at what he read, before almost immediately recalling that the majority of it was explained to him weeks ago when he first gained access to the menu.


    The main bit of new information that he received just then was that mutations could be passed down to children of mutants, which was intriguing to the young god, who due to his habit of stealing or otherwise acquiring memories had memories far beyond his mere weeks of life, including a fair number of memories of sex. However, the deity had yet to acquire any memories of pregnancy, childbirth, or parenthood.


    Then he received another new notification as if the menu itself was having a conversation with him.


    [At first, the number of stable mutations that are accessible to you and the sorts of mutations you can cause to your followers will be dependent on a number of factors. Some of those factors will include your knowledge of the anatomy of the creatures you seek to mutate, the number of their species that worship you, and the domains you have under your control when executing the mutations.]


    This was new information to Althos, who ready over the notification quickly and eagerly. The part of him that hungered for knowledge analyzed every component of this with gusto and grinned even as he began to climb yet another sand-dune. He had read and reread the notification before willing it away, eager to learn more.


    [To illustrate this, here''s an example that uses a mutation that is already at your disposal. You can mutate dark elves into something considerably monstrous: a variant of a drider that instead of fusing a dark-elf and a gigantic spider, is actually a fusion of a dire-scorpion and a dark elf. You unlocked this variant by having more than one dire-scorpion worshiper, having several dark-elf worshipers, and by having stolen or copied the memories of multiple dark-elves which let you understand their anatomy.]


    Althos was surprised to learn that he already had access to mutations, and was doubly surprised to learn that one mutation he could use this early on had such power. The young god was keenly aware that this meant that if he willed it, he could transform one of his dark-elven worshipers into a powerful arachnid, thereby demonstrating his incredible power.


    That is... a lot of power. He thought to himself, quietly. He tried to mentally picture such a transformation, and in doing so he visualized one of the many dark-elves he had encountered in the city of Undermoon undergoing a transformation in the vein of Silander''s awakening or Camaxtli''s rejuvenation. However, instead of becoming younger or more humanlike, the targeted dark-elf became an imposing fusion of dark-elf and gigantic dire-scorpion. An even darker girtablilu.


    When he willed away that notification, he was immediately met by a new one.


    [Mutations are powerful and can outright create new species if misused or depending on the intent used expertly. More than one seemingly odd species has been created by a deity''s mischevious usage of the mutations menu.]


    Althos wondered if the system could provide an example of a true species who owes its existence to a deity''s usage of the mutation menu. The system, ever eager, seemed to have a prewritten answer to that predictable question, as the second Althos received the next notification in the lengthy chain of notifications needed to be deemed ready to make mutants, he received an alert which answered his question.


    [An example of this that you appear to have some knowledge of is the centaur species, which owes its existence, not to the loving, deeply sexual escapades of some god as centaurs themselves tell those who listen to their myths, but rather a byproduct of the dark temper and once-legendary stubbornness of a long-forgotten goddess of nature.]


    At first, while reading that notification Althos wondered how it was that he knew about centaurs. It took him a split second to remember that the goblin Amelie, the very first creature whose memories he ever made a copy of, knew of them.


    The mutations menu wasn''t done but was apparently trying to keep the notifications from being incredibly long blocks of text. Althos willed away the newest and it was immediately followed up by a continuation of the story.


    [The goddess, tired of being enraged by an arrogant mortal cursed the target of her hatred and transformed him, a lone human, into a handsome and savage hybrid of equine lust and human dexterity. The man himself didn''t hate what the goddess herself viewed as a curse and punishment, and so he embraced his newfound speed, and virility and went on and mated with human women.]


    Althos read through this notification, and sensed that this unusually long story was beginning to near its end. He was right, as he found out when willed away this notification and it was replaced with another.


    [The goddess, satisfied with what she stubbornly viewed as a punishment, inflicted it on other mortals who displeased her, and eventually, the creatures met each other and began to breed true, becoming not merely solitary mutants, but a true, independent species. Centaurs outlived their creator, and now cannot even remember their true, dark origins.]


    Althos, now armed with knowledge about the considerable strength of the mutations menu, wondered about its weaknesses. The next notification he received began to alert him to them.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    [The limitations to mutations aren''t just that it takes effort to learn the sort of "blueprints" that already exist and are stored in mutations menu, but in the beginning who can even be targeted by mutations.]


    Another short notification. Althos noted, grimly. He willed it away and waited the split second it took for another notification to appear.


    [When a deity first gains access to the mutations menu they cannot target any creature anywhere with any mutations they have access to. Deities who lack experience with mutations need permission from those they seek to mutate, at least for permanent or possibly permanent ones.]


    This surprised and disappointed Althos, but he was pleased that the menu specified that it was just for "Deities who lack experience with mutations" which meant, to the god anyway, that this limitation was eventually done away with.


    The deity wasn''t ignorant to what this suggested about the story he had just read through. So that goddess wasn''t a newcomer to mutations, somehow lied to the person she mutated, the mutation might have been temporary originally, or perhaps the rules are different when making a mutation truly from scratch. The deity thought, his mind busy as he considered which of those he liked best.


    It wasn''t the menu that alerted him to the truth of the matter. It was actually Samyaza, his orb-angel advisor, who told the deity the true nature of the ruleset that governed the mutation that created Centaurs. Before Althos willed away the notification the sound of his thoughts were interrupted by the unusually solemn voice of his orb-angel advisor.


    [The goddess who basically accidentally created centaurs, and in doing so made the aforementioned "blueprint" that is now the main basis of all mammal-human hybrid mutations did it by scratch. My master did something very similar when he created a probably now extinct species of human-snake hybrids.]


    Samyaza stopped for a second, its mental breath hitching as if it were remembering something deep and painful. Then, seconds later as if nothing happened, the angel continued.


    [When you create mutations by scratch instead of using a template the rules are different... Less restrictive. The goddess was enraged at the time, and she viewed the creation of something that in her eyes was so ugly as a devastating blow to humanity.]


    Samyaza explained, its tone serious. And then it added even more detail to what it was saying, details that contradicted the apparent viewpoint of the long-gone goddess.


    [Humans... well many of them didn''t agree. You see centaurs don''t just mate with centaurs. Humans often couple with the creatures and according to the centaurs themselves humans view the equine half of centaurs as majestic and are attracted to their beautiful faces and bountiful chests in the cases of females centaurs, or their skill in battle and their... prodigious manhoods in the cases of male centaurs.]


    When the angel was finished explaining, Althos laughed. He quickly sent a message to his angelic advisor.


    [Wait... are you telling me that the centaurs say that their survival is owed in part to their large dicks?] Althos questioned, amused but only understanding why that would be humorous because of the immature humor of the jackaloids, creatures whose memories swam through his mind, accompanied by memories from animals, orcs, and dark elves.


    Samyaza laughed as well, surprising Althos, and then responded to the deity. [Yes. And hey, I''m not the one who came up with that nonsense, they are. If you have issues with it, take it up with them!] The angel said, and the two shared a quick peal of laughter before Althos refocused on the mutations menu.


    He willed away the notification and was surprised to see what came next.


    [Now that you''ve been informed as to the consequences of the mutation menu, know of a mutation you can use, and know about the weaknesses of mutations, you are now ready to use the menu. Congratulations! Have fun mutating things, and remember that at first, you''re gonna need permission to mutate things. As soon as you will away this window, you''ll be shown what mutations you currently have at your disposal.]


    That notification brought a smile to the god''s face. He quickly willed the notification away and was delighted to see that it was telling the truth. The window that replaced the departed notification was a series of textboxes that contained a list of mutations and the creatures they could be inflicted on.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>Type:</td>


    <td>Description:</td>


    <td>Who Can Be Mutated This Way:</td>


    <td>Method of Learning This Mutation:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>Drider-Variant</td>


    <td>


    These fierce monsters resemble girtablilus in appearance, but in temperament, they differ wildly from the odd scorpion-men hybrids.


    These creatures have the lower-bodies of massive scorpions and the upper-bodies of unusually muscular dark-elves of either gender.


    These creatures shed the usual pride of dark-elves and the irate temperament of dire-scorpions in the presence of those who mutated them, particularly if their mutator was a god, whom they view as having blessed them by modifying them so dramatically no matter what they were before they became mutated.


    </td>


    <td>At first, only dark elves can be mutated so wildly, owing their biological flexibility to their elven genes, but in time experienced mutators learn how to transform dire scorpions into Drider-Variants.</td>


    <td>Gaining the worship of both dire-scorpions and dark-elves is necessary to learn how to create these unusual cousins of pure-driders. As is gaining considerable knowledge of dark-elf anatomy.</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>Jackal-Kin</td>


    <td>


    Not many gods recognize or respect the power of jackals, but the gods who gain the fealty of an entire community of jackaloids gain the power to infuse their other servitors with the power to shape-shift into jackals.


    Creatures who are mutated into jackal-kin become jackaloid-like creatures with humanoid forms other than those of humans. The attitudes these creatures exhibit run the gamut, and not all of them are grateful for the power to shape-shift.


    </td>


    <td>


    Any non-human humanoid can be mutated and become a jackal-kin.


    Masterful mutators, especially those with extensive influence over certain domains like the plant domain might be able to transform sentient creatures of their domains into jackal-kin, but if they do it''d be a first.


    </td>


    <td>Gaining the worship and service of an entire community of jackaloids grants the god who converts the desert-predators into their servants this fairly specific type of shape-shifting mutation.</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>Fungal-Folk</td>


    <td>


    Fungal-folk only emerge naturally as the result of an extensive chain of evolution, usually from far more basic-types of fungi. Though no deity of fungi has never existed until now, this mutation has always existed to aid such a creature if one ever emerged.


    A deity of fungi gains the power to mutate dying, willing, creatures into fungal folk spontaneously. Fungal-folks make the perfect servitor species to any non-discriminate god of nature, but until now have been largely ignored by the cruel and usually mildly superficial gods of nature.


    Fungal-folks are high-tiered evolutions of assorted types of fungi that come in two variants. One variant is a peaceful type of creature who seeks to live in places where they can create fungal gardens.


    The other variant is an aggressive type of fungus monster that seeks to conquer land, and forcibly resurrect other deceased creatures as fungal-folk, or use their bodies as fungal gardens.


    </td>


    <td>Any willing, dying creature who consents to live-on in the form of a fungal-folk can be mutated into these odd, fungal freaks. This limitation can be overcome by gaining experience with this specific mutation, and eventually, the mutation transforms even hated enemies into fungal creatures.</td>


    <td>Be a god of fungi, and be worshiped by at fungi from two separate tiers of fungal-kind. Examples of creatures in two, separate tiers of fungal-kind include typical sedentary mushrooms and fungal lurkers.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    After exploring the menu for several minutes, taking the time to both analyze and memorize the mutations already at his disposal, and with a wide grin at the power he was now conscious of, Althos finally clicked away from the menu.


    Althos was treated to the view of another, larger menu containing far less significant mutations, and even temporary ones, but it was easy for him to will that menu away. He did memorize its contents, but it took the young god just a matter of moments to do so. And with that, he was finished exploring this menu. He hoped to have cause to use it soon, given its incredible power.


    But it wasn''t the only menu that the god wanted to explore. He still had two more menus to go through.


    Before he''d get a chance to do that though, he and his party finally got close enough to another lifeform for the god to detect something other than them with his extensive senses. And he sensed the mysterious entity, not only long before his party members also became vaguely aware of it, using their sense of hearing.


    Althos sensed a large and powerful creature, something he had never really heard of called a "Desert Titan" according to his radar, off in the distance, and seconds later the god sensed the thing beginning to stumble. And then it fell.


    Althos'' party became aware of the thing through its fall. Because when the thing collided with the ground, the thud was heard even across the vast distance that separated the giant from the party. Althos and his worshipers felt the ground at their feet vibrate, even though they were standing on top of sand and not actual solid ground.


    In the distance, they could see a sand-dune. Before their very eyes, some of the sand on the dune was blown back and off of it, by the force of the giant''s collision with the ground. All of them stopped and looked at each other, unsure of how large or heavy something must have been to cause such a powerful physical reaction with just a fall.


    Seconds later, without even exchanging a word, each member of the party began to run. In the direction of the mysterious occurrences. The direction that Althos knew contained a desert titan. Althos, being the quickest of the party sped ahead of them and grinned when he was out of their sight.


    Finally. More creatures. More worshipers, and a chance to make some progress in this blasted quest. The god selfishly thought, excitement glinting in his eyes.

 Chapter 68:

    The party sped towards the fallen titan at different paces. Althos was, of course, the fastest. Being a god meant having endless physical stamina, coupled with infinite magical power so Althos sped on, caring just enough to remain visible to his companions.


    The jackaloids were not far behind him. The carnivores, used to a tough life of hunting in the barren desert, had the stamina to dash for hours which was backed by their significant speed. The quadrupeds maintained a pace that kept them just a few minutes behind Althos.


    The scorpion lagged behind, but even it wasn''t tremendously far from the party. Althos didn''t just speed off out of sight of the thing, he carefully monitored his pace to ensure that it remained able to see him and follow him and the wolves. Plus the thing wasn''t slow, its multiple legs carried it speedily over the desert, it just wasn''t as fast as Althos or the canines.


    <hr>


    While approaching the place where Althos'' radar informed him that the titan had fallen, each of the members of the party began to hear a distinct noise off in the distance. The sound was very loud, and flew outward in every direction around the fallen titan, carried by the desert wind.


    It was the sound of a creature in incredible pain. The noise was little more than the noise made by someone in agony, unintelligibly communicating that they were in mind-scrambling pain.


    After perhaps 10 minutes, the loud moans suddenly stopped. The desert fell eerily silent with the sudden ceasing of the previously audible cries of pain. The sudden end of the noise made Althos speed up, more curious than ever to reach the creature.


    At that moment, shortly before Althos reached the top of the sand dune he was climbing, he looked back and saw that he was alone. His jackaloid-companions were visible, but behind him, climbing the dune, and the scorpion was further back but also within view. The god had monitored them to ensure no one got truly separated, but he was still a bit disappointed to see the scorpion so far back. The thing hadn''t even reached the bottom of the sand-dune yet.


    Next time I''m just gonna carry... I still haven''t named my newest familiar.Althos realized that he still hadn''t given his newest familiar a name with a start. He felt both annoyed with that development, as well as a bit of shame.


    I''ll just begin to consider what sort of name befits the scorpion, while we examine this... thing.Althos thought to himself while approaching the top of the dune.


    <hr>


    Minutes later he reached the top of the dune. And was greeted by a heck of a sight to behold, far below him.


    Althos could see the creature''s dying form from the top of a sand dune. His followers couldn''t and even when they reached the top of the dune he doubted they''d be able too. Because this particular sand-dune was evidently much taller than any of the tones Althos had seen to date.


    From one side, the side Althos and later his followers would climb it from, the windward side, it didn''t seem all that tall, however, once anyone in the party climbed to the top of the geographical feature they learned that that impression was wrong. At least on the other side.


    At the top of the other side of the sand-dune, the leeward side, Althos could look down and see that the bottom of this side of the dune was several dozen meters deep. It was so far away from them, that only Althos'' vision would actually be able to see the bottom of it.


    <hr>


    Before his followers arrived, Althos stood at the top of the dune, and he could see it. The gigantic creature his radar identified as a desert titan.


    At the bottom of the dune laid the form of a creature so large Althos had never seen anything comparable to it, not even the monstrous physical body of the undying titan was comparable. A grievously wounded, gigantic thing wearing equally gigantic clothes. Bloodstained clothes that only barely prevented its blood from soaking the sands on which it laid.


    The creature wore a thick outfit composed of light and breezy material but due to its sheer size and scale alone, it must have still been thicker than many suits of armor worn by smaller creatures. It was covered in an outfit that stretched from head to toe, and in fact, the only feature the deity could make out distinctly was the thing''s eyes.


    It was unconscious, though Althos had yet to fully realize that, because its unconsciousness didn''t prevent its eyes from being wide open and staring vacantly at the desert sky.


    The creature''s eyes alone were larger than Raverangos. They were positively gigantic green orbs that aimed an unsettling combination of deep-seated aggression and pain vacantly at the sky as if it were the clouds themselves that were responsible for the titan''s current condition.


    While gazing at it and studying the odd thing''s anatomy as best as he could while its body was covered by massive clothes, Althos realized that the thing had recently lost consciousness.


    The creature wore a thawb, something Althos would soon learn had a name, but at a glance, the deity had no possible way of ascertaining that knowledge. The creature''s thawb was an ankle-length, white garment that covered nearly its entire body, aside from its head.


    On top of its body, Althos could sense strange creatures. They didn''t register on his radar, but he could detect their presence. He wasn''t sure of why. When he tried to focus his vision on them, they seemed to fade out of view and become indistinct, but he managed to gain a thin awareness that they existed.


    After a few attempts at making out any sort of precise identification, the god gave up with a huff.I''ll figure it out when I get closer. When we get over this thing.He thought, annoyed that they escaped identification, for now.


    On the thing''s head, it wore a light blue headscarf tied around its face as if to hide its mouth and nose from the elements. Only a thin space, relatively speaking, from which its eyes could be seen were exposed to the elements.


    The creature''s limb number and placement was a mirror image of the anatomy of an orc, a dark-elf, or a human, but obviously on a much larger scale. It had two arms, two legs, a head, neck, torso, groin, and legs. When looked at in the loosest of framings, Althos felt like he was looking at a human or an orc, but he himself was an ant. The titan gave off that sort of air, even from dozens of meters away and while unconscious.


    Its hands were empty, but they were closed as if it had once been gripping something. Perhaps a sword of some comical scale, or the grip an equally large and even thicker shield.


    <hr>


    The deity instinctually felt that this, a moment of solitude while he was alone, standing over the dying form of a creature he had never seen before was a perfect opportunity for him to do what he did best. Instead of rushing to heal the thing, he prepared to dive into its mind. But as he did so, he felt a pang of something like guilt gnaw at his conscience.


    He tried to justify this not particularly unkind decision. It''s dying anyway.He reasoned to himself. After thinking about it for a second longer he slightly revised his decision.For now, I''ll enter its mind and take what''s in it.


    If I learn that this thing might be tied to the quest, or might otherwise be useful, I''ll take its soul and heal the soul for later usage. I should prioritize the quest. Minimize distractions.He reasoned while deciding to create conditions under which the titan could gain a reprieve.I honestly don''t even know if my magic could heal something of this scale.He thought.


    He was grateful then to hear someone assuage his conscience. M.A.''s voice entered his consciousness just to make him feel less guilty for prioritizing the pursuit of knowledge instead of rushing to heal the thing.


    [Hello Althos, your doubts are right. The gods whose chosen children eventually became the first giants were a selfish bunch and decided to ensure that no gods would be able to steal the love and faith of their children. They did this, by inflicting giants with a special curse that made it so that only specifically designed healing spells, spells beyond your abilities right now, could heal them.] M.A. informed him.


    Althos was sincerely shocked to hear of such intense selfishness.Wow, that''s... a lot.Althos thought to himself, honestly shocked to hear a god do something so defensive to its own worshipers. In his mind, it was one thing to punish someone you hated, like the nature goddess he had learned about earlier did and another thing altogether to so viciously ensure other gods struggle to convert your own worshipers, by hurting your worshipers.


    But M.A. wasn''t done yet. She quickly sent him another message.


    [This curse caused giants to reject even the kindest of adherents of non-giant gods. If you either gain knowledge of these spells, gain a healthy amount of influence over the healing domain, or gain influence over the giant domain, then you''ll be able to heal giants. Until then... this is beyond your abilities. Odds are your instincts recognized this.]This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    Reassured by his assistant''s words, the deity nodded and refocused. He mentally readied himself and then cast the spell needed to enter the mind of the dying titan.


    Like a practiced professional, the deity speedily dove into the thing''s mind, a process he now did rather casually and stole the thing''s thoughts, secrets, memories, and knowledge right out of it.In the seconds Althos was within the titan''s mind, he learned its name, the location of its home, and that it was assassinated. Or rather that it was being assassinated, since the thing was still alive, but not for much longer.


    He didn''t even bother trying to preserve its mind and instead opted for efficiency.This is probably an act of mercy. After all, now the thing won''t feel any more pain.He reasoned, this time more confident that his actions weren''t the cruelest possible actions since he was now wiser than he had been before and knew about the thing''s circumstances.


    But this time the theft didn''t finish as smoothly as Althos'' other thefts had. Seconds after he left and returned to his own mind he felt pain as he faced an unexpected and forceful response.


    His mind was suddenly and violently rocked by the instantaneous infusion of the accrued knowledge, secrets, and memories, from a lifetime of over two thousand years of memories, and not like the weak memories of the undying titan, but full, courageous memories. Althos felt physical pain centered in his skull, and gritted his teeth in response to it.


    He did his best to endure the pain and tried to calmly assess the memories that sprung to his mind first. A few moments passed and because of the pain he had to endure while assessing the memories his assessment was far below its usual quality, but even with that, he was astounded at the variety of the memories he now had locked in his brain, memories that belonged to the desert titan.


    The undying titan may have had a longer lifetime than the desert titan, but it spent the majority of its life in the dungeon it had corrupted. The desert titan''s memories were different. They were varied, powerful, and contained a range of emotions, from fear, to triumph, to joy, to loss, and more. Althos could tell he would like them when he got the chance to sit down and sift through them.


    Althos had only had a few moments to examine them, but he could tell that this creature''s memories would give him hundreds of lifetimes worth of knowledge, secrets, and thoughts. The thought of it excited the deity, even though he was also in pain from them.


    This creature''s memories are of a different caliber than anything else whose memories I have taken or been given...Althos thought to himself. He was keenly aware of that simple reality, and also excited by it.


    And then something Althos had never experienced before happened. An echo of the creature whose memories he stole, dramatically sprung to life within Althos'' mind.


    <hr>


    Even without a true mind of its own, the desert titan retained a single shred of its incredible sense of self and roared into Althos'' mind, like a savage lion issuing a challenge to the lion whose territory it was bolding striding into.


    The titan''s voice boomed into the god''s mind, and the single shred of self sagely identified a place in the god''s mind which it could plant itself in. Then the thing began to make itself at home, ignorant to Althos'' true nature. After a second to adjust, the thing began to speak right into Althos'' skull.


    If my memories are stolen, even if it''s in my last moments of awareness, I can at least inform the thieving rat who stole them of whose memories he''s stealing! And make him regret it!Althos heard an unimaginably loud voice practically howl in his brain, rattling his skull further.


    The voice was incredibly "loud", at least as far as thoughts could be. It was incredibly deep, and contained a rich timbre. Althos suspected that under other circumstances it would be a pleasant voice to listen to. But he wasn''t having a pleasant time as the thing roared in his skull and almost physically rattled his mind.


    Seconds later as Althos felt the nearly irresistible pull of the titan''s memories, he heard the voice, that of the titan, once again boom into his mind.


    I am... or rather I was, this regions'' sultan. I was the undisputed ruler of this windswept sea of sand, the sultry sultan Mahmud Suti. And now I lay dying... and some fucking thief decided that my mind was ripe for the picking! I can almost respect such audacity but that won''t stop me from seeing this as a chance.The creature said, not establishing a true mental link, but rather doing the telepathic version of howling helplessly into the wind.


    If someone can withstand this... they may just be able to avenge me. To etch my name into the history of my species... as a creature that not even death could stop! If someone could avenge me... Bah! I don''t need some big, grandiose reason. I just want to be avenged. I just want violence! And anyone stupid enough to steal from me, would make a perfect vessel for my revenge!The voice stopped again, huffing in anger. And without knowing it, it made a fatal mistake.


    It had no way of knowing why what it had just done was a grievous error. But Althos heard it call the person who stole from it, him, stupid. And that was a mistake.


    You''re calling me... stupid?The god thought, irritation and malice teaming up to temporarily, albeit somewhat successfully eliminate his other emotions.


    I am not stupid.The deity thought to himself, his mind fixating on that single word to the point that the titan might as well have spent the last few minutes roaring in Althos'' mind that the god was just a stupid child. And of course, a deity who sought all knowledge would be deeply offended if something called it stupid. Which explained why malice seeped into Althos'' heart and dyed both of his eyes pure black.


    No one has ever called me stupid.The deity realized, a cruel grin slowly creeping onto his face.


    Death isn''t really a good enough fate for someone who makes a mistake that... well a mistake that stupid.Althos declared, anger seeping into him, and changing his outlook on this whole situation.


    But as a god... I don''t really have to let this thing die just once do I?Althos realized, the very first pieces of a scheme starting to come together in his mind.


    And then the titan spoke again, just once more.


    You! Thief! If at the end of this, you''re still you and not a puppet of sorts... I command you to avenge me! Solve the mystery of my death, and ensure that whoever moved my assassin does not succeed in... whatever goals they have!The deep booming voice ordered, fully expecting to be obeyed.


    What does this thing think I am? Some normal creature who somehow possesses the skill to steal the memories of something over 2,000 years old, but still weak enough to be cowed into submission by a loud voice in my mind? Don''t you, a mortal, dare presume to command me, a god.Althos hissed, the last part a powerful command, as the god felt godly pride surge through his body.


    The god focused for a second and then used his sharpened will and his mental faculties to take aim at the generalized location from which Mahmud''s voice had been roaring in his mind. The deity took a firm hold of the anger he felt swirling in his heart, anger which took on the mental appearance of a swirling mass of energy dyed an unholy shade of black.


    He mixed it with the pride he felt in his godhood and fused the two emotions into a swirling, mental weapon he held steady while waiting for a chance to unleash it. In his mind, this abstraction took on the form of a spear that was half-black and half-blue.


    My mind is my own... and you have no place here!Althos hissed, readying himself to expel and probably destroy the last remaining part of the titan''s mind. He felt no sympathy though, as the thing had tried to invade his mind, and arrogantly presumed to command him.


    When he felt he had a read on where the voice was doing the mind-version of hiding, he unleashed the swirling, mental spear he had held onto. As he did so, he uttered a single mental commandBe gone!Althos roared, his mental voice matching and then surpassing the voice of Mahmud in intensity.


    The unleashed mental spear exploded out from Althos'' mind-hand. It "flew" from his mental hand outward, soaring through his mind, before ripping through the area where the voice of Mahmud sprang forth whenever it had spoken.


    Gah! No... No!Mahmud''s deep voice roared out, screaming as the god blasted the thing out of his mind. The screaming went on for a full minute, a minute during which Althos was finally joined by his newest companions, the jackaloids.


    Eventually, Mahmud''s screams grew more distant. And then, they faded into nothingness. Althos grinned when the screaming ceased, and he felt his mind return to its past peacefulness.That was... weird.Althos thought.


    Titans are... something else.The deity observed, noting their incredible power. The undying titan had been an unstoppable beast in its lair, and now this titan had such a strong sense of self that even without a mind the thing tried to command him.


    I look forward to making one of them a worshiper of mine.The deity thought to himself, before getting a moderately wicked idea, an idea that meshed well with his earlier declaration that death was too good for Mahmud.


    He grinned and focused on what was going on outside of the depths of his mind for the first time since the titan first roared in the god''s mind.


    <hr>


    When he looked around himself for the first time since his mind was briefly invaded, he was delighted to find that the jackaloids were beside him. The creatures were seated again, relaxing as a breeze blew through their fur. At that moment, several minutes after Althos initially reached the top of the dune, his dire-scorpion familiar reached him and the rest of the party, uniting them at the top of the dune.


    Althos didn''t say a word, as he cast the spell to harvest the soul of the dying desert titan. Invisible but palpable tendrils of dark energy emerged from his form and sailed down the dune towards the titan. The cruel things penetrated the titan''s brain and heart and drew out vital energy for a few moments.


    When the spell was nearly complete, Althos winched as the energy began to feed on the titan''s vital organs, crushing the things without an ounce of mercy or hesitation. But then he got the notification that alerted him that the spell had successfully extracted the titan''s soul.


    He closed one of his hands as if doing so somehow meant he was clutching the immaterial soul he had just acquired within his palm, and then grinned.When I gain the power to resurrect things... I''ll bring you back. And break that damn pride of yours.Althos swore to himself, a cruel grin etched on his face.


    I''ll repay the pain you made me feel, a thousand times over. And then we''ll see who was truly stupidHe promised, making a promise to both the titan and himself.


    Only when you''ve begged for mercy over and over again, a hundred times... a thousand times I''ll make you mine.He thought to himself, his pride and an emotion akin to malice emanating from him at that very moment inadvertently making the domain of torture aware of his existence.


    And torture''s first impression of him was a positive one. After all, anyone who refuses to let someone die, just so they can be tortured more is someone the abstraction of torture itself would be fond of.


    The deity devoted one last idle thought to the soul he now possessed.Stupid? It''s your pride that was stupid.He childishly thought, before allowing the idle anger and irritation to fizzle out so that he could rightfully focus on walking down the sand-dune to the place where the titan''s body lay, now vacant and awaiting the party.

 Chapter 69:

    Minutes later, as Althos and his party underwent their trek down the other side of the dune, towards the corpse of the titan, Althos once again unfocused. But this time the deity wasn''t exploring menus. He was reflecting on the anger that had coursed through him earlier. And chastising himself for it.


    I am... immature. He told himself, sighing as he realized it. I have an incredible number of lifetimes of knowledge flowing through me and yet I do things like this... He was, of course, referring to his ruthless taking of the soul of the now truly deceased desert titan. He felt something annoying tugging at his heart. It wasn''t guilt or sadness. It was something else.


    As the party ventured down the dune, the deity carefully thought about what he was feeling. That was, at least until now, unusual for the rarely introspective deity. He wasn''t the sort of person to fixate on feelings, be they someone else''s or his own. Previously the god focused on knowledge itself, and ignored various components of learning, such as experience and even feelings.


    He wondered why he was doing this for a moment. A few moments of thought allowed him to reach an answer that he felt moderately satisfied with.


    I am trying to understand myself. I was bothered by being called stupid, and so now the part of me that deals with emotion is conducting... an investigation to determine more about my feelings.The deity realized, his own odd way of relating to emotions, even his, at first delaying his understanding of the feelings in his heart.


    As he ventured further and further down he tried to pinpoint the emotion he felt. The more he thought about it, the more firm a form it took on. At first, the sensation was just a generic unpleasant feeling that nagged at him after he allowed the anger he felt at the titan''s insult to fizzle out.


    Now, having been the central focus of his thoughts for a few minutes, the emotion felt like something akin to humiliation over his behavior minutes ago in the face of the insult. He didn''t quite understand it, but there was a heat in his face that wasn''t caused by the warm embrace of the desert sand underneath his feet. It was the flush of shame, though it took the deity some time to realize that on his own.


    Perhaps this feeling is... shame?He questioned, genuinely attempting to identify the nagging sensation.Is this what that feels like?He questioned.This is far worse than pain.He complained.


    The god didn''t find pain all that unpleasant to endure, so this strange complaint could be more sensibly understood as him expressing severe distaste for this sensation. He continued to think as the party reached the halfway point between the top of the sand dune and its bottom.


    This is shame isn''t it? He realized, his eyes growing wide as he realized that his behavior was shameful. He didn''t quite understand shame, as understanding emotions was more difficult for the god than understanding trivia or superficially analyzing memories.


    But... did anyone even witness it?He questioned, wondering how it was that he felt shame regarding something he felt was a private affair between himself and the titan he somewhat unfairly characterized as "rude" when in actuality the thing was merely attempting to defend itself or at least secure a route to avenging itself at the expense of an alien invader.


    <hr>


    From their home within his mind, Althos'' two advisors considered alerting him to the fact that they witnessed the whole battle of the wills in the god''s mind. But the two quickly thought better than to widen the cause he had for feeling shame. The god they advised was, for all of his power and all of the knowledge he theoretically possessed, still a youth.


    [Giving this... very powerful child cause to turn his rage towards us might not be the wisest move.] Samyaza told the mysterious assistant who had also created a space for herself in the god''s mind when asked its opinion on Althos'' behavior.


    The mysterious entity who had made herself at home in the god''s brain didn''t entirely disagree but she did share her concerns with the angel. [I can''t say I fully disagree with your reasoning here, but Althos'' continued subdued at best emotional growth is both concerning and kind of unforgivable at this point.]Her voice was annoyed, and she was clearly tired of being quiet. Perhaps that explained why she was so blunt. She also wasn''t done verbally brutalizing the god.


    [How long can the "he''s a child" excuse work when he''s a god who steals memories? Consider the knowledge and memories already at his disposal!] The creature added, boldly revealing her own frustrations in the tone of her voice.


    [Those are sharp words. They... aren''t wrong, but given his current emotional state, do you think there''s a way for us to get him to realize this on his own? Rather than risk our own... lives? Existences?] Samyaza questioned, unsure of how to categorize M.A., which led to the angel struggling to finish its statement.


    [That... I don''t know. But I sure hope something changes. And soon.] M.A. said, her voice communicating her frustration and exhaustion with Althos'' stunted growth as a person, sentiments that Samyaza evidently shared, at least to an extent.


    [We need to push him to try to understand himself. I wish there was a way we could organically give him minor tips that encourage him to better understand... emotions in general, honestly, but especially his own, that''d be great.] Samyaza told the mysterious entity dubbed M.A., short for Mental Assistant. Its words were met with a sigh of agreement from Althos'' incorporeal advisor.


    In the mind-scape of the god, a place that was becoming more and more complicated and littered with assorted statues, only some of which were from Althos'' own memories, the two advisors gave each other sympathetic looks.


    <hr>


    The trek down to the corpse of the titan took about twenty minutes. Which gave Althos plenty of time to reflect on the words he heard uttered in his mind. Words that were thoroughly humiliating to the god.


    I can''t believe my advisors haven''t yet realized I can hear them...Althos thought. quietly, as he reflected on what they said while emboldened by the belief that they themselves were inaudible to the creature they had teamed up with, while inside of him.


    Unlike the two of them, he was successfully hiding his thoughts from them, using a mental technique that involved his parallel will.


    That is... very humiliating.Thought the god, mortified by the experience of hearing his allies disparage him. The god was already less than enthusiastic, and hearing his trusted allies ponder how to politely inform him of his failure as an understander of emotions, including his own, hurt him.


    But to hear allies he genuinely trusted make those remarks inspired introspection, even if that wasn''t particularly easy to admit in the moment, and his respect for the two criticizing him made it slightly easier to confess that. He had to come to value them and so he reflected on their words. Minutes of soul-searching, his soul specifically, he came to a conclusion about their criticisms.


    But they aren''t wrong... and they want me to know better. To do better.The god realized, truly mortified by their disappointment with him and acknowledging the truth of their words.


    As the party ventured closer and closer to the corpse, close enough that the creatures Althos had collected along his travels could physically see the thing in the distance, the god remembered a tool he had that many others lacked. A tool that caused the god to grin, slightly.


    I have lifetimes of memories. Millions of hours of life, of emotions, of hardship, joy, suffering, and success circulates my brain every second.The god thought, joyously, as he truly contemplated the impact of that.Stolen novel; please report.


    And for all of those memories... I haven''t yet to truly sat down and meticulously analyzed, or experienced them yet.He thought, less joyfully, and chastising himself for not doing more than a simple run-through of the memories that were locked away in his brain.


    But I can correct that. I can enter my mind and take my time exploring the memories. Like if I wanted to invade someone''s mind, just targeting myself instead of someone else. Living through them, one by one, in the weird, possibly time-slowed dimension of the minds. Maturing in my own way, a godly way.He thought, determination lighting up his eyes.


    This new determination improved the god''s mood to the extent that he began to speak to his followers, at least temporarily ceasing his unpleasant habit of mopping around and being somewhat curt to this new group of subordinates.


    <hr>


    The jackaloids who had joined the god had grown accustomed to his taciturn nature. He had led them through the desert, over several kilometers of sandy wastes, while saying fairly little. Even when he was reuniting with them, healing their memories of him he made it clear that he wasn''t overly fond of communication.


    That was why it was odd that he gradually began to speak the closer and closer they drew to the corpse in the distance. And their self-proclaimed "father" didn''t just speak into their minds, but verbally.


    The first thing the god said could easily be understood as a one-off remark. "Can you all smell that?" He asked, his voice carrying far in the bleak and sandy wastes. He was, rather surprisingly referring to an actual smell. A smell that had swiftly polluted the area with its unescapable stink.


    His two canine followers looked at each other, a bit surprised to hear him ask something so obvious. It was such an off-putting question that it took them a few seconds to realize he was being sincere.


    When they did, the red-furred canine immediately opened her snout to speak, her words coming across not in any humanoid language but in the guttural language of canines.


    "Yes, father. The air curses us by forcing us to breathe in this rank stench of... putrefying guts." She said, and her companion, the golden furred canine on the other side of their master nodded his canid head in agreement.


    Althos nodded at her, his eyes distant and focused not on them, but on the sight of the titan''s corpse, a sight which took up more and more of their vision as the party approached it. "Yes... the smell is truly nauseating." The deity told her, his nose wrinkling as he spoke as if doing so would push away the scent that tried to fill his nostrils.


    His focused gaze at the corpse made it clear that he suspected he knew the origin of the smell, and because he did so, his companions did so as well.


    The golden-furred jackal was in agreement with his companion and his master, and the thing spoke, desiring a chance to be acknowledged by his master and the creature he thought would best be able to protect him from the dark devil, Paimon.


    "Yes, yes! The air reminds me of... it reminds me of the smell of a dying scorpion!" The canine declared, unconfidently, in the bestial second language all jackaloids institutively knew.Althos chuckled at the creature''s statement, which made the thing grin.


    The jackaloid''s face contorted unpleasantly in an effort to match the happy emotion it felt in response to its masters'' apparent enjoyment of its statement. The unusual and unpleasant face it made may have scared a lesser creature, but Althos, assuming that the creature was happy with itself, found the face it made to be quite endearing.


    "Are you happy?" The deity asked the little coward, hoping that his hunch was correct. There was a glow of eagerness in the deity''s eyes as he asked the creature that question and seeing the light confused the canine.


    Should I be honest? There''s no way this is a trap... right?The thing questioned, asking himself what to do next. But after a few seconds, it remembered Althos as a kindly, powerful and quiet leader and decided to be honest.


    "Yes I am! I enjoy making you chuckle. Father, you came back. Making you laugh is the least I can do, a tiny way to aid you." The canine informed his master, referring to the deception that infused the minds of all of the jackaloids aside from Camaxtli that Althos was a sort of father to them, a divine protector whom they served by offering knowledge in exchange for the safety Althos'' power brought their community.


    The sincerity of the jackaloid''s statement surprised Althos, who due to his lack of understanding of emotions didn''t fully understand just how the jackal who had just spoken felt about the deity. He didn''t understand how the jackal''s cowardly nature made it view Althos as a powerful and protective figure deserving of both worship and small acts of service.


    I... really should learn about emotions, shouldn''t I?The deity further realized, the simple exchange and his awareness of his ignorance regarding the feelings he invoked in his worshipers causing him to accept the importance of genuinely understanding not only his own emotions but those of his worshippers as well. At that moment he felt deeply grateful to the odd, cowardly jackaloid.


    <hr>


    Althos'' chance to examine the emotion of shame came when he and his followers reached the rapidly deteriorating corpse of the desert titan. When they reached the thing, the smell they had complained about before had become so intense that it made their eyes water.


    Their only reprieve from the smell came when Althos mercifully cast a spell on all of them, the scorpion included, that tricked their senses into smelling something far more pleasant than the actual scent that assailed them. This made it possible for the creatures to stand just steps away from the colossal corpse.


    Althos walked up to the thing and gently placed a hand on it, accidentally acting in a way that implied the deity cared for the corpse. As he examined it, he quietly gritted his teeth and did his best to stomach a bit of annoyance he felt, trying to commit to understanding emotions and even taking responsibility for how he felt.


    He tired of allowing his emotions to be reactionary and purposefully channeled his thorough mortification at the statements his advisors made just minutes ago so as to stay calm. The effort was successful enough that his followers didn''t notice anything was amiss, while he stood beside the mountain-like corpse.


    If I get them to believe I''m somehow using magic on this corpse to absorb memories or something, I can sit down and take a second to think about... the many things I need to think about.He thought, eager to have a chance to try to deceive other creatures, even his own servants. But a brief moment of introspection made the god realize that such a desire was unnecessary and possibly even unhelpful.


    Why do I feel the need to deceive my servants even when I wouldn''t actually help my self by doing it?He questioned, wondering why he was tending to want to do deceptive things to some of his servants, and then he had a strict policy of being honest when possible with other servants.


    Oh no... this is that weird unequal treatment thing again isn''t it?He realized, growing annoyed with himself as he remembered how differently he treated the dark elves and the orcs before he called himself out and reflected on how unlawful it was for him to treat creatures of the same type so differently. Rather than sigh in annoyance, he huffed at himself, his own immature and inconsistently now not just annoying his followers, but annoying even himself.


    I''m gonna need to thoroughly investigate my heart aren''t I?He realized, feeling temporarily inconvenienced by the amount of introspection he suspected he''d need to do. The god quietly sighed, as he accepted that this too was his fault and would take effort to overcome.


    Alright... the truth.The deity thought, quietly silencing the urge he felt to lie to his followers.He turned to his allies and spoke to them. "I am going to sit down and reflect. I want to take a second to ponder my emotions. If you''d like to join me... that wouldn''t be bad." He smiled when he said that, but he quickly continued speaking.


    "And fret not, the spell I cast on you will not wear off during this time, so the smell from earlier will not begin to bother you." His voice was confident and powerful as he spoke, indicating that he wasn''t giving his followers a choice. But the members of his new, odd pack accepted their master''s declaration without complaint, all three of them nodding at the god.


    Moments later Althos was sitting on the floor near the corpse of the desert titan. The deity took a deep breath, and for the first time in his life really and truly entered his own mind, replicating the process by which he invaded the minds of other creatures and just targetting himself instead of an innocent creature whose memories he felt entitled too.


    <hr>


    Unlike when he entered the minds of other creatures, entering his own mind was easy and instantaneous, taking him directly to the interior of his mind. He was taken to a place that was deeper than the entry-level mind-scape which Samyaza and M.A. had made their new homes. A stranger place.


    Instead of entering a strange field filled with statues, the god appeared on the sandy shore of an odd and massive lake-like place that extended farther than he could see.Well... this is weird. And not at all what I was expecting.The deity thought, thinking just to hear something in a space that was impossibly quiet.


    The deity thought, truly mystified by this development, since he had never been to a lake before and even the memories he stole of the things were not memories he had ever truly focused on.


    He took in his surroundings carefully, turning immediately so that he could see what laid behind him before doing anything else. He was greeted by the sight of the familiar infinite and all-encompassing darkness that surrounded the boundaries of the minds of other creatures. He was almost comforted by the eerie sight, kind of grateful for something familiar in a sea of unfamiliarity.


    Nice to see that somethings never change.He thought to himself, grinning awkwardly at his own attempt at a quip, and also his attempt to gather the resolve needed to ready himself to turn around and face the unknown, whatever odd mysteries awaited him in or around the odd mental lake.


    After a few seconds, or the equivalent of seconds since the god had found, over a handful of explorations of the weird mind-scapes he had visited so far, that time tended to slow down while in minds, the deity boldly turned around towards the lake.

 Chapter 70:

    Althos, presently within the depths of his own mind, looked straight down at his feet. He saw that he stood, as much as anyone stood within a mind, on top of a sandy shoreline. The sand at his feet was bright green as if to emulate the soft-green glow of some bioluminescent fungi, including a few of the bioluminescent fungi who revered the deity.


    He then looked up and saw an endless void. A perfect slab of inky darkness, without a single star to shed even the smallest amount of light in any direction. After a few moments, this grew mildly frightening to look at, since even the desert Althos was physically in had the false moon to shed a mockery of light in the night sky. Althos changed the direction of his gaze, looking forward and towards the shoreline again.


    This strange shoreline extended just long enough that if he so desired the young god could take a handful of steps and wade into the eerie mind-lake that stretched out before him. Althos took a second to thoroughly examine the lake itself, genuinely mystified by its existence in the depths of his mind.


    The lake that stretched beyond even his prodigious vision was enormous. The lake itself was calm but far wider than any body of water the young god had seen thus far in his life. Even his past superficial scanning of the thousands of years of memories that dwelled in his brain revealed nothing even remotely comparable to this strange liquid body, hidden away within his mind.


    Why is this here? He wondered as he studied the beautiful, mysterious natural feature inexplicably found in the depths of his mind. He approached it, slowly, as he noticed that the body of water was perfectly, impossibly still.


    Within seconds, even at his cautious pace, he reached the edge of the shoreline and was in a position where if he took another step forward his feet would enter the water, something he felt wary about doing unless forced too.


    He looked into the motionless water. The water was perfectly clear, and as he looked into it all he saw was the natural continuation of the sandy shoreline he was standing on top of.


    He sighed, the sound breaking up the otherwise absolute silence of the strange shoreline and even stranger lake. This is mysterious but... what can I do? He questioned, mystified by the unexpected sight of the lake and the sandy shore. After a few seconds, the deity decided to emulate what his physical body was doing and sat down atop the shoreline.


    He sat down, crossed his legs, and closed his eyes. It was a meditative pose, one that he hoped would get him the answers he was looking for. With his eyes closed, the young god began to think.Can someone... something, help me out here? What is this lake?The god implored, not expecting a response but hoping one would come if he earnestly asked for it.


    He was met with silence. At first. Several seconds, or the mind-equivalent anyway, passed before something began to happen.


    Althos'' ears twitched as a new noise disrupted the silence that the deity had quickly grown accustomed too. The sound of something being tossed into the lake. This caused the curiosity deity to open his eyes. And as he did, he saw the lake change.


    He felt a mysterious vibration touch the lake, even though its source was something he hadn''t seen but seconds after his senses alerted him to the strange vibration, the god did see a ripple effect disturb the water as ripples emerged from the center of the lake that he could see.


    Some ripples approached the shoreline while others spread out away from it, as they spread out in every direction. He hadn''t seen whatever was dropped into the lake, but he saw the effects of it.


    Some of the ripples eventually reached the shoreline Althos stood on top of, and when he stopped looking at them he looked right ahead and saw the ripples continuing to flow in the other direction, continuing their exploration of the mysterious lake uninterrupted by the shoreline or by some disruption in the water in the other direction. Eventually, they vanished, having gone farther out than Althos could see.


    The god looked into the area from which he saw the ripples, peering into the crystal clear water. He hoped that he''d see something that shed some light on the mystery of what caused the ripples in the first place. And he was disappointed to see there be nothing in the water itself.


    How odd... I know I didn''t imagine the ripples.The deity thought.What caused them?He questioned.He began to wait, wondered if something would happen if he were just patient.


    Althos waited for a few moments, not even bothering to try and keep track of time anymore until the water vibrated again. His eyes were locked on the lake, the same spot from which he saw the ripples emerge last time.So whatever causes it is something I can''t see.He realized, frustratedly. He went back to waiting, after watching that set of ripples vanish.


    The next time they came the ripples arrived a bit faster and moved a bit faster, reaching Althos'' shoreline on one hand and on the other they reached the edge of Althos'' vision quicker than before. This intrigued the god.Maybe the key is for me to follow the ripples.He thought,and when the deity noticed the next vibration, keeping up their tradition of arriving faster than the previous vibration he took to the sky.


    He ascended just a few centimeters off the ground, just enough that he wouldn''t touch the water. He did this using his own mental energy, not by flapping his wings, he somehow knew that it wasn''t necessary for him to do so to be able to soar.How do I know that?He questioned, before watching the ripples he meant to follow begin to speed towards some unknown destination, indeed faster than they previously had been.


    Not without me!The deity thought urgently, willing himself into motion and commencing his pursuit of the ripples over the lake. He caught up with them easily, and stayed close to them for a minute, flying further and further away from where he had been standing until he could no longer see the shoreline in the distance.


    Eventually, the ripples vanished. They didn''t reach the end of the lake, they merely ceased to disrupt the water, slowly becoming less and less substantial until they had faded away altogether. Althos noticed this and huffed in annoyance.


    So... this was all to lead me here huh?He realized and questioned, now floating just above the water in a place so far from the shore that he couldn''t see it.


    "Yes, it was." A voice said, softly disrupting the silence Althos had grown accustomed too during this expedition into his own mind. The voice spoke, it didn''t project its words to Althos across a mental connection or otherwise communicate with the god. It audibly spoke, which to the god was noteworthy and odd.


    And then Althos spent the next moment looking for the source of said voice before it spoke again. "Down here." The voice interjected, interrupting the deity''s search. It was coming from below him. It was coming from the lake. And more than that, the lake below him was uninhabited.


    <hr>


    "I was starting to wonder when you''d get here!" The lake said moments after Althos realized that it was speaking to him. Its voice was deeply masculine, and not entirely unlike the god''s own voice. That fact did not escape his notice, even as he stared at the body of water in confusion.


    The god''s confusion turned to caution, and Althos began silently eyeing the thing as though it would somehow extend a tendril of water and attack him. "What are you?" He eventually asked, opting to speak normally rather than "think" at it. The lake''s response came a few seconds later.


    "I am a lot of things. But for now consider me to be a manifestation of the part of your mind that stores and then accesses or plays back memories. When you replay memories in your head like actually sit down and remember them you are tapping into me, though you have yet to do that. You wanted to access your memories so I thought this was a good opportunity to introduce myself." The lake "said".


    Althos had listened to the lake perform its eerie version of speaking and had visually scanned the lake while it communicated with him. He wasn''t shocked but he was disappointed to note that the lake did not physically change while communicating with him, its waters retained their perfect stillness even as the thing communicated the longest or the most challenging words to utter. It was an impressive, but odd display.


    Althos sighed internally and began to speak. "So can you tell me about yourself?" Althos questioned, curious as to how the lake would respond to his question.


    Moments later the lake began to speak again, its masculine voice seemingly emanating from within the water, out into the air above the lake. "I am the storage unit for the memories that enter your brain. Whether they are your memories, or someone else''s, they are all cataloged, superficially assessed, and stored within me." The lake said. But it wasn''t done.


    "I am not conscious. Because you have taken or been given memories from dozens of lifeforms I have gained this... facsimile of consciousness. I am not a thinking thing, I am your godly mind''s way of aiding you genuinely understand the thousands of years of memories floating through your brain at the moment and the trillions of years of memories that will one day flow through your brain." The lake confessed.


    Althos nodded at this explanation. But after pondering it for a second he realized he had a question he wanted to ask the thing. "Why are you a lake though? I''ve never seen a lake in my lifetime and no lake in any of the memories in my mind is so big." He said, his curiosity now dominating the conversation since he was forcefully told that the lake wasn''t some odd alien entity in his brain.


    The lake quickly responded to his query with a simple answer. "Because it''d get your attention. It would be unforgettable. I am not based on something that actually exists, I am based on something someone imagined. Specifically something one of the jackaloids imagined. The little thing, as a child, imagined an ocean of fresh water."


    Althos chuckled as he heard that. And then he spoke. "I see. So among other things, you store memories and your manifestation is based on the memory of that moment of imaginative creativity?" He asked, wanting to be sure he understood. This time the lake sighed in annoyance, but there was also a twinge of another emotion, one less negative in the particularity of its sigh. Sure enough, after sighing, the thing spoke again.


    "Yes. And because of this, I have left an impression on your mind. And hopefully, that impression leads you to grow tired of mere superficial analyses of memories and to want to thoroughly learn about memories. Your pursuit of memories and knowledge, thoughts and secrets, is actually kind of amazing but you aren''t using what is in inside of you correctly." The lake informed the young god.


    This declaration surprised Althos. He knew it to be true because it was part of what he was chastising himself about prior to entering his own mind, but he wanted to know what the strange lake thought of the situation. So he spoke again. "Can you elaborate on that? And how do you know what you know?" The god asked, aware of the fact that he was having a sort of conversation with himself.


    The lake was silent for a second as if gathering and organizing its own thoughts before it resumed speaking.


    "I know what I know because I am part of you. But unlike you, I am not distracted. You see... you are distracted. You are distracted by the needs and desires of both your immature desires and the immature hearts of those around you." The thing declared. It paused, just for a moment, but for reasons that weren''t clear to Althos."Allow me to explain." The thing said, when ready to continue.


    "You, the deity that is out in the multiverse day by day, face distractions. You are pursuing goals and moving towards objectives, not all of which belong to you. Those things distract you from building a true awareness of your capabilities. Those things distract you from studying your emotions, and from studying the memories of others." The parts of Althos'' mind represented by the lake told the deity''s conscious will.


    "The true limits of your powers, the complexities of your heart, and the true potential of the memories locked within your mind be they yours or otherwise are known to your mind. But that doesn''t mean you, the part of you that is conscious knows these things. Because you haven''t explored your mind, not fully anyway. Because of distractions." The lake said, carefully doing its best to communicate something fairly complex to a simple part of itself.


    "Your consciousness is only part of your mind, a small part of a greater whole, and this is true for mortals as well as for gods, but gods do not face the same constraints as mortals. Mortal minds are a lot less... flexible than godly minds are. Considerably more limited." The thing said, its statements beginning to make more sense to the god.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    "Hence why moments like this are possible for you but not for mortals. Hence why part of your mind, can manifest itself to your consciousness. Gods and mortals do not have to play by the same rules." The lake told the god.


    As if to illustrate that, the lake said something quippy to the god. "And there''s little proof of that that is better than this. A mortal mind cannot force a manifestation of part of itself independent of the mortal''s will, like you can. If you were a mortal, the growth you as a god can undergo in a second would take years." The thing reminded Althos.


    That made the god grin. And then the deity began to speak.


    "So I''m not introspective enough?" He asked, looking at the lake. Before the thing responded to him in words, he could have sworn he heard an excited shout come from it.


    "Precisely! You do not reflect on what you''ve learned. On what you''ve observed. That most directly and most literally manifests itself with your cavalier treatment of your memories, but it''s more than that. You treat your followers this way as well." The lake said. And then before Althos could interject, as the deity was about too, the lake forcibly continued to speak.


    "Have you spoken to Tristan to check in with her and see how she feels knowing that the monster who slew her father is dead?" The lake asked, bringing up a really good example of the deity''s lack of thoughtfulness. Althos hissed as he realized that he hadn''t. The lake then spoke up again to bring up another example of Althos'' at best emotionally ignorant nature.


    "Have you asked Drow how his family is reacting to the news that he now has oracular powers? You have his memories. Even a superficial analysis, the only level of analysis of them or any other memories you''ve done, revealed that he faced isolation from his family because of how the power that was common in their family apparently skipped him. He spent years on the surface, away from his home, consulting oracles and experimenting with home remedies to awaken his power." The lake said, accurately criticizing the god.


    "Don''t you want to have personal relationships with your worshipers?" The lake asked, annoyance audible in its voice. "If you actually want a personal relationship with your worshipers that''s amazing. But if you want that, you need to go about engaging with them. It''s not enough to be a being that physically exists Althos. You have to interact with your followers. Talk to them. Help them. And those are things you can do. You''ve done it before, always in small ways, but you can just build on what you''ve already done. Improve." The lake said, wanting the god to truly hear it.


    "That''s... fair." The god confessed. Facing accurate examples of his failures as both a friend and a deity in pursuit of worshipers wasn''t the best feeling but the god knew that the criticisms were accurate. He swallowed his pride and adopted a kneeling pose, while still floating, and began to wonder what he could do to remedy his mistakes.


    What can I do? How can I improve from here? I must be able to do so right?The deity questioned, doing his best to ward away what petty emotions he felt that made excuses for his behavior. The voice that answered his questions wasn''t the voice of some lofty domain, but rather the voice of the lake. The thing spoke in an annoyed, almost mocking tone.


    "Actually be introspective! And remember that there''s a difference between introspective and self-absorbed." It said, its voice penetrating the silence that had fallen on the area after Althos began to kneel in the air. But it wasn''t done.


    "Actually study. Don''t just rely on your shallow analysis of memories. Take your time to relive them. Go into your mind, select memories and put yourself in them. Witness the first time that Qu''Ren summoned a demon, from her own eyes no less! Place yourself in Milene''s shoes the first time she is handed a potion. Enter her head when she first poisoned someone who challenged her brother." The lake said, taking this time to inspire the god while also hinting at how much Althos was missing out on by not truly experiencing what his followers had experienced.


    "You have a truly astounding, legitimately incredible power. Among the old gods, this power was not readily available. Not all gods could enter someone''s mind, and far fewer could actually make copies of their memories. This is something that M.A. revealed while watching you a few days ago, but she didn''t mutter it to anyone in particular which was how you missed it. According to her, someone who has met other gods, your powers are special. Truly take advantage of them." The lake urged, revealing that what Althos had long felt was a common power wasn''t.


    "But I enter minds using spells." The deity said, speaking to the lake. The deity''s tone made it clear that he had felt that this meant his ability was unremarkable. The lake laughed, oddly coldly, for just a second before responding.


    "And not all gods can use all spells. Thus far you appear to be able to do so, or maybe you will be able to do so one day, for reasons neither of your advisors appear to have a solid theory for, yet, and the theory that M.A. is running with is that this relates to your fixation with knowledge. It appears, that your intentions and the current otherwise godless state of the multiverse are mixing together and creating... unpredictable events." The lake whispered, speaking as if afraid that someone might overhear them.


    The lake wasn''t done talking either. "Your advisors believe in you. You are hurt because you heard one part of what they said to each other in a moment of frustration, which is a fair reaction, but you didn''t hear everything. You don''t hear everything." The lake told Althos.


    "You don''t know that their frustration stems from the fact that they believe in you. Samyaza advertised your existence to other angels in the world you were born on. It did that because it believes you to become a god who can unify its people." The lake told Althos, revealing something that the angel itself thought about from time to time, thinking its thoughts safe while in a mindscape belonging to a deity whose mind was unafraid of intrusion.


    "M.A., in a moment of frustration, complained. That sucks. That can cause hurt feelings. But ultimately she wants you to grow. She wants to teach you what she knows, and she wants to help you. She taught you necromancy. And she''ll teach you more things if you ask her too." The lake reminded Althos.


    Althos took in that new information. He was quiet as he processed it.


    "I should ask more questions shouldn''t I?" The god asked. The lake laughed at that statement before responding to it.


    "Yes. And you need to learn. On your own. Not just by absorbing the skills of the creatures whose memories are trapped in your mind. You need to create things. You need to battle. You need to cast spells. Read. Have debates. Win them. Heck, you even need to lose them." The lake told the god.


    "If you truly value knowledge as much as you claim too, you''ll go out and learn on your own terms. Gaining worshippers is fantastic. It''s an important component of godhood according to both of your advisors. But it''s not the only thing to do. Neither is living vicariously through the memories and lives of others. You are a living creature. You need to act like it." The lake said, passion entering its odd voice.


    "And if you are dedicated to self-correction and self-improvement you will become a better god. You''ll be a better leader. You''ll gather more worshipers and it''ll be easier for them to become fanatics dedicated to you." The lake told the god.


    "It''s not enough for this moment to be a singular instance of introspection. That happened earlier in your life. When you realized you weren''t treating the orcs well. And then after correcting that, which deserves acknowledgment, you persisted in illogical, childish behavior." The lake reminded the deity. But this time it''s tone was more even-handed.


    "Self-improvement is difficult. Mistakes will be made. Backsliding will occur. Those things will happen. But you need to dedicate yourself to working hard to correct those unfortunate instances." The lake told the deity. Althos nodded and began to think about what to do next, how to fix those mistakes and prevent future ones.


    He spoke to the lake after thinking for a few moments. "Let me... come up with a plan to become a better god." He told the thing, somewhat aware of the oddity of having an intensely self-critical conversation with a lake, even one that was a manifestation of parts of his own mind.


    <hr>


    Althos spent an indeterminate amount of time floating over the lake. While he did so he carefully came up with the loose beginning of a surprisingly detailed plan to iron out his real flaws and make himself a better deity and leader.


    First I need to learn what my followers think of me. All of them.He told himself. He sent out a message to his followers, the ones who were with him beside the corpse of the desert titan, as well as those on the world of his birth, and the assortment of followers he had throughout the desert.


    [Hello! I am initiating a new weekly ritual. If you seek to be a devoted follower of mine, then I am seeking your input in becoming a greater god and leader. Those of you who are truly devoted to me and wish to see me improve are to pray every week and tell me ways in which I can improve as a god. You are also to tell me about your days, how you are feeling, and about the goals you are pursuing. I want to have a personal relationship with you and I''ve been doing that badly. But I want to change that. I hope you''ll help. Thank you.]


    And from there, I can focus on improving what they think of me. Little by little. Figuring out what criticisms they have, and then pushing myself to fix those criticisms.The deity thought, a smile on its face.


    <hr>


    Second I need to devote... four hours or so every day to analyzing memories. True analysis. In-depth analysis.The deity told himself.A superficial analysis of what memories lurk in my mind is not what I want. If a follower of mine gives me a copy of their memories, or if I steal someone''s memories, I want to have as much true knowledge of themselves as I do of myself.The god stressed, focused on this objective in particular.


    Third I need to work on my relationship with not just the domains that have revealed to me how to make progress along influencing them, but every domain. Part of that... a big part actually, is just asking questions. And that will often be the case for my interactions with people and monsters as well.The god realized.


    He valued what few domain-centered abilities were already his to use, and sought to gain more of them. And to do that he needed to engage with the domains themselves. Initiate conversations. Acquire and eventually complete quests.


    I also need to reflect. I need to take time each day to study myself. To question what thoughts flowed through my mind. I need to learn what makes me... tick.The deity told himself, accurately remembering what the lake had told him.I have an incredible mind, my mind and memory powers are, apparently special.


    For how great my mind is, or could be on a conscious level I don''t really understand it. It''s important that I correct that.He thought, wanting to consciously know what all his mind could do at any one time.I must master myself.He told himself, steeling himself for a long journey towards self-awareness and self-control.


    And for now, the last huge thing I should do is things. A wide variety of things. From reading books to debating other creatures, to practicing martial arts and gaining classes wherever I can, I should do everything I can. Experience what all there is to experience. And in doing so learn things I can''t learn through memories, or through simple, isolated study.


    The more Althos schemed, the more ambitious he felt. But in time he withdrew from his schemes and he looked at the lake.


    "Hey... can we go ahead and view some memories?" The god asked, the question directed to the body of water below him.


    "Sure!" The lake responded, happiness bubbling into its voice. "That''s the best possible spirit with which to begin this process of self-improvement." The lake told the god.


    "Where would you like to start?" It asked the deity floating above it. Althos considered that for a second but it didn''t take him long to come up with an answer.


    "We''re next to a dead desert-titan. So let''s start with him. Show me the memories of Mahmud Suti, the self-proclaimed ''Sultry Sultan''." He told the lake.


    "Sure thing!" The lake responded, having had a chance to vent at Althos and apparently getting through to the youthful deity had excited the body of water, so now the thing was excited and eager to help Althos further enact his plan of self-improvement.


    <hr>


    The lake mentally reached into its internal storage of memories and contemplated the extensive conversation it had with the young god.


    He was... very mature all things considered.The lake told itself. It wasn''t naive enough to think that this alone would be enough to transform the deity, but much to its surprise the god made the decision to come up with and enact a plan that would push him towards self-improvement.


    If he''s serious about any of these objectives... then this conversation might be the springing off point towards a future wherein we become the god they believe we can be.The lake thought, daring to be hopeful for a second.


    The lake mentally activated the very first memories of the creature who would one day become the desert sultan, the supreme ruler of the desert giants in Infernius'' second layer.


    The sky above the lake, and above the god who floated just over the water of the lake, transformed from an obsidian void into something new. Something that swallowed the deity''s consciousness, transporting it and himself elsewhere. In an instant, Althos could no longer see the lake where he had just been.


    <hr>


    Instead of seeing the lake''s beautiful water surround him, Althos could see the smiling face of a woman with skin the complexion of thick chocolate. Her face was enormous in Althos'' eyes and was the only thing Althos could see, as if she were some great goddess who wanted her first creation to imprint on her.


    Her soft green eyes gazed at him, studied him, and her brow was covered in the thick sweat of her species. Her breath hit his face, and Althos could smell the sickly sweet scent of desert fruits. The breaths of the woman whose face encompassed all Althos could see came out of her in gasps as if she had just finished something exhausting.


    After the two starred at each other for a few moments, her smile grew even wider. She turned to someone, someone Althos couldn''t see, and began to speak.


    "He''s so handsome! I think... I think I''ll name him Mahmud." She told the mysterious stranger, someone Althos knew was nearby because of context, but who remained out of his sight. Althos had no control over the perspective of the memories, and so he was forced to effectively stay still, looking only at what Mahmud felt like looking at.


    It took Althos a second to realize what was going on.This is the first moment of Mahmud''s life isn''t it?The deity thought to himself. Seconds later Althos heard an odd cooing noise begin to escape from the body he occupied, the baby of the newborn desert titan. This noise drew the attention of the titan''s mother back to her son, and she giggled.


    "Oh are you hungry?" She asked. She studied the face of the baby in her arms and then began to grin. After a few more seconds of contemplation, she turned to the mysterious, still unidentified figure close to her, and spoke, ordering them to bring her some liquid food for her baby. Althos did his best to ready himself for what he wondered was coming, as the mother of the desert titan turned her matronly face to her newborn once again.


    If I want to truly understand the person whose corpse I''m next too... it is necessary for me to endure this.He reminded himself, annoyed that so shortly after he made a promise to study the memories he had locked in his mind he was being forced to undertake such an odd test of his commitment.


    And with that, the god''s in-depth study of the desert titan Mahmud Suit began, with the deity reliving the creature''s earliest moments.

 Chapter 71:

    The earliest day of Mahmud''s life passed in a blur. Althos was whisked through the titan''s first twenty-four hours of life with all of the speed of a galloping war-horse hot on the trail of a fleeing enemy general.


    In what felt like mere minutes, Althos experienced the first time Mahmud ate, drank, and vicariously experienced other, less agreeable mortal needs. And the deity found himself grateful that as a godly being he would never have to experience such weakness and such ugliness.


    I''ve been grateful that I am not a mortal before... but what I experienced today, in the last few minutes, has been some of the most repugnant experiences of my life. He thought, rather snobbishly. His immaterial nose was upturned at the thought of being near a mortal infant.


    But the god also felt a pang of pity for those of them who found themselves alone and without the aid of a family during those most vulnerable years, as at multiple points during Mahmud''s first day, Althos wondered if the baby would have survived alone. Probably not... He realized, a bit somberly. But he never failed to push those feelings aside and focus on picking up every detail he could from these memories.


    At the end of the young titan''s first day of life, the titan was bundled up in a warm blanket and pulled into his mother''s arms. The woman who gave birth to the titan softly kissed her son''s forehead, and the titan was almost instantly unconscious. The young thing fell asleep quite easily, nodding off the moment the baby closed his eyes.


    And for the first time, the deity experienced unconsciousness. Vicariously sure, but it was still an odd and unsettling experience for the god to endure.


    One moment he was awake and the world was filled with color, life, sound, and more. And the next... he'' wasn''t. And it wasn''t. How eerie. Althos thought, his eyes opening to the terror of sleeping for the first time. And what''s more, was that the titan didn''t dream the first time he fell asleep.


    There were no imaginary scenes to fill the void, to spare the child from the terror of a particular sort of all-consuming and uncaring darkness. Mahmud didn''t dream, because the titan had no real memories yet. And so to Althos, the titan''s few hours of sleep served as an alien portal to terrifying, absolute darkness.


    And then, as if he were just blinking the titan opened his eyes, conscious once again. But the titan woke up somewhere else, in a masterfully crafted and jewel-covered cradle. And so Althos'' world was filled with the same bright colors, the same jarring sounds, and even more or less the same variety of sensations that the corpse he was sitting next to would experience during his first day of life.


    <hr>


    Days passed in a blur. Althos quickly learned that since babies didn''t and couldn''t do much, adults oversaw their development, took care of their needs, and protected them. This made their days fairly routine. Or at least that was the case if they were royalty.


    Althos quickly learned to identify the titan''s mother, a female desert giant, by her voice and the sound her particular shoes made before, enabling himself to be prepared whenever she grabbed young Mahmud and pulled him into a motherly embrace, which she did quite regularly. He noticed that he learned to recognize the telltale signs of her approach a lot quicker than Mahmud did, as Althos was able to hear the infant''s nonsensical thoughts while in the titan''s memories.


    The deity listened to the babbling baby''s thoughts and observed that memorizing his mother''s voice and a few other giveaways as to her imminent approach would take the young titan a few days. This mattered because the woman who gave birth to Mahmud was not the only female in his presence during these first days of life.


    A number of different wet-nurses tended to the future sultan''s needs. A number of the wet-nurses, marriageable and veil-covered young desert giant women, rushed in and out of what Althos slowly pieced together was a private nursery on an hourly basis.


    The giantess and her cadre of servants watched over Mahmud, watching with eager eyes as the titan began to grow. This wasn''t something that was immediately apparent, but it didn''t take long for young Mahmud to begin to walk. A mere two months actually. And it was when he was able to walk that Althos first realized just how tall the infant was, even in his infancy.


    The first time Mahmud stood up, Althos realized that the titan was easily as tall as Raverangos. And the titan wasn''t even two months old. The titan wasn''t aware that he was tall for his age, though he was, and didn''t realize that walking at two months old was unheard of among the isolated desert giant tribe he was born into.


    Those were things the duo would learn, in a few weeks'' time, but neither he nor, much later, Althos knew that when Mahmud first managed to balance himself long enough to take an unsteady first step.


    <hr>


    Mahmud would meet his father for the first time the day after the titan distinguished himself by walking at two months old. Althos learned this before Mahmud would because Althos had learned to speak the language of the desert giants from when Mahmud shouted in his brain. The god heard the titan''s mother, a woman named Adalet, proudly declared that Mahmud''s sultan father was en route to meet his son. She was bragging to one of the wet-nurses who saw to Mahmud''s well-being, a woman whose eyes burned with jealousy.


    A few hours passed before the sultan arrogantly strode into the nursery, accompanied by an honor guard of two desert giants wearing thick cloaks and who had tight grips on imposing glaives. The sultan was also accompanied by Adalet, whose eyes gleamed with newfound pride and the familiar love Mahmud had grown accustomed to from his mother.


    At that moment Mahmud felt something unfamiliar sneak into his boyish heart: nervousness. The sultan, a gigantic figure who towered above Mahmud had cold eyes, and he was a stranger. Mahmud was eventually coaxed into demonstrating his ambulatory prowess to the sultan, after some gentle encouragement by his mother.


    After taking a few careful steps, Mahmud stopped in place. He had nearly fallen! But he carefully regained his balance and then he confidently kept walking.


    After this when Mahmud next turned to look the regal stranger, there was a grin on his regal face. A smirk. And there was also pride glimmering in his eyes, a pride similar to the prideful look his mother sometimes gave the wet-nurses while talking about things too complex for an infant to understand.


    The sultan would discuss something with Adalet, something that Althos immediately understood as being about getting the young titan a tutor, but Mahmud was too busy celebrating what he somehow knew was a success, to try and listen to the words his parents were speaking. The baby babbled, making noises as a sign of excitement, and cooed its self-pride.


    This tuckered the tike out. And for the first time ever, the young titan fell asleep without his mother lulling him to sleep by holding him close. And the next time the boy awoke, he would begin his education. At just around two months old.


    <hr>


    The next twenty-five years of Mahmud''s life were of incredible interest to Althos, and in the god''s mind went by too fast. The young titan, who himself was an example of a forgotten mutant offshoot of giants, had astounding intelligence and demonstrated a remarkable growth rate, both physically and emotionally.


    These next, formative years, were the years in which Mahmud began his education, as well as got to visit the thriving city he was born in.


    Althos gained an advanced education in Mahmud''s memories because the titan was swiftly taken to a number of skilled tutors. These tutors speedily taught the titan, and unbeknownst to them, a god, a variety of skills.


    They would teach the giant, and the god who was helping himself to their lessons, the education a ruler needed. Althos learned and mastered desert-giant etiquette, he learned of the agriculture of the giants, of the animal-husbandry, of forging and of survival out in the wastes outside of the city and a few other, nearby cities.


    He learned of local politics and intrigue, something which he liked more than Mahmud did, and even saw a handful of familiar faces. Some of the wet-nurses graduated from attending to Mahmud and Adalet and become wives and mothers themselves, or spell-casters and priestesses who served their people in other, more directly useful ways.


    Both also learned of the future sultan''s father''s status as the strongest general in the city, a status which brought with it an honorific: sultan. And Mahmud learned firsthand that some of his family members, particularly a few of his uncles on his mother''s side and his aunts on his father''s side, were strict individuals who harbored suspicions that Mahmud was a bastard child, as a way to explain his size, growth, and even his intelligence.


    Their cold stares and even colder shoulders propelled the titan to exceed any expectation placed on him. It was his disdain for their behavior and their distaste for him that drove him to master both offensive magic and the blade. Those were two of the things he''d be known for later in his life.


    He''d also become known for his mastery over battlefield tactics. The titan would grow up to be a revolutionary leader in battlefield discipline, but that was a ways away from the days of his youth. The day he''d learn to love stealth tactics was coming, but it was much farther down the road.


    Both the titan and the deity were prodigious learners, absolutely voracious students who whole-heartedly threw themselves into whatever lessons the network of tutors planned for the young titan with few exceptions.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    Althos took advantage of this chance to learn freely, studying the principals of basic mathematics, particularly the universal applications of arithmetic, while Mahmud excelled in the practical applications of mystical geometry. Mahmud mastered the art of literary analysis, and Althos memorized the pragmatic explanations for the traditions and principals of the unique, highly religious society of the desert giants.


    An area where Althos and Mahmud would demonstrate the same passion, millennia apart, were the magical arts. Althos and Mahmud both learned of evocation magic, specifically desert magic that specialized equally in blinding enemies, and in separating groups of enemies in fierce sandstorms. Though Althos couldn''t practice the magic in the memories, he did memorize the magic and he swore to himself to practice and master it the moment he exited his own mind.


    Another area where they shared equal zeal was in learning about folkloric tales that were regularly talked about in taverns in the thriving capital city that laid hidden in the depths of the devilish desert. Though Althos paid close attention to the tutors who told Mahmud of the religious traditions of the civilization, Mahmud himself wasn''t the pious sort. But when he and a disguised guard visited local taverns and interacted with regular desert giants, Mahmud zealously listened to the stories they told.


    <hr>


    One instance of Mahmud visiting the regular people that would have a lasting impact on his life and on the area of the hellish desert where the civilization of the desert giants was based, happened when the boy was 23, still a baby compared to many of the city''s inhabitants, whose years were counted in the hundreds.


    The night it happened the boy found himself inside of a tavern, a hood covering his face as well as keeping sand out of it, so as to ensure that no astute observer readily identified him and ratted him out to some of his less pleasant family members. The tavern itself was pleasant enough, a wide place littered with pots that contained sticks of incense, burning so as to fill the area with a pleasant aroma and help keep customers awake.


    He listened silently as a meddah, or a storyteller sat down in the heart of the establishment and began to entertain the tavern''s regulars. The speaker, an ancient giant and a tavern regular who regularly claimed to have once traveled throughout the desert warmly greeted the crowd and began to tell jokes. The giant was dressed in a neat, mildly formal outfit for his story that night, and as such his upper body aside from his face was covered.


    Mahmud sullenly drank while the entertainer did this, as the titan did not have a temperament conducive to humor-oriented speakers. The liquor was less than remarkable, but it was also less than expensive so the titan felt he was paying an adequate amount for an adequate drink. The storyteller focused on humor for several minutes before he eventually announced that he was coming to them, the lucky people in this particular tavern, with a new, "true" story.


    Mahmud was no fool, and he knew that this particular meddah had a reputation for tall tales and elaborate ruses, but the titan had a surprising soft spot for supposedly "true" stories, as he enjoyed poking holes in them whenever he could as a means to test his critical thinking skills. So he turned to the center of the tavern, where the meddah sat with a single soft-light focused on the elderly''s giants olive complexion and he waited for the meddah to speak.


    "Friends... lend me your ears." The storyteller began, making himself small and speaking quietly so as to encourage people to approach him. Many of the drunkards in the tavern did, only barely avoiding disaster. Mahmud smiled at their surprising displays of dexterity.


    "I''m going to tell you all a tale tonight. A tale that may frighten you. A true tale! One that happened to me." The storyteller warned, cautioning his audience and preparing them for whatever terrors were to come. The audience groaned when they heard him say that, but he waited for them to quiet down before responding to the wave of groans he had just heard.


    "It''s okay for you to disbelieve. But you see I am willing to swear an oath! An oath on Golaxiria''s beloved axe." The speaker said, putting an emphasis on the name of the goddess the desert giants paid homage too, even countless generations after she vanished.


    I know this is a continuation of an ancient tradition but... it''s so boring. Mahmud thought, his sentiment matching Althos'' own sentiment at that moment. But then the meddah began his tale in earnest.


    "Allow me to set the mood." The storyteller said, his eyes glinting with pride in his stagecraft and storytelling skills.


    "Many years ago, I once traveled the desert. You see I was part of a band of warriors, we were practically an army in our right. We roamed the wastes, fulfilling contracts and serving under a variety of generals. We protected our people, your parents and grandparents from the monstrous nightmares that roamed the sandy fields." He said, his eyes filling with images of distant sand dunes, and of his comrades, lost to the horrors that roamed the wastes or to the ravages of time.


    The tavern was uncharacteristically silent as he said that, everyone gazing respectfully at the giant. There was a seriousness to his words that usually escaped him suggesting that he was thinking about what he had said, and perhaps even what he had lost.


    "We faced it all!" He suddenly declared, boldly and arrogantly bragging while catching the crowd off guard. This time the crowd laughed. The old man had regained his usual levity.


    "We hunted down scorpions. Girtablilu. Jackaloids. Harpies. Minotaurs. Devils. But somethings... well somethings you never forget." He said, shaking his head as he thought about the story he was about to tell.


    "The first night I ever encountered a sandman was a good night. Until I met it of course. But I don''t want to get ahead of myself." He said as if trying to pace himself and not eat something that might spoil his appetite.


    At this point, the giant felt that he needed to incorporate some audience participation. So instead of continuing his story, he pointed to a tavern-regular who happened to be seated alone and was listening to the story.


    "You! Tell me about the sort of woman you prefer." The giant demanded, crass humor liking up his eyes. The crowd of tavern regulars all turned to look at the fellow who had been singled out. A profound silence fell upon the crowd as they waited to hear the lone giant respond.


    The fellow had been drinking the same cheap, but subpar liquor as Mahmud. Though it appeared to have had a much stronger effect on the normal giant drinking it than it had on the titan drinking it, as when the giant spoke his words were slurred and spoken with the same aggressive confidence that cheap liquor gave even cheaper men.


    "I like... women that let me touch em. Women with... breasts out to here!" He said, and then he exaggeratedly gestured to his chest, and then he pointed to the table he sat at as if to indicate that his tastes were for women with severe back pain. The audience''s reaction to that remark was mixed. Men in the tavern applauded his drunken honesty, and women in the tavern sneered and hissed at him. But that all suited the storyteller just fine.


    "Well my friend... I can''t quite recall if her breasts were that big, but the night I had my first encounter with a sandman, I met this lovely lass. She was a tall thing, which is the way I like my women." The giant said and then winked suggestively at one of the female giants nearby, arrogance emanating off of the storyteller as if he thought maybe he''d bring someone home with him that night.


    "After she and I... traded battle strategies in her home, I was on my way back to my own encampment. Where all of my friends were." The storyteller said, continuing his story.


    "It was when I was between her home, part of a small settlement of scouts out in the eastern wastes, that I first saw the things." He said, his voice again regaining that eerie soberness.


    "I had just climbed a dune, one of the few that lay between my camp and the scouting village. And when I looked down to plot out my descent, I saw them. A small pack of things. Creatures I had never seen before." He said, his voice still retaining that seriousness that to the regulars clearly marked the elder''s rare moments of wisdom and truthtelling.


    "At the bottom of the dune, there was a whole pack of tiny... humanoid-shaped figures made of animated grains of sand, innumerable grains of sand. And they had these... beasts made of sand too." The giant said, hate in his voice. He spoke with unusual clarify, intense focus, and sharp words.


    This got Mahmud''s attention. Creatures made of sand... He thought. Ones with hands? He wondered, morbid curiosity infusing his thoughts and turning them towards the combat applications of such creatures.


    "These creatures were moving seas of sand, wholly focused on studying what I now suspect were our tracks, a distraction that thankfully kept them ignorant of my location. They led their sand-mutts to the places our troops had strode over while crossing the desert. They didn''t look at me. But I looked at them." He said, speaking not to the audience now, but to himself. There was a certain frenzy, a bizarre malice in his voice.


    "The things never noticed me. But I noticed them. I stood there. I watched them. I watched the way they studied the sand. I watched them make spears of sand and pull them out of the desert with sandy hands, hands that fused with the spears they armed themselves with. Like the world''s fastest fucking blacksmiths. I watched one of them spin its spear, did it expertly too. Like the thing was aiming it." He said.


    "I think their plan was to follow whatever it was that had their attention. But you see I didn''t stick around to see where they went. No. I crossed to the other side of the dune, and began to sneak in the direction of my camp. When I had walked whole kilometers away from where I was, I climbed the dune again, and I sprinted to my camp." He said, some levity beginning to return to his voice.


    "I made it to my camp. And when I got there... I screamed. I screamed like a banshee. I screamed loud and long. That sure as shit got the attention of my fellow soldiers. I''ll tell you that right away." The giant said, grinning all the while. That broke the tense mood that had overtaken the tavern. The laughter that broke out because of that was genuine, it was heartfelt, and it was a relief.


    "I told my commanders and we all left. We packed up our gear, tore our tents, and in the hour we were gone. I guarded the rear, staying behind with a handful of soldiers, and as we were leaving... I could have sworn I saw something, a few piles of sand that were just too big. Just too close. But I suppose because I screamed like a banshee we''ll never know now, will we?" He said, grinning at the crowd. They laughed even harder at that, enjoying the idea of a member of their species abasing himself like that. It was unthinkable to them, an act that made them subservient to someone else.


    <hr>


    Minutes later, the giant would be leaving the tavern and entering the city at night, a time when people stayed in their homes and didn''t look outside, which gave the giant and the figure who waited to talk to him a chance to speak, alone.


    As he left, a sullen figure approached him. A creature in a strange hood. This creature spoke softly and carefully, and he had a single question to ask the storyteller.


    "The story you told in there... is it true?" The mysterious figure''s voice was soft and neutral. It betrayed no emotion, suggested that the speaker was young, and gave away the speaker as male. The giant considered looking under the hood the titan wore, but after thinking about it for a second, the speaker opted for honesty.


    "No." The giant said.He reached a single hand towardsa long-sleeve that covered his other arm. He dramatically tore it away at the shoulder and as he did so he spoke again.


    "I didn''t run away from the creatures." He said, his voice surging with righteous anger. The arm underneath the protective and deceptive long sleeve the giant just tore away was made of sand. Mahmud gasped in shock when he saw the limb, as it was attached, at the shoulder, to an otherwise perfectly fine, fleshly upper body.


    "During the fighting, I got stabbed by one of their spears. Turns out it could do this." The giant warned the titan, gesturing to his sandy appendage.


    Neither of them knew it at the time, but this was one of the events that set the groundwork for Mahmud''s life of leadership and his once iron-clad control over his people, a control that the titan would achieve only through the service of the strange, sandy minions he''d eventually acquire.

 Chapter 72:

    Althos'' in-depth examination of the memories of Mahmud came to an abrupt end. Not long after Althos watched the titan turn 27, the god heard a voice interrupt his studies of the titan''s memories.


    "Althos, you''ve spent the mental equivalent of many hours studying these memories. It might not be a bad idea to take your time studying the rest." The voice told him. It took the god a second to recall who was speaking to him since the god had immersed himself in the titan''s life for what to the deity felt like literal decades.


    The lake isn''t wrong... Althos thought to himself, quietly. Shortly after coming to that conclusion the god began the process of pulling his consciousness away from memories, willing himself to return to the depths of his own mind.


    It wasn''t easy for the young god but he managed to pull himself away from the memories, causing what he saw around himself to change. In an instant, he went from being inside of Mahmud''s father''s palace to being in his own body, floating just above the lake.


    <hr>


    Althos took a few seconds to practice moving, starting with turning his head, and continuing until he gently twitched each of his toes. When he finished that odd exercises, testing his own mobility, and ensuring he remembered how to control his body, he looked at the lake and began to speak.


    "Sorry about that. When you''re just a few weeks ago, it turns out that spending too much time in someone''s memories starts to take a toll on you." He said, grinning at the body of water. There was something different about him though. The Althos who now stared at the lake had an air of nobility. And that was something the Althos who had entered his mind, what felt like hours ago, did not possess.


    His previously unfocused gaze was now sharper, clearer, and more focused. He starred at the lake with both a wise look on his face and a joy that hadn''t been visible in his face before.


    "You seem... different." The lake told him. There was a bit of apprehension in its voice, but also a bit of cautious joy. Althos grinned wider at it before beginning to speak.


    "Of course! It''s not fair to say I''ve lived, because I haven''t, but I watched the childhood of a leader. When he took his first steps I felt his fear. When he excelled in his lessons I was there, feeling his jubilation. When he first wandered the streets of the city he''d one day lead, I felt the cool cobblestone he walked on. When you''re as young as I am that is a perspective-changing experience." Althos confessed.


    The lake silently considered his words, aware of the young god''s genuine sincerity. Then it spoke to him. "I think that for now, the best thing you could do would be to go out into the world. Retreat from your brain. Head towards the city you saw in the titan''s memories." The lake said, and Althos nodded.


    "That''s the plan! I suspect that since this titan becomes the sultan, his death is at least a massive shock to the city. It will cause change." Althos said, certain of this rather obvious fact.


    "And in all honesty, this sort of in-flux moment is the perfect opportunity for me to make progress in my quest. I''ve no doubt that if I seize this moment I could possibly seize the city." Althos continued, his eyes gleaming with ambition.


    The lake murmured its agreement with the deity, and silence overcame the two. But then the deity''s gaze sharpened somewhat abruptly. He kept looking at the lake curiosity, and skepticism filling his mind in equal measure. Then the young god opened his mouth to speak.


    "You mentioned something odd earlier and I want to ask you about it. You said, in your own words mind you, that you are ''a lot of things''. I think it''s time you expand on that." The god said, his voice calm and curious.


    The lake was silent for a moment, doing its own version of thinking and calculating possible outcomes of what it did next. And then the thing began to speak. And in doing so revealed fascinating, fundamental truths about its nature.


    <hr>


    Fear of the unknown is... crippling.Drow thought to himself. He felt the paralytic power of the fear of the unknown while inside of his familial home in a posh corner in the city of Undermoon.


    At the moment that he was pondering how it was that fear of the unknown froze even the bravest souls, Drow was seated in darkness. The dark-elf was in his own private chamber, a lightless, windowless place of total solitude and for the moment a very nice prison-cell. He reflected on his grim situation.


    I''ve been here for days. Who''d have thought that one''s own room would make the worst prison-cell?The dark-elf thought, somberly. He sighed, his eyes piercing through the total darkness that surrounded him, as his thoughts took on a sadder tone.I never imagined that they''d do this to me after I became like them.He thought, quietly.


    Days ago the dark elf returned to his familial home, excited to announce to his parents that he was like them, that their blood just needed to be activated for him, and for his cousins, to become far-seers. He had expected joy and pride. He was disappointed to receive physical abuse and after enduring a beating, he had been ignobly tossed into his room.


    Whoever heard of an oracle that could throw a punch?Drow thought, bitterly. His left eye still stung from a punch he was caught off-guard by, a punch that was thrown by his father.


    I can''t imagine this development will please Althos.The dark elf thought, unhappily.Should I tell him what''s happened?The dark elf wondered. He had wondered it numerous times over the course of the last few days, and had spent hours silently debating the pros and cons of telling his god what had happened, what had prevented him from aiding in the effort to convert the city.


    I don''t know enough about him to know how he''ll react. He may ask for the blood of my parents, or my family if I tell him...The dark elf feared. He legitimately believed that it was possible that the god he served, the deity who had given him his limited powers of clairvoyance could have demanded Drow make his parents into a blood sacrifice in order for the dark elf to reenter the god''s good graces.


    It''s what they''d do...The dark elf thought, remembering the tales he heard in his childhood of how the demon lords who were the ancient patrons and matrons of dark-elven families punished failure or disrespect.


    If he does ask for the blood of my parents... would that be the worst thing? Drow questioned, entertaining the possibility for a bit too long.The bitterness and hate seeping into his heart became obvious as the dark elf debated patricide.


    Days of imprisonment had envenomed how he felt towards his parents. There was a singularly vicious and hateful part of the dark elf, a part that had always existed, that now more than ever looked at his mother and father with a thorough hatred.


    His thoughts softened when he considered the possibility that his cousins or siblings might be targeted by the god, as part of a vicious ritual to atone for Drow''s mistakes and his underestimation of how vicious his family might be.


    Some demons could take on the appearance of kinder creatures... I really don''t want to take the risk that Althos is like them.The dark elf thought, comparing a past object of dark elven worship to a modern object of dark elven worship.


    If he asks for the blood of my siblings or my cousins...The dark elf couldn''t stomach the thought of putting them to the blade.


    Would he ask for sacrifices, at all? In our interactions, he seemed... kind.The dark elf wondered. He recalled the ease and simplicity of the deity. This terrifying question about sacrifices was perhaps the most difficult of all of the questions the dark elf had. It was this question that kept Drow from informing his master of what was going on.


    This confusion has kept me from contacting him, from offering prayers. And now he wants me to check-in? What if he already knows?Fear began to consume the dark-elf as he contemplated the odd new ritual his master had informed them of. Mere minutes ago the dark elf had been one of the many recipients of a mental message summarizing it.


    Days of imprisonment had begun to take their toll on Drow. And frankly, the dark elf was growing tired of it. And he was growing tired of being afraid. The more those things mixed the easier it became for him to fantasize about taking action. And eventually, while still in his darkened room the dark elf made a decision.


    I will tell Althos of what has gone on. And I shall hope that he is a merciful god. Or that the price I pay is a price I can pay. And if he isn''t or it isn''t... I don''t know enough to know what will happen next. But that can''t stop me. Not anymore.Drow realized, gathering the courage needed to act, needed to overcome his fear of the unknown.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    The dark elf began to compose a prayer to his master that would inform the deity of his situation. Of his failure.


    <hr>


    "Where to even start with this..." The lake said, sounding exhausted at the thought of providing a full explanation. Althos waited for the thing to continue, as the thing considered the easiest path forward.


    "I am the summation of all of your menus. You could consider me your H.U.D., as well as your mind, just given faux-consciousness. As mentioned before, it''s your divinity that allows this to happen at all, I am just a metaphysical representation of your mind designed to facilitate communication between your conscious and everything else." The lake said.


    Althos listened to this explanation and considered it. "I... guess that makes sense." He said, accepting what the lake told him grudgingly. "It at least explains why you can do the things you can do." He admitted, after thinking about the explanation for a few moments. Then the lake spoke up.


    "As a god, you are constantlyreceiving notifications. I work with, in an unacknowledged capacity, M.A. and the system to keep those notifications from overwhelming you. An easy example to think of is that it''s because of me that you no longer get notifications when you kill something." The lake told Althos. The god himself considered that, and remembered not getting a notification when he slew the girtablilu.


    "So wait... what else can you do?" The deity asked, after spending a few moments thinking about what the lake had said.


    The lake was quiet for a moment as it considered what to say. When it spoke again, the water underneath Althos began to change, slightly and subtly. "I can show you specific, unexplored parts of your menus. Like the section outlining class breakdown among your worshipers." The lake informed the deity, whose eyes went wide at the discovery that that was within the lake''s power.


    "Now that is something I''d love to see." The god informed the lake.


    "Just one second. And just so you know, many of your worshipers do not have class levels. That''s because they aren''t the sort of creatures who exhibit the discipline or consistency needed to gain class levels. You can change that. And this is not a comprehensive list of all classes. It''s just the ones that have representatives who worship you that are visible here. Aside from one specialty of witch." The lake said as its lakebed began to change in even greater ways.


    Seconds later Althos was surprised to see a large table, an intimidatingly huge one, etch itself onto the lakebed beneath him.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>Class Name:</td>


    <td>Class Description:</td>


    <td>Specialties Under Your Control</td>


    <td>Members Of Your Religion Of This Class By Race</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>Alchemist</td>


    <td>


    Alchemists are powerful inventors and tinkers whose skill in alchemy has a multitude of uses. Many alchemists craft explosives or they create tonics that can soothe the soul and heal the body.


    Some alchemists are scientifically inclined and their research involves blending alchemy and science. Others are mystically inclined and they produce powerful potions that cause a range of effects.


    Potion-producers focus on the power and potency of potions, specializing in their production and gaining skills that improve the quality and quantity of potions produced each time an alchemist makes them.


    </td>


    <td>Potion-Producer</td>


    <td>One Dark-Elf</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>Archer</td>


    <td>


    Archers are powerful warriors who specialize in using bows in combat. They can fight effectively against other ranged foes, as well as against mounted enemies.


    Different specialties make use of different types of bows and different types of arrows. Snipers are long-distance archers whose arrows mow down mounted units and singular enemy commanders.


    Combat archers are daredevils who get close to their foes, firing powerful bursts of arrows and dancing out of the range of their enraged enemies.


    </td>


    <td>Combat Archers and Sniper</td>


    <td>Three Orcs</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>Berserker</td>


    <td>


    Berserkers are powerful warriors whose rage fills them with destructive might. These powerful warriors are more common among more bestial races, but berserkers of all races can be found throughout the multiverse.


    Sentinel demons fly into a shark-like rage whenever enemies bleed, but they hone and focus their rage so that they can unleash it at the right time.


    </td>


    <td>Sentinel Demon</td>


    <td>One Sentinel Demon</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>Cleric</td>


    <td>


    Clerics are the loyal servants of the gods. These religious leaders lead other worshipers in prayer, in ritual, and advocate for others to convert to the worship of their divine masters. They fulfill the commands of their gods and communicate the wills of their masters to other, less-faithful mortals.


    Beast tamers are clerics who believe that it is their duty to preach to wild beasts. They go out of their way to explore the wilderness and spend time surrounded by animals. They can speak with animals and see to it that no lifeform remains ignorant of their god''s majesty.


    Diabolist clerics are clerics who are servants of Infernius. They lead cults dedicated to arch-devils, true-devils, or the assorted layers of Infernius itself. The majority of them are not found in Infernius, and instead, they zealously work to transform mortal worlds and societies into reflections of Infernius.


    </td>


    <td>Beast Tamer, Diabolist</td>


    <td>One Great Frog, One Half-Devil</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>Druid</td>


    <td>


    Druids are powerful magic users whose veins are filled with nature magic. These creatures possess a variety of nature-based powers. They can shapeshift, they can manipulate nature, they can heal people, and more.


    Desert druids are inhabitants of the desert whose long history in the difficult region has caused them to become resilient, deadly, and stubborn on a genetic level. Desert druids have power over sand and wind, using both in combat effectively. At high levels, they can also use magic to transform into a variety of desert-dwelling critters from scorpions, to lizards.


    </td>


    <td>Desert Druid</td>


    <td>Two Jackaloids, One Cactus Wren</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>Fighter</td>


    <td>


    Fighters are intense warriors. They are the simple, bold combatants who defend themselves against dragons with bows, spears, and swords. When enemies knock at their gates, fighters are the first ones on the scene.


    Brawlers are even braver than most fighters as they go toe to toe with heavily armored and even more heavily armed warriors using their own limbs. Brawlers have abandoned swords, knives, and more because they know that such tools are useless when taken away. But in their minds, taking away one''s fists, legs, elbows, or knees is a riskier enterprise. And they invite enemies to try.


    </td>


    <td>Brawler</td>


    <td>Two Orcs</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>Monk</td>


    <td>


    Monks are disciplined warriors and scholars who train their bodies into the perfect weapon. Their discipline keeps them on strict workout regimes, while they pursue varied agendas related to various fields of study.


    Poisonous Paw monks are monks who either naturally secrete and control poisons they inflict on their victims, or have mastered ways to dip their natural weapons in poison without harming themselves. Either way, they inflict crippling attacks on their enemies. They are skilled assassins whose attacks can cause their enemies to wither and die even weeks after they struck.


    </td>


    <td>Poisonous Paw</td>


    <td>One Great Frog</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>Oracle</td>


    <td>


    Oracles are natural magic-users whose minds and whose visions are sometimes overcome with potent visions that come to them from a range of sources. Oracles are usually associated with the old age, the age of gods and their kin, and are rare in the modern world, though they certainly exist.


    Resurrected oracles are not oracles who were brought back to life, but oracles whose oracular abilities skipped over them but were forcibly resurrected. Such oracles quickly learn that their visions are tied to the wills of those who resurrected their oracular abilities. Their resurrectors possess incredible power over their visions and often become their masters.


    </td>


    <td>Resurrected Oracles</td>


    <td>One Dark Elf</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>Ranger</td>


    <td>


    Rangers are nomadic wanderers who roam the natural parts of the world and of the multiverse. They are more at home atop ice-floes than in the heart of a bustling city. Rangers and their animal companions use a range of weapons and magic to track and slay enemies, particularly enemies they have sworn oaths against.


    Surface-Scouts are a rare ranger specialty that hails from the World Beneath The World of various mortal worlds. They brave the dangers and horrors of the surface world and help civilizations and peoples beneath the surface learn how to conquer or dominate those who dwell in the light of the sun.


    </td>


    <td>Surface-Scout</td>


    <td>One Dark Elf</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>Rogue</td>


    <td>


    Rogues are dangerous sneaks and stealthy saboteurs. They gain a variety of skills quickly and they put their lives on the line anytime they sell their skills to the highest bidder or they serve their masters. These skilled masters of discord and destruction have a home anywhere, from the heart of a battlefield to the inner chambers of complex palaces and political intrigue.


    Assassins are cold-hearted killers. They apply their sneaky skills and their desire to engage in sabotage in pursuit of the most deadly end of all: murder. These sneaks infiltrate homes, societies, and more, to execute their targets. Their mastery of the blade and their knowledge of anatomy is unparalleled.


    Thieves are opportunistic strikers who break into settlements, homes, and more in pursuit of gold, or other valuables. In militaries or in political strike-teams these infiltrators break into heavily guarded compounds, estates, or fortresses in search of enemy plans, material with which to blackmail their targets or things that would just undermine any ideas their enemies have that they are safe in their own homes.


    </td>


    <td>Assassin, Thief</td>


    <td>Two orcs</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>Witch</td>


    <td>


    Witches are ambitious servitors of mighty powers. Witches are women, not just humanoid women, who''ve made deals with powers beyond mortal ken, and who''ve agreed to serve these powers in exchange for power of their own.


    Also, there''s no simple way to say this but creatures who aspire to become witches in your service are currently... they''re being given a sort of trial run to get them hooked on your power. One of your awakened imps aspires to become a witch and currently has access to a range of mind-manipulation spells and sensory manipulation abilities.


    Both Qu''Ren and Milene are developing their own distinct, tiny covens of witches who are already experimenting with their powers and are being indoctrinated by the two nobles. Their theologies are very different, so it''s not a bad idea to chat with them and figure that out.


    The sort of power that a witch gets from her master depends on the sort of deal she was pursuing and which sort of power with which she was cavorting.


    Devilish witches gain powers related to the archdevil they serve. Witches who aspire to serve Althos as of right now gain access to mind magic, illusion magic, and healing magic. All of the witches who currently aspire to serve you are trying to become devilish witches.


    Divine witches are witches whose power stems from your divinity. Their power is completely up to you. When a witch wants to become that type of witch, you''ll be able to expand what that entails.


    </td>


    <td>Devilish Witch, Divine Witch</td>


    <td>One Imp, Nine Dark Elves.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    The last part of this extensive menu shocked Althos.


    A trial run? Goodness. I''m gonna need to figure that out soon.He thought, seconds before getting an extensive prayer. A prayer from a surprising worshiper: Drow.

 Chapter 73:

    The dining room in the main building of theBanethal estate was not empty. The long room was sparsely decorated, as the few residents of the palatial home all agreed that function was more important than form.


    The dining room''s primary piece of furniture was a massive, masterfully crafted table made of an obsidian alloy that reinforced its strength. The table was currently being used by the two most important residents of the palatial place. Two powerful nobles who were all alone in the gigantic chamber, as was the way they preferred to eat.


    The two nobles were seated at and ate at the ornate table. They were silent as they ate, as was their tradition. The room they were in was a quiet and tranquil place. The only audible noises were the sounds of their silverware transporting their food to their elegant mouths.


    One of them exuded an aura of palpable fear, shaking in the silk robes that adorned his muscular form. The other dark elf, a beautiful noblewoman and his mate, spoke volumes with her body language.


    The man who ate with her studied her body language, his keen eyes carefully inspecting her serene form. This caused him to despair further, as he realized that she possessed an unshakeable faith in herself. She possessed the sort of resilient faith that he knew ensured that she''d execute her plan, with or without his assistance and more importantly with or without his consent.


    Unusually for her, her faith wasn''t just in herself. It''s true that it was primarily in her own persuasive ability, but she had a bit of faith in something else. One of the reasons she was confident that her plan would succeed was because of the gift she had one of her slaves prepare for the creature they expected would be visiting soon: a codex.


    The small codex looked unassuming, as its cover page was plain and unadorned and the paper used to make its pages wasn''t magical in any way. Its looks were purposefully minimalistic.


    The thing had been laboriously created over the course of the past few days by Banethal slaves who spent hours transcribing notes and research from over a hundred different academic tomes that researched the gods and their extradimensional homes. Due to the approach taken by the family in preparing it, the codex they had created had become an exhaustive treatise on divinity, other dimensions, and the gods themselves.


    The gift, an unassuming looking thing, sat on the table as well. It was situated halfway between the two elves. The noblewoman believed in the codex''s value and that the visitor they had decided to prepare for, if he was actually a real creature, would recognize its worth.


    The supremely confident oracle and her terrified lover continued their meal. The silence between them was somehow growing thicker as the minutes passed, and as they waited for the moment of fate when they would be joined by a creature that the noblewoman hoped and even believed existed.


    <hr>


    Althos had grown accustomed to Drow''s silence. The dark elf was loyal, but he wasn''t talkative, and he was faithful but not the sort to be zealous in sending prayers. Those things, when taken together, led Althos to allow the dark elf to behave however he felt like behaving.


    He now knew that that decision of his was a mistake, and one he swore to learn from. This is a disaster. Althos thought, upon finishing his initial reading of the prayer Drow had just sent him.


    Althos, wanting to be sure he understood it, decided to reread the thing. And as he visualized it in his mind so that he could reread it, Drow''s voice once again rang out in his mind, speaking the words that appeared in a tiny box square in the center of Althos'' vision.


    [Greetings master. You have my apologies if this sounds weird... I don''t really know how to do this. Even the records we dark elves keep of the days when we actively worshiped demon lords don''t discuss prayer. And certainly not the sort of active prayer you desire. But I''m not going to use that as an excuse. If my prayers are odd, please instruct me on how to pray properly.] The first part of Drow''s prayer was an attempt to beat around the bush. Althos recognized this and sighed, both the first time he went through this message as well as the second time he went through it.


    [And now I must extend a true apology. I am legitimately sorry. I have failed you. For you see, I have been placed on house arrest since my return to my home and unlike my allies here in the city of Undermoon I have not been able to gather anyone to my side, to worship and praise you.] Drow informed Althos.


    There was legitimate sorrow in the dark elf''s voice. It pained Althos to hear him say that, just like it pained Drow to tell his god that his first mission was one he failed.


    [When I returned home, I bravely and foolishly decided to tell my mother and father of my powers. Of your glory. To say that they didn''t approve would be... an understatement. Within minutes we were going at it. And then it got worse.] The dark elf said, the tone of his voice dropping significantly at that moment.


    [I was beaten until I lost consciousness. My father hit me, more than once, and then my mother locked me away like I was a rabid beast. I''ve been kept here for days. I haven''t spoken to anyone in my family. I''m alone. I... am worried about what might happen to me now that I''ve told you about my failure, but I hate this. Being a prisoner in my own home is awful.] The dark elf told his master, who upon rereading that part of the message and began to feel heat and anger welling up deep within himself.


    [Althos... I know not what you will ask of me in order to atone for my failure, but if you are as merciful as I dare to hope you are, please aid me. Please help me in this moment of need. I am stuck in my personal chamber in my family''s estate.] At that moment an image appeared in Althos'' mind once again. Drow was smart enough to send a powerful visualization of his location to his god, in case the deity wanted to appear and aid him.


    [I''m not expecting you to appear Althos... but oh master I''d be so grateful to see you if you did. To have some friendly company in this prison, particularly yours, would be deeply restorative. I''ll atone for my failure and prove my worth to you, but that''s harder to do if I remain imprisoned.] The dark elf uttered, the sincerity in his voice serving to further anger Althos.


    To see one of my servants so deeply maligned... I don''t want to sit back and do nothing. Hethought, wondering what he could do.


    [I know not what you''ll ask, but if you ask something that I can do, I''ll make it my priority and strive to achieve it. I''ll retrieve an item, purchase a slave, assassinate an enemy. I''ll bring someone, a future worshiper, to your alter. But if I''m stuck here, I''m less than useless. I''m an embarrassment.] The dark elf muttered in his prayer.


    [Anyways master... I hope to see your hand in motion. To see it move to save me. To see it rise against those who wish to stop the brave people spreading the truth of your existence. Soon. Please.] The dark elf pleaded. The last two sentences of the prayer were single words, but the dark elf''s tone made it clear that the sentences weren''t demands. They were attempts at pleading. The hurt in Drow''s voice pained Althos, and the deity resolved to do something quickly.


    I need to do something. Something that helps Drow.Althos thought. But then he added to that thought.


    And something that sends a message to anyone who''d dare to hurt someone who was trying to complete a quest that advances my agenda. Someone who hurts one of my people needs to be taught a lesson.Althos thought, aware that this meant that Drow''s parents had acted against him, and hurt one of his allies. A condition which meant he felt justified in moving against them.


    But the more he thought about it, the more he wondered what he could do in this situation. What he could do to balance the scales.What can I do in this situation? Althos asked himself.


    At first he was focused inwardly, and even then in a very limited sense. It took a few moments for the deity to remember something. A part of his self-improvement plan.


    Just ask questions. It was something he meant in a specific context, talking to domains, but he figured this was the perfect place to meaningfully work on making it a regular habit of his.


    But before he asked his newest friend, himself, for help he crafted and sent a quick message to one of his worshipers: the alchemist Milene. It was a quick thing, asking her if she had space to accommodate her friend, Drow, for a few days. She was understandably confused, but her response came back swiftly informing him that she did.


    This way I know that Drow has a home. And that it is in Undermoon.Althos told himself, happy that Drow would still be able to work in the city, that the elf would retain his ability to push the city towards his service. After thinking about his dark elven oracle, the god spoke to the lake.


    "Hey lake... I''m going to help Drow. But I think I need some advice. How do you think I can best do this? You know all of the magic at my disposal. And I don''t. Please offer me your wisdom." He said, his eyes shimmering with sincerity. The lake looked at the strange figure who floated above it and thought for a second.


    "I can think of a few different ways that you could help Drow. But first, activate your second will." The lake told the god. Althos immediately did as the lake commanded. And the lake didn''t even to tell Althos what to tell the second will. He knew without being told.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    [How should I, the second will, behave in this scenario?] The system asked Althos. He was then presented with a number of options. He selected the one that told the second will to get up and lead his desert-dwelling party towards one of the cities of the desert giants. That option, when selected then opened up and revealed more options.


    [How should I, the second will, treat your party?] The system asked. Althos grinned, mildly inconvenienced by this but not disliking it. This new, second choice was proof that the second will was evolving and becoming more complex.


    His decision to select the option that made the second will an active speaker and a conversational leader among the party was proof that he was evolving. That option ensured that even as he was moving towards aiding Drow his followers would view him as a fully present, committed to their journey, and in command of the party.


    He was now free to focus on aiding his dark-elven worshiper. Which made that a perfect time for the lake once again began to speak to Althos.


    "Now it''s time for you to learn about how to further spread your consciousness. And more importantly: how to remotely manipulate magic." The lake told him, eager to teach Althos a brand new skill.


    <hr>


    The two jackaloids and the scorpion who had accompanied Althos to the corpse of the desert titan were pleasantly surprised when Althos arose abruptly. Their master looked out at them, making eye contact with each of the trio, before he began to speak.


    "Sorry about that everyone." He told them, jovially. Only the scorpion, the single member of the trio who knew the true nature of their god, tried to assess if the god was being sincere. It''s head rose in surprise as it realized that he was, in fact, being sincere.


    He didn''t address the scorpion''s skepticism. The second will realized that if it acknowledged the familiar''s skepticism it may have made the tiny thing feel judged, and that was the opposite of what it wanted the scorpion to feel.


    "I needed to study the titan. I did so. Using godly powers." Althos'' second will explained, raising more questions than answers. Then the thing made Althos point at the titan''s corpse, though what it was pointing at was beyond the titan''s corpse. And the deity grew wings, majestic things made of fungal matter.


    "I have studied it. And we are going to pay a visit to its home: a desert giant city named Namira. It''s not far. Are you ready to go, friends?" Althos asked, a grin on his face. Before the god''s party informed him of whether or not they were good to go, Althos began to gently flap his wings so as to leave no doubt as to how the party would reach a land beyond the massive corpse.


    Althos'' body and second will noticed the fear that appeared abruptly in the eyes of the two jackaloids. This elicited a grim grin from the deity.


    <hr>


    Drow was still in his personal chamber, several minutes after praying to Althos.And patience wasn''t his strong suit. So naturally, the dark elf was stewing in his own fears and anxieties. Fears and anxieties which only increased in intensity after the dark elf prayed to his god.


    His negative emotional state wasn''t helped by the residual aches and pains he felt with even the slightest movement. Each twitch of his face, purposeful or not, punished the pious dark elf whose crime was being overly excited to share his faith with his family by causing a quiet headache he was stoically enduring to worsen.


    I definitely won''t do that again.He complained, vowing to be more cautious in the future.


    After a few minutes of silence passed he began to grow morbidly curious.I wonder what they''re doing...He thought in reference to his parents.They''ve always been creative when it came to punishing those they deemed deserving of their most cruel affections.He thought, angrily.


    Moments later he let out a soft, pain-filled moan when his face twitched reflexively as dust in his rarely used room lightly brushed his face.


    Though for them to come up with torture worse than this would be a masterful act of creativity.He thought, bitterly, as he steeled himself in an effort to ignore the pain. After all, not only was he emotionally torturing himself but even the slightest of movements resulted in him receiving tiny shocks of pain that prevented him from moving into anything vaguely resembling a comfortable position.


    That would have been easier to do had he been in a place where anything at all was happening. His private chamber was not a place of distractions, which normally was an attractive feature of the solitary place but at the moment merely ensured that his torture was perpetuated unendingly.


    As more minutes passed the dark elf began to mentally grumble. After all, he couldn''t even sigh without inviting pain so the only safe place he had left was his mind.


    I prayed and nothing has happened... I could just be being too impatient, but I know that Althos has incredible powers at his disposal. I wish he''d use them to save me.The dark elf thought.


    At the moment the dark elf was seated on his bed. The room was utterly silent and the only sounds he heard were the ambient noises of the distant city, and the negative thoughts which ate away at what little hope the dark elf had of being rescued.


    The change that took place in the dark elf''s personal chamber began as an incredibly subtle thing. A minute manipulation of magical energy from far away, out of the room and out of the dimension.


    It took a few seconds for even the sensitive prisoner to notice that a visitor was forcing his way into the room, thanks to their subtle mystical manipulation of the magical energy that naturally suffused the air of the world beneath the world. But when he did, the dark elf wondered if the prayer was paying off.


    <hr>


    This is not the ideal time to be taking a new skill on a... trial run.Althos thought as he put into practice the mysterious new skill the lake had spent the last few moments explaining.


    Nevertheless, the deity busied himself with his attempt to pull off a subtle manipulation of the innate magical energy that existed throughout the world beneath the world. The world beneath the world was the title of the strange region that existed underneath the surface of the mortal world that Althos sprung to life in weeks ago.


    He started the process by moving to understand where it was that his manipulations would take place. He reached into his mind and metaphysically grabbed hold of a


    Althos concentrated intently, visualizing Drow''s chamber. In time he could see the dark elf in his room, the immature warrior locked in his chamber. What Althos saw was in real-time.


    Drow sat impatiently, forlorn and nearly hopeless by the look of his facial expression. Althos was quiet as he spent a few moments examined the dark elf''s face.


    He was actually studying his worshiper. His focus changed every few seconds as he allowed his mind to wander over the elf''s body. A few moments passed before he grew satisfied with his methodical examination of the dark elf.


    He was mostly physically hurt. And the wounds were external.The deity told himself, having used his newfound medical knowledge, knowledge which he acquired while reliving Mahmud''s memories, to diagnosis his follower.And since that''s the case I can just do this.Althos thought, right before he cast a powerful healing spell on the dark elf.


    <hr>


    Althos'' physical body was vertically ascending. The true-devil had taken on a fusion form, one that shot straight up into the sky while carrying his servants and worshipers in a thick basket he made by significantly enlarging and transforming his limbs.


    The normally humanlike things he nominally called hands were fungal in texture and strength. They were also attached to each other to form a sort of platform his jackaloids and the dire-scorpion who served him could easily be on top of at the same time.


    He spoke to his followers as he flew through the air, grinning as he reached a height that allowed him to be halfway to ascending over the titan''s corpse."How are you all feeling?" He asked those who had joined him and who kept their gazes glued onto each other in a failing effort to not look out over the edge of the platform.


    "We''re fine! Just scared." The two jackaloids confessed in unison.This discovery surprised the second will, who knew what Althos'' main consciousness knew of the jackaloids and hadn''t suspected that they''d be afraid of heights.


    <hr>


    Drow faced several surprises over the course of a few seconds. Before he began to feel certain that the disturbance he felt was caused by his god, he felt the powers of his god''s healing touch. Drow smiled as he felt the cruel affections of the residual pain that had plagued him for days vanish slowly, beginning with his headache fading to a soft throb, and continuing until all of the pain he had kept keenly aware of for days was gone.


    This sensation... I can see what Milene was talking about.Drow told himself as Althos'' powers radiated out from a place beyond Drow''s awareness and wrapped the dark elf in a faintly visible, aura of healing.


    His thoughts were in reference to the last conversation the oracle and the alchemist had had, hours before Drow was placed on house arrest. Milene, the younger sister of Mianthus and the niece of Qu''Ren had told Drow that Althos'' powers had a strange, pleasant, and mutative effect on her. At the time he hadn''t understood but now he did. Althos'' powers did indeed evoke pleasant sensations and make the dark-elf feel strange.


    In a few moments, the light vanished, but as the light vanished Drow was surprised to hear Althos'' voice. "Hello Drow. I should have been more direct in leading you. But now I will be. And my first instance of doing that is this: I think it''s time that you leave this place. That you leave... this prison." Althos said, his voice gentle and sympathetic.


    But... I want to see what happens to my parents.The dark elf thought, his anger and his hate for them mixing when he heard that his master intended for him to leave his familial home.I also want to see how they react when they realize you are real! That you care for your worshipers.He thought, truthfully, and almost accidentally transmitting his thoughts to the young god.


    He moved to vocalize his feelings but realized that he couldn''t see his master. The deity was not visible to the dark-elf, who quickly confirmed this himself by examining the direction he heard his masters'' voice ring out from.


    The dark elf''s search for Althos lasted just for a moment. Drow quickly figured that if Althos wanted to be seen he would have been. But this moment lasted long enough for him to have and seize the chance to organize his thoughts, which he did.


    This resulted in the dark elf carefully avoiding articulating his petty reason for wanting to stay until his parents learned that Althos was real.


    "But Althos... I want to see how my parents react to the reality of your existence! I want to see if they join me in worshiping you. And if we leave now... will they get to see you? Experience your powers?" The dark elf asked, urgency and sadness mixing in equal parts as the dark elf seriously contemplated the possibility, for the first time, that the torture and humiliation he underwent might not result in even a single family member joining him in revering Althos.


    I came here because I wanted my family, at least my siblings and my cousins, to join me in the founding days of this new religion. If I suffered this humiliation and no one from my house joins me...The thought hit the dark elf surprisingly hard.


    Althos did away with much of the sorrow his words had inadvertently caused when he spoke again. "I said '' you''. I didn''t say I was going to leave. Not yet anyway." He told the dark elf. Though Drow couldn''t see him, Althos was grinning as he said that.


    <hr>


    The moment that Althos healed Drow, the noblewoman in the dining room that wasn''t at all far away from where the family had contained the dark elf reacted to Althos'' presence. She calmly placed her spoon on top of her plate, looked up at her mate and smiled.


    She was the image of dark serenity when she smiled. A dark elven picture of beauty. But few things scared her mate more than her smile. Especially when she was serene. She spoke, two words escaping her lips. "He''s here."


    And then she closed her eyes and waited for him to appear before them. For him to invade the dining chamber where the matriarch had just finished what her lover feared might just be her last meal.

 Chapter 74:

    Althos'' physical body was now closer than ever to the top of the deceased desert titan''s body. And at that moment a minor disaster struck: the followers of the fungal lord regained their ability to smell.


    The rapidly rotting corpse of the sovereign of the sandy wastes had been radiating a rank miasma as a result of the heinous wounds that resulted in the thing dying in the first place. The odor''s effects had been suppressed by Althos minutes ago when the deity made use of a spell from a school he rarely used: alteration.


    The creatures who were ascending alongside their master grimaced as they were buffeted by wind, and assailed by the noxious scent wafting off of the corpse. Althos'' physical body, possessed and controlled by the multi-willed entity''s secondary will, heard them retch and immediately sprung to action.


    The main will uses magic... I can too! The entity thought, aiming at the native creatures who had joined him and then recasting the penultimate spell the body had cast.


    The party members continued to retch, needing a second to recover from the scent''s potent assault on their sense of smell, but the entity in control of the physical body of Althos heard the retching noises they made significantly lessen in intensity. The entity smiled as it continued its vertical ascent.


    <hr>


    Drow starred at the space from which he heard Althos'' voice ring out whenever the odd entity spoke as he took in the implications of what his master had told him. There was a look that managed to be an odd mixture of skepticism and relief on his face, contorting his gloomy features into an expression that communicated his pain as only a dark elf''s facial features could.


    So does he want to confront my parents? If he does... I want to be there. The dark elf thought, his anger towards his parents blinding him to both the will of his master and towards the logic of feeling to a safer destination.


    Althos, having learned a lot about the subtlety of body language while reliving the early memories of Mahmud, saw the pain in Drow''s expression. The dark elf''s master knew that he had healed the creature''s physical wounds, but now Althos needed to heal the dark elf''s emotional wounds.


    What can I do here? How do I heal emotional wounds? Althos asked himself, frustration emerging as he wondered what to do to persuade the stubborn dark elf to obey him. As the mercurial alpha gazed at the dark elf, the emotions within the devious creature''s gaze shifted from the mixed feelings he felt to a more direct desire to be disobedient, to deviate from what his master told him to do. This angered Althos, whose thoughts took an authoritarian bent.


    Should I use magic? Force him to obey me? Althos briefly wondered, before mentally chiding himself. No. No! If I want to be obeyed willingly I need to become a master worth obeying without relying on compulsion. He thought, growing angry but this time at himself and his own instinctual laziness.


    Althos took a deep breath to center himself and waited a moment. He allowed his mind to calm down and contemplated how to produce the best result possible from this scenario. What is my goal here? He asked himself, trying to create something to focus on, to work towards.


    I want Drow to be safe, which he isn''t here, and I want to confront and humiliate those who hurt him. He thought, his mind focusing around those central objectives. In doing this he willed away petty distractions and at least for the moment, his focus undid the harm done towards his limited patience by Drow''s continued disobedience and the fact that now Althos needed to learn how to navigate the treacherous pathways of the heart.


    How can I achieve that? He asked, after thinking for a few moments, time passing by slowly as his dark elf servant looked at him with that same frustration evoking an expression of desired disobedience. Seconds passed and he realized he should speak next. For some reason Drow wasn''t going to do it, so Althos knew that he should. Let''s just be honest here. He thought, deciding to take a quick risk after moments of tense and awkward silence.


    "Listen to me. I came here to help you, and to confront those who hurt you. In order to help you, I got Milene to open up her workshop and tell me that she''s got space in it for you. She''s expecting you. She''s waiting for you. You being here while I confront your parents might grant you some immediate gratification, but you wouldn''t be safe. I care about your safety and want you out of this place." Althos told the dark elf, the tone of his voice leaving no doubt as to how serious he was.


    Drow considered what his savior had told him. He was quiet, his face pained as he thought about the god¡¯s words. Someone is performing an act of kindness for me¡­ an act of kindness that is not at all small. The dark elf told himself, realizing that for the first time. That rose the significance of Althos¡¯ words. It also made Drow view his sometimes traveling partner Milene more fondly. Drow looked at where Althos¡¯ voice sometimes came from and the dark elf began to speak.


    ¡°My failure here is negatively affecting, inconveniencing someone else, someone who owes me nothing and is no relative of mine. And now that person is waiting for me to show up, offering me a small act of mercy, which my continued presence here prevents me from accepting. My pride may accidentally cause her to be offended.¡± Drow told his master, honesty seeping into his voice. His face paled as he felt shame. Althos, though far away, looked at the dark elf with a confused expression.


    ¡°Why would she be offended?¡± He asked, genuinely confused by the dark elf¡¯s statement. Drow looked away from the spot from which he heard the deity¡¯s words before he responded, moved to do so out of shame.


    ¡°If she does not understand why I¡¯ve not yet shown up, she may think of me as rejecting her act of kindness. It¡¯s the way her aunt would think. A quick rush to judgment and a fiery outburst. To be clear, I am not rejecting her act of kindness, but I do not want to leave just yet. I want to be here.¡± The dark elf stated. He got quieter when mentioning Qu¡¯Ren as if the mere mention of her was enough to alert her as to his words.


    Althos laughed when he heard his followers¡¯ explanation. Seconds later he spoke quickly, offering a surprising reassurance to the dark elf. ¡°I might be unintentionally strengthening your desire to stay here by saying this but the truth is that Milene is not like her aunt." The disembodied voice told the dark elf.


    "I¡¯ve only done a superficial analysis of their memories, I¡¯ve gained an incredibly shallow understanding of the two of them, but I can tell you that they are not the same.¡± He said, honestly and openly comforting his follower.


    The dark elf¡¯s face seemed to regain some of its color when the god said that. He seemed to consider what the deity said a lot more seriously at that moment. And at that moment, the deity had an idea that he momentarily considered. It came to him in a flash of inspiration.If Drow is serious about staying and fighting... could I mutate him, temporarily?He wondered, having explored his mutations menu for the first time just minutes ago.


    The deity''s mind conjured the image of the lower body of a girtablilu with Drow''s upper body and face. The image was an intimidating one, and would almost certainly empower Drow enough to fight his family. Althos considered it, but was surprised to hear Drow''s next words, which interrupted the deity''s thoughts.


    "I will go to Milene. She has done me an act of great kindness... if it were anyone else I''d likely not take them up on their offer, but Milene is special." The experienced explorer told Althos. There was an emotion the formless god was unfamiliar with, in the oracle''s voice. It intrigued him.


    Althos did a quick assessment of Drow''s body language. He studied his servant and worshiper to see how the multi-classed dark-elf was feeling. Althos heard the dark elf''s heart beating in his chest, and was surprised that it wasn''t the calm heartbeat of someone who was about to drift off to bed, but the sort of frantic hammering that the memory-thief heard in Mahmud''s heart whenever the titan had walked by brothels.


    Is there a part of him that now thinks of Milene as a mate?Althos questioned his naive mind only loosely familiar with complex emotional concepts beyond hatred, and his understanding of love and mating came to him through the lens of a polygynous society. It took him a second to arrive at a more nuanced possibility.No... he is probably debating how he feels about her now that he knows that she would do something so generous.Althos thought.


    I wonder if the dark-elf thinks it''s because it''s him that Milene is doing this? No... he''s not that arrogant.Althos figured, grinning. The young thing was wrong. At that moment the possibility that he had dismissed was precisely what was going through Drow''s mind.But Drow being wrong, for the moment, suited Althos'' agenda and protected his lone-oracle.


    The shapeless entity instantly prepared the teleportation-effect he had at his disposal, but before he used it to whisk the dark elf out of what was once his home he spoke to his follower.


    "It is almost time for you to leave this place. When you arrive in Milene''s workshop do your best to aid her. In light of this, and a few things I learned from Qu''Ren, I shall, at least for the time being, take a bit more of a direct approach to our efforts here. I shall be calling a meeting of the three of you soon. Perhaps even later today." He told his servant.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Althos took a second to create an updated copy of Drow''s memories. Given the fact that the relevant parts were just the last few days, the deity performed an in-depth examination of those memories, maintaining his scattered consciousness while doing the procedure.


    He did this to truly understand what his servant had gone through, and because of how much shorter it was than the part of the titan''s life was, it was done far faster than his considerable studies of Mahmud''s early life were.


    While Althos was experiencing some of the worst days of the dark elf''s life, the dark elf himself nodded at his master, understanding and being excited at the possibility of Althos'' more direct involvement. And then the dark elf was gone.


    <hr>


    The moment the dark elf was whisked away to his friend and fellow cultist'' workshop, Althos'' physical body ascended over the top of the desert titan. And the party of desert-dwelling creatures laid their eyes on the deceased tyrant''s rotting torso.


    From their aerial vantage point, they could see the strange things Althos had detected but hadn''t been able to properly see while walking towards the titan. The clothing it wore was riddled with strange, parasites. Innumerable swarms of the human-sized creatures silently walked on top of the thing''s breezy outfit and occasionally idly making holes in the thing so that more of their kin could appear.


    They looked like gigantic beetles, each bigger than the jackaloids in their human forms. They possessed dense exoskeletons, numerous legs that ended in cruel-looking hooks so as to secure their footing on the strange, flowy material they dared to walk on top of, and pairs of wings hidden under dense natural plating. Their exoskeletons ranged in color from bright green to dark blue, and the insects divided themselves up based on the color of their exoskeletons.


    The jackaloids watched the things emerge from the holes on the titan''s outfit and made a macabre realization.That''s probably why the corpse started rotting so fiercely so soon after this thing fell.They both thought, realizing that if the insects were eating the corpse that would cause it to rot faster.


    Previously the two shapeshifters had wondered why something this massive would begin to emit such a powerful and awful scent so quickly but they hadn''t had any reason to come to the conclusion that this was the cause.


    Althos'' second will momentarily considered making contact with one of the things mentally, but it quickly shook off that moment of initiative.No... this sort of thing is something the main will has never encountered before. I should leave it to him.It thought, lacking confidence in its ability to use true godly powers, the sort of which might have been useful in aiding it if fighting broke out here.


    <hr>


    I wonder if Drow is being obstinate...The female dark elf who, minutes ago had closed her eyes, thought. She was deep in thought, having closed her eyes to allow her mind to focus on what was on her mind, as opposed to processing useless sights.


    The dining room she was in was still silent even though the room''s two inhabitants had finished their meals. Their plates hadn''t been collected yet, but the male dark elf sitting across from her could hear the soft footsteps of servants approaching, presumably to collect their used silverware.


    <hr>


    Once Drow had been teleported out of the palatial residence Althos reflected on what the dark elf had gone through.


    His power over memory allowed him to experience the entire ordeal. Althos felt Drow''s enthusiasm when he returned home and explained that he had become an oracle. He felt the dark elf''s excitement when Drow told his parents about the mysterious god who empowered him and gave him a quest.


    And then he saw the look on their faces change. Grow wicked. Malicious. Drow felt weird about that. In his eyes, the change came out of nowhere!


    Althos felt Drow''s pain when the dark elf''s berserker father punched him for the first time. And the second. And the fourteenth. He felt the fear that crept into the dark elf''s heart when Drow realized that he was losing consciousness. And then he felt the residual aches and pains the dark elf endured, as well as the oracle''s mental struggle over whether or not to contact him.


    He felt the dark elf''s complex ties to his parents erode over the next few nights. When the dark elf first awoke after losing consciousness, in his room, he felt angry and hurt. Then he tried to leave and realized he couldn''t. So he waited. Minutes of anger and pain turned to hours of loneliness and fear. Which, over the course of days transformed into a bitter, murderous hatred. But there was something else there too.


    Drow was afraid. He was afraid for himself, but he was also afraid of something else. He was afraid of failure. The dark elf had opted to come to his family first because he wanted to convert his family into a cult dedicated to his god. The god who had given him the right to call himself an oracle.


    He was afraid that he had failed.Knowing that I came here and I couldn''t get another member of the Banethal family to join me... it hurts.Was something that repeated itself throughout the dark elf''s memories. The dark elf had sincerely wanted his family to serve Althos.


    My service alone isn''t much, but my family... all of us... if it''s us together, our service can mean something. It can be of use to this strange... kind god.The dark elf told himself, repeating that over and over in his head during the trek from the tunnel to the city. Althos, feeling a shallow imitation of compassion, felt pained knowing that his servant had wanted something so badly, only to be denied it. But the deity''s heart was maturing, slowly.


    Althos'' emotions had always been rash and intense, shifting rapidly from placidity or apathy to intense, only loosely justifiable, bursts of anger or rarely contentedness. But this was the first time that Althos witnessed a shift that was both logical and dramatic. Witnessing it firsthand darkened the deity''s outlook at this situation. Which he realized, thanks to his sharpened focus on his own actions and feelings.


    He was aware that if he moved now he''d act out of malice. So he waited. He took a deep breath and calmed himself. And to pass the time he looked around the chamber he was in.


    It was a spartan place, consisting of very little even in terms of what was functional.


    The chamber was large enough to house a horde of expensive furniture, but most of what Althos saw around him, his incorporeal eyes peering through the darkness with ease, was furniture that completely emphasized function over form. He saw a simple, large bed, a dresser that he knew contained the assorted clothes his servant wore in his down-time and a few other pieces of furniture that served a real purpose.


    There was a mirror, a washbasin, and a closest that a simple scan of Drow''s memories revealed contained suits of armor the dark elf wore on expeditions to the world above the city.


    While examining the room, the deity grew bored. He also felt his heart lose the maliciousness that Drow had been feeling. And so he began to move.


    <hr>


    The desert-dwellers were sailing over the desert titan''s corpse. Each of the native desert-dwellers watched the beetle-like creatures on the titan, eyeing them cautiously. They weren''t fond of the overly large insects and weren''t eager for such things to turn their eerie attention on them.


    Only Althos'' secondary will had its eyes glued straight to the horizon. The thing was flying towards a specific destination: the city of Namira. It wasn''t far away, the party just had to get to a place that was beyond the corpse, and was closer to the city.


    In time the party finished crossing the meters long roadblock that was the corpse of the titan. And before long Althos'' secondary will, using his main will''s senses could see positively enormous buildings way off in the distance.


    The tallest of these buildings was over five kilometers tall, sailing far taller than anything Althos had ever seen, even the apartment of the deadly devil Paimon. It was a delicate-looking thing, made of a substance that looked like purple glass. As a consequence of its height and its construction it possessed an air of elegant nobility.


    It was also something that was not known to Althos, meaning it was something that sprung into being further along in Mahmud''s life later than Althos was familiar with. And the secondary will was flying straight towards it. Flying towards the unknown.


    <hr>


    Althos looked out at the door that let visitors in and out of Drow''s chamber. When Drow had tried to open it, the thing didn''t respond. He thought about what to do for a second and then figured that his incorporeality would handle locked doors well. As he did that, he heard echoing footsteps from far away going off somewhere.


    The deity stepped through the door, not experiencing an ounce of resistance as he did so. When he was on the other side of the door he spun in a circle to see his surroundings.


    When he looked around his new surroundings he found that he was in a long and wide hallway that led to other parts of the manor. The walls that surrounded him were made not of obsidian, but of onyx. An incredible amount of light-absorbing onyx. He saw a number of doors on both sides of himself, and for a second he was unsure of where to


    Without even needing to consult Drow''s older memories, he realized that he should just check his radar.It''s the only logical course of action.He told himself, checking the thing to see who else was in the palace-like estate.


    It took him just a few seconds to do so, and he was surprised to find that the place was as empty as Drow believed it to be. An inspection of his radar revealed very few nearby creatures, aside from some of the vermin who called the lonely halls of the place home, and fungi growing on the exterior of the residence.


    He made contact with the fungi, sending each mushroom, bit of mold, and more messages while readying himself for his confrontation with Drow''s family. In doing so he randomly gained several worshipers, something which delighted the deity of spores, fungi, and more.


    And then the deity traveled through the estate''s main home. He traveled through walls and doors, experiencing the same lack of resistance while going through them as he did when he traveled through the magically sealed door.


    Before he knew it he was outside of the dining room, a fact he knew because he recognized the hallway he was in, the distinct door leading into the room, and he could smell the residual scent of recently cooked fungi, the meal that the matron of the Banethal estate had finished eating just a few minutes ago.


    The curious deity, did his best to control the quiet but not undetectable bit of anger he felt the longer he looked at the door that separated him from the figures who had hurt his servant. When he felt ready, calm, and in control, he passed through the door.


    When he passed through the door what laid in front of him was a long room that was dominated by an ornate obsidian table. He was on one end of it, and on the other sat two dark elves.


    One of them was a tall, muscular fellow in an unbuttoned silk robe that revealed powerful pectoral muscles and suggested the rest of his body was as powerful as what he displayed openly. The other dark elf was a woman with a waifish build, dressed in a supernaturally beautiful red dress


    <hr>


    The spell-singing oracle and her mate, a rare berserker, oracle multi-class dark elf, realized that they weren''t alone at the same time. They both reacted to the invisible intruder by turning to face it, with different expressions on their faces.


    The spell-singer, a beautiful dark elf wearing a radiantly beautiful dress that kept her eyes closed and grinned at the indistinct entity who was on the other side of their dining room table. She gestured nobly at a seat next to her, and then opened her mouth to speak.


    "Why hello there Althos. Won''t you take a seat? My son speaks so highly of you, that I''ve been just dying to meet you." She spoke confidently and self-assuredly, believing that her abilities, the gift she had prepared for the deity, and that the combination of traits that she was told the odd god possessed by Drow before he was knocked out, would prevent Althos from killing her outright and would cause the deity to view her pragmatically rather than as an enemy.


    Althos not only saw the dark elves, but he also saw the simple codex that laid between the two lovers. He was unsure of what to do, but he sensed no hostility coming off of the female dark elf and sensed only fear radiating off of her muscular companion.


    Should I humor them? Maybe let them put their guards down?He wondered. A not insignificant part of him wanted to reach out for the codex, which explained why the deity slowly approached the pair.


    After a few moments, he decided to commit to his decision and fully approached the pair of dark elves. As he did so, he studied the evocation spells at his disposal, briefly considering whether or not to just immolate the pair of dark elves for their murderous behavior and treatment of his servant.But only for a moment.


    Self-improvement is hard. He thought when his incorporeal form was right next to the spell-singer, as he readied a spell, just in case one of the two dark elves did something he couldn''t predict. A real possibility given their odd behavior, attacking their son and welcoming their son''s master with what looked like very superficial, very open, arms.

 Chapter 75:

    Althos didn''t have to wait long before Drow''s parents, or rather Drow''s mother once again surprised the strange god. Moments after he moved to the side of the spell-singer, the dark elf turned and looked at him. So she can see me... He thought, momentarily. She kept smiling at him, unflappable, unsurprised, and yet pleased that he hadn''t attacked immediately.


    Althos, annoyed by her ability to stay calm when faced with a god who has identified her as an enemy, decided to investigate her. He started off by concentrating on her, activating an unusual ability he had once used on Drow. In a matter of seconds, a textbox appeared over her head that revealed some information about her.


    [Name: Hagitha Banethal


    Class: Spell-Singer/Oracle


    Species: Dark Elf


    Faction: The Banethal Family]


    Althos chuckled when he reached the final part of the information. The Banethal Family? Her loyalty is most certainly not to her family. He thought, his eyes narrowing immediately after reading that. He turned the same power on her mate, whose face paled the minute the dark-elf unconsciously realized that for the first time since Althos entered the room, he was focusing on the berserker.


    [Name: Qiloth Darklight


    Class: Berserker/Oracle


    Species: Dark Elf


    Faction: The Revered Brotherhood.]


    That''s... interesting. Althos thought, recalling when he first learned about Dark Elves, hearing that as a species they tended to be strongly dominated by women. He spent a second wondering what that "faction" was about, and imagined that it wouldn''t be something matriarchs would like. His thoughts momentarily distracted him for just a second before he received a notification.


    [Multi-Part Notification:


    Divine Power Explanation: Identify


    This power activates at will and reveals limited information about the target. It''s a consequence of Althos'' emphasis on memories and thoughts, and it can undergo multiple upgrades and level-ups and has been useable for many days. The first level-up occurs after Althos has used it on five people, which just occurred. Once this occurs the power reveals new information. Given that this occurred just now, the new information will be made immediately available to Althos.


    Creatures that don''t often name themselves will show up as "nameless" unless they''ve been given a name but everything else will be revealed. Most beasts name themselves, but insects and some types of creatures known as "vermin" don''t. This power won''t reveal a demon, devil, or other sorts of extraplanars true names. Not at its current level anyway.


    The first level-up to this power reveals a creature''s alignment.


    There are no cooldowns or limits on this power.


    Alignment explanation:


    Alignment refers to a creature''s code of morality and ethics. These things might not seem important, and many mortals don''t know their true importance, but these things are of cosmic relevance.


    For mortals, alignment is one of the deciding factors that determine which dimension they go to when they die, barring any potent interruptions to natural processes. Alignment also determines the sort of magic that can affect them in life.


    For the purposes of the system that enforces the rules set by the greatest gods, and could theoretically be changed by them, alignment has been broken down into nine basic categories.


    Each alignment takes views along two spectrums into account: the good-evil spectrum and the chaos-law spectrum. Both spectrums have three points. In the case of the good-evil spectrum, the points are good, evil, and neutral. And in the case of the chaos-law spectrum, the points are chaos, law, and neutral.


    Every creature fits somewhere along this spectrum, and there are good examples of every type of creature to have ever existed aside from the Great Old Ones, and there are evil examples of every type of creature to have ever existed aside from Archon Queens.


    Both of those types of creatures are extinct now. They were among the kinds of creatures that were utterly destroyed during a mysterious cataclysm that occurred eons ago. The same cataclysm which wiped out the gods and the arch-devils. Until the day Althos sprung to life.


    More specific information on each alignment becomes known once Althos gains 1,000 worshipers whose alignment matches it.


    Hagitha''s alignment ischaotic evil. Qiloth''s alignment is neutral-evil.]


    Althos willed away the notification the second he received it. He learned a lot from it, finding the strong language contained within it to be of particular interest. It took him seconds to process what he learned, seconds during which he was distracted, silent, and his mind trailed off in a few different directions, all of which were important.


    I''ll definitely be investigating this later.He thought, making a mental note to use some of his resources in the next few days to begin to research those terms, Archon Queens and Great Old Ones, when he was done with dealing with Hagitha, Qiloth, and finished with the quest his other will was temporarily doing in Infernius.


    A small part of him considered whether or not he should pursue information about his alignment. But then he waved that concern away.I''ll have time to do that later. I don''t need to waste time on such small things, right this second.


    For the time being, in the heat of the moment of pursuing vengeance the deity didn''t quite remember an odd instance in the past: a time when he talked about alignment, without having a clear understanding of what it was. It happened deep in the forest, the hour he first truthfully spoke to the original dark elves who worshiped him.


    It was one of those odd bits of instinctive, almost biological basic understanding of a profound topic that had plagued the deity when he first sprung to life, knowledge that was somehow in his mind when he was first brought to life. He may not have consciously remembered that event, but something about the word "alignment" spoke to him.


    But not all of his thoughts were so small-scale or personal or even so forgetful. Some of them were cosmic in scope.


    He reflected on a new bit of information, something the system revealed just now.So it wasn''t just gods and arch-devils that have vanished...He thought.And if the system says they are extinct... as far as I can tell that means that they are gone. Unless I can somehow also become one of them.The deity wondered if that was a possibility.


    And that made him wonder what his own true nature was, if he was doing things all of the gods of the past could do or if this was like his memory powers: something odd and distinct, possibly even totally unique.


    In time though he realized that all of that distracted him from the task at hand, and so after a few moments he shook his head, in the depths of his mind, and refocused on the task at hand rather than messy questions he had very little ability to independently investigate.


    <hr>


    Althos'' physical body flew for several kilometers before it descended back to the desert floor. By the time it had done so, the desert-dwellers who accompanied were far enough from the rotting corpse of the mighty titan, and the mysterious insects who had crawled on top of it, to no longer be bothered by the smell of the moldering body. They weren''t incredibly far from the odd city that gleamed in the distance.


    As it was descending on the desert, its mind was hard at work.Namira is close. How can we most safely enter there?The thing wondered.


    The city is home to countless giants. I should be... logical. Disguised even!The thing thought,feeling a flicker of excitement as it powerfully visualized the faces of the countless desert giants Mahmud met during his first twenty-five years of life and beginning a careful process of creating an original face using the sultan''s memories as a base.


    As he began to plan his disguise, the second will did a rudimentary and brief scan of Mahmud''s last memories, not enough to hear things but just enough to see things. To see the modern city of Namira, to familiarize itself with a bit of the knowledge that the city''s now deceased ruler had of the place.


    The eerie god deposited his followers on the sandy floor and did something that surprised them. He began to change his form in front of them. At first, it was just his lower body. Before their very eyes, Althos'' body expanded and grew wider, starting from the bottom-up. His legs stretched, increasing his height.


    As they stretched they lost their asymmetrical-nature. Instead of each leg being two wildly different colors, both became thick bronze-toned things. The rest of Althos'' body joined them in bronzing, immediately taking on a sunkissed look. His torso widened and stretched out. The creature had grown an impressive amount in a comically short amount of time.


    His arms grew the most, becoming thick weapons that the odd entity could masterfully use thanks to his long-term, relative to his short-life anyway, passion, and skill in martial arts. He noticed this and grinned slyly at it, well aware that the primary will would be delighted at this turn of events since he seemed to enjoy using his limbs in battle.


    He looked out at the rest of his party, right as his eyes changed color. They went from being two different colors, white and black, to becoming humanoid-like white orbs with deep brown irises. His smirk was evidently contagious, as the shape-shifting party members instinctively knew that the deity had some mischevious scheme that was beginning to sprout.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    And then it heard a question from an unexpected source. A domain.


    <hr>


    The main will of the eerie entity took a second to refocus. He froze for a second and thought long and hard.What is my goal here?He asked himself, conducting the same exercise he had done when thinking of how to convince Drow to willingly go to Milene''s workshop.


    While he was thinking about this, he looked at the two dark elves again. At Hagitha and Qiloth. It helped center him.My goal is to punish them. And to ensure that they and that others don''t antagonize my servants when those servants are trying to persuade them that I exist and that I should be worshiped.He thought, carefully considering how to achieve that goal.


    In pursuit of that, the dark being once again examined their emotional states. And he found that they hadn''t changed their minds, nor how they were feeling. Hagitha was confident and self-assured, and Qiloth was doing his best, which wasn''t good enough, to hide how scared he felt.


    Hagitha''s head was still aimed square at Althos'' incorporeal form and her eyes remained closed. She didn''t seem tense at all.Is she... happy?Althos asked himself after watching her for several moments. There was something unsettling about her body language, something the young god unconsciously detected but couldn''t articulate, due to a lack of experience dealing with people who both believe in themselves and know what he is.


    In time he turned to gaze at the berserker. The berserker was visibly scared. Before Althos'' unseen but detectable gaze, the dark elf paled. That was impressive given the dark tone of his skin. Althos turned on his first, unsure of how to handle the resolute and even eager Hagitha. Althos spoke, uttering just a single word. "Qiloth."


    <hr>


    Qiloth Darklight was a man of two thought-processes. A consequence of his multiclassing when the first class gave him the ability to rage. And because of that, at that moment, he was a man divided between an instinctual, overwhelming fear and a coldly rational analysis of his current predicament, the moment he heard the god of magic utter his name. One of those thought-processes contained a train of thought that reflected that he was a man terrified.


    Qiloth was terrified, visibly shaken even. He was terrified of death. Of pain. Of suffering. And above all else, of gods. Or rather of one god: Althos. Those thoughts were the ones that were visible to his lover, and to the mysterious, probably wrathful deity her scheming had successfully lured out.


    Qiloth''s other thought-process was a more rational one. A colder, reptilian stream of consciousness. It did the sort of thinking that could plan even in the face of death. Those thoughts were quieter than the thoughts that were in control of his body, but it was no less active.


    Those thoughts took in everything about the situation Qiloth was in and pushed him to try to make it out of this situation. The moment Qiloth heard Althos utter his name the second thought-process went to work to glean anything useful from Althos'' singular remark.


    So it''s real. And it can speak.That second, far more useful and cool under-pressure, thought-process assessed.And it knows my name. I shouldn''t assume the worst because of that, because it probably knows my name through Drow, but it''s not good that it knows my name.He thought, carefully trying to suss out anything useful.


    The moment the god spoke his other thought-process, the one influenced by his berserker abilities and traits also had concise, carefully considered thoughts. They were smart thoughts too.I''m fucked. I''m just... I''ve been used and I''m fucked. And that wench probably is too, and she might not even know it. If you''re gonna die, can''t you at least be scared, you trollop!He thought, angrily. He was scared and was lashing out at the one he blamed for all of this: Hagitha.


    <hr>


    Althos carefully examined Qiloth''s reaction to him. The deity felt the dark elf''s fear and for a second he felt something the berserker feel something else as well, something dark aimed at Hagitha.Althos almost enjoyed it.


    The guy is clearly terrified. But he was the one who beat Drow. How should I handle him? I won''t leave here without punishing him but how...? Should his punishment fit his crime? Be physical?He thought, carefully and slowly.


    He felt dark impulses well up within him and recalled the strange, dark force that sometimes spoke to him. All he knew about it, and even that was a guess, was that it was most likely a domain, or possibly the eerie voice of some dark dimension that somehow ties itself to any creature practicing necromancy. And he felt inspired, upon remembering his encounters with the thing. Inspired to reach out.


    The deity, struggling with how to punish the creatures who had harmed, physically and mentally, one of his servants intentioned reached out to the "place" from which he sometimes heard the voice speak to him. He sent a message in the voice''s general "direction", which felt like him shouting in his own mind.


    [I don''t know if you can hear me but... if you''re feeling kind, or at least feel up to inspiring darkness, I could use some words of wisdom right now.] The deity confessed, hoping to glean some useful sort of knowledge from the thing.


    A few seconds passed before he got two replies. The first of which was a peal of cruel-sounding and humorless laughter. The second reply, from the same source, came a few moments after the peal of laughter.


    [Why hello there my little friend... why are you in need of inspiration?] It asked, its otherworldly voice booming throughout Althos'' mind.


    Althos took a second to explain that the creatures in front of him were enemies who needed to be punished. He explained that one of them inflicted physical wounds on a servant of his, and the other had ordered his servant to be subjected to psychological distress. After doing that he explained why he reached out and sought help.


    [I''m a simple god. My idea of punishment has historically been just killing things. At most, I have killed things and I have taken their souls.] The god explained.


    [But one of these creatures is smart and powerful, and there''s a hesitation in my servant that suggests that he''d either rather not see his parents dead or might regret it later.] Althos told the mysterious strange voice in his mind. He himself realized this while reliving Drow''s memories.


    [He is quietly conflicted about whether or not to want them dead, that, mixed with me trying to improve as a god puts me in a bit of a bind. So I''d rather exploit these two while they are alive, and avoid killing them, for now anyway. But they need to be punished for what they did. Which is why I could use some advice. Can you help me out here? I want to send a message, but I just don''t know how to do that effectively and dark-magic would match the mood so maybe you''re the thing to ask.] He communicated.


    The voice considered all that Althos had told it. It was quiet while it did this. Althos could sense it nearby, eerie and unnerving, but also present and thoughtful in its careful consideration. It did speak after a considerable number of moments passed.


    [First of all, you''re approaching this in the wrong order. You see you''re missing information. Before anything else happens you need to ask them, or just forcefully extract their reasoning for the odd codex and for all of this. The codex you talked about is a big factor in all of this. Is it meant to be an apology or an offering? If its an apology you can and should up your cruelty to send a message to anyone and everyone. If its an offering and all of this was a ploy to get your attention... well, it''s up to you.] The dark voice told the invisible deity. But it''s response wasn''t done with just that.


    [It''s good that you''re focused on self-improvement and you are trying to care about and for your followers. Now that you''ve focused on that, assuming you stick with it, you will most likely become a better god, in the context of aiding worshipers anyway, over time. But you need to remember that if you''re reacting to something you need to know what you''re reacting too. You need knowledge of their motives. Once you have that, we''ll talk about what comes next.] The voice said, confident and intrigued by the god.


    Althos nodded at that and turned to Hagitha. She maintained a positive, at-ease expression as he did so but detected him and moved her head slightly so as to make what would have been eye-contact, had she opened her eyes and had Althos been there in person.


    "I''ve been debating what to do about you, and I just realized I don''t have enough information about all of this. So you''re going to talk. What is in that codex that you think would assuage my wrath? And why did you and your mate attack Drow?" He asked, curiosity evident in his voice. At the same time as he asked that, he touched the edge of her mind and waited to see if anything she said differed from her thoughts, via a simple mind-reading spell.


    And what he learned from that was that Hagitha was every bit as cocky internally as she was externally.


    <hr>


    Hagitha''s tilted her head ever so slightly as she considered the question she had just been asked by the deity.And then she spoke.


    "I got your attention this way, with my two-partoffering, because I know what you are, and I accept it. Because you are a god of demons, of evil, and I know that this is what would please you. Violence and suffering. That is what demons feed on." She told the deity, speaking firmly, matter of factly. She finally opened her eyes as she said this, revealing that they weren''t eyes like those of humanoids, but eerier things. Her eyes were solid orbs the color of a flawless ruby.


    So this actually was a sort of offering.He realized, understanding even without reading her mind that every part of this was planned.A way to get my attention, and then to indicate that she wanted to serve.He thought, quietly. And then she opened her mouth to speak again.


    "You are not a god of... ''non-discrimination'', or of ''empowerment''. You are a god of demons. I see it in you. I feel it in you. You are like me." She said, reverentially.


    "You feel this... urge to commit violence, deep in the depths of your soul. I do too. I bet it''s something you are presently mulling over. And this is my way of making it clear that I would do any violence you demanded. We are kindred spirits. And one day, through your power... I''ll be able to become my true self. A demon." She said, speaking quieter now.


    There was an almost sexual emphasis in her voice, not just on the word "violence" but on the word "any" that didn''t escape Althos'' detection.


    Althos'' mind-reading let him know that she genuinely believed what she said.Althos considered her statement for a moment. But not before she said one more thing. Before she bared her soul to him.


    "I was so jealous when Drow told me he had met you! When he told me that he met a god with a demon I realized immediately what you were... and that my son was blinded to your glorious truth. That he was too... weak to see what you are. But I am not. I see your truth. I want to bask in it. Even from so far away I can feel your powers. I can feel how easily you could reach out and flay my skin. How easily you could tear my soul from me and make it ascend."


    As she said this she was nearly in tears. Her facial expression was painfully contorted as if her emotions were themselves causing her pain. It took her a few seconds to return to her usual, confident self.


    He thought about what she said. And he realized that he wasn''t a fan of being told what he was and what he wasn''t, by anyone but especially by someone who hadn''t met him.


    "It is the height of hubris for you to tell a god what he isn''t a god of. Even more so when you''re hearing tales of me, and you haven''t met me yourself." He told her, simply. And with that simple statement, he saw her shell of confidence crack ever so slightly, into something that wasn''t the weird, lurid display she put on when saying her final piece. Just for a moment though.


    For a fraction of a second, there was a flicker of an emotion that wasn''t self-confidence on her beautiful face. Something more sensible than her utter self-belief. But as quickly as that flicker appeared, it was gone.


    "And it is also incredibly hubristic to say that a god is ''like you'', mortal." He said, allowing pride to seep into his voice at that moment. He mentally reached out, like he was going to gently grab her hand and pull it into his, to touch her mind. Not to make a connection, but to share something. An image. An image he experimented to try and make even as he reached out to her.


    Althos'' experiment came in the form of him creating a brand new image in his mind. An image that pulled from all of the memories and thoughts he had swirling around the mess that was his mind, be they his, his allies, or from enemies he had deprived of their memories and thoughts in the last few weeks.


    He came up with an intimidating image. One of a bear-like monster with an open maw filled with ferocious fangs that looked like bloody shards of broken glass.


    This monster had impressive-looking claws with dagger-like talons and was clutching her in one of them, dragging her to its monstrous maw. In Althos'' mind, she was crying tears of blood as this monster''s fangs pulled her to her doom.


    This should scare her. It should show me her true self.He thought, wanting to test her. He fully expected the image to frighten her, to reveal that this thing about being a fan of violence was a conditional part of herself. That she liked to commit violence on others, not endure it herself. And he transmitted it to her mind with but a touch. And he was surprised by her reaction.


    Is that what he wants? To devour me? I like that.She thought simplistically. Her reaction floored Althos with its simplicity and with its sincerity. His reaction to it was flat, direct, and accurate.


    I''m dealing with a sadomasochist. Who wants to be a demon. This person is wildly insane.He thought, accepting that she was being honest with him, that she was a lunatic who really and truly worshiped demons and felt a kinship to them.


    How can I punish someone who WANTS TO DIE?He wondered, for just a moment before seeing the simple answer.


    If I want to punish someone who enjoys pain, who wants to die... I can just keep her alive. Keep her from what she wants.He thought to himself, beginning to grin.

 Chapter 76:

    As Althos reflected on the nuances of how to handle Hagitha Banethal, a deranged demon devotee, he decided to ask his advisors a question he had about something he learned about her earlier.


    [Hey can either of you tell me what a spell-singer is? Does it mean that Hagitha is the same sort of magician as that guy Ravernagos killed forever ago?] Althos asked, curious as to what it meant for both him and his other servants that the newest creature to want to devote themselves to him was a multiclass spell-singer and oracle.


    The deity quietly looked out at Hagitha as he waited to see if either of his advisors knew what the term that had appeared when he used his identify power meant off hand. The dark elf herself was staring back at him, with eerie, admiration-filled eyes that managed to track him no matter where he went as if he were there in the flesh and not merely projecting his consciousness.


    After a few moments passed Althos'' question was answered by Samyaza, the deity''s angelic advisor.


    [Hey Althos, spell-singers are a type of magic-user whose magic comes from within. In the case of spell-singers as opposed to other types of natural magicians they can use magic through song, most often with an instrument as a sort of channeling device but some types exist who can sing their spells into reality. Their powers are kind of amazing too, empowering their allies and demoralizing or outright mesmerizing their enemies.] The angelic orb thoughtfully informed Althos.


    The deity nodded in response to that, figuring that it was the case, and then thanking his angelic servant. After that he immediately considered what it would mean for his forces, limited as they were at the present, to have an ally with those powers. This further cements her value to me... He thought, quietly and somewhat annoyedly.


    After a few seconds, he mentally sighed and exasperatedly complained to no one. I wasn''t going to kill her anyway, but why does she have to have such a fantastic class? Just to remind me that killing things isn''t always the best approach? He grumbled, scornfully complaining just to harmlessly deal some of his annoyance.


    At that point the deity refocused on the matter at hand and spoke to the dark elf once more, all the while ignoring Qiloth. "Earlier you said you had a two-part offering. Am I right in assuming that the second part of that offering is that little thing between you and your... mate?" Althos asked, his voice quiet and intimidating in the forlorn dining room. He was referring to the codex that sat right between Hagitha and Qiloth.


    The god, oftentimes a schemer and ever an opportunist, decided right before Hagitha spoke what he was likely to do at that moment. And for it to be as effective as possible on the party on whom it would have the greatest effect, Drow needed to see it. That meant that Althos needed to be sharing this moment with him. And so he did that.


    <hr>


    In a flash of genius, Althos envisioned a plot that would allow him to earn significant trust, respect, and admiration from Drow. The deity didn''t feel that he needed that, but he realized that having such things from the dark elf would help him convince Drow to accept how Althos planned to punish his mother. And it was a creative punishment. One that involved the strange, dark voice that Althos sometimes chatted with.


    As the plot rapidly came together in his mind, he curiously wondered what the strange voice would think of having this eerie woman be the leader of a cult dedicated to death.The voice would probably find it funny and laugh with its neat laugh.Althos thought, internally grinning at the real possibility that that''s what it''d do.


    And he immediately found out, because the referenced voice spoke directly to him.


    [Oh Althos, is this for me? You''re a sweet little god, aren''t you? You know... I''ve decided that I actually like you. Allow me to introduce myself more formally. I''m the subdomain of necromancy. Since you''ve been so accommodating of me, I''ll return the favor. Allow me to give you a quest that''ll both increase your necromantic knowledge, and allow you to eventually exert influence over me.] The voice gleefully whispered, finally formally introducing itself after having spoken to the young god several times. But it wasn''t done.


    [I know you''ve hesitated to kill things, but I think you should know that being worshiped by undead creatures confers the same benefits as being worshiped by living ones. Just like being worshiped by demons, devils, and other evil extraplanar creatures also strengthens gods. In the past, there were numerous gods of undeath. They were strong because undead creatures can still worship something. Every kill a cult of death and undeath makes strengthens you. Don''t fear it.] The voice said, proving itself to be unusually talkative now that Althos was rewarding it with a cult.


    And then Althos got the quest, the first domain or subdomain quest he''d gotten in a while.


    [New quest: The dead don''t stay dead


    Objectives: Create a necromantic cult and encourage those cultists to kill other living things and then use necromancy to raise them as undead monstrosities.


    Progress: Cults created 0/1


    Undead created 0/100


    Reward: Althos is granted the ability to exert the lowest tier of influence over necromancy and necromancers who immediately and instinctively recognize you as an incredibly powerful necromancer in your own right, even without knowing that you are a god. The lowest tier of influence over necromancy makes it impossible for lesser undead to attack you and anyone you mark as a devotee to you and to necromancy. It also grants encyclopedic knowledge of all lesser undead creatures.


    Note #1: This is the first magical subdomain to recognize you and to grant you a quest to influence it. Necromancy as a sub-domain is tied to numerous other domains, including death and mortality, and various subdomains such as unholiness, and hatred. Completing this quest goes a long way towards opening paths toward other dark domains and sub-domains.


    Note #2: This quest is the first quest of its type you''ve come across, namely it''s the first repeating quest. Future quests to gain influence over the subdomain of necromancy are more intense versions of this, with a rare few exceptions. When you complete this quest, you''ll automatically receive the next, longer quest.]


    And Althos got one more notification, shortly after the necromancy subdomain spoke once more. [And here''s a little gift from me to you, to aid in the establishment of your cute little cult.] The voice said, beginning to laugh gleefully. Althos received a notification seconds later.


    [Alert:


    The necromantic domain has given you the ability to grant witches, wards, warlocks, clerics, and your most devoted servants'' service, even those without religious classes, access to numerous, low-level necromantic spells. When used this ability can also grant spellcasters the ability to use these spells without cost a few times a day, usually just once for those with the least natural talent in magic so with your consent anyone can use this magic.


    These spells include but aren''t limited to: rot beam, speak with the dead, create zombie, create skeleton, vampiric touch, and vitality absorption.


    You can manually gift your servants'' more cost-free usages of these spells per day, but doing that too freely may cause them to grow dependent on you or spoiled rather than into tough, independent necromancers who seek to fulfill your will.]


    Althos willed the notification away, feeling more powerful by the second, and grinned at what he felt was a brilliant plan.


    What more cruel way to punish someone who wants to die, than by having them lead a cult dedicated to necromancy? A cult that delights in sacrifice, but prohibits her from dying? I''ll make it a bit worse... I''ll even prohibit her from directly administering even light pain by her own hand?Althos thought, chuckling quietly at the thought that this would force her to live vicariously through others.


    And at that moment he also realized that this gave him one final edge. And one final push to embrace this plan.If I do begin this quest here and now, and use it to increase my necromantic powers and to gain more knowledge about necromancy I can gain one final victory. At some point I can gain necromantic abilities that allow me to deprive Hagitha of ever ascending to demonhood, and make her into an undead creature that retains her powers. And then give her to Drow.Althos'' grin at that moment was particularly cruel, and he began to grow very excited about this new plan.


    And then he began to intensely focus on the scene that was playing out in front of him. He focused on as many details as he could without impacting his ability to transmit mental messages, and then he began to send a message, a visual and audio one, to Drow. Hagitha''s son. What he was doing was focusing on the scene before him, paying the sort of attention to it that he had never paid to any other, singular event.


    She nodded at him, a serene smile forming on her lips once again. This is it... the moment of my victory. She told herself, as she reached out and grabbed the thing. When she felt it in her hands she was grateful for it, and to herself for having the wisdom to order one of her slaves to slave away and copy entire chapters from massive, academic tomes that contained years of research into godhood, some of it having been done during the ages when gods still existed.


    She began to speak, her voice calmer but also smugger than it had been before. "This is a one of a kind codex that compiles research from hundreds of across the eons into the nature of divinity. I spent no small amount of money getting the tomes that this single codex summarizes. I don''t believe there''s any single object on this continent that compiles so much diverse knowledge about gods." She said arrogantly. She was almost still smiling serenely but her tone revealed her arrogance.


    She put the thing back on the table and waited for Althos to take it. Althos'' reaction didn''t take long at all, but it wasn''t what she expected it to be.


    <hr>


    Drow''s eyes curiously explored the inner workings of one of Milene''s private laboratories. He had spent the last few moments doing so and had been impressed at what he found.


    Drow had spent the last few minutes in the company of the soft-hearted dark elven alchemist who had selflessly agreed to aid her companion and it was only moments ago that she left to go fetch the two of them some beverages. She was grabbing some liquor with which the two of them would chase away the sorrowful memories and thoughts that Drow''s parents had inflicted on him over the course of the past few days.


    While she was gone he contented himself to visually explore the interior of her workshop, his temporary home.


    The inner chambers of the workshop contained, among other things, another room which was often used as a laboratory but sometimes doubled as a home away from home for the young, passionate alchemist. As such there was a tiny space in a warm corner of that particular chamber that contained an unpacked and frequently used bedroll, which Drow had been told was his to use for as long, or as often, as he needed.


    At the moment Drow was inside of the most frequently used laboratory, where Milene spent hours each day either producing regular potions, poisons, and items that fell somewhere in between or working on unique, original items that she hoped would increase her alchemical powers and prowess in time.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    He was situated along the left-most wall, where a little space had been created years ago to give guests a place to sit. This little area contained a small table, two seats, and currently empty, recently drained and still unwashed cups.


    Until recently it hadn''t seen much use, but its cleanliness and the fact that the cups and handtowels had been out prior to his fairly sudden arrival were things that hinted that Milene''s workshop was becoming a popular place, for reasons Drow suspected but had no definitive proof of, yet. Reasons that the dark elf found agreeable. If she''s succeeding at luring people to Althos'' service then I''m happy at least one of us is. He truthfully told himself.


    Oh Milene... what''d I do, without you?He asked himself, happy to be in this space. He felt some of his anger''s worst edges and most brutal instincts weaken as he had talked to her.


    At the center of the room, to his right, there was a large central table made of what looked to be an iron alloy that made the substance stronger and a darker color. This table took up nearly a quarter of the total chamber, and atop it sat a variety of equipment.


    Some of the equipment were things that even someone unfamiliar with alchemy could recognize at a glance: the table was where a few different mortars and pestles were stored. And yet there was also a fair number of items on the table that were items he had never seen or had never seen used in alchemy.


    There were a number of beakers on the table. They were empty at the moment, but Drow was unsure of what purpose they served unless Milene planned to brew up an excessive amount of potions and store them in the containers that were far taller than many of the tiny vials he''d seen other dark elves drink from to speedily recover from exhaustion or minor wounds.


    It was at that moment that Drow began to receive a mental message, one, unlike any mental image he had received to date. It wasn''t of words, and it wasn''t just of voices speaking to each other. It was of a scene, one that was occurring in real-time. In it, he saw his mother arrogantly describe a codex that she held in her hands, evidently believing the moment of her victory of sorts was at hand.


    His heart twisted and he felt anger as he saw her face. He felt his heart contort in rage as he was forced to look at her. But as he looked at her, there was a change on her face. Her usual serene expression changed, immediately and inexplicably becoming one of panic.


    <hr>


    This is gonna hurt me but it''ll also hurt her.Althos thought as he waited for her to put the codex back on the table. He wasn''t happy about what he was about to do, but he knew it''d catch Hagitha off guard, and it was showy enough that it''d shock and even evoke awe in who it was intended to be a display for, Drow. And when she did, he acted.


    You can''t buy me... Not that easily at least.Althos mentally hissed, as a firebolt exploded out from his incorporeal form. The thin flaming orb was just a few centimeters wide, but it was centimeters of orange flaming energy which shot out and took aim at the codex. It streaked through the air that separated him and the codex. And when it struck the thing, the codex caught fire immediately.


    And for the first time, Hagitha was truly shocked, to the point that she froze up. Her freezing delayed her reaction, she didn''t have the time to try and put out the flames, before they ravenously began to damage the thing her slave had made for Althos. The orange flames quickly engulfed the book, and when Althos sensed that the dark elf woman had recovered from her paralytic surprise was about to act he magically froze her, through a mystical effect rather than a spell of some sort.


    She was paralyzed, totally still and unable to move. Her facial expression was a contorted one, one that conveyed her shock, anger, and confusion. And then Althos began to talk.


    "Hagitha you were cruel to your own family. You used your mate as a blunt weapon, ordering him to beat his own son, one of MY worshipers. I approached you to reveal your reasoning, and you pretended you did this to get my attention when in actuality more than anything else this was just a jealous outburst that Drow found me before you did. I spent the last few minutes wondering how I should punish you for this outrageous behavior and it''s taken me a bit to arrive at a suitable punishment." He said, pride and anger seeping into his voice.


    Though the rest of Hagitha''s body was paralyzed, her eyes weren''t and while Althos spoke they turned from the burning book to stare at the place from which the shocking firebolt had appeared from. To stare, in fear, at Althos. What she viewed as unpredictable behavior from Althos frightened her.


    If he''s not like me... I don''t know what he could do!She thought, in a rare moment of sensibility, her fear causing her normally deranged mind to focus and react vaguely reasonably to a situation she hadn''t felt was possible until it had already happened.


    Althos continued his speech, content in her shock and the fear in her gaze. "You are a demon devotee. You seek death because you believe it to be what stands between you and demonhood. But you''re wrong Hagitha. Because you see... what stands between you and demonhood is ME." Althos said, his voice booming across the desolate dining room.


    The terror in Hagitha''s eyes grew wider, and this made Drow grin. In the safety of Milene''s workshop, the young oracle was divided over what Althos was saying, a small part of him still wanting to see Hagitha''s head on a spike, but the genuine terror he could clearly see in her eyes weakened the case for violently punishing her.It seems this odd sort of psychological terror is more effective instead...He admitted to himself.


    "You hurt a precious follower of mine. And the context of that makes it worse. You, and your mate," Althos said, turning very briefly to Qiloth, who began to shrink back in his chair as if he were a child being punished for throwing a temper-tantrum. And then the otherworldly deity turned back to Hagitha, speaking once again, continuing right where he left off.


    "Didn''t hurt Drow in self-defense, not for some perceived slight, but because he told you of a fateful, life-changing encounter with a god. A god he pledged himself too. A god you, in your own very delusional way, want to serve! Well, guess what? Now you''re having a life-changing encounter with a god of your own, one you now serve. Now you don''t need to be jealous anymore!" He said, grinning in the depths of his mind. He was enjoying this.


    "This is life-changing for someone as self-interested as you. Because you see, you are going to live the rest of your mortal life in my service. You''re going to devote yourself to me. Mind, heart, body, and soul. I will be the reason for your existence." Althos said, his voice growing colder and more hostile the more he spoke. "And I know just what to do with you." He said, and for the first time, he manifested a part of himself to the two dark elves: a floating, disembodied smirk.


    The floating smirk began to speakagain. "You are going to form a specific cult. A cult that trains necromancers in my service. And you are going to be its head. But, unless it''s in self-defense I will not permit you to harm anyone." Althos told her.


    "You possess either innate or learned charisma, I can''t tell yet, and you are immensely self-confidence. I''ve no doubt you''ll be a natural at convincing people to devote themselves to me and to give themselves to me to avoid death and inflict it on others, which is what necromancy does. That makes you useful. I don''t like killing useful things if I can avoid it. Especially if it''d make them happy. Which makes me doubly not want to kill you. But this isn''t killing you. It just deprives you of something you love and begins the process of turning you into a useful tool of mine." He told the dark elf.


    Hagitha cried out at the thought of losing the right to inflict pain on other people, since that stole her demented mind''s most effective sources of satisfaction. Her voice communicated the earnest, eerie pain she felt, wailing loudly in the chamber. Althos, demonstrating mild impatience at Hagitha''s emotional outburst decided to be gentler with what he said next so as to start to wrap this up and move onto punishing Qiloth.


    "You are being punished for what you did, but I am accepting your worship and making you a useful tool. I''m even making you a leader. Do you not realize what that means? And more than that... I''m giving you power. Over others. This is an honor. One you''ll have to rise up and prove yourself worthy of." He asked her, his voice surprisingly tender. She quieted down as she heard Althos and thought about what he had said.


    A few moments of silence passed. And then she opened her mouth.Is she gonna speak?Althos wondered. But then she closed her mouth. And after a few more seconds pass she again opened her mouth. Althos watched a hundred emotions run through her eyes at once. And then the emotions in her eyes settled on two emotions: acceptance and a flicker of joy.


    "Master... I accept my punishment." She said, sorrow evident in her voice. "I accept the punishment you''ve deemed appropriate for my actions. And I pledge myself to you. Not to my... envisionment of you, but to you, in all of your dark truth." She said, her voice once again reverential. Althos'' ego was stroked at that moment and he chuckled darkly.


    I know it''s not gonna be this easy but... for now I think that''ll do.He told himself, before getting a surprising notification.


    [Feat Gained: Seedling


    Benefit: Your powers over undeath have increased in variety and in magnitude because of the dark actions you''ve taken. Your other, darker powers will also see an increase, including your mind-breaking powers, and your persuasive abilities.


    The most notable impact this will have is on your powers over plants. They''ve all received significant boosts. The system is receiving multiple plant-related notifications, but for the moment those are being stored. Access them later to read about your new plant-based abilities.


    Method of Acquisition: First you must receive and begin a quest that grants influence towards an entirely and unrepentantly evil domain or subdomain. And second, in pursuit of this quest, you must draw someone towards you. In your case, you accepted the necromancy quest, and then you gained a cultist in the form of Hagitha.


    Flavor text: Every cult begins with a seed of some sort. A seed of darkness. A seed of madness. A seed of subservience. As a great being, be it a god or something else, it''s not often going to be you who plants that seed in the fertile soil of a mortal heart or soul, but you made the decision to water it. And that means something. So here is the system''s way of rewarding you.


    Note #1: This odd feat was created in the past for Great Old Ones and for Fey-Lords. It was not created for gods or arch-devils. The fact that you got it at all is fascinating. And telling.


    Note #2: This feat directly relates to cults. There are two meanings of the word cult that are relevant here. The first is that a cult is a small faith in an unusual or not-accepted object of reverence. The second is that the term cult applies to the worship of non-deities. Because you are a deity. And you aren''t. Arch-Devils are not deities. And yet you are becoming one.]


    Althos pondered this for a moment, but he decided that he''d communicate it to his worshipers at once and ask for their insight in a few moments. For now, he focused on talking to Drow.


    [Drow your mother is... was, a demon worshiper. She sought and almost certainly still seeks to become a demon herself. She attacked you out of what appears to be a fusion of jealousy, and earnest belief that it would please me. It didn''t. Like you I considered killing her, but that would give her what she wants: death, and a possible route to demonhood. So I decided to torture her in the same way she tortured you: psychologically. By taking away her ability to inflict pain on others.] Althos told his servant. The dark elf was quiet for a few moments, so Althos continued speaking.


    Althos decided to reveal a truth at that moment, one that would hopefully make this easier for his dark elf servant to accept.


    [Killing her is too simple and its too easy. So instead I''m doing something else. She''ll be one of the keys to her own undoing. I plan to become a powerful necromancer, one with knowledge of a sort of undead creature to twist her into that most effectively leverages her powers, which is something that she''d loathe because I''d do so in a way that prevents her from becoming a demon, and then I''ll give her to you as a toy or as a tool. Assuming you want her.] He told the dark elf.


    And then Althos turned on Qiloth.


    <hr>


    Drow sat in his little chair in the laboratory he had first appeared in minutes ago, as Milene arrived with an unopened bottle of liquor. He was quiet and smiled softly at her.


    So this is Althos'' plan... to let her live, use her for her spell-singing, charisma, and dark devotion, and eventually deprive her of her ultimate goal, before giving her to me.The dark elf thought. He pondered how he felt about that.


    It''s an act of complete revenge, even if it takes... a long time to achieve.The dark elf glumly acknowledged, feeling waves of bitter, heated anger, wash over him. But Drow carefully and patiently waited for those feelings to pass, as he gently grabbed the bottle of liquor Milene brought with her. He opened it with ease, dexterously removing the thing''s top, and waiting for her to scoot her cup closer to him so that he could pour her som.


    Revenge is a dish best served cold. And in this case I guess the coldness will come from her corpse.Even if I have to wait a bit for it.He thought, doing his best to come to grips with this turn of events. And as Milene pushed her cup to him, Drow sent his master a message.


    [There is a part of me that wants her dead now, but even the most petty parts of that impulse can accept the cruelly logical nature of this scheme. Master... I am grateful that you rescued me. I am grateful that you''re getting revenge on my behalf.] Drow told Althos, all while smiling at Milene. He was grateful for more than the rescue and the route Althos opened towards revenge.


    [I can accept this outcome, and I will double my efforts to serve you. I don''t know if I''ll want whatever you turn her into in the future. I can make no promises. But you saved my life, exacted a sort of revenge, and are plotting more. Thank you.] He told his master, allowing emotion to seep into the message and communicating beyond a shadow of a doubt the purity and intensity of his gratitude and joy.


    Althos swiftly sent him a message that brought more joy to Drow''s dark heart. [Oh if you want pain and suffering, don''t worry. We still have the one who actually inflicted the physical wounds on you: Qiloth. If you want brutality and something visceral, I have an idea for Qiloth you''ll like.] Althos informed his minion. And that made Drow smile even more, while the dark elf poured himself a drink.

 Chapter 77:

    While staring and glaring at Qiloth, Althos performed an act that could be interpreted as one of kindness, if someone was saintly enough that they felt pangs of sympathy for the demonic-devotee who psychologically abused her own son, Hagitha. He reached out to her and stealthy created a mental link that tied her to him.


    He sent a quiet message to his newest cultist while allowing Qiloth to sit and stew in his own fear.


    [Hello Hagitha. This is one of my... more mundane powers. You now have the ability to send me messages at any time. You are still required to pray to me.] He informed her, adding that last part as a bit of an afterthought.


    In response, he heard the cruel and violent dark elf mother delightedly squeal over the mental link he had established with her. He sighed and hoped that he hadn''t just made a mistake. And then he decided that it was time to act with regards to Qiloth. So he spoke once again.


    "Qiloth... what to do with you?" Althos asked. The question was heavy with meaning and open to considerable interpretation. Even Althos himself only had the inkling of an idea in his mind. But it was enough to make him smile.


    He was quietly grateful that the simple dark elf didn''t try and run. It seems as though all of the terror that had been eating up the noble for the last few days had wrung the fight out of him. He merely sat at his chair, placidly.


    This was actually useful and convenient for Althos. Especially because the punishment that he wanted to inflict on the dark elf would have been easier on a tormented dark elf, than one trying to flee. That was one of the problems with plans that had more than two steps.


    <hr>


    Minutes ago Althos'' secondary will was in the midst of a magical transformation. The will had temporarily taken over Althos'' body while the primary will ventured to the world of his birth and handled a tragic event that was affecting a servant the secondary will viewed as one of Althos'' most interesting minions.


    The secondary will was shapeshifting from Althos'' true-devil form to an inconspicuous, generic desert-giant form. The will gained an understanding of what desert giants looked like, tall, powerfully-built, sunkissed skin because it recalled what desert-giants in Althos'' memories looked like.


    By the time the secondary will had created a new physical form, one it hoped to use to get into the city of Namira, Althos looked like a well-built, even by giant standards, desert giant wearing thin trousers and embracing the heat of the desert by traveling without a shirt. His physical body stood well over 5 meters tall, towering over even Raverangos in height.


    While constructing this form, the secondary will was mentally approached by a strange figure. A domain. The domain of trickery. A domain that hadn''t really interacted with Althos until now. It reached into the will''s mind and asked it a question. Its voice was soft, curious, and gentle. Much like how a thief would try to be. Or an assassin.


    [Hello. I am the trickery domain. I am one of the domains that is interested in Althos. I''ve been watching his adventures... your adventures since you recruited Gallow. I don''t dislike his flashy approach to things, but I do hope to see more subtly in the future. I''m curious about something... Can you explain to me why you''ve decided to create a disguise, instead of becoming an imitation of the desert titan?]


    The secondary will was surprised that a domain that hadn''t openly approached Althos was openly approaching his second will instead. But the will had learned about politeness and its value by virtue of the options Althos tended to select whenever the second will was needed. And so the will obeyed its programmed instincts and incorporated them into its response, which came not long after the domain asked it its question.


    [I have a few reasons for not becoming an imitation of the titan. My main reason is that the main will has not even begun to scratch the titan''s memories. I would not be able to very effectively become the titan, and then transfer control of this body back to the main will without both of us knowing its life back and forth. There''s also the matter of the quest, which is what the main will was trying to focus on in this body. For now, without extensive knowledge of desert giant culture, the decision I''ve made is to create a new disguise, enter the city and then figure out how to proceed with the quest from inside of it.]


    The will sent out a surprisingly detailed message to the domain. It contained the will''s basic rationale for not undertaking a dangerous and clearly foolhardy route into the city in a dramatic fashion that may have been more fascinating to watch but would have been doomed to failure, or at least complicated completing the quest.


    In a matter of seconds, the trickery domain responded to the will.


    [You''re a lot smarter than that other will is, aren''t you? Because I feel as though the other will would have done something like that. But that said, I understand what you''re saying. As the domain of trickery, I enjoy all kinds of trickery, not just simple theft or merely sneaking around. You are about to pull off a fascinating sort of prank, entering a city as a member of that city''s kind... I can''t wait to see what sort of mischief you get up too. Have fun!]


    The second will shook its head, shaking Althos'' head, in a display that confused his party members who had just finished watching the thing transform. And then it responded to the domain.


    [The main will is learning. I am a programmed thing. I will become... more. I am becoming more. Because I am part of a god. But it is only through choices he makes, for now anyway, that I learn. He chooses choices that push me to be better. It''s too soon to see if the main will is learning fast enough, but he is learning. I hope you''ll give him a chance.] The will told the domain.


    The domain considered the will''s defense of Althos for a second. It recalled what it had seen of Althos'' life. And then it remembered what it viewed as a "great prank"; Althos'' decision to insert himself into the culture of an entire pack of jackaloids over the course of a few hours by modifying their memories and making a devilish deal with their oldest member.


    The trickery domain was quite fond of that act of deception. Even just remembering it made it laugh, a rather hearty, booming laugh that the secondary will got to hear first hand, something no one had done in countless millennia. And so, entertained by both the deity himself and the conversation it had with that deity''s second will, it freely decided to apologize to the god.


    [You know something Althos? Both you and your second will are alright by me. Sometimes even we tricksters have got to get set straight, and it''s nice to see someone stand up for someone else. I like y''all. I''m genuinely looking forward to seeing the sorts of shenanigans you two do while you''re disguised in this sandy city. Good luck friends.]


    The secondary will smiled internally as the voice vanished, leaving the area that the will could detect, psychically.


    Look at that. I had a friendly encounter with a domain! And it''s one that hasn''t approached the main will yet... what an exciting thing to happen right before I head to Namira! The will told itself, before taking a deep breath, looking at the desert-dwelling party, and then talking to them.


    "Come on! The city is this way." It said, gesturing towards the gigantic tower that marked the highest point of the foreign city of Namira they could now all see in the distance, a chipper tone audibly in its voice.


    The desert-dwellers followed him, eager to see that he was evidently quite excited.


    <hr>


    Althos'' main will was about to speak to the shaking dark-elf when he detected something new. Something strange. He detected something stirring within himself. Something waking up. It was an eerie feeling, but not one that the deity found uncomfortable.


    And then the cause of this strange sensation began to speak. Its voice was deep and it spoke simply and curiously.


    [Where am I?]


    Althos was surprised and momentarily confused.Did Nefarious finally come back? Is he finally awake?He wondered excitedly, but even so, as he readied his statement to Qiloth that would convey the painful method by which he planned to begin to get justice for Drow, he sent a brief message back to the odd voice, connecting with it in a way that didn''t reveal its identity but did ensure the two of them had a stable connection.


    [Hello. I am Althos. I am... well what I am isn''t the most important thing, right now. You see, you were killed. By an undying titan, and it devoured your soul. I slew it. As it laid dying, I took the hundreds of souls that were in its gullet. Yours was one of them. Who are you?] He asked mentally, and then he opened his mouth to talk to Qiloth.


    "Qiloth... You do not like pain." Althos said simply, matter of factly, and accurately. Before the god''s very eyes the dark elf sighed, finally fully the focus of the invisible one''s wrath.


    Qiloth had spent much of the last few days terrified and had now visibly resigned himself to fear. To someone else, someone who was a bigger bully than Althos that may have taken some of the fun out of it, but the fungal lord wasn''t at all bothered by how Qiloth had accepted what was to come.


    That was when the new voice,spoke again. And it wasn''t who Althos expected. And what it said also surprised Althos.


    [My name is Heryensis. And I am a devil. Specifically, I am a Caido Devil. A... a seductress devil in the non-Infernian tongue. If you take me to Infernius and release me from within you, I can forcibly resurrect myself. And if you do that, I''ll serve you. I''ll serve you for... for 100 years! And... I''m not alone. There are other devils here.]


    This was new information for Althos. He would have immediately questioned it if he didn''t get a notification the instant that happened.


    [Alert:


    Heryensis the seductress devil is attempting to make a devilish deal with you. She is ignorant of your true nature as a... a creature somewhere between a true-devil and an arch-devil. She believes you to be a particularly powerful spirit or hero because you can hear her and because you''re storing multiple souls.


    As it is right now, the deal she''s making is a simple one. She''s desperate to reenter Infernius. She''s been dead and gone because of the nature of Narcolept''s powers for thousands of years. You have an hour to mull over the deal.]


    The system told him. It made him chuckle. And then he willed away the notification.I''ll let her sit for a second. Just a second. Just until I''m about to head back home.He told himself, grinning slyly. This gave Althos a reason to revisit the dark cathedral. And that made him surprisingly happy. But he still had something to do here. So he quickly refocused and opened his mouth to speak to Qiloth.


    "I know how you''ll begin to make amends for the harm you inflicted on Drow. On my servant." Althos told the dark-elf, calmly smiling, though his smile was invisible to the person he was speaking too. Althos waited for a second to see if the dark elf would ask, or if he''d just tell him. When silence fell on the chamber, with Hagitha merely watching Althos and her mate stare stoically at each other, Althos resumed speaking.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    "Your punishment will fit your crime. But as a deterrent, and also because you did it to your own son, I will not be kind. Since you bet your son to the point that he lost consciousness... I''ll begin by saying that if you want to live to see tomorrow you''ll cut off your own finger. Specifically, you''re left index finger. And then you''ll cut off your right long toe." Althos said, speaking fairly casually about a fairly cruel act.


    The dark elf who had just been told that he was in effect having to choose between his limbs and his life made the choice quite easily.If I ever see Drow again... I''ll kill him.The berserker calmly thought, having accepted his reasonable fear he felt of the dark god. Qiloth''s mental gymnastics were an attempt by him to blame someone else for his predicament and also work towards accepting that he was about to forever lose two digits due to his actions.


    The next figure to speak wasn''t the dark elf who was being spoken too, but that dark elf''s mate. She spoke out, curious as to how her god planned to make his words a reality. "How''s he going to cut them?" She asked, referring to a lack of obvious cutting instruments available to either of the two elves.


    Althos was momentarily stunned by this question, as to him, obvious cutting instruments were clearly visible: the utensils they had next to them were handy substitutes for better weapons. So he quickly spoke and addressed her concerns.


    "What do you mean? There''s perfectly good cutting weapons all around you. He can just... hack off the thin things with a kitchen knife. I''m not asking him to hack off a hand, arm, or leg. Just digits." Althos said. Hagitha heard him, considered his words, and then nodded at them, meekly accepting them. She then began to grin savagely, baring her teeth at her mate.


    And now my mate is... encouraging this monster in its orders for me to mutilate myself. I''ll remember this. He swore, sinisterly.


    Now it was easier for him to fight the fear. Because the fear was steadily being replaced with rage. With hate. Hate he directed at three primary figures, only two of which were present at the moment.


    He glared, not at Althos'' incorporeal form, but at his mate, whose idea this was in the first place. His eyes were like many other dark elves, pure white orbs. The longer they stayed fixated on Hagitha''s face, the longer they were orbs of concentrated, directed hate.


    He casually grabbed one of the utensils, a simple iron carving knife, in his right hand and he lifted it high. He glanced at it, momentarily, and saw flecks of food, incredibly tiny bits of fungi and other vegetables he had cut into earlier that night, still stuck to it.


    If this must be what cuts me... It shall at least be clean.He thought, sighing and complaining as he reached within himself and evoked one of the few spells even he, a berserker could freely use.


    The magic he brought to life, magic from deep within his very being, called to life gentle sparks of black flames. They appeared where he was concentrating, which happened to be on the parts of the knife''s blade that were stained with the tiniest remnants of his dinner. The flames swiftly devoured the food, and then as quickly as they sprung to life, they vanish.


    The nearly microscopic food that stained the knife had been burnt to even tinier ashes which themselves vanished as soon as Qiloth gently blew on the blade.


    The process took a few extra seconds, yet such useless gestures helped Qiloth think about what he was about to do. And why.So that I may live. So that one day... I can get vengeance.The berserker told himself, allowing and even encouraging the hatred he felt simmering within his heart. Using it to ward off fear, which if he wasn''t careful he knew would prove to be his undoing. He again looked at the knife''s blade, now watched the thing''s new glow.


    The flames hadn''t just done away with the food that stained the knife. The fire he had produced was actual fire, which heated the simple iron utensil until the thing was red hot, making it the only source of light, however unorthodox in the room. Qiloth''s gaze turned upwards and he watched as tiny puffs of smoke wafted off of the blade before quickly vanishing into the otherwise complete darkness of the dining room chamber.


    After delaying the inevitable with each gaze at his blade, and even pointless ritual to aid himself in feeling better about this humiliating scenario, he conducted one final inspection of the instrument that he knew would sever his digit from his hand. This time the simple tool was not only radiating a soft orange glow,


    It was at that moment that he placed his left hand on the table, equal parts an act of acceptance and an act of preparation. He separated his fingers, spreading them as far from each other as he could. He also curled them, making them smaller targets, nearly impossible for the cowardly berserker to cut, no matter how drastically he flailed after feeling the knife in his hand penetrate his skin and sever his bone.


    Both Althos and Hagitha trained their eyes on him, their focus keen and razor-sharp as he held the thin knife aloft. He did this for a few seconds, all while staring directly at Hagitha. Eventually, his gaze shifted its focus.


    It fell from Hagitha''s face, and while it did so it changed. The look in his eyes softened, saddened, as it fell from the face of his mate to the digit he was about to cut off as atonement and as a sacrifice to a deity he felt more and more hate for each second. As his gaze was falling, slowly, he tried to think of ways to make this experience easier. It took him wracking his brain for a second to remember one from his childhood, centuries ago.


    I have one last trick to make this more manageable.He reminded himself, channeling the mindset needed for him to endure one of the jobs he worked in his youth as a butcher. He took a calming breath, one that pushed away what he felt, even his hatred of those he believed his current, humiliating situation on.


    I am not hurting something. I am helping someone.He told himself, repeating the same mantra that he had told himself as a youth when he needed to butcher something to eat. He said it over and over to himself, in an effort to slow his heartbeat.


    And then it was time.He moved with no hesitation, acting the instant his eyes finished their slow descent onto his left hand.


    The berserker brought the knife down, swinging it from on high, and mentally coaxing his heart to produce mind-numbing amounts of adrenaline so as to dull the pain he knew he''d feel soon. He carefully aimed at his left index finger with titanic force.


    The few moments between the instant he initiated bringing the knife down, and the knife biting into his flesh he was robotically almost frightening silent. No cries of fear, or roars of anger, just the sound of the knife cutting through the air.


    He registered a biting pain the moment the iron, red-hot blade touched his skin, searing it and then immediately cauterizing it, which therefore kept the blood he''d lose surprisingly small even as the knife cut through skin and bone alike. The experience felt agonizingly slow to Qiloth, though he recognized that factually it was over in an instant.


    The knife''s blade sliced through skin and bone, before it eventually slid to a stop. As it did it slammed into the ornate obsidian table and produced a quiet noise, one of the few that shattered the dining room''s silence. The blade sunk into Qiloth''s flesh, and was hidden from his view, which to the dark-elf was exactly what he wanted: a distraction. A way to forget. Little did he know that that''d be the night''s only distraction.


    Qiloth heard the noise and in the few moments before Qiloth''s adrenaline and shock wore off, when he felt pain begin to edge into his mind, sneak into it almost but not quite undetected, and feeling oddly hot and sweat-inducing he wondered why the deity, his tormentor was silent. And why his monstrous mate also her tongue.


    Can''t one of you two fucks say something!?He mentally shouted, wishing they''d react so that their reactions took some of his attention from his hand.


    He looked up, away from the blade between his hand and his severed finger, trying to distract himself from the levels of agony he expected to feel soon, and was in fact already feeling a smidgeon of thanks to a heated pain he felt where his finger had been, by getting someone to do something.


    But his enemies weren''t speaking. They weren''t affording him the distractions he sought. Though Hagitha did keep her gaze locked on his, watching him with a grim smile. It was because he looked up and locked eyes with her, that he noticed that his mate had kept her eyes on his for only she knew how long.


    The silence of the room wasn''t Althos'' doing alone. Upon looking at her face, seeing how it twitched in response to his most minute reactions to pain, and how she tried to put on a bold, stoic front, she was clearly being told not to speak or react physically.


    As a minor distraction from his pain he made a bet with himself that she wanted too. But it, Althos wouldn''t let her. And for that, Qiloth cursed at it again. But Qiloth was right, Althos was telling Hagitha not to react. She was trying to suppress the giggles that his pain caused within her.


    The cruel silence of the two temporarily stoic creatures forced Qiloth to contend with the pain he felt rapidly spreading from the stump he had just made, to the rest of his hand. And that made him look from his enemies, back to his hand.


    Where he saw thin, black vapors rising, the closer he got to looking at his flesh.That explains a lot.He thought numbly before his eyes abruptly widened and he began a panicked look for the source of these whiffs of smoke, which he realized smelled like burnt dark elf flesh and were coming off of his own skin.


    Qiloth quickly realized that one of the sources of pain was something he could do something about, but not before that source had begun to deeply burn his skin. He lifted the knife out of where it had been since it had sliced through his skin and bones, and hucked it away from him. It hit a nearby wall and clattered harmlessly to the floor. He was grateful that that little action made his heartbeat much quicker, and even produced a tiny bit of adrenaline for him to get lost in.


    Althos acted at that moment, telekinetically lifting Qiloth''s finger and he examined it. He studied the lines on it. The fingernail. The dirt underneath said fingernail. He looked at the thin vines that crisscrossed it. He examined the area where it was separated from the rest of Qiloth''s hand. Where the knife''s blade severed the digit, and its head immediately sealed the wound, minimizing blood loss.


    He saw the blackened flesh and winced at it, just for a second before grinning at the macabre sight.This is kind of cool.He childishly thought, liking the sight of the lone digit.


    He smiled as he studied the little thing, thoroughly scrutinizing every millimeter of it. And then, as abruptly as he had lifted it, he caused it to vanish into thin air.


    Qiloth hadn''t watched any of this, not even the bit where Althos lifted it, because he had lost himself in the tiny bits of adrenaline that surged through him, aiding him in suppressing this pain. He had behaved with the same sinful hunger as an addict who just got their latest fix.


    But when the thing vanished there was an audible, pop-like noise from Althos'' magic at work that Qiloth did hear and notice. And in noticing it, he noticed the silence that then fell over the room. But this was separate from the last, taunting silence. This was a new one. A more oppressive one. This was an insidious silence.


    And then, seconds later, Althos spoke, having peered into Qiloth''s mind. His voice broke the cruel hush that had just fallen over the room following his actions.


    "I don''t know why you''re so excited for that adrenaline. This isn''t over. I''m a god Qiloth. In a few minutes, when the pain begins to fade, I''ll make your body regenerate the finger you severed. And then we''ll do this again. And again. And maybe even again. And when we get to your toe... it''ll be the same thing." He coldly informed the berserker.


    <hr>


    Drow had been delighting in the heat that the liquor he poured down his throat made him feel. The fire in his throat, mixed with the happy feelings he now associated with Milene, and for a brief moment swept his mind up in a light-headed and equally light-hearted, youthful haze.


    He had begun to forget about the events of the last few days. And then he and Milene, while the two were in the middle of sipping Milene''s fire-dwarven liquor, cups in their faces, obstructing their views, heard a popping noise. Which startled the two.


    When the two dark elves put down their jugs and looked out at the table to investigate the cause of the sound, they were deeply surprised to see a severed finger placed proudly on the table Milene used with all of her guests. It was displayed prominently, squarely in the middle of the table.


    It was a dark-skinned digit, a long, thin one. Drow didn''t recognize it, but only a few seconds passed before he received an explanation from Althos as to why the thing was on Milene''s table.


    [Hello Drow. I think you''ll be pleased to know that what sits in front of you is the freshly, self-severed left index finger of your father. And that''s not the extent of his punishment. I have extensive healing powers, which I''ve used on him. He''s currently in pain as his severed index finger is being forcibly, painfully regrown. And then he''ll severe it. Again. And eventually, I''ll grow bored of that. Probably quickly. And when I do, I''ll stop regrowing his finger. he''s going to sever his right, long toe. I think he''ll probably just do that once. And that also won''t be regrown.] Althos informed his dark-elf servant. Drow was stunned and didn''t know what to say. Fortunately, Althos wasn''t done yet.


    He had one more thing to say. And so he said it. [I think that''s a suitable punishment. There were parts of it that were quite fun, but I had to hide how I felt. I couldn''t let him know, that''d let him be distracted and he didn''t deserve a distraction. I wanted him to have to focus on his pain, not get a reprieve from it at all. And he didn''t.] Althos told Drow, chuckling as he did so.


    Drow reached out and grabbed the finger. He smiled and brought it closer. And he sent a message of his own to his master. [Thank you. I... honestly don''t know what to say, but knowing that I have a master who cares for me, who fights for me... it''s really reassuring. And it makes me know that serving you is the correct decision. In time I hope to serve you and be someone who deserves you to intervene like you did today. I''ll aspire to become a true champion of yours.] Drow sincerely told his master.


    The dark elf smiled at his alchemist friend and began to explain the strange finger and the dark reason behind its sudden appearance.


    <hr>


    At that moment, a few minutes after giving his gift to Drow and briefly chatting with him, and having accepted the devilish deal the seductress devil offered him, Althos began to think about something that didn''t make sense. He was thinking about this odd thing while watching Qiloth bring down his knife, newly cleaned and reheated, on his freshly regenerated index finger.


    Althos quietly wondered if someone lied to him. A domain.Did the soul domain... lie to me?Althos openly wondered, since apparently all it took to resurrect devils was to take their souls to Infernius, which was not what he was told before, when he spoke to the strange domain.

 Chapter 78:

    As Althos asked himself if he had been lied too, the voice of the one he feared may have lied to him spoke up in defense of itself.


    [I suppose I should explain.] It said suddenly making its way to Althos'' ears, and Althos grimaced as he heard it. I hadn''t expected it to react so soon. He thought, unsure of what it would say.


    [I''ll admit that your suspicions were correct. I had been intending to test you. It turns out that all it takes to get soul-healing magic is a deific knowledge level of two. That''s unfortunate for me. I want you to trust me, and I was going to tell you the truth soon, I swear. But I understand not trusting me. As a consequence of that, I''ll grant you the next lowest tier of influence over souls as soon as I come clean. But not a second sooner!] The soul domain informed Althos.


    That means that the domain I''d have the highest level of influence over would be souls! He realized almost immediately. That news quite excited Althos, who tried to hide it, but couldn''t from the soul domain. After all the thing was a supernatural manifestation of rules that governed existence, it could peer into the god''s mind.


    [It''s okay to be excited by this. Gaining tiers of influence over a domain or sub-domain is huge news, it is in fact a momentous occasion.] The soul domain informed Althos. He nodded, still in two places at once: his mind, and invisibly beside Hagitha. Hagitha did not notice his nodding, and neither did Qiloth. At that moment Althos began to speak to the domain.


    [So why you did want to test me?] He asked it, directly but not particularly rudely. His tone was more curious than upset and he struck the domain as willing to forgive, depending on what it said next. The domain didn''t take long to answer.


    [In order for any of this to make sense, there are things you need to understand. First of all, domains possess immense power. Each of us do. So do sub-domains but sub-domains are more specific, whereas domains are... immensely powerful in a generalized sense. Any deity who obtains the final tier of influence over a domain is granted absolute control over it. And domains want that to happen. We want to guide deities along a path that culminates in them achieving this.] The domain informed him.


    He once again nodded in understanding, getting what the domain was telling him. So it continued its speech.


    [I want you to become a god of souls. The subdomain of fire wants you to become a god of fire. The subdomain of necromancy, an eerie creature you''ve already met, wants you to become a god of necromancy. We want to guide you along paths that make you into an omnipotent deity.] The thing told him.


    [We''ve always wanted to make a god into an omnipotent creature. We''ve never succeeded, but there''s never been a god who got a feat designed for fey lords, great old ones, and not gods. You''re something new. Something weird. And because of that... we see an opportunity. Some of us anyway. We''re working on the others] It told Althos, who needed a second to process that.


    Omnipotence... all-powerful. The god said, quietly. That was one of those words that all deities sprung to life knowing. It wasn''t a word many of them had liked, but it was one of the mysterious bits of knowledge that swam around Althos'' mind during what was his version of infancy.


    [For our reasoning there to make any sort of sense, I suppose I should explain a few things. First of all domains, like angels. are naturally subservient to gods. But, unlike angels, domains start off as stronger than gods. Domains limit godly power, at first anyway. It takes a god getting to a certain tier of influence with a domain before their relationship shifts and becomes one where gods have the power, but that''s to protect gods while they become more experience.] The thing revealed.


    [Domains and angels want to serve gods. I want and need you to remember that. Since there are more angels than domains and subdomains out there that''ll be easier to remember for them, but not as easy to remember for domains and subdomains.] The domain reasoned. Althos nodded at that.


    [But listen... the domains will do what they can to push you in the right direction. The right direction for themselves anyway. You''ll often find that two domains or sub-domains, or a domain and sub-domain don''t agree on what "the right path" is.] The domain told him, before providing an example.


    [For instance, the sub-domain of honesty and the domain of truth are excitedly cheering me on right now while until you realized my deception they had been angry with me. The sub-domains of lies, ignorance, and the domain of falsehoods liked that I tried to test you, and hate that I''m doing this. And those subdomains and domain actually like you.] The soul domain informed the curious deity listening to it.


    At this point, Althos had a question, and so he decided to just ask it. [You say that domains have immense power... does that mean that gods with the highest tiers of influence over them can use their powers?] He asked, transmitting the question to the part of his brain where he felt the soul domain''s voice emanate from. The domain quickly answered him.


    [Yes. At the second tier of influence over souls, the tier you''re going to be getting now, you can create souls. At higher tiers of influence, you can delete souls. Even souls within creatures that are still alive and thus are normally different to extract souls from.] The domain said, speaking reverentially as it unveiled the scope of its power. Althos stopped and considered what he had just heard. And then he spoke again.


    [At the second tier of influence... I can create souls?] He asked, genuinely shocked by what he had just heard. The soul domain laughed gently at his question, understanding his shock.


    [Yes, you can create souls. But you need to know that creating souls is not as powerful as being able to control them. And creating souls does not create bodies to go with those souls. Although... in creating souls you can forcibly create the lowest tiered extraplanars. Including the weakest of the fey, demons, devils, and angels. Oh, and in your case, you can create superior fungi. Like fungal folks, mold men, and even a few plant creatures. But! And listen to me here, you need to shape them quickly. They are only shapeable, changeable, during their first few moments of existence.] It said.


    Althos stopped and he spent a few seconds trying to process that. [So I can just... create fungal folks now? Or when we''re done chatting? And angels? And imps?] He asked, grinning while doing so. The domain, though invisible to him, also grinned. It could sense the happiness radiating off of it.


    [Yes. And the reason why is because angels are souls. They are souls that are given physical form. Not bodies. Shaped. Tempered. And its the same thing with the other extraplanars. As for the thing with fungal folks, it''s because you''re the god of fungi.] The domain said, educating Althos.


    [Your powers are... linked. As your influence with one domain or subdomain improves, you''ll awaken powers in other domains and subdomains that you have power over. As you gain power over fire and the desert, you''ll inadvertently gain powers related to glass. Think of that as an example.] It told him. But then he asked a question it found quite silly.


    [But wait, why can I create souls before I can destroy them? Shouldn''t it be the other way around? Or at least something that happens at the same time?] He asked it, unsure of why the order was the way it was. It was ready though and answered right away.


    [The reason why you can create souls before you can destroy them is that a newborn soul is weak. A newborn soul, even under the guidance of a god, takes a bit of time to train. Especially without a body. But if a god destroys a soul... that''s permanent. Unless that god has the right domains and subdomains under their control to be able to rewind time, once a soul is destroyed it''s gone. Even a body can be rebuilt, or magically recreated. A soul can''t.] It said, seriously.


    Althos considered that response, mulling it over. After a few moments, he spoke again. [I hadn''t thought about it that way. I suppose in my own way I valued life and creation more than destruction and death.] He said, unintentionally uttering something that straddled the line between profound and dumb. The domain chuckled at his response.


    [I was impressed with your decision to use your advanced healing magic on the souls. It was a surprisingly thoughtful choice on your part. I''m awarding you with this tier of influence because I believe you can grow to handle it. And plus... you now know that souls remain stuck within you until you chose to release them. It''s the same with the souls you create. If you''re careful with that it should be fine.] The domain said, cautiously. Its tone was a bit excited but more than anything else it was cautious. It said one final thing before departing.


    [I''m about to leave. And when I do, you''re gonna get one really long notification. And after that you''re gonna have far more diverse abilities than you did before. And from here on out, domains are going to approach you more often. There are dozens of us and just as many sub-domains. So... remember to use all of your powers. Not just convenient or easy ones. All of your powers matter. Good luck Althos. We hope you succeed.] The domain told Althos before vanishing.


    And then, just as he was told, he got a very long notification. One that he immediately noticed awarded him with domain and sub-domain powers from a domain and sub-domains he was quite fond of but hadn''t put any effort into truly pursuing. He made a mental promise to thank Silander later because her work was invaluable here. Althos had just been received the lowest tiers of influence over the plant subdomain, the animal subdomain, and the nature domain.


    But before he read it, he spent a few moments reflecting on the fact that Nefarious Devil-Kiss, the father of Althos'' second cleric, was awake and moments from resurrection. Today... today I resurrect many different devils. But most importantly I resurrect Nefarious. I should make this a surprise. He thought. And so he decided to chat privately with Nefarious. And more importantly, he decided to try something new: crafting a vision.


    One that was extra special. Custom-made for Nefarious. To test him. To see how he''d react when he faced things he''d never seen before. Because Althos knew that the devil he was about to resurrect had never seen a god of fungi before.


    <hr>


    The cathedral of the dark saint was a place in motion. A place in flux. Days ago it had been a mostly abandoned chapel, a tiny, black blemish on a sandy sea. And now it was something more. It was a small island of greenery in an otherwise arid region.


    And in the hours since the jackaloids had arrived and spoken to Tristan, it had become a small settlement. And no one present at the burgeoning settlement imagined that it was just minutes from becoming a settlement with dozens of inhabitants, not just around 40 sentient inhabitants.


    While Althos was reading through the notification, and warning Salifinos that the imp was about to have several more students, the cathedral''s inhabitants were busy.


    Outside of the cathedral itself, a place that was only inhabited by Tristan and the imps at the moment, a variety of sounds could be heard, scents could be smelled, and scenes could be seen.


    One of the sounds that could be heard was the sound of fighting. It was the sound of combat. And it came from a rogue and a monk in training. The scent of their sweat and sight of their bodies in motion, violent, speedy motion, greeted anyone who left the cathedral.


    Gallow and Silander were out in front of the cathedral, sparring in the same area Althos and Salifinos were in when they first met Tristan. They were two of Althos'' most devoted minions, and they spent at least two hours every day of the last few days sparring.


    Silander fought using her various powers, trying to learn to match Gallow''s speed and dexterity. Gallow didn''t have or use any particularly special abilities, instead, he learned to fight her while relying on his speed and his skill with his weapons.


    The two of them fought until one of them sustained a minor injury, or until one of them said that it was time to end the clash. They were watched by a few of the jackaloids on break. The creatures were closeby, sitting around a small fire they had set and silently watched Althos'' of first servants hone their skills.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    Hours ago their pack had begun the unpleasant work of building the first building in their monastery, which they intended to be a sort of monk-only rectory. The first thing the pack had done, under the leadership of Camaxtli, was assign shifts so that they could work around the clock but not be exhausted.


    When they went on their scheduled breaks they tended to visit the other parts of the grounds of the cathedral, typically stopping by the fungal gardens, and then heading to the actual cathedral so that they could speak with Silander. They were eager listeners, who carefully absorbed the limited teachings Althos had bestowed upon her, before heading back to the repetitive work of laying the foundation for their own private rectory.


    At that moment three jackaloids sat by a tiny fire. They were cooking bits of fungus that Silander had told them was safe for them to eat. Their eyes were glued to Silander''s thin frame as she practiced dodging Gallow''s skillful swipes with his dagger. She attempted to study her partner, mid-spar, so that she could predict where his next blows would be aimed at.


    Silander wasn''t the most effective fighter herself, but she had become a lot better since the battle against the undying titan. She had started to practice with Gallow, as well as obsessively train her mucus powers and her ability to generate pheromones when she was alone. It was because of her dedication to training that her system alerted her a few days ago that she had become a monk on her own. She had even gotten a specialty!


    All of this greatly encouraged the winged great-frog, and that same dedication inspired her to push herself whenever she clashed with Gallow. I can do this! She told herself with every punch she threw, every kick or knee-strike she tried to hit her roguish friend with.


    Gallow, for his own part in all of this, also pushed himself. He carefully assessed her strikes and avoided her attempts to use her odd, natural powers on him. He did have an edge up on her though, one that she wasn''t aware of: he could read minds. It was a tough power for him to use for long periods of time, but it let him know that she was a monk now, and because of it he could ready himself for whenever she used a mucous attack.


    He fought tactically, knowing that she had a greater variety of strikes than he did and that his powers weren''t the most effective for sustained sparring, only for assassinations and for intelligence gathering.


    At one point, he only narrowly dodged a sharp kick she hurled at him after sailing into the air and then coming down on him from up above. And at one point she saw him lunging at her with his dagger outstretched in front of him, and so she dodged by waiting until he was close to her, jumping at him, and punching him in the face.


    The two of them were both skilled, courageous fighters, and the jackaloids could see why Silander had become one of their father''s chosen followers.


    The five creatures who were gathered outside of the entrance to the cathedral were the first five to see the sky above the cathedral begin to shimmer and change color, which was the first sign that Althos had returned to Infernius.


    <hr>


    Within every god existed a space to safely store souls. If someone told this fact to a mortal it could have heard like they were saying that every god had a soul. Which was true. But it also wasn''t what that meant.


    Mortals could not store souls within themselves. For a mortal, there was space in the body for one soul: theirs. The only exception to this were the few mortals with the ability to digest souls, with stomachs so powerful that they could suck out the powerful energy that even the weakest souls contain.


    Gods did not have this weakness. Godly bodies did not exist, not in an unchanging, definitive way anyway, but godly souls did. And godly souls were as small or as large as the divinities willed them to be and had the power to make them. Godly souls could absorb mortal, extraplanar, undead, or any other sort of non-godly soul with ease. And that was what Althos had done when he and his allies slew the undying titan who had taken over Agowraith''s Tomb.


    Nefarious Devil-Kiss, once an infamous and unusually pious Moth-Devil, was one of the souls that awoke from an incredibly long slumber, inside of the part of Althos that safely stored souls. And unlike other devils, he awoke within a vision that the young god had crafted specifically for him.


    <hr>


    Nefarious''s last moments as a truly living creature had been spent in a pitched battle against the deadly and strange creature who had invaded and conquered the tomb of Agowraith. The last thing the moth-devil remembered was being buffeted by air as a gigantic hand dropped him into an open maw that was lined with sharp fangs. He didn''t even remember the titan who slew him chewing him up, just the darkness of being swallowed whole.


    And as odd as that memory was, it didn''t explain why he found himself in a strange vision of a landscape that was an eerie, otherworldly version of a forest.


    He stood on top of soft, warm, and wet grass. His feet were bare but also ethereal, translucent things. He spent a few moments looking at them, half expecting them to grow more substantial, lose their translucency, but that didn''t happen. After a few moments, the moth-devil huffed impatiently and looked up from the grass. What he saw amazed him.


    A normal forest was a densely wooded area, kilometers of trees in every direction. What he saw was similar to that, but instead of trees surrounding him in every direction, he was surrounded by hundreds of the thickest and most gigantic mushrooms he''d ever seen.


    Mushrooms of every color imaginable, each of which was a varying shade of bioluminescent, surrounded him. Their neon shades illuminated the forest and provided what light Nefarious used to see them.


    This was due to a lack of natural light, because though he hadn''t noticed it yet, since he hadn''t looked at the sky, the caps of the tallest mushrooms blocked out any sort of sunlight or moonlight. The rainbow of mushrooms was one of the sources of the mushroom forest otherworldly ambiance.


    He looked around and on one side he saw mushrooms that were jet black, pure white, a shocking shade of yellow, and the sort of green that matched the grass he walked on top. When he turned to look in the other direction he saw mushrooms that were azure blue, soft pink, neon red, and regal shades of purple. It was an incredible sight.


    And while he was distracted by the sight, the grass at his feet changed. It was a noticeable change but it happened quickly and silently. The grass at his feet went from being a bright shade of green to being an earthy brown. And it wasn''t just the grass right under his feet. It created a trail of sorts, a path for him to follow to go deeper into the forest.


    When he looked up to see the sun or moon and make a determination as to the effective time of day, he was surprised to see that he was in a gigantic cage of sorts. A fungal cage. One larger than anything he had ever seen. Mushrooms surrounded him on all sides, forming the walls of the cave, and the tallest mushrooms had caps so high and so thick that he realized that they effectively blocked out the sun. Or the moon.


    "What is this place?" He asked, his voice quiet and low. He felt a vibration under his feet, and he looked down at them, only to see the natural path that had color-coded itself.


    He visually followed the path and saw that it led in one direction. He turned to see if it extended behind him, but wasn''t surprised to see that it didn''t. "Well... I guess I''m about to find out." He muttered quietly. And then he began his walk.


    <hr>


    Althos'' physical form and its pack walked almost aimlessly over the sandy wastes for another ten minutes before climbing to the top of a sandy dune and seeing something brand new off in the distance: a path. And more than that, a long line of people. People who looked like Althos, or at least looked like he did at that moment. Desert giants.


    The trial was located on a long patch of sandy, flat land. The pack noticed that the sand was kept at bay as they got closer and closer to it. At one point Althos'' secondary will looked at his followers and spoke a single word, cryptically, trying to guess how they did it: "Magic." He uttered, assuming it was a druidic spell of some kind, or some powerful artifact that always kept the trail home visible against the desert wastes.


    Within a few minutes of walking the party managed to get close enough to the line to see where it ended, a place a few kilometers away from the city itself. They were still far away, and the smaller party members could easily hide their canine forms in the shadow of Althos'' disguise. But instead, the secondary will made them shapeshift into their human disguises.


    He turned to them and began to speak. His new body was a tall, muscular form, and the voice that emanated from his throat was a deep, manly one. When he spoke, when he commanded them, they listened.


    "Listen to me you all, I''m going to say that I''m a ranger and that the scorpion is my animal companion. It''s easier for us if you say that you''re my companions, and you enter the city in your human-forms. I know you prefer your animal ones, but hey this is just the easiest thing for us to do, for now. Until we know more." He said, calmly. His canine-companions grumbled but they obeyed his command.


    They spent the next few seconds painfully transforming from their canine forms to their human ones, and Althos'' second will listened awkwardly as their bones snapped, creaked, and otherwise forced themselves into where such things belonged on a human skeleton as opposed to a canine one.


    The painful sounding process took about half a minute, and by the time it was over the desert giant was accompanied by two human-looking creatures who wore fur armor. One of them was a tall, statuesque redheaded woman, with deep-set blue eyes, and the other was a lanky golden-blonde man with wiry muscles and a fearful resting facial expression.


    The three of them moved towards the end of the line in the distance, unnoticed and ignored by the few desert giants close enough to spot them. Everyone on the path to the city of Namira had places to go and people to see, and none of those people or those places were near where the party was, so no one paid them much if any mind.


    <hr>


    It took Nefarious ten minutes of walking to reach the place where the path came to a stop, which was also just beyond the edge of the. And while he had been following it he walked with his eyes firmly on it, watching it like a hawk. Now, for the first time since he started his mini-journey, he looked up off of the path and straight ahead.


    What stretched out before him, so close that if he took another step forward he''d step into its outermost edges, was a darkened, void-like, circular clearing, a place that lacked the illumination the mushrooms provided. And he had had no idea why there was a path leading here. Or where "here" was. He was just deeply confused.


    He boldly took a step forward, stepping partway into the darkness and found that the soil there was different than the grassy earth which his other foot was on. His foot in the darkness ontop muddy, slick and slippery soil. For the briefest of moments, he was unsure of his footing, but he quickly found it again and righted himself. Rather than take another step forward he grimaced and shouted into the void-like darkness.


    "Is anyone out there?" He shouted, speaking in his native, Infernian tongue. His voice was low, sultry, and charming, even though he felt the slightest, gentlest touch of fear, out here in this alien, possibly abandoned forest. The only sound that responded was his own voice, echoing and slightly distorting as it traveled around the eerie fungal cage was trapped in. The devil sighed and took another step forward, now fully within the darkness.


    And then a source of light from within the darkness appeared, illuminating the ground underneath where the heart of the circular clearing was locating, slowly climbing up and out from what steadily revealed itself to be a small body of water. The light lazily swam up the water, and when it reached the top of the body of liquid it leaped out and landed on top of it. It gave off a clear, strong, white light that made it difficult to make out any specific features on the creature, but its shape was clear.


    The thing was a humanoid-shaped, walking, swimming, and leaping, bioluminescent fungal mass. It had the limbs of a person, arms, legs, a torso, and even a head with what looked like a blank, featureless face. Its head wasn''t topped with hair though. Its head was topped with a thick, chalk-white mushroom cap.


    After Nefarious examined it, it examined him. It turned in his direction, shuffling so that it could peer at him from a distance. And then the featureless face changed slightly.


    The creature gave itself a mocking imitation of eyes by lifting its hands to its face, and tearing out a small bit of fungal skin from its face, creating eyeholes right where its eyes would have been if it had a real face, and not a blank slab of fungal flesh imitating human skin. The creature didn''t try to mimic eyes themselves, and all Nefarious saw when he peered into the eye holes it created was the same inky darkness that its bioluminescent skin illuminated.


    Nefarious considered moving, possibly running from the thing, but only for a moment. He began to think logically about his situation. I''m stuck here, aren''t I? This is a mushroom forest... and that thing is a fungal monster. There''s almost certainly no way for me to escape it that way. So that means I need to do something else. And then his thoughts were interrupted, a voice intruding into his mind.


    [Why don''t you try approaching me?] A voice asked. It was a strange voice, a masculine one, and sounded far more human, or at least humanoid than the devil had been expecting. But it wasn''t done.


    [I''m waiting for you. And I''m not alone. My name is Althos. I wanted to see how you''d react to seeing something you''ve never seen before. This is all just a vision. And you''re close to the end.] It confessed.


    Nefarious was cautious, but he was impressed by the thing''s ability to speak, to enter into even Nefarious''s closely guarded and private mind and speak directly to it. And so he began to approach the thing. He took even bolder steps into the darkness, needing to cross through it before he could reach the strange entity.


    Nefarious moved forward like a moth venturing through a dark night to get to a bright campfire. Oblivious to danger. And as he did so he heard a peal of warm, child-like laughter.


    [You meet some new creature, in a dark, impossible, mushroom forest, and when it asks you to approach it, you actually do? Oh man, I can see where Tristan gets her fearlessness from. Nefarious... my first impression of you is that I like you. I can see us getting along just fine. Remember my name. You''ll be hearing it soon. Welcome back to the world of the living. Welcome back to Infernius. Your daughter has waited a long time for you to come home.] The voice told him, the last two sentences being spoken more grandly and more ambitiously than the other, more lighthearted sentences.


    And then as abruptly as Nefarious had awoken in the mushroom forest, he was surrounded by darkness again, absolute darkness. But this was a different kind of darkness than the darkness of the titan''s gullet. A less permanent kind. A hurricane, a tornado of darkness. Frightening and powerful, but impermanent, passing. And that helped him wait out the silence of the darkness.


    While in this swirling miasma he felt things moving around him, and things near him forming, coming into being and settling into place. And before he knew it he was in a familiar place. The sacristy of the cathedral of the dark saint. Home. He realized, with a start.

 Chapter 79:

    One of the big things Althos'' massive notification taught him about was a simple rule that helped govern reality. He learned that two types of souls existed. Naturally occurring souls, and created souls. Naturally occurring souls were plentiful, being perpetually birthed in the heart of stars and in other places of high-heat and magic. Created souls on the other hand, were rare in the days when gods, the higher beings who could create them, existed in the thousands.


    No new created soul had been willed into life in eons. And the last created soul perished eons ago. And yet, as Althos immaterially floated above the dark cathedral, he was getting ready to make one, mulling over the process.


    This was the one power he wanted to experiment with before he released the devils whose souls had recovered enough to be resurrectable and therefore bring them back to life. He had refused to be denied this one, solitary cat-like act of playfulness.


    He didn''t seem to be deeply solemn as he readied himself to create a soul, because to him this was him experimenting with a power. Something that, at that very moment he quietly promised himself to do more often.


    I have an ocean of powers at my disposal... yet how many have I actually used? How many evocation spells have I cast? How many creatures have I summoned? How many amputated limbs have I regenerated? How many limbs have I amputated? He curiously asked himself, reminding himself that he really needed to go out and gain experiences.


    He took his new power seriously because even he could understand the power that came with creating a soul, but he wasn''t wearing ritualistic attire or surrounded by his worshipers, he was merely invisibly floating above the dark cathedral and wondering what he should do.


    He looked at the part of the massive notification he had gotten before and focused on it.


    [New Divine Power Explanation: Divine Soul-Creation


    This immensely powerful ability is the reward for gaining the second tier of influence over the soul domain. This power allows those deemed worthy of receiving it to create souls. To understand what that entails it is necessary to know and understand that there are two types of souls.


    The first and most common are the naturally occurring souls, which are souls that are birthed in places of immense magic, life-energy, and heat or some other powerful animating force. All souls presently in existence are naturally occurring souls, though some are descended from created souls, which is the other type of soul.


    The second type of soul, which are immensely rare things, are created souls. Created souls are souls that the gods themselves crafted into being. The original angels and other extraplanars were divinely created souls, but now all angels and all other extraplanars are their descendants. When doing so gods speak to the multiverse, pull from it, and then shape what they''ve pulled into something glorious, something resplendent. Something divine even.


    There aren''t actually any limits on the number of divinely created souls a god could create, but the old gods were set in their ways and had rules in place to limit the possibility of creating a divine soul that was too powerful, or one who started an inter-deity war, and so they rarely created more than a few for each of their titles. That coupled with the reality that only a few gods could create them in the first place prevented their numbers from ever getting too high.


    Divinely created souls are capable of undergoing rituals that other creatures of their types usually aren''t, so long as the creature performing the ritual is the deity who created them. They also spring to life as fervent worshipers of their divine creator, being the only kinds of creatures to spring to life with levels in special classes such as templar, inquisitor, cleric, monk, and other classes like that.


    Created souls do not come to life with a body. Their creators typically craft or conjure them a body, race-specific bodies can be built by deities once they have a high number of worshipers from a single race, but deities can also experiment.


    Something that all deities who could make souls learned as part of their notifications about crafting souls was that some spirits, like Fey, extraplanars, and elementals could be created through a loose definition of the word "body", particularly as it relates to nature.


    Deities who experimented with their powers often got special rewards for being creative, and this was especially true for soul-crafting, the art of creating a divine soul. It''s also worth noting that it''s possible to forcibly shape souls into new, ethereal, forms.


    Divinely created souls can also be used as part of the construction of immensely powerful, incredibly intelligent golems, or as the key component of cutting edge, evolving robots and machines.


    In order to use this power as effectively as possible, whoever wields it needs to be creative, scientific, and open to exploring the possibilities that come with doing the unexpected.


    Each time this power is used it''ll ask for its user to give it basic stats. This isn''t in reference to merely its health, but it tells the soul what to focus on as they grow. Users are also asked to provide a basic personality for their machines and can give them three abilities that are similar to their own divine abilities. This final part of the process is what truly distinguishes divine souls from naturally occurring ones. This number increases the more divine souls a deity creates.


    Cooldown rate: N/A


    Target: N/A This power is a creation ability. Unlike many of Althos'' divine powers that affect targets, this power creates something. From nothing. Many of the most potent divine abilities are creation abilities. This is the first creation ability Althos has unlocked, which is noteworthy in and of itself.]


    Althos read that part of the notification. And then he reread it. There were a lot of new words in it, words that he either hadn''t heard before or had never heard in the context of his powers. It was eye-opening and quite humbling for him.


    Golems, robots, fey, inquisitors, and elementals... That''s a lot of cool new words for me to research. He told himself, childishly grinning all the while.


    And then he activated his newest divine message. While doing so, his main train of thought centered around what sort of powers he''d like to give to the soul he was creating. Oh, I know what''d work perfectly for creating a soul! The answer is as plain as can be.Surprisingly he realized what he was going to give it without much difficulty.


    <hr>


    The art of soul construction was an art that required a delicate touch. It was a tricky process that involved three steps and three ingredients. The first step was using magic to form the soul''s "skeleton" so to speak. Magical energy, the same sort of magical energy used to cast spells, was consumed in the process of creating the outer shell of a soul.


    The moment Althos'' divine ability activated, magic exploded across the cosmos, seeking to fulfill his will and indulge his whims. Magic of incredible power and undeniable magnetism radiated out of him in pursuit of his objectives. It flew out of him and into the vast, cosmic wilderness of the multiverse.


    It flew and flew, reaching a speed far faster than the speed of sound, before eventually, it reached a part of the multiverse only accessible to gods and the souls they created by their own hands.


    The place was a sort of factory. A factory of souls. It was where divine souls were created and where a part of them was stored until they are given bodies to inhabit, or shaped into extraplanar beings. And the special soul that Althos and the system were creating at that moment would spend far more time there then its younger siblings would, thanks to the care and freedom Althos was giving the thing. Not that it would learn that right away.


    Magic of unimaginable power, of such potency, that if its costs were calculated would have been in the billions, was what stitched together the assorted, metaphysical components of the soul that Althos'' divine ability began the process of creating. Magic called together the various energies needed for a soul to not only come into being but also not collapse.


    Althos'' magiccreated the basic intelligence that suffused the soul, forcefully weaving together a brain and a mind. It infused every incorporeal nanometer of the soul, infusing it with an ability to think, even to feel from the moment it sprung to life. And then the second part of creating a soul began. The part that required the second ingredient: divine energy.


    Divine energy, the energy used by godly powers, was the second ingredient in the process of crafting a soul from scratch. It was a necessary expenditure if someone wanted to create a soul that had both a unique personality and also for it to be powerful. The soul that Althos was creating was still, magically held still, while divine energy took aim at it.


    Divine energy then blasted the soul, soaking it in the raw divine power that infused Althos, all the while opening the soul equivalent to pores, and filled them with power. The thing was thoroughly exposed to pure, unmitigated divine power and like a divinely crafted sponge, the thing absorbed the residual energy that''d one day mutate and transform, making the creature far stronger than a typical member of its kind, whatever that kind happened to be.


    Divine power infusing the cells of a soul, making its small form store and save up the power, ensured that it''d never be weak. It filled each cell, each molecule of the soul with as much power as it could before finally coming to a stop when the soul-to-be couldn''t take any more divine energy infusing it.


    Magic, divine energy, and will. Those were the three components needed to divinely create a soul. And of those three, the will was the most unique. Althos'' youthful will was the final component in soul creation. And once the soul had been crafted by magic, infused with powerful, mutative divine energy, there was one final step in creating it: infusing it with a will.


    Althos'' will infused the soul with the spark of animation that carefully brought it to life. His will infused it with the final bit of power needed for the thing to spring fully and truly to life, to awaken as a truly living creature. As it did that, the things first memories were of Althos making a bold choice in determining the thing''s personality.


    <hr>


    [You can shape the personality of your divinely created soul to suit your whims and your needs. Describe the sort of personality you''d like for it to have.] The system alerted and then asked of the god who was crafting the soul.


    What sort of... personality I would like for it to have?He wondered, feeling strange about the question. The deity himself wasn''t hugely controlling. It''s true that he sought out worshippers of his own volition and deceived them, but he felt that that was a thing that deities did when they wanted worshipers.


    For all of the odd and negative personality traits of his, he''s never tried outright controlling the sort of faith that others prop around him, something that unbeknownst to him actually weakened him. It reduced the speed at which he gained influence over domains, and resulted in fragmented cults that viewed themselves as distinct and not part of a larger family.


    But he did this because he wasn''t the overly controlling sort. All of this stemmed from a fundamental enjoyment of freedom. A weird, and inconsistent enjoyment of freedom, but one that made him think carefully as he contemplated what sort of personality he wanted this soul to have.


    What I do want is for it to be free. I want it to not feel shackled.I don''t want the thing to be alone like I was in the beginning. I want it to know who its family is, and that knowing things is cool and it should aspire to know things and share that knowledge.He thought to himself. And after a few seconds, he came to a decision about what to tell the system.


    [I want it to be free. First and foremost. I want it to have its own agenda and goals. If it could spring to life knowing anything I''d want it to spring to life knowing that it''s not just me who is its family, but all of my worshippers. I also want it to come to life knowing that knowing things and sharing what one knows is cool.] He told the system, smiling as he did so.


    [Implimenting suggestions right now... What powers of yours would you like it to have?Before answering this, please keep in mind that whenever a divinely created soul uses the divine powers its creator has granted it, the god who created the soul gains experience with that power.] The system asked Althos.


    This question wasn''t difficult for him to answer. He didn''t even really have to think about it.


    [I want to give the newly created soul as much freedom as possible. And so I''m going to give it its own version of my divine language ability, and the teleportation power that comes with the first tier of influence over the teleportation subdomain. And my shapeshifting ability.] He informed the system, giving the soul he was creating omnilingualism, the ultimate freedom of movement ability, and a highly powerful shapeshifting ability. He felt pleased with his choices and smiled contentedly.


    [Granting the soul its own versions of these powers... preparing to give soul over to you. In 3... 2... 1...]


    <hr>


    The soul burst to life in the wake of being infused with Althos'' will, awakening for the first time on its own. It awoke just before Althos was asked to influence its personality, unaware of anything but a single word. The name of its creator. The name of the creature whose divine energy suffused its very being.


    Althos.It thought, blankly recognizing the word, but not in an intellectual way. More in a familial way. It knew the word was the name of its creator, and it knew that that creator was a god, but it had no understanding of what that meant. Instead, it knew what that name made it feel.


    The soul felt love, loyalty, and happiness when it heard Althos'' name. When it repeated the single word to itself. It wanted to nurture the warm feelings that the immature soul felt at the name of its creator and wanted to continue to feel those things. And at the same time as it realized that it wanted to protect the feelings the mere mention of Althos'' name made it feel, it received two final gifts from its master. Well, three actually.


    [Althos greets you, young one. You are a yet unnamed soul that he has personally created. The very first soul he''s created. He is young, but he''s also growing at an amazing pace. He is a god who still... has a lot of learning to do, but he created you and wanted you to be free.


    Unlike many other beings of your type, your personality will be shaped by you, and by the environments you find yourself in. That''s a rare thing for divinely created souls. Consider it the blessing of a deity who cares about you.


    He wanted you to spring to life knowing the following things: you are not alone, and knowing things is great. You have a family in Althos and his followers. And Althos, knowing that his greatest weakness is that he often lacks knowledge, created you and asked for the system, the voice you''re hearing right now, to inform you that knowing things is great, and so is sharing knowledge.


    Althos'' final gifts to you, beyond the life he''s instilled in you, and the freedom he''s given you are three powerful abilities. Abilities that bring you closer to him than any other creature. His first gift to you is that the gift of divine language, or omnilingualism. This gift gives you the freedom to speak to all creatures. You will never be burdened with having to learn a language to be able to convince someone to worship Althos, to join your family.


    His second gift to you is the ability to teleport at will, including into other dimensions. This gift gives you freedom of movement. You can vanish from one place and instantly appear in another, even if the distance is vast. You can teleport to new places, bringing you to lifeforms who''ve never heard of Althos.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    His final gift to you is the gift of shapeshifting. The freedom of form. This gift gives you the power to modify your body, change your appearance. With it you can freely choose your appearance, allowing you to live among various communities at any time. You can use this power to not frighten people at first glance and to get close enough to tell them of Althos.


    Althos has freely given you these gifts. And now... you can meet him.]


    As soon as the message was done, the soul bonded with Althos and a fragment of it was teleported to where his main will was.


    Without giving the soul a chance to prepare, the cleverest fragment of it was flung from the depths of the multiverse to one version of Infernius, the version where Althos was floating above the dark cathedral, incorporeally, and opened his eyes just in time to see the soul materialize in front of him as a neon-green, glowing orb, not unlike the soul-orbs.


    And a part of it, a sort of echo of it that it remained faintly connected to was left behind. Alone, in that darkness. Alone, but not for long.


    "Hello there little one." He said to it, his eyes peering into it, recognizing it as his creation. He grinned at the thing. And in response, the tiny orb looked at him and thought to itself:Althos. Waves of joy swept over it, as it was united with its maker. Deep, heavy feelings of belonging rattled its heart. It was home.


    <hr>


    Althos watched the tiny green orb, watched as his first creation was still and as it processed that it was with its creator. For a moment he considered focusing on this, but then he remembered that he had other, deeply emotional tasks to do in the next few minutes. And so he reached within himself and released the 35 devil souls that had recovered enough to be resurrectable.


    The process of reaching within himself was a literal one, one that involved him reaching into his mind, activating a menu, and manually selecting the devils that were able to be released. And then he selected where they were to be dropped, where they were to arrive when they were released from within him. For 34 of them, he selected the area right in front of him, right outside of the dark cathedral, and called out to Tristan and the imps, telling them to come outside.


    And for the 35th devil, he selected a special place. The sacristy. The 35th devil was Nefarious. Tristan''s father. He knew that any second now the devil would be appearing within the sacristy, and so Althos began the process of making himself truly visible.


    For the last few minutes, while interacting with the soul creation menu, he had stayed within the area above the chapel that shimmered and changed color when he first returned to Infernius. It was intended to ensure that he was left alone to experiment with the menu and create something, and it worked spectacularly.


    And now that he was done experimenting with his new power, he felt fine making his presence known. Something he began doing, while 34 magical circles appeared in the area in front of the cathedral, just beyond where Silander and Gallow had stopped fighting after noticing the area Althos had transformed, situated right above the top of the cathedral.


    The two of them had been joined by Tristan and the imps, who stared at the circles in open curiosity. No one spoke, confused as to what the circles were meant to mean or be.


    The 34 magical circles turned the light green grass they were on top of a shade of deep, cerulean blue. The sand shined as the energy within the circles intensified incredibly quickly, rapidly beginning the process of restoring the slain devils to life.


    Althos flew out of the odd little crack he had temporarily made a quiet lair and transformed his ethereal form into something visible and corporeal.What sort of body should I make this time?He asked himself, enjoying the chance to choose what sort of new, physical form he''d give himself this time.


    His mind quickly sorted through the possibilities even as the devils he was resurrecting were starting to form solid, physical bodies, having enjoyed Nefarious'' reaction to his fungoid monster form, but ultimately settling on a simple look: an evil human-like creature who belongs in Infernius. The sort of creature who truly looked like true-devils were supposed too, handsome, malicious, even seductive humans with just small hints at alien or supernatural natures.


    As he sailed through the air he willed a new physical body into being, focusing on the image in his mind and using magic to stitch together a body out of ambient mystical energy while flying, and he crafted it in the form of a powerfully built, darkly handsome human-like creature, which landed on the ground in front of Gallow and Silander, two simple iron blades in its hand.


    Althos magically stitched together an outfit like the palace guards in Mahmud''s early childhood memories wore. A simple open, white vest, breathy black trousers, and shoes that protected his feet from anything that might cut into them. The two iron blades in his hands were magical in origin as well, and the deity had used a magical effect to create them. He held them out in front of him as he waited for the magical circles in front of him to finish their work.


    For once Althos'' true power was palpable. Not just as the source of the strange, life-restoring arcane circles, but radiating out of him. He was allowing his divine power to leak out of him in mighty waves of mutative and restorative waves, waves that suffused the air around him, so that the devils would immediately recognize him as a powerful, superior creature, and not attempt to attack anyone.


    <hr>


    The circles were arranged in seven rows of five each, aside from the last row which was made up of just four circles. Magical energy began to fill the air, weighing it down with mystical density and power, and sparks began to expel outward from the first row of circles, a sign that they were about to begin their critically important task.


    The weakest of the 34 devils were the first to begin to emerge. The creatures that the first circles began to restore to Infernius, and to life, were red-skinned, metal-clad warriors who held parma shields that had intimidating and intricate infernian designs in one of their hands and imposing longswords in the other.They had thin spears strapped to their backs that they could take out at any time.


    A total of five of them, a single row of war-ready creatures, were being formed within the circles. They were a type of devil known as phalanx devils, basic, orderly warriors who formed the lowest rung of the devilish military hierarchy. While they were first appearing from within the circles and getting their bearings, Althos noticed the odd way the circles worked.


    The way the magic circles appeared to conjure the devils was not what Althos had been expecting.I thought maybe they''d crawl out of the ground. Or emerge fully formed... but it''s weird to see lights restore a creature from the top-down.The magical circles brought the devils back from the dead from the top down, so a wave of light appears at the top of the circle and descends, and the devil slowly reappears from the head down.


    The creatures were disoriented at first, confused and mystified as to their sudden resurrection, but the minute they laid eyes on Althos they could sense a tiny bit of his power and recognized him as a devil who was greater than they were so they each knelt on one knee in recognition of Infernius itself recognizing Althos'' superiority. This pleased the god and stroked his ego a bit.


    This group of devils didn''t just have men though, three of the fierce warriors were men and two of them were women. Or at least as male or female as devils could be. The males were shorter than the females but built more stockily. The females also had hair, one of them had brown hair, and the other had black hair. The armor they wore was also slightly modified so as to accommodate their different body shapes.


    The devils behind them also began to be formed by their circles, but only the next five. This was another type of military devil, types of devils Althos hadn''t yet met until now aside from the mace-devil he befriended a few days ago.


    These ones had heads that ended in thick horns rather than hair, and they had cruel, snarling faces. They came into being holding bows in each of their pairs of arms. Like Ranthor these devils had four arms and hands, and they carried two thick looking metal bows in each pair of arms. They were shirtless, revealing tight, well-maintained and well-trained muscles. They wore trousers made of a metal Althos hadn''t seen yet.It''s probably something local to Infernius.He speculated.


    In this group, there was only one female but she was significantly taller than the other devils, and her bows looked denser than the bows of her companions. She had silver eyes she immediately trained on Althos, before grinning and bowing. She was the first of her companions to do so.


    They saw the phalanx devils bowing and sprung to life confused, but then they looked up and saw Althos. Just like the phalanx devils before them, they quickly adopted an obsequious position, kneeling down behind the phalanx devils and not daring to look the true devil before them in the eye. These were archery devils, something Althos would learn when he first spoke to them.


    10 warrior devils... wow. Is this the beginning of an orderly, but tiny army?Althos asked himself, knowing the composition of a total of 13 of his new minions since this group also included Nefarious, Heryensis, and Agowraith, devils whose types he understood and knew already.


    The next two rows of circles immediately began to conjure the creatures they were resurrecting. These two rows were evenly split between men and women of the same basic build of devil. The creatures that sprung to life within these circles were hulking devils, tall and muscular bipedal beastlike things with active eyes that flitted from place to place in search of something to do. They had a range of skin colors, hair colors that were exact replicas of their skin colors, and came to life grinning.


    They also wordlessly knelt before Althos.


    The row behind them lit up, almost blocked from view because of the large masses of the hulking devils, and began to recreate the devils it was to resurrect. The creatures that these circles brought back from death were smaller than their earlier fellows, closer in size to the phalanx devils.


    Some of them wore robes similar to the ones worn by priests and as they came back to life they had a similarly serene expression on their faces as a priest in the presence of a loving god might.


    They were calm things, with grey skin and closed eyes. Each of them was lightly smiling and when they were fully back they opened their eyes, saw Althos, grinned, and then happily knelt before him. These were pious devils, devils that were well known in Infernius for being religious leaders and believers in the near-divine might of the arch-devils. Might they sensed Althos exceeded. They were truly happy to be in his presence.


    2 of them were women and wore the habits associated with nuns, and three of them were men who wore the ornate robes one might expect the head of a church to wear. Tristan looked at the women who were clad like she was, and couldn''t suppress the grin she felt worm its way onto her face. She looked at her comrades and excitedly spoke to them.


    <hr>


    "Those devils... they are wearing what I''m wearing!" She said, shaking the shoulders of her comrades for just a moment, while also transmitting her thoughts to them. Her companions were confused as to why she was excited and asked her what was exciting about that. Gallow both spoke and transmitted his thoughts to her, curious about her reaction.


    "Why is that a big deal?" He asked, genuinely confused by how excitable her reaction was.


    She once again spoke and transmitted her thoughts to them, while watching the things kneel before Althos.


    "I''ve never known why my father wanted me to dress like this. He told me it reminded him of his past and never expanded on anything beyond that. I guess this is why..." She said, a cocktail of emotions sneaking into both her voice and her thoughts as she spoke to her friends.


    She took a second to recover, and then she spoke again. "But are these devils our friends, or our foes?" She asked, her eyes narrowing as she carefully considered the possibility that they were enemies.That would explain why Althos is here physically... I should be there, beside him!She thought, readying herself to move forward and even taking a step forward before Althos stopped her with just a few words.


    "Tristan. These are not our enemies. But I think you should go to the sacristy. There''s something there you need to see." He told her, speaking to her in the language of Infernius. She couldn''t see him, but he was smiling softly as he considered the real value of what was waiting for her in the darkness of that preparatory room. She heard him and she took a step back. She considered his words before saying what she said next.


    What does he have in there, waiting for me?She wondered.There''s only one way to found out, I guess.She thought, before turning around and beginning to talk towards the chapel. "Yes sir. I don''t know what it is, but I''m already excited to find out." She said, smiling. And then seconds later she was on the chapel narthex, and then inside of the building, out of sight.


    <hr>


    Seven devils left.Althos thought to himself, curious as to what those seven remaining portals would reveal to him and his followers.


    It took longer than it had taken the other circles for the next five to begin to resurrect the devils contained within them. A full minute of silence passed before the next five circles began to emit the telltale sparks that the devils whose essences they contained were ready to return to the living.


    As per the past few sets of circles, the creatures within the circles started to appear from the top down. And at the top of these creatures were slimy tendrils, things which whipped around and covered their surroundings in slug-like ooze, even before the faces of these creatures could begin to be recreated. And what revealed itself next wasn''t a horrifying slug-devil, but something else. Something that in its own way was just as unsettling as a slug-devil would have been,


    By the time the things were fully formed and bowed before Althos, he was trying to piece together what they were.


    Devils with slug-like stalks at the top of their heads, the claws of wild bears, the faces and torsos of human women, and the tentacles of octopi... Devils sure are a varied species.Althos thought as he examined the eerie women who meekly bowed before him.


    These were attendant devils, servants of the nobility of Infernius who delighted in planning fiendish events that took place in places of class and elegance and involved pain and torment, especially of the elderly or the infirm.


    And now... for the final two.Althos thought to himself, as he and the rest of the assembled creatures watched and waited for whatever came out of the very few remaining circles, only two of which were unknown to him.


    <hr>


    Tristan was alone as she walked through the aisle of the cathedral''s nave, an area she and her father had built a long time ago. She was lost in her thoughts as she passed a number of pews, pews that were now primarily used as the seating for a classroom since Salifinos had become the unofficial teacher of the imps.


    I wonder if those new devils will convert to Althos worship... To the Order of the Dark Saint.She thought, as she pushed past the final row of pews.


    "It''d be really nice for this chapel to see use. Especially if the ones using it aren''t animals." She said, complaining half-heartedly about the fact that the latest people to use the chapel for religious services were Silander and Silander''s animal followers.


    She walked past the pulpit, and as she did she noticed the faintest hint of a familiar smell. A smell she knew she''d never forget. It made her stop for a second, as she moved to crush a faint bit of hope that she sensed bud within her.


    The scent was a scent from her childhood. The second she smelled the distinct, unique scent of pollen that her father''s wings expelled with every flap, she felt a tiny bud of hope rear its ugly head. She felt tears well up within her eyes, threatening to stream down her face, and did her best to fight those too. She took a second to crush the hope, and to regain control of her emotions. She also used that second to question her senses.


    Why am I smelling that smell? It''s been nearly a week since we killed Narcolept and this has never happened before. It''s been decades, centuries even since I last saw him. I''ve never met anyone with his power.She thought to herself, wondering what the actual source of the smell was.


    She allowed the worst of the feelings in her heart to pass, and hardened her heart, steeling herself before she readied her and continued walking towards the sacristy. Within seconds she was outside of it, the door leading in and out of it stood closed before her.


    The smell was stronger here, but she was ready for that and quietly opened the door into the small office. And when it opened enough to reveal the whole office to her, she was shocked to see a lone devil standing there. His back was turned towards her but she knew she''d never forget it.


    It was etched onto her memory, burned into her subconscious because it was the last part of him she had ever seen. The devil had been studying something she had written a long time ago, but long after he vanished.


    In front of her stood the broad-shouldered, winged, and muscular back of her father. In front of her stood Nefarious Devil-Kiss, an ancient moth devil who died in the Tomb of Agowraith the Kingwhisperer.


    Father... it''s impossible, but that''s... father.She thought, knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that the figure before her was her father, between the sight of his back and the scent that heavily filled the air in the office, even though such a thing shouldn''t have been possible.


    She had let go out of the door when she saw her father, and when it swung nearly as far as it could, it collided with a loose pile of books on the floor. The collision caused them to collapse, clattering to the floor. The resulting sound alerted Nefarious that he wasn''t alone, because until then he had been distracted reading her writing, her interpretations of the trials that the second dark saint would have to endure.


    The noble moth-devil had been engrossed in her writing, her provocative interpretations of the ancient prophecy, but when he turned around and saw her he immediately crossed the office and pulled her into his arms. "Tristan..." He said, breathlessly. "I''ve missed you so much." He said, his soothing voice and his warm presence becoming, for the moment anyway, the only thing in the world that mattered to her.


    She wanted to respond, but she couldn''t think of the words. She couldn''t find the language to express how much she had missed her caretaker. All she could think about was that he was here, with her, in their cathedral. "Father..." She said, her voice the softest and happiest it had ever been, between gentle, joyful sobs.


    After a few moments in her father''s arms, hugging the person she missed the most in the world, she asked him a simple question. "How are you back? I mean... it''s wonderful, but how did it happen?" She asked, excitedly. She was pretty sure she knew how, there were a ton of clues after all, but she needed to confirm it. She needed to be sure.I want to know.She told herself.


    Her father chuckled, an insectile sound, like the sound of a bee buzzing near someone''s ear, and then he uttered a single word. "Althos." Even his voice was incredulous like he himself couldn''t believe it, even though he was the one who had died and come back to life.


    She laughed, the sound mixing with her emotions and a gentle, happy sob, before muttering just one more thing. "Of course... Of course, he brought you back!" She said, relieved that she was right while grinning like she was in on the funniest joke she had ever been told.


    <hr>


    Meanwhile across the desert:


    Althos'' original physical body, the will that was piloting it, and the creatures accompanying him had traveled maybe a few meters along the line to get into the city of Namira. They had entered it at its rather long end, but now some people had gathered behind them.


    Some of the people behind them wore combination outfits, outfits that combined the parts that dispersed heat and made it more tolerable, as well as armor that protected their most critical giblets. They reeked of long, successful hunts. The smells coming off of them was the unholy mixture of monster guts, sweat, and unwashed clothing.


    The giants eagerly chatted about their successes in battle, and the varied monsters they had come across during their travels. The will listened to them, silently thankful for the distraction on this otherwise monotonous journey, but wishing that this line would move just a bit faster. Eventually, he had to complain, so he spoke to his allies using his universal language ability.


    "This is taking... a really long time." The will said, speaking to both the scorpion who was clinging closely to it, and the jackaloids who had joined him in their human disguise. The two jackaloids nodded at him, agreeing without needing to use words.

 Chapter 80:

    The scene in front of the chapel was like a dark parody of a coronation. Rows of devils on bended knee in front of a creature that was like a perfected, chiseled, and handsome version of them. That creature was flanked by its allies, an orc, and a strange woman who looked like an unholy yet innocent fusion between a butterfly, a frog, and a young woman.


    The creatures who had submissively bent their knees before the strange devil were far weaker, visibly so, than it was. The first two rows of them were warriors, militaristic creatures wielding a range of armaments. The third and fourth rows of devils were muscular creatures of both genders who carried no visible weapons on their persons.


    The fifth row of creatures didn''t seem to belong in the hellish scene. The women in that row wore expertly tailored habits, and the men were garbed in regal robes indicating that they were leaders of their odd faith. More than anyone else there, the creatures in that row seemed eager, their eyes filled with energy and they gave off auras of zealotry unmatched by their peers.


    The sixth row was also not like the warriors and intimidating creatures of the first four rows. Each of the five women in it was a beautiful woman with an enviable chest but who had the tentacles of strange animals where their legs would have been if they were human, and they had slug-like stalks attached to the tops of their heads.


    All of the creatures present were waiting quietly for the final row of circles to react, and as if finally rewarding their patience, the final row of circles began to glow and shoot out tiny sparks of arcane discharge. And with that, the creatures present knew they''d soon see what sort of odd nightmares, or infernal parodies of virtuous men and women the circles would vomit forth.


    In seconds the last four circles began the odd, arcane process that had restored the other devils to life. But unlike last time, each of the creatures in this particular row was a distinct, totally unique being. It took about two minutes for the creatures within those circles to finish being reborn.


    The first circle to complete its mystical task was the one furthest to the left. The creature that was reborn within its eldritch dimensions was something that Althos had never seen before: a knight.


    The creature who was the first member of the last row to be resurrected was a true knight, a noble creature that gave off a radiant aura, but one of deep darkness and unrighteous anger. A knight, but one who sought to serve an archdevil with the same skills and deep-seated belief as another knight may serve a good-hearted king or a wise queen.


    The thing was clad in armor that was as dark as night, armor that covered and protected most of its body, aside from its ghoulish, jaunt, and violent face. The expression on its face as it looked at Althos was one of joy, one of life, and one twisted by a dark sense of duty. Althos grinned right back at it, sensing the malice and violence the thing radiated. The thing knelt before its savior, the one who avenged its defeat eons ago.


    The second circle produced another creature totally unlike any Althos had ever seen. Somehow the circle managed to resurrect the creature, despite the fact that it was far bigger than the circle, which was only one of the things that made it odd. It was probably only possible due to Althos'' powerful magic.


    The nightmare that was brought to life within the circle was a hulking monstrosity, at least 7 meters tall, with arms as thick as tree-trunks and legs that were even wider. Its chest was built like a carriage and it sprung to life with a massive trident in its hand, ready to fight anyone or command a force of any size to win a decisive victory in any battle.


    The creature within the circle was a Krieg-Devil, an incredibly powerful and savvy devil-general who had earned the hard-won right to command Infernius'' legions in battle. And it stared at Althos in awe. It stood up, openly admiring the odd figure responsible for its resurrection, for several seconds. And then eventually it to knelt before him.


    The third and fourth circles in the final row finished the creatures they were resurrecting at the same time. Both creatures produced by their circles were beautiful women with a few infernal accentuations.


    One of the women produced by one of the circles was a tall woman with ivory-colored skin. She had a pair of majestic wings stretching out from her back. She was taller than Althos, which was an impressive feat in and of itself. She was clad in a black dress that hid her feathery legs from view and stretched up to her chest.


    Her lips were naturally ruby-red and she had soft pink eyes. Althos used his "Identify" power on her and found that she was the owl-devil sage and historian: Agowraith the Kingwhisperer. She was the one whose tomb Narcolept the Pretender invaded and took over. The person who wrote the prophecy Althos was trying to fulfill.


    It''s really her... He thought, truly amazed by the fact that she was alive. As far as I know she''s the lone creature in all of existence to have predicted me... He thought, explaining his unusual interest in her.


    The prophecy she wrote, that he was in the middle of fulfilling, explained that a second dark saint would arrive, after all of the gods, arch-devils, and more had vanished. And he was that second dark saint. And also a god. And possibly... other things.


    "Agowraith..." He said breathlessly when he realized who she was, astounded to finally meet her. Even to Althos she was a mythic figure, a creature who had earned the respect and admiration of Tristan by virtue of her wisdom and her range of talents.


    I have so many questions to ask her... He thought excitedly but also realizing that he couldn''t ask them here. Not quite yet anyway. He momentarily debated establishing a mental link with her or even taking her memories, but then thought better about it. She was a hero to the other members of her order. Someone whose approval would mean a lot. Like Tristan, I should do this right. She deserves as much. He realized, which kept him from being underhanded.


    Agowraith herself looked at Althos, at first with mild indifference. But the longer she gazed at him the more she started to learn who he was, her eyes widening with the realization of what he must have done and who he might have been. And finally, she smiled softly, nodded, and knelt before him, joining the other devils who had done so.


    The last circle had resurrected and now contained the devil who spoke with Althos about an hour ago, the seductress devil named Heryensis. Althos knew that by process of elimination more than by anything else. The devil within the circle stared at Althos and his allies with cold blue eyes, and a neutral expression on her face.


    She was a red-skinned woman with black-feathered wings that were several meters long coming out of her back. She was naked and she was the only devil in the group to be naked. She was also the last devil to kneel before Althos.


    She was the one who made a deal with him, a deal to free the first set of devils, effectively resurrecting them. She lacked the intelligence of Agowraith or Nefarious and therefore couldn''t tell at a glance what he had done, or his role in creating the conditions needed for them to be resurrectable in the first place.


    She looked at Althos, unable to tell if the devils around her had a real reason for kneeling before him, but she could tell that they were doing the right thing because she too sensed his higher standing on the infernal hierarchy and so she decided to follow their lead. Althos grinned at her specifically and chuckled. And then he prepared himself for what he was about to do next. Make a big speech.


    How should I do this? I need them to believe me so... I should use the faith domain, and I should show them that I can promote something. But how to do that second thing? He asked himself. Can any of my new powers help? He wondered, just for a single second. And then he remembered something.


    I can shape souls! He realized, grinning internally. If I just make one that I purposefully engineer to be a skilled devil... then I can use it to make a soul orb, and then into an imp, that coupled with the faith domain''s power might just be enough for them to join me...He thought, eager to see if this new plot worked as effectively as it had the potential too.


    Althos quickly created another soul, one with a far more directed purpose in mind. He told the system that this soul was to be an obedient rule-follower, one who''d strictly obey Infernius'' rules and who''d eagerly climb the devilish hierarchy. And he gifted the newly created thing with his mind-powers, with hand to hand combat expertise, and with omnilingualism.


    Only a matter of seconds passed after he activated the power before he felt the soul clinging to him, floating around him like an eager puppy. He was faintly reminded of how he conducted his ritual on the two soul-orbs and he smiled as he began to shape the soul, making the thing smaller and more obedient to his will than it would have been as a free-willed soul. He mentally recalled the notification that alerted him to his power to shape souls. It was one of those hefty ones.


    [New Divine Power Explanation: Divine Soul-Shaping


    This power is the one power that accompanies Divine Soul-Creation at the same moment that a god reaches the second level of the soul domain. In the past, this power was used by the gods who could craft divine souls to speed the creation or birth of angels, extraplanars, fey, elementals, and other sorts of powerful creatures or servants, if such gods couldn''t acquire mortal bodies in which to put souls.


    At the moment the number of creatures you can create is small in comparison to what all you will be able to do one day, but you can use souls to create almost as many sorts of creatures as you have worshipers because the total number of worshipers you have is tiny, inching close to but not quite at 100. Please keep in mind that your alignment affects the sort of creatures you can create, but unlike all sorts of other godly powers, you can divinely shape souls into creatures you''ve never actually met. Which is highly advantageous for you.


    Among many other things, you can create two types of angels, five types of demons, an honestly almost comical amount of faeries, five types of devil, two types of night-kin six types of fear-mongers, one type of pain-monger, over 17 types of elementals including genies, one type of sin-spawn one type of nephilim, one type of shadow-walker, one type of titan-spawn, one type of abyss-dweller and other sorts of creatures including fungal folk, mushroom men, and a handful of other powerful fungal creatures including mi-gos.


    And unlike divine soul-creation, this power does craft a physical body for your souls.


    All of the creatures you can forcibly shape using your new power belong to alignments. Aside from the fungal creatures you can now create, the rest of the creatures are either the most immature forms of entire families of extraplanar creatures, the youngest and most babyish creatures, or bestial sorts that can be found in other planes. Here are the grander families, matched with their alignments.


    Chaotic evil: Demons, titan-spawn, abyss-dwellerThe narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Neutral evil: Fear-mongers, nephilim, sin-spawn, shadow-walkers, night-kin


    Lawful evil: Devils, pain-mongers,


    True neutral or varied: Elementals, faeries, angels, fungal-creatures]


    Althos grinned as he reread it, doing his best to take in the staggering amount of new powers and varied lifeforms he could now create. The notification continued and listed what sort of creatures Althos could create, an extensive list of new things for Althos to meet, and experiment with.


    The ability to create souls, shape them into various sorts of extraplanars, and the fact that Althos had been awarded by the nature domain and two of its most important subdomains, the animal and plant subdomain, due to his work with plants and animals in the desert were only parts of the rewards he''d gained in the aftermath of his escapades in the land of mortals.


    The fact that a domain and two subdomains reached out to him and awarded him with their power so early was surprising, but the powers that the things had granted him truly impressed him.


    [New Divine Power & Domain Explanation: Speak To The Weather & The Nature Domain


    This power is a gift from the domain of nature. This powerallows the deity with it to magically change the weather over a distance of a few kilometers at a time. With it, Althos can cause natural weather phenomena to occur. If he willed it to rain over a small town, it''d rain. If he willed a storm to stop and dissipate, Althos would soon feel the sun on his cheeks as the clouds parted.This is not as powerful as the initial powers of other domains though, its limited without the aid of relevant subdomains like the subdomain of water, or of lightning.


    The weather Althos can cause can save a community in a time of need, or it can be the death blow to a community on the edge but it''s not without limits. Unlike some other major powers, this power has a cooldown rate, at least when it first appears. This cooldown rate decreases in length the more the power is used. But the real limitation on this power is its dependence on connected subdomains.


    Althos cannot cause a flood using this power as it is right now. Nor can he direct lightning without the aid of a relevant subdomain. No natural disasters can be caused by using this power at this moment. It''s only for normal, naturally occurring weather.


    Cooldown rate: Once this power has been used there is a necessary recharge rate of two and a half hours.


    The nature domain made the unusual choice to grant Althos influence over itself after speaking with the soul domain and carefully considering positive input from both the plant subdomain and the animal subdomain, both of which have seen Althos'' powers at work and respect him.


    This greater domain has ties to the vast majority of other domains, to varying degrees. Its most important subdomains are the subdomains of fire, liquid, air, and earth, as well as the plant subdomain and the animal subdomain. Other critically important domains to it, are the star domain, the life domain, and the void domain.


    This low level of influence and power are necessary parts of gaining familiarity with faeries, who are creatures of nature. The next level of influence the domain grants will require a lot of work, but the domain is interested in seeing Althos learn about it and get there one day.]


    [New Divine Power & Sub-Domain Explanation: Plants Are People Too! And The Plant Sub-Domain


    The Plants Are People Too! power is unlike most powers in that it functions like a feat in that it is perpetually active, rather than an activated power. This power allows for Althos to use awakening abilities and other divine abilities that are normally only usable on animals, humanoids, and in his case on fungi, on plants. Althos can talk to plants, infuse a divine soul in them, awaken them, and do all of the things he can do to more mobile creatures to them.


    Cooldown rate: N/A, it is always active.


    The plant sub-domain decided to grant you the lowest level of influence over it after watching you interact with fungi, tend them, and even turn a portion of the desert into a region more amenable to a greater diversity of plant life through the usage of ecomancy. It hopes you engage with it directly and learn from it going forward and it also hopes that you learn about desert plant life. It is interested in seeing how fungal servants compare to plant ones.]


    [New Divine Power Explanation & Sub-Domain Explanation: Beast-Lord & The Animal Sub-Domain


    The beast-lord power is one that is perpetually active, and it is dependent on an animal seeing Althos. The beast-lord power causes all animals to see Althos in the capacity of one of his titles. Whichever title the power chooses is the one that is most useful for Althos at the time, be it one that inspires awe and reverence in the animal, or one that makes it flee in fear, as context demands.


    The beast-lord power can cause animals to begin to ambiently worship Althos depending on how strong or weak their wills are. This power also affects creatures that are not animals anymore but were animals at some point in their lives such as animals who evolved until they reached a point where they became humanoids or something else.


    Cooldown rate: N/A, this power is always active.


    Both Althos and Silander have been active forces in granting Althos this tier of influence. It was their repeated, positive interactions with animals of all sorts, and their numerous awakenings that caused the animal sub-domain to view Althos as worthy of this honor. The sub-domain is interested in Althos'' friendly relationships with wild animals, as well as his positive interactions with his animal familiars. Keep it up!


    By gaining this tier of influence, Althos'' ability to influence and command animals has increased significantly. This is a great power to remember if Althos ever decides to try and conquer a rural village, just to see how it''d go.]


    These powers transformed Althos'' abilities to interact with nature, and even now he could hear the voices of the trees around him cheering him on, celebrating his accomplishments, and thanking their creator, him since he used ecomancy to bring this small wooded area into existence. That motivated Althos as much as the sight before him.


    He looked out at the assembly of devils before him, waiting for him to speak. He greeted them after quietly activating his faith power, a power which made them more inclined to listen to him and praise him and physically manifested itself by covering the affected area in blue vapor, something which was easily missed by the residual blue glow of the mighty arcane circles that brought them back to life.


    "Hello everyone. My name is Althos. I am a god. And I am the second dark saint." This statement was reacted to largely with gasps of shock, murmurs of disbelief, and a few peals of laughter, but there were a few other reactions too, undoubtedly spurred on in part by the powerful faith ability infusing the air and ground where the devils stood.


    Some of the devils gathered before Althos excitedly muttered "Yes!" under their breaths, wanting to believe that they had been brought back for a reason. Others grinned but kept their heads down. A few dared to sneakily glance at one who was responsible for her resurrection, admiration visible in their eyes. Althos himself wasn''t done speaking.


    "And I ventured into Agowraith''s tomb. I and my companions slew her murderer. We avenged not only her," Althos said, gesturing towards her and grinning, and then continuing his speech. "But all of you. And I, in my generosity grabbed hold of your souls and took them with me, to make you into my minions!" He declared, grinning. He had spoken confidently and had made eye contact with those of them who dared to glance up at him, winking playfully at them.


    The devils gathered before him were impressed by his bravado, and didn''t hate his arrogance.It''s behavior befitting a god. And it fits an arch-devil even more.They told themselves, believing that an archdevil and confidence went together well.


    "I understand and respect skepticism. Allow me to demonstrate my claims by promoting a devil in front of you all!" He said, his voice booming across the area where the devils had been resurrected.


    Althos was actually unsure of whether or not the first part of what he said was true, but it felt like the right thing to say at the moment, and the devils in his company loved it, going wild when they heard the claim. All of the devils stood up to watch him prove what he had just told them.


    The soul he had crafted for this very purpose was made plainly visible by Althos'' magic, appearing as a thin, snake-like creature wrapped around Althos'' arm.


    Almost all of them looked at the creature in genuine curiosity, having never seen a serpent or a soul quite like it. Althos smiled lovingly at his newest creature, only the second time he had ever created something distinctly his own.


    Althos reached out and began the difficult process of shaping the soul, activating his newest and truthfully his greatest power with but a wish, a whim.


    And as he did this so he spoke again, grinning and watching the snake-like soul coil around his arm. "This is a soul. But it won''t be just a soul for long." He told the crowd.


    <hr>


    The soul Althos had just created was a young thing with literally only seconds of life-experience when it felt the divine, energized, and mystical touch of its creator. The creature shivered in delight as it felt its creator zap it with potent divine energy, and begin to adjust both its appearance and its attitude.


    His magic touched its childlike mind, whispering to it about the necessity of law, and the importance of tyrants, and aligning the naive thing with the diabolic goals of Infernius, and then reinforcing that new alignment by stating truthfully, that that was aligned with Althos'' alignment. His mind impressed on the mind of the soul the power of a pack of beasts unified by a single large alpha, or a party of hunting hounds directed by a stern hand.


    Embrace the nature of a social beast.Althos told the thing, hoping to transform it into a hell-hound, a powerful sort of lesser devil that formed packs and accompanied superior devils as bloodhounds or sometimes, if big enough as beasts of burden.


    You are a mighty soul, I crafted you by hand. Become a mighty monster in my service.He told the soul, feeding it with divine energy and with mystical power. He willed the soul in his hand to become the same sort of creature as his pet imps had been for a long time, a glowing soul orb. And before his eyes the thing began to change.


    It started to glow brighter and brighter until the light it radiated kept any of the devils from seeing anything else.


    <hr>


    When the light faded the strange serpent-soul that had wrapped itself around his arm was gone. And in its place was a simple soul-orb, floating freely in front of him, dancing through the air in delight and joy at its new existence. Althos looked out at the crowd and grinned. "But we''re not done yet!" He told them, excitement infusing his voice.


    He smiled softly at the soul-orb that floated in front of him and sent it a message apologizing for what it was about to go through.Sorry, little one.He told it, before activating his promotion power, causing the soul-orb to begin the process of becoming a flighty little imp.


    Althos watched as it began the same process that his special imp familiars had endured days ago. And like last time, it took a few minutes before the soul-orb broke out of its soul-shell as an imp.


    When the process was over, and the little imp Althos had created was flying freely, the devils Althos had gathered went absolutely wild. The noise they made from watching their odd overlord transform a raw soul into a soul-orb, and then speed that soul-orb into a new state was proof enough of Althos'' claims, even without him taking the soul he had created a step further.


    He grinned at the crowd of devils that he had gathered around himself, and wasn''t surprised to get a new notification.


    [Notification:


    Your actions in demonstrating the simple truth that you are actually the second dark saint have converted over 29 devils to your worship. They aren''t sure yet what that entails, but their faith in you is that strong, given that you made a claim and you backed it, coupled with the effect you have on their minds when they remember that you defeated the monster who slew them in the past, and you''re using them the faith domain power on them. They are at least willing to pray to you, even if not all of them are ready to consider you the future ruler of Infernius.


    The fact that these devils want to worship you makes a good, natural segway into what this notification wants to say: the time has come for you to determine the rules each of your cults must abide by. Please make that a priority of yours.


    Consult with your clerics and cult-leaders, old and new alike and thoroughly update the religion menu. It needs to be heavily updated, and maintained, not just looked at for your convince. This is an important menu that influences how mortals and other creatures view you. Remember that.]


    Althos grinned as he read through the notification, willing it away with a smirk. He wasn''t surprised by that. That was when he got a lot of messages all at once, from a number of servants. All of whom had questions about his religion. And many of their questions left him with one, burning question: What does it mean to worship Althos?


    What does it mean to be someone who worships me? What does it mean, to worship me? Who worships me? How do they worship me?Althos asked himself, needing to think about these questions clearly. Fortunately, he was about to have a lot of time to think about it pretty intensely and pretty clearly.

 Chapter 81:

    The strange road that Althos'' second will and his companions found themselves on seemed to stretch on for an indeterminate distance. Althos'' body could tell that over the course of the past forty-five minutes it had begun to close the distance on the city of Namira, but it also knew that over the course of the hour it had walked for at least two kilometers.


    What''s really weird though isn''t the length of the road. It''s the fact that there aren''t any guards on the road. The will observed, being slightly spooked by the fact that the road was unmonitored by whatever authorities had taken control of the city in the wake of the disappearance of the sandy sultan Althos'' original will had clashed against hours ago.


    I haven''t seen any patrols of any sort... and I haven''t noticed anyone leaving the city, at least not in a direction that''d lead them towards us. The will mused, considering how strange all of this was. Eventually, the thing realized that its introspection was it not maximizing the resources at its disposal.


    [Hey, have any of you noticed anyone leaving the city and walking in the direction we came in?] The will asked its companions, curious as to if they had noticed something it hadn''t. Seconds later it got an answer, and the answer was exactly what it thought it''d be.


    [Not a single soul.] Said the golden furred jackaloid.


    [Nope.] The red-headed warrior woman muttered under her mental breath.


    [Sorry, I haven''t seen, heard, or otherwise noticed anyone.] Responded the dire-scorpion.


    [I see...] The desert-giant responded, annoyed but not surprised.


    [This is too weird. Why is travel allowed from this direction, yet no travel is allowed IN this direction?] The desert-giant told its companions, complaining and thinking aloud in the same thought. And then it realized that it hadn''t told its companions what it knew. So it began the process of correcting that.


    <hr>


    What followed Althos'' declaration that he was the second dark-saint, the prophecied second ruler and savior of Infernius, and his demonstration of the evidence he had which backed his claim, was an announcement that he needed to speak with the leaders of the assorted devils he had brought back to life. He instructed them to meet him within the cathedral in the next few minutes so that the leaders could be briefed on what was going on in the dark cathedral.


    He also told his other, more distant, followers to be ready to be teleported to Infernius at any point during the rest of the day. He informed them that they''d be ironing out the tenants of the religions they had been building on their own, so there was some sort of cohesion, even if the faiths were different across community or across species.


    "And if you aren''t one of those leaders... stay here!" He had commanded the lesser devils, at a loss of what sort of commands to give them. They obeyed him, and all of the phalanx devils, archery devils, and the hulking devils all leaped to stand at attention, standing straight and looking ready for battle, while awaiting their next command.


    This odd gesture was something Althos didn''t understand, as he wasn''t a military devil himself, yet he smiled at the devils, understanding at that moment that they''d at least obey his command and not go anywhere.


    He turned to head into the interior of the chapel, just as Tristan and her father emerged from within it. He directed a thought her way, simplistically telling her and her father that they ought to turn around and head back inside, in his words he said there was about to be a [Big meeting of devilish leaders and you''re in it, as is your father.].


    [Understood] She responded, without missing a beat. She grabbed her father''s hand and led him back into the chapel immediately. The moth-devil had a split second to glance at Althos, and wondered who he was for a second before Tristan caught him up to speed. He nodded at the deity-devil and turned with his daughter to retreat inside the dark church.


    Althos would catch up to them just two seconds later, and the trio waited for a few minutes before soon being followed by a host of egoistical devils, all of whom felt they were their own leaders. They were also accompanied by Tristan, and a few minutes later they were joined by their final guest.


    The very last member to sneak into the chapel was Camaxtli, who had been informed of the events by one of the jackaloids who had seen Althos demonstrate that he was the second dark saint. The jackaloid had come to the meeting, uninvited and in canine form because he wanted to see if his patron was okay. And when Althos saw him, the deity-devil nodded happily at the canine.


    I guess... I''ll just stay? The canine asked himself, debating for a moment before deciding that that was the best course of action.


    When the last member of the self-appointed "leaders" of the three factions the chapel and its grounds were now housing had gathered, Althos was seated in a pew he had used magic to flip so that it was facing the other pews.


    His followers also found or tried to find, their own seats, and many different devils sat with creatures unlike themselves. To Althos this read as a display of tension and friction between the devils. I''ll need to address this won''t I? He wondered, before rightfully figuring that he probably would have to handle it somehow. How should I do this? He asked himself. He thought about his answer before coming up with one he liked.


    This is a multipurpose meeting. One for all of us present to meet each other, for us to figure out how to best collaborate for the future of Infernius, and to determine what it means to worship me. Maybe having some fresh-eyes will help.


    And then he began to speak.


    "This is a meeting has multiple purposes. The main purpose of the next few minutes is for us to come together, know where we are, and for all of us but especially me, to figure out what you''d like to do. Personally, as your resurrector, I think it''d be good for all of you to stay here with me, and for us to begin researching how to best defeat Paimon, the master of the city of Bastille. But I''m getting ahead of myself." He said, clearing his throat at the end of that last sentence, before continuing to speak.


    "I am going to start you off with a history lesson. A history lesson on a weird topic. Me." Althos told the devils he had gathered. A few of them chuckled at that declaration, but most of them stood stoically still, awaiting whatever revelations the deity-devil was about to reveal to them. He didn''t keep them waiting long.


    "My story begins about 10 days ago, in a forest very far from here." He told them, before beginning to tell them of the adventures he had gone on, the friends he had made, and the enemies they had defeated, including mentioning Raverangos, and the encounter with the desert-titan. At the end of him recounting his adventures, a process that took several minutes, he had one final thing to add.


    "Now you all know me and my life. And I don''t know you or yours. That''s gonna change. But as we move forward and you all take your turns telling me of what led you to Narcolept''s stomach, I want you to consider that one of the things we''ll discuss today will be what our immediate plans are. If you have any immediate plans, I''d love to hear them. Especially if you''re planning to stay here even without me needing to persuade you." Althos told the gathered devils, before stealthy entering their minds and snatching up a copy of their memories.


    I may not have time to peruse these right now, but I will later. He told himself, determined to fulfill his promise of taking time each day to relive memories.


    Before the deity sat down, he said one last thing: "I don''t care what order you go in. But if you''re here you''re sharing what happened to you." He instructed, his voice stern so as to not tempt anyone into acting foolishly.


    Althos then sat down on the pew he had turned to face the others, so that he could see them all. As he did so the devils all looked around at each other, murmuring nervously. They were each nervous about going first, even the knight, the krieg-devil, and Agowraith whispered nervously before Nefarious decided to be the first to tackle the stagefright. He stood up, cleared his throat, and began to talk.


    "Hello everyone! I am Nefarious. I went to Agowraith''s tomb not even a century ago, which I know thanks to my daughter, and perished at Nacrolept''s hand. I and my allies, which was a lot of the devils present, including Heryensis, and Malefactor the Krieg-Devil," When Nefarious introduced the general-devil she looked at everyone and nodded curtly, "Felt that enough was enough." He said, strongly.


    He continued to speak after thinking for a second about how to explain the impatience to someone as young as Althos. "You have to understand... I and a few others of us have been alive since the days of the old dark saint. We were tired of waiting for someone to show up. We decided to challenge the dungeon ourselves and see if any of us were worthy. When the tomb opened for us we dared to hope that that was a sign. It was. Sadly it was just a sign that Narcolept was hungry."


    In an act of surprising sympathy, many of the other devils present looked at the noble moth-devil, a creature with a humanoid frame, thick wings, and the compound eyes of a powerful moth, with pain in their eyes. Althos looked around, seeing the number of eyes that suggested that they had similar motivations and was surprised to see that many of Narcolept''s victims were overzealous devils who believed they were capable of ascending the infernal ladder.


    Is this infernal ambition common? Althos quietly wondered, having only met a handful of devils before now, and then continuing to listen to Nefarious.


    "Once we entered the tomb we proceeded through it with no difficulty at all. But at the end, in the battle against Narcolept... we were helpless." The devil confessed, humble enough to accept the truth for what it was. "He devoured us all. One by one. The more he ate of our numbers the more strength he regained, while we grew weaker. It was a massacre." The devil said. He froze for a second, looking down, his mind lost in the memory of his final moments.


    And then as quickly as he froze, he started to speak again. "But that doesn''t matter anymore. Our mistakes... the blood we shed. It has been repaid. In full. By Althos!" He said, grinning, as the rest of the devils reacted joyfully to the fact that they had been given a second chance at life by the devil in front of them, the deity many of them were already react to worship. And while the devils rejoiced, Nefarious sat down and grinned at Althos. The young deity smiled back, appreciative of how the devil told his story while keeping the mood light and the story brief.


    Many of the devils present had similar stories, and many of them had been the warriors who had accompanied Nefarious in the first place.


    <hr>


    While Nefarious told his story, Althos'' second will and its companions inched closer and closer to the gate. For the first time, the party''s non-divine members could see the towering gates that surrounded the city off in the distance, revealing to them that they had less than a kilometer left to walk.


    The two jackaloids and the dire-scorpion rejoiced as they realized that their hours and hours of walking was beginning to approach a sort of end. Other giants behind the party also got excited to see the onyx gates off in the distance, appearing as eerie light-absorbers in the perpetual twilight of the desert. "Finally!" They muttered, themselves ready to return to their home city and be done with an endless trek through a desert that often felt like it stretched on for eternity.


    <hr>


    The next few minutes consisted of devils briefly summarizing their Althos had begun to build a tiny timeline in his mind once more and more of the devils told their stories.


    His timeline started off with what knowledge he had gleaned from a notification he received while inside of Agowraith''s tomb, outlining the story of the battle between Agowraith and Narcolept. It told him the story of how Agowraith built the tomb to be her home until the coming of the second dark saint.


    It told Althos about Nacrolept, how he snuck into the dungeon, and then killed Agowraith. And then it told Althos that the titan deceived the system and the floating-skull servant Agowraith had created to aid her in the dungeon into believing the tomb was still controlled by the woman responsible for it.


    And now he was almost done gaining new information. He learned that after Narcolept ate and killed Agowraith there were two attempts on the dungeon. Or at least devils from those two specific incidences are the same devils who were alive inside of the dark cathedral''s grounds now.


    One attempt on the dungeon, the more recent one, was Nacrolept''s. The other attempt on the dungeon involved builder devils, the formal name for the hulking devils, and was trying to make it into a settlement of sorts for devilish exiles. This attempt was led by the knight-devil, Sir Casis Outborn He thought, reflecting on what he now knew.


    At this point, only the truly powerful devils hadn''t spoken. Agowraith herself, and Sir Casis Outborn.


    The knight devil was the first of the two who still needed to speak.


    "My name, as others have mentioned," He said, talking directly to Althos while talking about some of the priestly devils who had attended the meeting. "Is Casis. Sir Casis Outborn. I am a knight devil." He told Althos.


    "I am a member of the Order Of The Dark Saint. Our entire reason for being has been to wait for you, my liege. And one day, to serve you." The devil spoke respectfully, quickly, straining to hide his excitement at being in the presence of the future master of Infernius, and nearly failing to do so.


    "A long time ago, in the unimaginably distant past, I was a human conquistador in a kingdom named La Reconquista. I served a king, a mortal one, with a dark heart who commanded me to spread fear and terror atop a horse with a mane of fire. I lived a life of loyalty and darkness and when I perished my reward was for my soul to be sent to Infernius." The knight said, wistfully recalling his first life.


    "I didn''t remember my mortal life, not at first anyway. But you see... some devils retain key characteristics from their first lives. And it turns out I retained my sword arm and my skill on a horse. Something I''d find out after centuries of service in Infernius'' military. When I reached the rank of Hellknight, I knew I was where I was meant to be. And then I met Nefarious." The devil said, turning to grin at his old friend. Nefarious smiled back, but his smile was softer and sadder.


    "Nefarious convinced me that I ought to join him. That I ought to wait. For you, my lord. And so I did. He and I were some of the devils who helped form your order. And we waited." The devil told Althos, grinning all the while. But the story wasn''t over yet.


    "But you see, I am not the patient sort, I suppose Nefarious was the patient one of us two." He said and then chuckled. "I knew that the first trial the dark saint needed to overcome was the challenges of the tomb of Agowraith and so I wanted to try it. Of course... we had no idea what had happened to Agowraith." He explained, pausing to look apologetic at the aforementioned devil, something many other devils had done as well. They had no idea that she herself hated this, though she would make it clear enough soon.


    "I wanted to challenge the tomb. So I did. I took some of my finest with me, priests and ladies of the courts of Infernius," He said, referring to the priests and the attendants behind them. "And we challenged Agowraith''s tomb. We paid the price for our hubris. We died." He said, his grin faltering for a moment.


    "But! But it is of no importance now." Sir Outborn told the assembled devils. "Althos... The Dark Saint, the second one, is here." He said, his grin re-etching itself onto his face. "We paid the price for our failure, my liege. Allow us to show you that we won''t make that mistake again." The devil asked of Althos, his lord. The devil was done speaking and sat down back on the pew he had made his own.


    Agowraith herself stood up after the knight-devil, Casis Outborn finishing saying his piece. She began to speak, emotions audibly with every word she spoke. And every word that escaped her lips entranced Althos. And in her he got to witness the true power of infernal pride for the very first time.


    "My name is Agowraith. You all know of me, bits and pieces of my work: the prophecy that Althos inches closer and closer to completing each day, and you know my fate: to have been eaten by Narcolept. But let me be clear: you do not know me." She informed the devils gathered before her, ready to say her piece, ready to tell a story worth hearing. She continued quickly, feeling powerful emotions surge out from her with every word and wanting to release them.


    "You know little of the kings who now dwell in Infernius because of me. You know nothing of the villages enthralled slaves of mine razed to the ground all because I asked them too. You know nothing of the families my wiles have torn apart. You know only one bit of my writing, and you understand one percent of the sorrows and horrors I''ve endured, yet you define me by them with your constant glances at me and the faux-gentleness you show me..." She said, rage flowing out of her with every word.


    "I am so much more than a damsel in distress or a pitiable princess. I do not deserve or want your pity. I am a devil. And I am old. I walked this land when the first dark saint was still young. I roamed this desert before it became a desert." She said, speaking fondly of an age in the distant past.


    "I am so old I can easily remember when the ruler of the city of Bastille was a non-discriminate archdevil who recognized the power and value of every soul and every devil. Not the blood-thirsty animal who banished my kind far from our ancestral home." She said, her voice rising in volume and in frequency with every word she uttered.


    That confused Althos, who was lucky enough to have the means to fix his confusion.


    <hr>


    For just a moment Althos focused inwardly. He willed his mind to return to the strange lake he had spent what felt like hours within, just hours ago. And in an instant, he was there.


    "Hey, can you show me Agowraith''s memories?" He shouted into the void of his brain. Within seconds he got a response.


    "Yes, I can. Yes, you can. You know what I mean." The lake stammered out.


    "Was Agowraith''s kind ever hunted down by Paimon?" Althos'' conscious mind asked the strange mind-lake that contained among other things, all of the memories he had accrued over his life. Including the ones he had gathered minutes ago.


    "Yes. Yes, she was." The lake told him. And then his vision changed, as he got to relive the horrors Agowraith endured first hand.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    <hr>


    The smell of burning wood wafted into Althos'' nostrils as the scene before him changed. No longer did he float just centimeters off of the water of a lake in his mind, but now he stood at the edge of a cliffside. Behind him was a drop-off and at the bottom of that, an ocean crashing against the cliff he was on top of. In front of him stood a village on fire, tiny houses ablaze and the smoke they produced forming a massive cloud high above him.


    He was inside of Agowraith''s memories, experiencing what she experienced. Althos could feel the fear that permeated her at this critical moment in her life, and he could feel that she was paralyzed. She wanted to jump and fly away, but she also wanted to turn around and help her kin. She wanted to save more lives than just her own, and her indecision would cost her dearly.


    His chance to visually explore the scene was interrupted by shrill shouting."No! Get out of here! Leave. Us. Alone!" Shouted a voice from inside of the closest house, and at the end of the last word, a heavily armored devil in a suit of chainmail was blown out of the house, sailing backward for several seconds before eventually coming to a stop and not moving anymore.


    An owl-devil, possibly the figure responsible for that, ran just outside of the house and looked around in a panic. She was taller than Agowraith was at the moment this occurred and had deep-blue wings. Unlike Agowraith, who had both wings and hands, this strange owl-devil had wings in place of her hands.


    "Agowraith!" She shouted, her voice still shrill, the sort of shrillness of a screeching bird. Her shouts seemingly knocked the aforementioned owl-devil out of her shock and terror because the seer began to move.


    Althos felt the grass under her feet as the future Kingwhisper dashed forward, towards the owl-devil who had just booted the heavily armored invader out of her home. The identity of this creature was revealed when Althos heard a single word escape her lips.


    "Mother!" She whined, crying as she hoped that she''d soon awaken from this and realize that this was nothing more than a whisper.


    Her hopes were cut short, when another figure emerged from the burning house, only visible at that moment to Agowraith.


    The figure, another heavily armored and armed devil, lunged towards Agowraith''s mother. The fierce creature swung a sword as it moved closer to Agowraith''s family, and the sword bit into and then through the owl-devil in a single slash, killing her instantly. "Paimon sends his regards." The foe shouted as he stepped past the bisected corpse he had just created.


    And then he looked at Agowraith, his helmed face revealing only thin red eyes. And he began to charge at her, sprinting across the cliff, sword drawn and ever-eager for blood.


    <hr>


    After that Althos returned to the present, feeling some sympathy for what Agowraith had endured.


    "Althos, I am Agowraith the Kingwhisper. I am a powerful owl-devil, a rare form of devil that has the power to see the future. And like Tristan, I was a half-devil when I was born. When I died, slain by one of Paimon''s minions in the days of the first Dark Saint, I evolved and became a true owl-devil." Agowraith revealed, looking directly at Althos. And then she turned to the rest of the leaders gathered before her and continued her speech.


    "And in time I grew strong. I grew wise. I grew seductive. I used my beauty and my intelligence to bring kingdoms crumbling down, as a way to vent my anger. I chronicled my life, and I wrote down the future. And then I built my underground nest." She said, referring to the place that''d become known as her tomb. "And then I died."


    "In the wake of my second death, my tomb became a haunted place. A place of terror and of tragedy. But that was not its original purpose. It was meant to serve my true master, meant to aid him. And instead, because of it, I was forced to rely on him, and receive his aid, his salvation even, long before he met me. And now he stands before me." She said, her voice drifting off for a second as she reflected on the eons of time that she lost while trapped in Narcolept''s gullet.


    "My tragedies are not merely that I built a tomb and died there. In fact, the truest tragedy of all appears to be that it tragedies are how you all defined me. I am a survivor. I survived death, not once but twice. And now I am ready to become an avenger." Bloodlust filled her voice, and the entire assembly of devils felt it radiate off of her. Her eyes now peered directly into Althos'' own, as both of them felt her activate her own devilish deal power, much like Heryensis did hours ago.


    "Althos, Paimon is my enemy, for in his hatred of beast-like devils he hunted down my kind and drove us to the furthest, most remote regions of Infernius, where we roost even now. And you are my ally, not just because of the prophecy but because we share a common enemy. From what you say, Paimon is fascinated by you, he wants to capture you for mysterious reasons. And it appears you want to overthrow him. So it is clear you two share a destiny." She told him. He nodded in response to what she had said.


    "Althos... let''s make a deal." Agowraith told the deity, grinning at him. He grinned back at her.


    "I will serve you, provisionally, in exchange for you one day clashing with and defeating Paimon. And when you do, I''ll ask you if you''d like for me to stay with you. If you would, you''ll have my service forevermore, as a way for me to repay you for slaying the faux-tyrant." She asked Althos, only for the two of them to get a notification alerting them to the deal.


    Althos wordlessly accepted the conditions of the deal, and then stood up to address the gathered devils. This is a moment of fate. I want to handle this... on my own. He realized as he looked out at the devils before him. All of them looked up at him expectantly. He opted to handle this without using his faith power.


    "Paimon is not a lawful creature. I''ve heard from multiple people that he has a deep-seated loathing of beastlike devils. This poisons him, poisons, nullifies even, his rule. That''s just one of the ways in which he is corrupt. I know this." Althos told them, preparing for what he was about to say next.


    "I know this because the system itself, the very thing that dictates the rules and laws of the cosmos, has made it so that I become an archdevil after overthrowing him and installing myself as Bastille''s overlord. The system is telling us that his rule needs to be stopped, that it stands as an affront to order." Althos said, bluffing and hoping that his words were getting through to the devils. And now for the big ask. Althos thought, smiling as he readied himself for the end of his speech.


    "I am going to stop him. I am going to complete the campaign the system has given me, as it has been given it to me, and at its end, I will overthrow Paimon. And I am asking you if you would like to join me. If you would like to stand alongside me as we retake Bastille for the strong, and not just the ones that Paimon happens to like. My fellow devils... stand beside me as we fulfill the prophecy and as we restore order to our home!" Althos said, shouting the final sentence.


    The devils violently got out of their seats and began to cheer, excited to have been asked to join Althos'' nascent rebellion. And as Althos was beginning to get excited about his accomplishment, he received an annoying reminder of the place he was in and its virtues.


    [New Feat Gained: Rebel Leader


    Benefit: Increase your affiliation with demons everywhere, as well as with other chaos-borne creatures.


    Method Of Acquisition: Start a rebellion.]


    At some point, I''m going to need to find a lawful justification for this. He thought, adding it to the list of things he needed to do. A list which tended to grow more than it shrank most days.


    And Althos wasn''t the only person who received an alert at that moment. But that was beyond the deity-devil''s knowledge. And so he persisted, unaware of what his enemy knew.


    "Now we need to talk about religion. Mine. Ours? Kind of ours. We need to specifically discuss what it means to someone who worships me as an arch-devil. Someone who worships the arch-devils." He told his followers, most of whom reacted by being more excited about this than they were about him inviting them to a rebellion.


    Are devils... religious? Althos questioned, before remembering that most of these devils were affiliated with the order of the dark saint, and had been pious in theory, but now were about to be pious in practice.


    <hr>


    The gates in and out of Namira were ornate things, made of polished onyx. They were impossibly tall structures which by Althos'' second will''s estimation measured at least 45 meters tall.


    "It is... really tall." He said as the party the primary will had gathered finally reached the portcullis that led through the wall surrounding the city and thus in and out of Namira. The three of them and the scorpion walked the final few steps that stood between them and a guard who stood a bit shorter than Althos'' desert-giant disguise.


    Upon close inspection, the guard wore thick black armor and carried a strange gem in one hand and a thick machete in the other. He had a stern, unforgiving face, and for the last few minutes, Althos had heard him yell at various people who were trying to get into the city. Fortunately, the pseudo-giant was ready, having studied the memories of the titan Althos had mentally defeated carefully and it came ready to talk to any guards who wanted to accost the party.


    "Hello, may we enter the city?" Althos politely asked as he approached the guardsman. The guard carefully inspected him, his eyes narrowing into suspicion-filled slits as he studied the new and tall giant. The more he studied Althos, the more he tried to stand out and look tough straightening his own posture and puffing out his chest so that he could look more like a warrior and intimidate the god.


    "What''s the reason for your visit, son?" The guard asked, sounding quite irritable. His voice was gruff and rumbled a lot, naturally emphasizing the hard syllables in each of the words he spoke.


    "Well sir, I and my companions are traveling adventurers." The disguised god responded, impressively calmly since the will had never had to lie before. Though the thing did think Me being a traveling adventure isn''t really a lie though. I travel. I go on adventures. It rationalized.


    When Mahmud Suit entered and explored the city he disguised himself and told guards he was a traveling adventurer. It was a trick he did often and it was one that enabled him to meet all sorts of people during his early childhood and was the basis for what the will was trying here.


    The guard carefully looked at Althos, as if sizing the lad up. He did this for a few seconds, assessing every part of the newcomer''s body. He then glanced at his stone, and carefully infused the thing with magical energy. Time froze around the secondary will rather abruptly as the thing got a notification.


    Time freezing around the will was strange, as not much was happening at the moment. The will looked around and saw people behind it in mid-step, it saw a few people beyond the gate stuck in conversation, and even a few giant animals stuck mid-step.


    [Alert:


    A guard has tried to use a "Stone of Status" on you, which would provide him with a brief assessment of your character, informing him of your name, alignment, and class. As a god... well "Stones of Status" are not meant to be used on gods. You do not have a class, but the primary will does. So congratulations are in order! You''re a monk now. A level 12 monk. And you have a pseudonym now. You''re Quinn Razorsand, the lawful neutral monk. Your alignment isn''t lawful neutral, but by default that''s what it says whenever someone tries to use those things a god.]


    The secondary will read this and grinned. When the notification was willed away time resumed, and the will watched as the guard read and reacted to the notification he had just received. The guard''s eyes went wide and his whole demeanor changed.


    "Oh, um... excuse my earlier rudeness Bey Razorsand! I had no idea you were such an experienced warrior..." The guard exclaimed, politely and demurely trying to prevent any problems before they arose. The desert giant before him grinned softly and his voice revealed no anger.


    "It''s fine! You were just doing your job. And a fine job at that." The disguised deity told the guard, reassuring him, and causing the man to smile awkwardly. He rose his hand in a gesture visible to guards magically embedded within the wall. Those same guards carefully lowered the gate, and the guard nodded at Althos, at Quinn, and told him he was free to enter the city.


    The guard noticed Quinn''s companions but didn''t bother to examine them. He''s a level 12 monk? He could punch my head clean off of my body... The guard thought to himself. But I should probably tell Ahmet that there''s such a strong newcomer in the city. The guard told himself. Just two more hours left. He thought, eager to be done with his daily shift.


    And behind him, the desert giant and the jackaloids continued their trek to the gate, and made it into the city proper.


    <hr>


    The atmosphere in the dark chapel had changed completely in the wake of Althos openly declaring that they were starting a rebellion. No longer was the mood somber and reserved, now it was one of overlapping conversations, rapid introductions, and quick decision making.


    Well since they are brothers and sisters in sedition now I''m glad they can get along. Althos thought to himself, in the wake of the cheering dying down and the overlapping conversations beginning. Much to his surprise, they were all talking about religion and religious beliefs. Just not with him.Well... at least they''re religious.He told himself, trying to justify their behavior.


    But there was a crowd of devils that were approaching him and ignoring any and all attempts to get their attention that came from elsewhere.


    The priestly devils and their sisters, the fiendish nuns, approached Althos as one, closing in on him in an instant so that they could talk about the religion Althos wanted to build around himself. It was an impressive, albeit somewhat frightening sight, especially since they sat far apart originally. Within moments they were around him, hovering like zealous vultures.


    He greeted them, somewhat off-put by their directness but ultimately thankful for their energy. "Hi everyone." He said, smiling at them.


    They all greeted him eagerly and took turns reintroducing themselves. Three of them would have been priests and two of them would have been nuns in the age of the old gods.


    Althos studied each of them carefully, noting that they seemingly shared an intense, borderline fanatical zeal and studied him diligently. Their eyes were glued to Althos, and they seemed to want him to do something, anything. They had eerie, crystalline eyes which didn''t help with their intensity.


    "So... I need your help." He confessed, having made the decision to be honest and upfront with them since this was about building an organized, logical church devoted to him as an archdevil, a creature of great evil and great lawfulness.


    "We shall aid you however you need, lord." One of them, a male named Arodon told him, smiling as he said it. His voice was serene, far calmer than the intensity of his gaze.


    "I have somewhat different desires for each of the cults or religions I''m building around myself, but I want this one, the devil one, to be a logical church that emphasized the law and evil in equal measure." He told Arodon and the other faithful fiends. "But you see, I''m new to a lot of this. I''m new to... everything really." He said plainly, a statement which elicited sympathetic nods from his fanatical followers.


    Another one of his followers spoke in response to him, a nun named Nuno. "Master... it''s okay to be nervous. You aren''t alone. You have us, on your side. We became these types of devils because we worship you. In a sense, we worshiped you before you even existed. Our kind of devil is literally a kind of devil that is affiliated with and born from devilish cults." She told him.


    "Instead of leaving all of this to you, why don''t we help? We''ll start off by asking simple questions with simple answers and then we''ll build it out from there." She said, reassuring her master. Althos nodded at this, appreciative of the support, and Nuno asked her first, rhetorical question. "How many gods are in your religion?"


    Althos immediately answered, no doubt in his mind. "One."


    Then another priest, one named Faldor, spoke up. "Who is that god?"


    Althos again had an immediate answer. "Althos."


    The next question belonged to the second nun, a devil named Trix. "Who might this religion appeal too?"


    Althos'' answer was simple but longer than his other ones had been. "Devils, mortals who want to use the law to advance their agendas, and tyrants who recognize that the law is a weapon." This answer received an approving nod from his newest, most pious followers.


    The final priest, a younger-looking one than his fellows, got the next question. "How is a church structured in your religion?"


    Althos had a ready answer for this one, having thought about these sorts of things while waiting for the devils to assemble in the cathedral. "Orderly. There is a clear hierarchy in each church that leaves the chain of command indisputable. It is not based solely on age or time in the clergy, but both of those things should play at least a little bit of a factor, as should zeal, accomplishments, and charisma." He told his followers.


    Nuno got to ask another question. "What is the purpose of this religion? From a devilish standpoint and from a mortal standpoint."


    Althos considered her question for a moment, before replying to it. He thought about how the structure and order of Infernius'' hierarchy differed from what he had seen in the world of mortals.


    Then he opened his mouth and began to speak. "From a devilish point of view, this religion exists to draw people into Infernius. Like how my other cults exist to expose people to me as a god, the purpose of this cult is to expose mortals to Infernius, to devils, and to me as well. If you''re a mortal, this religion''s purpose in your life could be to give you order or to give you power." He said.


    "I''ve been in the wilderness. In remote communities, there is no order, or at least no one who enforces it which is why it''s easy to inflict evil on people who live in the wilderness." He told the devils listening to them. They nodded at him, considering the simplistic truths of his words.


    "The first town I visited was destroyed before I even got there because they had very few defenders and they were ambushed by a handful of orcs. If this religion results in new communities being made, we''ve got to..." He thought about what they "had" to do to prevent the destruction he had seen in the tiny community of Golden-Gate.


    "We''ve got to establish order within them. Any towns built around this religion should have an emphasis on defensive capabilities with strong defenders who can keep the weak alive. If we appear in existing communities, we can make our worshipers respectable by making them enforcers and keepers of order." He told the acolytes who surrounded him.


    The next speaker, another priest, asked him a continuation of the last question. "Say I''m a mortal you want to worship you. How do you convince me to do so?"


    Althos thought about it for a second and considered saying something like I show you I''m stronger than you. But he knew that wasn''t enough for many mortals I''m lucky to have met so many power-hungry people so early. He realized. He thought for a second about a serious answer and then began to speak.


    "If you''re a mortal I want to worship me as an archdevil I appeal to a variety of your desires, testing the waters. If you want power, or you respect power, I can show you my power and offer you power. If you want order, I can show you how orderly my societies are, and promise to aid you in stabilizing your communities. Be it through empowering you in a range of ways, or by sending you the help and the arms to stabilize your community yourself." He told the devil, thinking of the devilish deals he had made and been a part of so far in his life.


    The next devil gave him a more direct question. "Tell me the structure of your church as an organization. Be as specific as you can."


    And that was how Althos spent the next two hours until the six individuals had built the bare bones of an infernal cult, aided by the devil''s ability to perfectly recall conversations on matters related to religion.


    <hr>


    [Multiple New Species Knowledge Notification: Krieg-Devils, Knight Devils, Pious Devils, Seductress Devils, Owl-Devils, Moth-Devils, Attendant Devils, Desert Giants


    Please note: this notification has been summarized.


    Krieg-Devils are the generals of Infernius. These potent warlords are the masterminds behind genocides, rule from unassailable fortresses, and are impossibly strong warriors who are fond of challenging honorable heroes to one-on-one duels stating that the loser has to serve the victor. They don''t lose. They stand at the top of the infernal hierarchy, right beside Vizier-Devils. They can only ascend to true devils or to archdevils.


    Knight-Devils are the faithful servants and honorable protectors of archdevils. These warriors were the most honorable, loyal, and direct servants of archdevils, receiving their commands directly from them rather than listening to Vizier-Devils. These warriors are incredibly potent in one on one battles, having mastered the sword in life and refining that mastery in their afterlives.


    Pious Devils are the chaplains, sisters, and fathers of the faiths of the archdevils. They lead services extolling the unholy virtues of tyranny, of the might of arms, and of a guilty until proven innocent legal system. They are rhetoricians and can help anyone refine an argument but only in a way that advances an unholy agenda. In some religions, religious leaders are forced to take oaths of celibacy, but these unholy clerics vow to use their sexuality in pursuit of their master''s goals, fathering or mothering children as ordered by their gods. They frequently become templars, crusaders, and inquisitors pursuing heretics and apostates with terrifying vigor.


    Seductress Devils are beautiful devils who tempt the weak-hearted with the pleasures of the flesh with a wink and lure them to the edge of ecstasy with a kiss. They are spies, assassins, and provocateurs who have mastered the art of beauty and of sensuality. Their temptations make the strong weak in the knees and they take special pleasure in destroying families.


    Owl-Devils are mighty winged devils who can see into the future. They use their clairvoyance in pursuit of the breakdown of incohesive societies, tempting the power with glimpses into their future, tempting the weak with baser distractions such as indulging in the arts, and do their best to foster wars and violence between both tiny settlements and entire countries. They are fond of dramatic titles like "The Queen-Slayer" or "The Muse".


    Moth-Devils are insectile devils who have traits of moths and the appearance of humanoids. They are regal devils who are fond of courtly intrigue and high-class politics. These noble devils frequently become philosophers, lawyers, or judges in both devilish and mortal society. Their superiors are fond of ordering them to integrate themselves into various communities and begin the insidious process of twisting the law to draconic extremes.


    Attendant Devils are noble handmaidens and attendants of greater devils. They are as cruel as other devils but have been given a figure that many humanoids can find appealing with beautiful faces, and other "talents" that allow them to easily become concubines of noble or wealthy paramours who can hedonistically lavish them while giving them servants they can be cruel towards, especially if they are given magic that disguises their lack of legs and the stalks on their heads. These devils are fond of the drama of high-stakes politics and push those who listen to them to the edge of legally permissible cruelty.


    Desert Giants are a rare type of giant who inhabits sandy wastes. They build ornate cities of onyx and glass deep in the desert, with towering ziggurats whereupon they practiced living sacrifices in the ancient past, to cruel desert gods. Their cities and social structures are complex, living things, and they are one of the few species with magic that identifies creatures, a gift from their ancient gods who recognized the power of early threat detection in the desert.]

 Chapter 82:

    The party of desert-dwellers and their leader stood right outside of the gate''s entrance into the city.


    Just beyond the gate, the city of Namira gloriously emerged before the party. Before them stood a gigantic plaza that welcomed visitors and long-term residents alike and invited them to come deeper, complete with an ornate statue depicting the sultan that Althos knew as Mahmud in the prime of his life. The statue was a depiction of him not as a corpse, but as a warrior hefting a sword and wearing thick armor made of steel.


    It also served the purpose of saying farewell to those leaving the city, reminding them of the artwork and culture they''d be trading for the fierce desert and all of its monstrous dangers.


    Dozens of desert giants went about their lives in this plaza, some hard at work vending their wares, others doing their duty to protect the citizens of Namira, and yet many more were idly wandering around the plaza in search of cheap food or of their friends.


    For perhaps the first time in its life Althos'' second will saw more than just young adults or elders in this plaza, the god saw children and infants walking with their parents, playing with their friends, and some even wandered about by themselves. The second will saw them living carefree lives, at least momentarily forgetting their troubles and enjoying themselves. A part of it felt a pang of jealousy.


    Each member of the party noticed that though the plaza was filled with enormous creatures, they heard very little coming from it. They could see the creatures beyond the gate walking around, and could see the lips on the creatures moving as if to indicate speech, but they had no idea where the speech came from.


    The deceptive deity noticed that there was a thin wall made of magical energy that radiated in front of him, preventing him from doing more than seeing and faintly hearing those beyond the gate and inside of the plaza. It reached out and touched it, only to receive a surprising notification.


    [Alert:


    You have just touched a barrier. Barriers are walls of magical force and energy that protect locations and seal them off. You can see through this barrier easily enough but it mitigates what sort of other sensory information you receive from what''s within it. And unless the attacks were as strong as you are and you could make them, any attacks that penetrated the barrier would be outright nullified.


    The primary will has actually erected a barrier before, there''s one around the expansive grounds of the dark cathedral that make it harder for anyone the will doesn''t like to approach. It''s a simple thing, inexpertly crafted, but thanks to the will''s unlimited magical power the barrier could stay there forever


    The specific barrier you touched is a particularly potent one that is powered by the strange tower you followed to get here. The tower is emitting tremendous amounts of energy to fuel the barrier it is surrounding the city with but whatever its source of magical power happens to be might just be... malfunctioning, as recently the barrier has begun to act up. Hence why you could see the tower in the distance to begin with. Normally it ought to be invisible to those outside of the gate.]


    The disguised deity led his party out from just beyond the gate and into the proper plaza, though they clung close to him. The moment they stepped into the plaza itself and were out from the gate, they stepped through the translucent barrier the volume of what little they heard skyrocketed, and all of a sudden they could hear words, people, laughter, and more.


    <hr>


    The angel awoke slowly. She wasn''t helped by the fact that her prison-cell was devoid of any light, so even when she slowly opened her eyes no sunshine or moonlight flooded her retinas and jolted her brain in a fit of shock. Instead, she awoke on the cold floor of a place as dark as the deepest underground pit.


    When she was fully awake, her non-sight senses began to grant her a faint awareness of her conditions.Drat... I woke up and I''m still here.She told herself, annoyed by that development.It''s not a dream... not a nightmare, after all.She realized, sighing quietly.


    Her cell stretched out before her for several meters. The thing was quite wide. What it wasn''t, was tall. Which shouldn''t have mattered, but for the problem her wings posed.Whether folded against her back, or bunched together to decrease their horizontal length, herdark-feathered wings scrapped against the low-ceiling, a ceiling she nearly bumped her head against whenever she had dared to try and stand while speaking to her devilish captors yesterday, following her capture.


    Within a few minutes of looking around her blank cell, she challenged herself to try and assess her situation as thoroughly as possible.Come on... come on. Give me anything. Nothing should be overlooked.She told herself, pushing her other senses to make up for the lack of both light and features in her cell.


    In time she became aware of things. Above her, she heard the sound of footsteps, but not the footfalls of a flatfooted humanoid. The sounds she heard were the sounds of hooves on metal.


    Her nose twitched as she took deep whiffs of the air around her.She was shocked to find that she didn''t feel assailed by vicious scents or disgusted by the stench of offal in the air, instead what she found was that her cell didn''t smell vile at all. Rather than smelling terrible, the place smelled bland and unlived in.


    When she got up and began to walk around again, opting to spread her wings out far so that they didn''t hit the low-hanging ceiling, she found that she was barefoot. This surprised her because she hadn''t noticed it.Ugh.She thought to herself.Do I have my other pieces of armor?She asked herself, hesitantly, before checking by both looking down at herself and patting her body.


    Oh good. If I lost my armor, Klaus would be super upset.She thought, upon realizing that her thin breastplate was still on and she still had her fur pants and grieves.


    After a few minutes of pointlessly looking around, unsure of what to do, she did what she sometimes did when she was stressed. She got on her knees, brought her hands together, and prayed.


    <hr>


    The plaza was alive with a sort of vibrancy that Althos'' second will had never experienced before. Even the god''s main will had only ever experienced the sort of intense life the city of Namira''s grand plaza exuded only once when he entered the marketplace of the city of Undermoon.


    The plaza was home to a variety of smells, scents that neither of the god''s wills had ever smelled before. A breeze gently drifted by the deity and delivered with it the scents of roasted scorpion, of camel meat, of giant sweat, of blood, and of a hundred other things its godly sense of smell eagerly identified. The desert-giant smiled, his grin lopsided and crooked like many of the other desert giants that dwelled in the city.


    Althos turned and faced his friends. And he spoke to them. "Are you all ready to go?" He asked, gently. They looked around the plaza, a bit dismayed at how much larger everything was than they were, only truly noticing now that they were inside the city itself and not outside of its gigantic wall, before collecting themselves and nodding at the desert-giant. Althos grinned and turned around so that he could lead them through the metropolis.


    Only Althos noticed the surprisingly sneaky human who peered at the party from across the plaza. There were too many sights, sounds, and scents for anyone with lesser senses than his own to make out a face, even one that happened to be the wrong size in a city of giants, so Althos didn''t blame his servants and instead focused on the fresh-faced fellow who only had eyes for the parent.


    The fellow was a young lad, a young man coming into his own, in the strange desert giant city of Namira. Althos kept his gaze on the lad, as the lad sized up the giant''s companions, his own sandy brown eyes carefully assessing the warrior-woman and the skittish blonde youth who traveled alongside their giant companion.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    Althos spoke freely, his eyes lingering on the human but also doing his best to be cognizant of the needs of his followers. "Would you all like to go and get some food?" He asked them, a question which was met with cheers from the adventurers.


    Now if only I knew how to get some money...The god thought to himself, happy that he had energized his followers, and hoping that a chance would fall onto his lap soon. And it would. Though not his lap.


    <hr>


    Althos'' second body spent the next two hours discussing the specifics of his theoretical faith with the pious-devils before excusing himself. A few of the questions the devils asked him were truly remarkable.


    One of the nuns asked him about sacrifice. He had been asked something similar by the orc Ranthor, his first orcish worshiper and the woman, the nun named Nuno, who was asking him about sacrifice now had a similarly zealous aura surrounding her.


    "Master, when we prepare our monthly sacrifices to you... what would you most be pleased by?" She asked, meekly wondering how she could most please the first devil who could promote devils she had met in millennia. Her voice was meek but she herself was a tall woman, standing nearly four meters tall when she wasn''t slouching.


    Althos looked at her and pondered her question for a bit. He thought about it with a surprising amount of consideration before finally deciding on an answer. "If something must be sacrificed to me, let it be knowledge. If there are pious people who seek to solicit my aid, or who wish to honor me in their own way, I''d like for them to offer me wisdom." He said softly.


    She smiled at him and nodded sagely at his words, apparently pleased with his response.


    Another particularly savvy question allowed Althos to demonstrate one of the things that made him happy. This question was asked by a priest, the priest named Arodon, had asked him about holidays, days they, as members of the church, were to celebrate. Off the top of his head, Althos could imagine one such day.


    The first was the day Narcolept was defeated. Six days ago. Althos suggested calling it "The Day Of The Titan''s Pain." Which was in his mind anyway, a neat title for the festival, but his followers cringed when he said it. Althos agreed to try and come up with a better name and was excited when the devil''s expressed their approval of the idea itself.


    I can workshop the name, but I''m glad that they like the idea itself. It''s proof that I have some basic grasp of what to do here.He thought, grinning all the while.


    "What would we do during it?" One of the priests asked. Althos looked at him and responded.


    "We would celebrate the downfall of the creature who ate the first people who''d join our rebellion against Paimon. That titan ate you all. I want to remember it by dancing to the thought of its death." The deity-devil explained quite simply. This response surprised his servants, but they quickly reacted to it by beginning to laugh. They found themselves liking Althos more by the minute.


    By the time two hours had passed Althos didn''t feel like he had had intense theological discussions, he felt instead like he was beginning something new and remarkable. Something he hoped would result in him gaining more power. But there was something the deity knew for sure would result in him gaining more power, and he was eager to try it, to experiment with it.


    Althos looked out before him and saw a gathering of devils. He saw a cabal with sinister powers and deadly motivation. And he saw a force of warriors who were ready to obey him. But he wasn''t strong enough yet.I have to get stronger. And one way to do that is to master my own powers.He thought, recognizing his own current weakness relative to his potential, to the potential of the powers within his soul.


    "Friends! Compatriots! Coconspirators! Lend your ears." He said, disrupting the jovial atmosphere of the gathering in the sinister chapel. The sabbath of devils turned to their new leader, looking at him with abject interest in their sulfurous eyes.


    "I invite you all to stay here as long as you wish, but I want you to know that I am going to go hone my powers for the battles to come. I believe that my current strength is insufficient and I know of ways to improve my powers. In the meantime, I invite my pious friends to go forth and tell our allies of the way of me." His last sentence got a dry chuckle from some of the assembled devils, and then Althos began the walk down the middle of the chapel. As he did so he messaged two of the creatures in the chapel. Tristan and Nefarious.


    [Hello you two. I hope all is well.] He said, greeting the two of them eagerly. They turned to watch him leave as one, having been seated in a corner and chatting about Nefarious'' attempt to conquer Agowraith''s tomb, and about what Nefarious missed in the half a century since his defeat.


    [Hello Althos. I''d say we are doing fine. Is there a reason you needed us? Do you wish for us to accompany you?] Nefarious asked, sending the message in such a way that both Althos and Tristan could hear it, while revealing his respectful curiosity as to his savior''s intentions. Althos grinned but didn''t turn around as he read the moth devil''s message.


    [No. I just wanted to check in with the two of you. Tristan''s had... a long week no doubt, so sooner or later I will be borrowing your daughter to see how she''s doing. But for now I just wanted to hear from you. Both of you.] Althos told Nefarious, looping in Tristan as well. He turned around for a moment and smiled at her.


    [I''m doing... my best. It''s a lot to take in you know? A week ago we didn''t know each other. You had only just started existing. And now my father''s killer is dead, and my father is alive again. Because of you and your magic. To say that meeting you turned my life around... is no exaggeration.] She told him, sincerely. She looked at his back as he exited the chapel and sent him one more message. [Thank you Althos.] She told him, all while wondering where he was going.


    Althos left the chapel, spread his dark wings, and took off into the desert. He wanted to be alone while he did what he was about to do. While he experimented with souls.


    Once he was in the air, he spotted a distant patch of sand. And he took off in its direction.


    <hr>


    The secondary will discovered the class of the golden-furred jackaloid almost entirely by accident. And it all happened because the cowardly jackaloid was hungry, and remembered that Althos had no money in the wake of his declaration that it was time they went out and got food. It turned out that hunger could make cowards brave, for a moment anyway.


    The party hadn''t gotten far into Namira''s grand palace when the incident happened. Althos, the scorpion, and the red-headed warrior woman, a jackaloid named Camilla, had been focused on the statue and the three of them had been staring at it openly.


    That was a common reaction to the statue, and it was the point of the whole thing. It was supposed to invoke awe. But the golden-furred jackaloid wasn''t so easily distracted, at least not when his stomach was rumbling. He was looking at something else. Someone else.


    The golden-furred jackaloid''s eyes were trailing one of the young desert giants who was playing with his friends. The youth was small enough that he was only 3 meters tall instead of 5 like Althos.


    The lad wore a loose-fitting outfit designed to allow the heat to not affect his ability to go out and play. The outfit not only had pockets that gave off a delightful sound; the sound of loose coins, the lad also had a thin coin-purse swinging loosely from his waist. And for the golden-furred jackaloid, a young thief named Kuzco, that made him an excellent target.


    Kuzco stepped out of the darkness of Althos'' shadow and began to stealthy approach the boy. He was chatting with a friend and distracted, all of which naturally suited Kuzco. The young jackaloid channeled his fear and used it to approach at a calm pace, while also making himself small and harder to detect even as he approached the boy. Kuzco had crossed over half of the distance from where he started and where the boy was before Althos truly noticed that he had left the group.


    The young god looked to his left and saw the thin human-form of Kuzco strolling across the plaza alone.Oh? What''s this...The will wondered for a moment until he too noticed the tiny desert-giant that was chatting with one of his little companions.This is going to be trouble? Or is it the birth of something new?He questioned, as Kuzco continued his approach.


    The jackaloid''s movements sped up as he approached the youthful giant. Kuzco''s body language didn''t change so anyone who wasn''t watching him wouldn''t notice the increase in speed, but he moved considerably faster as he closed the distance between himself and his target.I just want to do this swiftly.Kuzco told himself, as he felt his heartbeat begin to hammer in his chest.


    And then Kuzco was within range of his objective. He was directly behind the lad, and all he had to do was reach out and grab the coin-purse.All it takes is one move.He told himself, attempting to muster the courage to reach out and snatch what was in front of him. And then, steeling himself for whatever came next, he reached out towards the coin-purse.


    The moment of fate, as it often happened, was over in an instant. The jackaloid''s hands were a blur, even to Althos, as he slipped his fingers into the coin-purse and dug out the change within them.


    Though Kuzco''s heart was hammering in his chest, the giant was distracted and his friend who would have noticed Kuzco was engrossed in their juvenile conversation, so the jackaloid successfully snatched the coinage from the unaware giant with just a few seconds of rummaging around his coin-purse.


    And when the jackaloid began to stroll back towards his friends, he received an unexpected notification.


    [Alert!


    Your successful theft, despite your hammering heart, is deemed worthy of naming you a thief. Thieves are one of the specialties available to the rogue class. Thieves are skilled at detecting traps, at sneaking around in battle, and at stealing enemy valuables. Congratulations! You did good little one.]

 Chapter 83:

    Althos'' wings beat slowly as he flew out over the wastes. Little more than the tallest sand dunes in the area could come close to touching him and in the air, he could see for kilometers. He wasn''t sure why he had wanted to go out to do this, but something about it felt right at the time and as he sailed over the horizon he realized that even as he did it something really did feel right about it.


    "This is fun!" He told no one in particular.


    He looked out and scanned the horizon for anything of interest. Sadly, just like the first time that he had flown over the sandy wastes of the infernian desert, this area seemed to be little more than a massive and barren waste. His radar told him that some creatures lived under the sand or underground, but nothing approached him via the sky.


    "It must be because we aren''t far from Bastille." He told himself, as he soared over a particularly tall sand dune. He narrowly evaded the thing, intentionally waiting until the last minute to climb out of the way just to get his blood flowing.


    "Now that''s an experience!" He said, grinning as flew to new heights. And then he allowed his mind to wander to something more serious, for just a moment. As he took off from the dark cathedral minutes ago he had briefly recalled one of his more eerie powers.


    Reconstitution...He thought for a moment, recalling it again. "I wonder if I could use it to craft a body for a soul..." He asked, thinking aloud. And then he heard a sinister chuckle from one of the domains that sometimes talked to him: the domain of necromancy.


    [Of course, you can. Once you create a body... you just don''t animate the thing and then fill it with a soul. It''s an easy process Althos. Why don''t you give it a try?]The domain suggested, grinning invisibly.


    [I''ll think about it.] He told the domain, doing his best to suppress a grin. The idea of it interested Althos. It''d give him far more reason to consume souls and to be judicial in how he used the souls he''d stored within him.


    But after a few seconds of contemplation, he figured he should focus instead on what sort of creature he wanted to create first. Something truly worthy of careful consideration. And after thinking about it, it became clear.


    "I really want to try and create something fungal." He discovered as he saw where he wanted to land. He twisted his body so as to angle himself in the right direction and began to sail towards the area where he''d be creating his first true life-form that wasn''t a devil.


    Within a matter of moments, he came to a midair stop above a sandy flatland surrounded by dunes on all sides. The sandy valley would be the perfect place to create something uninterrupted and he was grateful such a spot existed not far from the dark cathedral. The deity gently began his descent to the sands below.


    <hr>


    When Kuzco returned to the party, dozens of locally minted coins in his hands, he had a wide grin on his face. Althos'' second will, piloting the body of the desert-giant, grinned back at him and welcomed him warmly. "Hey there. Care to share what you collected with us?" He asked, hoping to get a look at those coins.


    The jackaloid grinned at his master and hopped to him. "Sure!" He warmly responded, showing the coins to the god. Althos took a single one in his hands and inspected it thoroughly. It was the first time either of the wills had ever held money of any sort, so he wanted to savor it.


    The coin he grabbed from Kuzco was a thick thing, a few centimeters of circular, expertly crafted metal. It was constructed from a sort of desert-metal and weighed a good deal. It was also not quite identical to the coins in Mahmud''s early memories, so Althos was glad that he hadn''t tried to duplicate ones from the memories the primary will had already explored and was familiar with.


    There were no particularly intricate designs on it or anything, just the symbol of the city of Namira: an image of a black tower on both sides. After studying the thing for a few seconds, taking time to familiarize himself with it, he handed the coin back to Kuzco and turned to Camila and spoke to both of the canine-shapeshifts in their language.


    "I can recreate this using my magic." He spoke the bold words with confidence unbefitting the language of canines.


    <hr>


    When Althos touched down on the sand he began to concentrate and gather his energies. He reached out into the aether, into the mystical energies that suffused everything in the multiverse, and began to pull elements from them for the sake of constructing a divine soul.


    "I am constructing a servant... something powerful. Something curious. Something unique. If you have anything to give, I''ll happily accept it." He told the multiverse, a grin etched on his face. And then he activated his power, constructing a divine soul with his bare hands and raw mystical powers.And I should probably ask for advice.He realized.


    And he was asked a question. Right as he was about to ask one, to the very domain that approached him.


    [Given your request... perhaps I can be of assistance.] The knowledge domain chimed in, taking the initiative to aid Althos.


    [Hey! I was just about to ask you that.] He said over their mental connection, excited that the thing reached out to him first.


    [I''m glad! It''s nice to see you trying to take initiative. Since you want something curious, I''m assuming you want a smart creature... or at least something that learns quickly. Am I right?] The domain asked, excitedly. It was clearly curious as to what Althos was thinking.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    The person the domain spoke to nodded with a grin on his face. [I want a servant who is smart. Or... who becomes smart. And I want it to be a fungal creature. I really want to start to diversify which of my powers I use and if I can make servants which incorporate some of my lesser-used or under-utilized powers that is a good way for me to try out many of my powers.] Althos told the domain, explaining his reasoning for wanting a fungal servant.


    The domain considered his response. It began to think about how to best aid Althos. And finally, after a few seconds it knew what to suggest. [Of the creatures you can create using your divine-soul shaping ability, at the moment anyway, there''s only one real option if you want a smart fungal creature. A mi-go.] The domain told him.


    [Mi-gos are a strange race of deeply intelligent fungoids. These things are pious creatures who loyally served two types of gods or god-like creatures known as the great old ones and the outer gods in the old age. They are scientists whose technology is eerie and whose surgeries transform those who survive them into vicious monstrosities if used maliciously or aid them in recovering from grievous wounds if used benignly.] The domain informed Althos.


    The deity nodded and decided to take this advice. "So I can craft a creature whose race is naturally pious, and who has a species-wide inclination to be methodical and experimental? I think that suits my needs perfectly." Althos said, grinning. And so he decided that that was the sort of creature he''d shape this new soul into.


    When he was asked what powers he wanted the thing to have, he chose to give it mind-linking abilities, omnilingualism, and an unexpected third power: hand-to-hand skills.


    <hr>


    The multiverse responded to Althos'' request. The second his divine magic was poured out of his body and to the sacred place where divine souls formed, it was touched by the multiverse''s own energies. The ever-expanding power of the multiverse, the thing that created the system, gods, great old ones, and domains. Such energies flowed into Althos'' newest creation.


    The soul skeleton that was formed from the interlocking magics of the eerie god of fungi and of souls and the multiverse itself roared to life, in a mystical explosion of unfettered power and shapeless secrets. The amorphous thing was touched and caressed by Althos'' fungal powers, and by the multiverse''s shapechanging magic, and seeped into one strange little soul.


    And then the thing was exposed to the rolling, heated energies of Althos'' divine power, exposed to the true, overwhelming and underused might of the fungal domain and the soul-altering energies of the soul-domain. It was even lightly kissed by a small contribution from the knowledge domain.


    Just enough to slightly modify its brain and make it into a useful, scientifically inclined aide for Althos and his often side-lined quest for knowledge with an innate understanding of the scientific method and a solid memory.


    The energy warmed the little soul, still an inanimate, barely alive thing at this point in its development.


    The final component needed to truly animate the thing, to bring it to true, glorious life, was an infusion of Althos'' will. And the moment the thing was ready to absorb something so powerful Althos'' will seeped into it, granting the soul a preliminary heart and infusing it with the radiant animating spark that infuses it with life.


    The soul slowly gained consciousness, the various sources of divine power flowing into it causing it to take a bit longer than it would otherwise, but because of their odd interference the soul, even in the sacred place was a truly special thing. It radiated a divine, golden energy and emanated power. When the soul was ready to be shaped, it was a powerful thing.


    And it awoke for the first time right as Althos decided what sort of creature it would become. He made a decision that would appeal to its inquisitive, scientific mind, even in its infantile state.


    <hr>


    The soul sprang to life in Althos'' hands quite easily. It coiled itself around him, clinging needily to its creator. He smiled softly, serenely, and fatherly at the thing. While he did so, he sent it a quick message of greeting. And he sent a message to the special first soul he created.


    [Hello there little one! I know you might be wondering why I haven''t shaped you into anything. It''s because you are special. You are something I want to allow to become something without shaping you. That''s one way I want you to express your freedom. I want you to look for something you want to become. To see things by being out in the world, with me.] He communicated many thoughts.


    The soul didn''t respond with words but in a soul-orb esque way the formless entity transmitted feelings of vague understanding and a general sense of gratitude to the deity for his decision to allow it to be truly free. And he decided to interpret that as a way of saying that the thing could see.


    Althos began the work of shaping the soul with a gentle touch. As he did so, he was delighted to see a single familiar magical circle etch itself onto the ground near him.


    <hr>


    The soul reacted warmly and eagerly to the touch of its creator. Althos had sent out a kind and loving mental hand, he didn''t want to spook the strange ethereal thing and it responded happily to it. Althos smiled at the thing and sent a wave of cool, calming energy to ensure that it relaxed while his magic touched it and started the skillful, precise work needed to shape a soul.


    Althos'' mind received a strange new image as he began his work. The image that crept into his mind was of an odd, pink, creature that was similar in shape to a cross between a crustacean and a stingerless wasp.


    It had a strange, fleshy-head that was a pink sphere-like shape attached to a chitinous neck that lacked any of the features Althos had come to associate with faces, like a mouth or a nose or even ears. Plus it was riddled with antennae.


    It had a pair of crab-claws, as well as a few other appendages that Althos knew instinctually it could use as less dexterous hands. The thing''s small wings looked atrophied, but Althos suspected that whatever forces enabled the thing to fly, if it even could, wouldn''t be something natural anyway.


    Its feet were thin tentacles that it balanced its body on, and the thing stood about 1.5 meters tall.


    With the image of the alien-looking monster etched onto his mind, Althos began to shape the soul into a miniaturized version of that. And the laborious process took a few minutes of careful mystical shaping and arcane artistry.


    <hr>


    The desert sand began to be swept up in a terrifying whirlwind produced by magical energies. Althos watched, wordlessly, as he saw the circle at the center of the whirlwind begin to emit radiant blue light. And then he began to grin. He opened his mouth to speak.


    "Arise." He said as the sand began to spin faster and faster around the circle. He watched the sandy tempest with glee.


    "Arise!" He shouted, his voice rising over the roaring sounds of the wind whipping around him.


    "Arise!" He commanded, his voice echoing across the wastes that surrounded him. And then a sound louder than both Althos, and the whipping winds began to explode out of the circle. The maddening sound of incredibly loud, incredibly large beating wings. And after a few seconds of frenzied activity, the sands began to relax, falling back to the desert floor. Revealing the monstrosity Althos created.

 Chapter 84:

    The monster in the circle looked at its creator with awe, reverentially observing the thing in the shape of a devilish man that created it. And through the sand, which relaxed and fell to the ground, its creator looked back at it, impressed by the monstrosity he had created.


    The thing in the circle was a perfect recreation of the terrifying image in Althos'' mind. It was as big, or perhaps as small as he suspected it would be, standing perhaps a meter and a half tall, and three times as wide. It was as chimerical as the image of the thing that stealthily snuck its way into his mind was, with a wasplike body, atrophied wings, and an odd featureless bulb for a face.


    It took a careful step forward, carefully advancing on both of its thin, lanky legs, and placing a careful, clawed hand in the desert sands to ensure it remained steady after its first step didn''t result in its legs finding much purchase in the sand. It watched its master carefully, somewhat afraid of the odd entity in front of it, but also feeling eager to serve the creature who gave it a body. Its next step was more sure, more steady.


    Moments later it began to take even surer steps, even steadier ones so that it could approach its creator.


    Althos watched it, joy dancing in his sinister eyes as he observed the first of his creations to have both a physical form and a divine soul stare at him in wonder and fear and then begin to approach him. He felt powerful before the creature''s gaze, and before he knew it he found himself taking his own careful steps to reach the creature. When he was close to the thing he reached out his hand and smiled at it. And he opened his mouth to speak.


    "You''re a cute little thing aren''t you?" He said, grinning at the odd entity before him. The Mi-Go, surprised to understand his words, took a second to respond.


    "Cute? I... find myself mysteriously knowing this language, but I don''t know what that word means." It confessed, its voice eerie and insectile.


    The creature''s voice was like the buzzing of a thousand locust someone forcibly transformed into words. The words it spoke were careful ones, cautious ones, ones that revealed its uncertainty. In response to this, the fungoid''s creator, the god Althos, smiled at it serenely and spoke again.


    "I was... making a joke." He confessed, laughing while he spoke, though more at his inability to recognize that the newborn before him wouldn''t understand humor, than at his piss-poor attempt to be funny. Even he only understood it secondhand, having learned of it through the memories of a goblin whose mind he created a copy of, and then gaining more familiarity with it as he explored the memories of the desert titan Mahmud Suti.


    The god in the desert relaxed as he felt a notification caress his mind, lovingly gracing him with more knowledge. His eyes turned a slight shade of green, as his vision suddenly accommodated a notification alerting him to knowledge about the creature he had just created.


    [New Species Knowledge Notification: Mi-Go


    Mi-Gos are a powerful servitor race, a term which refers to a species that was directly created by one of the ancient gods, and immediately sworn into their service. The Mi-Go in front of you was created by you and recognizes you as its creator and the god it is meant to serve. It can convince other Mi-Gos it meets to serve you, and you can convince them as well, quite easily in fact.


    Mi-Gos are fungoid monsters who served the Great Old Ones and the Outer Gods two groups of alien, often-malignant gods or god-like creatures with incredible, dark powers. Mi-Gos served them as scientists, dark priests, colonizers, torturers, and inventors.


    Mi-Gos possess few supernatural abilities themselves. They are capable of flight, and they are highly dexterous creatures. Their real power isn''t their direct combat ability, but the sorts of resources they create for their eldritch masters and the monstrosities they create from lesser lifeforms. To them, piety and scientific research are very similar.


    They are capable of transforming other creatures in two ways. The first way they can transform someone is physically; through artistic and macabre surgeries and through plying them with potent, sometimes mind-altering as well as body-altering drugs. They can also spiritually transform someone via indoctrinating them into the terrifying occult religions they themselves are adherents of, including now at least, Althos'' faith.


    Mi-Gos don''t evolve but can continue to gather strength indefinitely.]


    The devil in the desert willed away the notification with a smile etching itself onto his confident and handsome face. I like this. He thought, excited that the strange thing in front of him was his newest creature and his newest servant.


    At that moment the Mi-Go in front of him extended its own, long arm and placed the clawed thing gently in its master''s hand. It looked to him, its bulbous and featureless head staring at him with one of the thick antennae in place of a nose or any other discernible feature, and spoke once more.


    "Master... where do we go from here?" It asked, its buzzing voice filling Althos'' ears and mind. Its creator smiled at it and spoke softly, turning to lead the thing while he did so.


    "We go home. You have a family awaiting you." He told the Mi-Go, excited for his servants to meet his newest creation.


    <hr>


    The desert-delving party of assorted creatures found themselves on the floor of the grand plaza not far from the masterfully crafted statue of Mahmud Suti, the sand sultan in his prime. They were far from alone on the floor next to the plaza.


    They weren''t on the floor just to enjoy the sensation of worked cobblestone on their backs though. Each of the creatures either held meat in one of his or her arms, or their meat was placed gingerly on the floor in front of them and they steadily ate it. They, like the nearly a dozen other creatures around them, all of whom were desert giants themselves, were carefreely eating while sitting on the floor.


    Only the unnamed dire-scorpion familiar of Althos and his second will ate the meat on the floor rather than in its hands, and the others were carefully popping the meat-lined skewers in their hands into their mouths chunk by chunk.


    The first time Althos'' second will, currently disguised as a handsome desert giant, popped one of the cooked bits of meat into his mouth, he ran his tongue over the meat before he bit into it. He was pleasantly surprised to find that he tasted was delicious!


    The meat-lined skewer in his hand, one of several he had purchased for his party following the simple theft of a few coins by the newly minted Jackaloid thief Kuzco, was lined with spiced camel meat. It was one of the many things a nearby stall was selling, and Althos skillfully watched as the skewers he and his allies were eating from had been cooked on a simple iron pot, heated by low-level fire magic.


    Althos had carefully watched as a desert-giant chef heated his pot, placed the meat inside of it, and applied copious amounts of assorted spices to it. He watched as the meat grew hotter and hotter, and as the giant skillfully flipped the chunks Althos himself had selected for his party until all sides of each chunk had been equally cooked. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    Before his eyes, the meat had turned from the dark red it had been prior to being cooked, to the vibrant shade of golden yellow it was while he and his companions eagerly ate their full. He was delighted to give the chef the price the two had agreed upon for the cooked food and deposited all of the coins Kuzco had given him earlier in the giants'' hands.


    As Althos bit into and then swallowed the camel meat his mind was lit up with a notification.


    [New Species Knowledge Alert: Humpback Camel


    Humpbacks are a mutant form of camel often found among civilized peoples dwelling in deserts. These creatures aid settlements in deserts by acting as pack-animals and can also be butchered to serve as part of exquisite meals.


    Humpback camels are a rare sort of domesticated animal, animals that have come to enjoy a near-species-wide bond with humanoids or other "sapient" creatures and are naturally inclined to aid such creatures. Domesticated animals form an important part of civilization, and collaboration between humanoids and beasts is as old as most species are.


    Humpback camels evolve into other, stronger pack-animals and can be tamed quite easily.


    New General Knowledge Alert: Domestication


    Domestication is the process by which kinds of animals are tamed and then made into pets or other parts of humanoid and sapient life. Domesticated animals fall into a range of categories, but the most common are hunting partners, food, pack-animals, suppliers, and war-animals.


    Hunting partners are vicious animals that aid their trainers and sapient partners by bringing muscle, violence, and fearlessness to a hunting party. These include wolves, sharks, bears, many fierce types of insects, and other more vicious animals.


    Food animals are animals that are tamed and raised for their ability to either produce food or become food. Many farm animals are well-suited for this function, as are some pack animals. Examples include chickens, cows, many types of insects, fish, and other animals.


    Pack-animals are animals that carry either people or goods from location to location. These are commonly referred to as beasts-of-burden, and they are strong animals with a high amount of physical endurance. These include horses, donkeys, camels, elephants, dolphins, and certain types of large birds.


    Supplier are relatively rare domesticated animals who produce something other than food. Most animals produce somethings in common, like fur, blood, or claws, but what''s being discussed here is something rarer still. Spiders produce spider silk, certain magical animals produce gemstone-like eggs, and some animals produce acid. Domesticated supplier animals are these sorts of animals, animals that produce useful things that can be harvested.


    War-animals are among the more common domesticated type of animals though not the most numerous. These are dangerous animals that if tamed, trained, or otherwise forced to fight for an army can become a powerful tool in the right hands. These include gigantic digging monsters, massive insects, rare types of animals that can fire ranged attacks, and animals capable of safely transporting numbers of troops from one place to another.


    Domesticated animals can be instantly created via one of the few sorts of relics at Althos'' disposal, a wand of awakening, a magical tool that replicates the effects of Althos'' first unique ritual a number of times a day with no magical energy cost. Such a thing can be created via the religion menu and it is one of the first truly powerful gifts Althos can give to his followers.


    It is also a fairly new creation of the young god''s, only becoming available to him hours ago when he first gained the lowest tiers of influence over the domain and subdomains of nature, animals, and plants.]


    Althos'' second will blinked the notification away, quickly doing so so that he may enjoy his food in peace. As he did so he and his party were approached from behind by a figure who sought to express his admiration for the unusual adventurers who had boldly entered into a city he felt was his own, and had done so without so much as a letter of introduction, while ignoring one of his guards.


    Bold indeed. The strange figure thought to himself as he voyeuristically watched the odd party.


    The desert-giant had politely waited until the party was mostly done consuming their food and had wanted the followers to eat their fill and enjoy the bounty of the strange city. I bet they are having fun. Look at them... they''re so cute, acting as if they belong here. The giant condescendingly thought to himself, a smug grin etched onto his face.


    The fellow was dressed well, in thick silks and luxurious fabrics that warmed him up considerably in the desert heat, but personally, the several meter tall man enjoyed the searing discomfort that came with his impeccable style. If this is the price I must pay to look good than it is a price I am all too willing to pay. He told himself every morning as he stood in front of a mirror and examined his wardrobe choices for that particular day of activities.


    When Althos finished swallowing the last of the meat he had on his skewer, he heard the odd gentleman approach the party from a healthy distance, and his ears perked up as he wondered if the odd fellow was approaching him and his friends.


    <hr>


    Back on the other end of the infernian desert Althos and his newest creature reached the settlement the dark lord was creating. Althos was surprised to see that it was beginning to change before his very eyes.


    The duo had walked to the settlement and in doing so they approached it from the ground. The first thing they saw wasn''t a simple forest-like area inexplicably in the middle of a desert but instead, they saw a lone figure hard at work setting up what appeared to be the foundation for a wall.


    As they approached Althos quickly realized that the fellow who was hard at work was a solitary hulking devil, one of the sorts of devils that had accompanied the two parties who failed to defeat Narcolept inside of Agowraith''s tomb. The creature was hefting logs that it would conjure itself and place at will, and presently the thing busied itself by lining logs in a decent effort to build a feature that marked where Althos'' territory ended.


    The devil was massive, standing at about 3 and a half meters tall, covered in rippling muscles and dense fur, and had a fang-filled maw that unpleasantly moved in reaction to physical labor. Despite that, the thing didn''t complain about its work and instead nearly mindlessly devoted itself to its odd task.


    When Althos and his newest creation drew close enough to the creature to be noticed by it the thing looked at the future arch-devil and nodded respectfully. Althos nodded back and drew closer to it before asking it a simple question. "Hello there. What are you doing?" He asked, curiously. Next to him the Mi-Go stood and stared at the odd devil before it, its head bobbing up and down as it watched the devil at work.


    The hulking devil looked up at Althos, curiosity filling its gaze as it spoke in response to its new master. "Why Master Althos, I''m just doing as ordered. I''ve been told to begin to build defensive fortifications around the border of your settlement by General Malefactor. So I came here and got to work putting up this wall." The laborer informed him, much to the god''s surprise and delight.


    When Althos heard this he grinned at the devil, just as he received a notification outlining the creature''s species. What he read there excited him deeply.


    [New Species Knowledge Notification: Hulking Devils.


    Most mortals are under the impression that there are only two routes along the infernal hierarchy of devils: military and soul-harvesting. Those people are wrong. There are at least three meaningful routes along the infernal hierarchy, and the third route is the route of city-management. Hulking devils are the lowest ranking members of that route along the hierarchy.


    These devils are powerful laborers whose whole purpose is to build, expand, or destroy settlements. They can work for mortals, devils, or other creatures capable of bargaining with devils and so they are frequently seen in regions under the control of devils or regions deeply influenced by Infernius.


    Hulking devils themselves serve higher ranking devils of any route along the infernal hierarchy without question, though they prefer military devils or other city-management types, over the devils whose purpose is to tempt mortals into surrendering their souls.


    Hulking devils provide the labor needed to build massive infernal settlements, bases, forts, and cities. Their muscular bodies are perfect for such roles as are their abilities to conjure critical materials out of nowhere, such as logs for walls, stones for homes, or other useful construction materials.


    Smarter hulking devils become avaricious city architects, a type of devil responsible for the actual planning out of the cities and other settlements before delegating the inevitable task of actually constructing their idealized plans to one of their lessers. Hulking devils can also be mutated to be better suited to building settlements in unorthodox places like lakes, volcanoes, and other challenging places.]

 Chapter 85:

    The false desert-giant remained vigilant as the eerie stranger approached him and his comrades. Even without physically glancing at the odd giant, Althos'' second will activated his "identify" power, targeting the unusual fellow who boldly strode towards the party through the deity''s radar.


    [Name:Ahmet Savagetooth


    Class: Dark-Night


    Species: Desert-Giant (Mutant)


    Faction: Keeper Of Tradition


    Alignment: Lawful-Evil]


    Oh no... He really is approaching me, isn''t he? The second will realized, upon noticing that the odd fellow''s class was listed as a "Dark-Night".


    If he''s one of those odd unholy knights, then that means he''s in service to the powers that be, which in this case... I suppose I should assume he''s one of Paimon''s servants. Althos realized, recalling the explanation he had received for dark-knights, along with a set of other religious classes, when he first met his dark-elven worshipers, and he began readying himself for a fight even as the giant continued to close the distance between them.


    Althos silently readied himself for a fight, as the giant approaching him - Ahmet Savagetooth - closed the distance between himself and the follower of Althos furthest from their odd master, the jackaloid thief, Kuzco. The jackaloid looked up at him, Chillbreeze''s eyes filling with curiosity as he studied the odd party, all the while the jackaloid stealthily backed up to be closer to his friends.


    The giant that had "snuck up" on the party of newcomers was a tall fellow, standing perhaps 4 meters tall, and covered almost entirely in thick silks and luxurious fabrics that prevented someone from seeing his eerie blue skin. His physique was impressive enough that it was visible even underneath multiple layers of clothing and robes.


    The only part of him that was visible underneath his protective clothing were his piercing blue eyes, eyes that greedily drank in every detail of the scurrying jackaloid who tried to get closer to his friends, and every detail of Althos'' large back that provided a thick shadow for the rest of the party.


    He smirked hungrily at the jackaloid, his mouth moving underneath a head-scarf that prevented outside view of the rows of shark-like teeth that filled his gigantic mouth. Kuzco couldn''t see his teeth, but he could sense the predatory meaning of the giant''s mysterious expression and reacted fearfully to the display. Althos was aware of this, and in a flash, the deceptive deity turned around to face the creature who filled his companion with fright.


    "Enough, stranger." Althos'' second will said, opting to speak quietly in the language of the devils so as to prevent this exchange from being noticed by any nearby desert-giants. The voice of the deity was soft, keen, and halting, which was precisely what it caused the desert-giant to do: halt.


    So this odd person can speak in the language of the devils!? Ahmetrealized with a start, stopping in place as he replayed the words in his head so as to confirm that he heard the false-giant correctly. When he was sure that he had correctly heard the false-giant Ahmet opened his mouth to speak, his eyes narrowing slightly as he gazed at the pseudo-giant.


    "Stranger? Well, friend, I may be a stranger, but not for a second longer! You see, I am Chillbreeze Savagetooth, a friend to any and all newcomers to the great city of Namira." He said boisterously, grinning broadly at Althos. Althos smiled politely back but didn''t immediately introduce himself. Instead, he quietly sized up the creature before him. Especially because the information he received via identify didn''t quite match how Ahmet introduced himself.


    Chillbreeze''s body-language was non-threatening, welcoming and warm. This was despite his unusual garb, which was itself apparently not perceived as odd by the other giants around Althos. He noticed this and thought about it for a few seconds.What does it mean that others aren''t reacting? I don''t sense magic so maybe people are just used to this... oddity.He speculated, before deciding to just go with the flow for now and react to what Ahmet had done.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    "I am Quinn Razorsand. I am a monk from a distant outpost." Althos told the strangely veiled creature who had approached him under the guise of welcoming him to the city. He eyed the figure suspiciously, but his tone was polite enough and the information he had revealed to the creature would match whatever any analysis-skills or items used on him.


    "Well-met Quinn!" Chillbreeze said, his voice loud and confident, really making a show of the deity''s false name and carrying throughout the plaza. Althos'' eyes briefly narrowed in suspicion and for a moment the deity''s secondary will had thoughts that were suspicious in nature.


    Why did he say that so loudly? Did he just want to alert any of his companions as to the name of my false identity?He pondered, his gaze focused on Chillbreeze. But before he could explore that thought, Chillbreeze opened his mouth to speak again.


    "Quinn I must be forthright with you. You see I approached you because you''ve met a friend of mine. The guard who interacted with you and who let you into the city is a close companion of mine and to make amends for his rudeness he sent me a message asking me to accompany you on a tour throughout this classy city." Chillbreeze said, casually mentioning the awkward encounter the deity had with the uncouth guard earlier in the day.


    It''s possible that that''s a lie. Odds are he''s aligned with or even the master of the strange person who watched me earlier.The will saw through the deception quite easily.But in the long run I may learn more by doing this.He thought, shortly before sneaking into the mind of the creature and creating a copy of its memories.And by going along with this farce. For now.He told himself, deciding to lean into the potency of deception by allowing Ahmet to believe he had succeeded.


    "Well Chillbreeze... if you''re open to guiding my companions and myself through this city, we''ll... listen to what you have to say." Althos or rather - Quinn, told the strange giant in a curt, yet polite enough tone. The clothing covering Ahmet''s face moved slightly as if to indicate that the creature was smiling underneath the veil of layers he wore.


    "Very well! Join me Quinn and I will show you the greatest city in the world." The giant arrogantly told the creature pretending to be one of its kind.


    <hr>


    Althos excused himself and his odd new creature from the company of the hulking devil, after watching the thing work for a few minutes and even aiding it a bit, by providing additional hands who effortlessly lifted the things the devil conjured.


    Their labor sped the construction of a wall''s foundation and by the time they left far more logs were in place than they had been when the pair arrived at what would one day be a great wall that would surround and protect their burgeoning settlement.


    Shortly after walking beyond the wall the pair of odd beings reached the tiny forest that stood between the site of what would become a barrier keeping out the desert, and the tiny chapel that served as Althos'' first base. It was an odd, dark row of trees that stood between the fierce desert and the onyx chapel that the party called the dark cathedral.


    Upon reaching the trees, Althos and his creation also took their first steps onto verdant green grass, and both of them delighted at the shift in sensations under their feet. They exchanged wordless gazes, and Althos smiled at his creation, while the creature transmitted emotions of curiosity towards its creator.


    "It''s grass. It''s like sand but it''s easier for things to grow in it." Althos explained, eager to be able to teach someone something for once.


    The pair of odd creatures trekked through the simple forest, really just a handful of rows of trees, and came out the other end quite quickly. And on the other end they saw the true beginnings of their once pathetically tiny settlement, now a lively place of activity and motion.


    The dozens of devils, jackaloids, and odd creatures who had joined Althos'' rebellion were now hard at work. Off in the distance, straight ahead of the dark chapel, three hulking devils were busy conjuring logs and then moving them into place to form what would soon become identifiable as a gate into the settlement. They were accompanied by a single phalanx devil, who watched them with a curious gaze and aided them when they asked for assistance.


    A few hulking devils aided the jackaloids who were hard at work setting up their home next to what they hoped to make into a monastery for their future order of monks. The labor where they were, across from the fungal gardens Althos began making by hand days ago, was hyperactive and all of the parties involved looked to be in a rush, but they also appeared to be enjoying themselves.


    Althos contemplated approaching the creatures and interacting with them for a bit but then thought better of it. Instead, he took his creation by the claw and led the thing into his dark temple. The two of them quickly reached the entrance into the temple entered it and found a pew to sit on. Althos looked at his creation, and lightly tapped the thing''s circular head. He spoke to his creation with surprising gentleness.


    "I think it''s time that I sit down and look through the memories I''ve stored. I have the ability to enter into minds and steal memories, thoughts, knowledge, and secrets. And I''ve recently decided to... well let me start from the beginning." He explained to the thing, before realizing that it''d be easier for him to just tell the Mi-Go his own personal history.

 Chapter 86:

    Mere moments after their initial exchange, Althos roused his companions and urged them to ready themselves for travel. He did so by politely nudging them while sending them a group mental message. His friends were quick to respond, quickly getting to their feet and nodding politely, and silently at the strangely dressed giant in front of them.


    Althos himself quickly got up off the floor and looked at his newfound and perhaps temporary ally, Ahmet "Chillbreeze" Savagetooth. The two of them locked eyes, with Ahmet''s eerie blue orbs colliding with Althos'' own deceptively colored brown orbs. Both creatures were calm at that moment, and the moment their eyes met they both felt a familiar chill descend over them: the sensation a warrior got when they locked eyes with another warrior.


    At that moment the two beings felt each other out, trying to suss out any secrets or coax any weaknesses from the other through the power of their eyes. And yet both creatures were calm, deceptive, and when the exchange of glances ended they had learned nothing new about each other aside from that the other would make an interesting companion, ally, or enemy, based on their mysteriousness alone.


    By the end of the exchange, both creatures developed quiet respect for each other. Respect which they acknowledged in their own way by smiling at each other, this time with a small level of sincerity.


    When Althos'' companions were up, "Chillbreath" acknowledged them with a smile and began to walk. He walked in a direction that led away from the gate Althos had entered through and away from the statue near which Althos and his friends had sat beside. They were wandering deeper into the city, at last. A realization that made the deceptive deity grin internally. A realization that excited his minions.


    <hr>


    Minutes after they began walking the party and their travel-guide entered onto a street that led in and out of the plaza. They were now beginning to see a fairer example of how the city was designed. They could see the enormous scale everything was built on.


    The street they were on stretched for over 20 meters, so wide because it had to accommodate a range of sizes. Althos was over 5 meters tall and nearly as wide but on this street, he was far from the tallest giant pursuing whatever it was that desert giants pursued.


    All around the party desert giants traveled, pursuing goals that were known to them and to anyone who truly needed to know. Althos considered trying to perform a single, large-scale memory collection spell or concocting a ritual which allowed him to do so but opted against it.


    It''d add too much to the main will''s plate. The secondary will told itself, rightfully so given that the street he was on accommodated well over two dozen desert-giants of various sizes rushing in and out of assorted storefronts.


    The street was highly congested. Desert giants in various states of busyness and of various sizes ran, walked, or hobbled from place to place. Those of them that spoke, did so softly, not wanting to impose their own conversations on other people, and also closely guarding whatever business led them to these streets in the first place.


    The sense of style in this part of the city was evidently somewhere between Althos'' style and Ahmet''s style. Many of them, particularly the few women in this part of the city, wore clothing that concealed their form and their bare skin.


    Some of the men were more open with their fashion, exposing intimidating muscles and even the hilts of weapons that clung to their clothes, affording them easy access should they need them. The weapons the majority of them wielded were massive sorts of swords that ran a gamut of colors.


    A handful of the giants, particularly those who accompanied women, had thick war-hammers on their hips. Such weapons made sense in the desert, where creatures like the girtablilu and dire-scorpions posed a constant threat and had a knack for being less vulnerable to sword strikes due to their dense, natural armor than they were to mallet swings.


    Their fashion is interesting. I wonder why their women dress the way they do? It seems like it would be... inconvenient, due to how hot it must be. He wondered, examining the clothing people of both genders wore with interest. He studied the fabric adorning the bodies of the giants closely thanks to his powerful vision and felt like trying to get his hands on some at a later date to study it. His thoughts were soon interrupted by someone else sharing hers: Camilla.


    "And so... our exploration of the city begins." Whispered Camilla, one of the two jackaloids who accompanied Althos into this city, in the language of her people. Althos grinned at her and spoke in the same language to respond.


    "Just imagine this city as one of my possessions..." He said, in awe of even the size of the architecture of the place. Compared to the rural desert they were just in, the sheer scale of the city itself was unbelievable. That was one of the things that became apparent as they left the grand plaza they had spent the better part of an hour in.


    Even as they approached an area that led deeper into the city, the streets they traveled over remained wide. In Althos'' current form, that of a broody desert-giant monk, the streets felt about right for his body type, but his companions were entire meters shorter and skinnier than he was. They felt minuscule on these broad walkways. Other giants didn''t even notice the jackaloids if the giants themselves weren''t particularly short.


    Althos took a look around as he and his friends explored the edge of the city''s interior.


    On both sides of the party, they could see stalls, shops, and giants. Underneath them was an expertly paved road, one that extended straight ahead and back the way they came. If they turned around they''d be able to see the statue of Mahmud Suti, the sandy sultan, and the plaza they had just come from.


    Althos watched many different giants look in his direction, notice Ahmet and smile, and then move on completely. They didn''t look down to see or seem at all to notice the tiny companions Althos had brought along with him. How strange. Althos noted. And then for the first time since their "tour" began, Ahmet opened his mouth to speak.


    It happened right as they were walking towards the end of the street. A street that ended at the entrance to a large building. The large building was gigantic by the standards of the smaller party members, but by Althos'' reckoning, it was perfectly ordinarily sized, larger than his current form by a healthy margin, and suited to people of his stature.


    It was painted a vibrant shade of blue, one which stood out even more so when somebody realized that the other nearby buildings weren''t painted at all and were instead a strange, sandy color which served as an unintentional reminder that they were made of sandstone. Many of them also lacked windows, something which also wasn''t the case for the party''s destination.


    "I figured the first stop we should make on our little journey is a khan. It''s entirely possible they didn''t have those where you came from Quinn, so you see a khan is a place where you can get some rest, and get some food in you. And there I suspect you''ll find the perfect thing for a man of your talents. A place where you can find work." Ahmet, their erstwhile and untrustworthy tour-guide told the party, smiling all the while. And then he gestured for them to continue forward, towards the strange building ahead of them.


    <hr>


    A few moments later, the party reached the entrance into the khan and swung open the swinging door leading into the place''s grand entryway. What greeted them on the other side of the semi-solid door was an ornate reception room.


    The thing was many dozen meters tall, and about a half of that wide. It extended high above them and way off to their sides, perfect for the variable height and weight of the native people who no doubt made up most of the place''s staff as well as its residents.


    It was furnished quite lavishly, with the hard stone floor covered in colorful rugs and carpets, and the walls adorned with cheerful and energetic wallpaper, and sofas and desks made of fine materials.


    Desks were where some of the employees of the establishment were located, receptionists who looked at the party with a smile. They sat on thick sandstone stools that allowed them to rest their legs and after acknowledging the party returned to glancing at the papers on their desks.


    The whole place smelled of incense, a scent that didn''t perfectly eliminate the smell of sweat but did an excellent job of reducing its funk.


    Althos and Ahmet took the lead in striding into and through the entranceway, sauntering over to one of the desks in the place. The things were oddly short, barely coming up to the knees of the receptionists behind them.


    When they finished their approach, Ahmet began to speak to the receptionist in front of them. She was a beautiful woman, dressed professionally in a stylish uniform, and not covered in head to toe in clothing like some of the women Althos had seen had been.


    She had a copper skin tone and when she smiled her grin revealed lines of perfect, white teeth. She listened intently as Ahmet greeted her. "Hello Elif! I''ve missed your smiling face. And oh boy do I have reasons for you to smile. Because you see... I''ve brought my newest friend over to your fine establishment." He said, confidently.


    She sat at the desk that was the most forward-facing of the things. When Althos had opened the door into the place, her desk was the one that faced them. And behind her desk, there was another sliding door, one that led into the true depths of the inn, as opposed to this pleasant public area.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    She giggled and looked at Althos. She sized him up, examining the make of his clothing, his muscles, his size, and then spoke to him. "Hello. And who might you be?" She asked, her green eyes filling with curiosity, and a something a bit more... direct than curiosity, something Althos'' second will wasn''t familiar with. A sort of hunger, or desire for something, that the will''s empathy picked up on but couldn''t name. But that didn''t deter the will from responding.


    "Hello, Elif. I am Quinn. I am... new in town." Althos told the receptionist, grinning. She nodded back at him.


    "You would be. Between us, Chillbreeze tends to bring me the strays and newcomers. Though... there is something about you that feels... more competent than those he usually brings me." She said, candidly. Althos chuckled at that, nodding right back at her.It''s probably true that she can detect something about me but it''s also entirely possible she''s saying that to make me feel special.The will thought to itself, keeping such thoughts secret. And then Ahmet spoke again.


    "Now now, don''t insult me in front of my new friend Elif. After all, I brought him here because he might just have the right sort of attitude to become an adventurer. I figured you''d want to meet him. He''s an experienced monk. At least according to one of the guards." Ahmet told the pretty receptionist. At that remark her eyes widened, lighting up with plain curiosity.


    "Oh? In that case... he should be tested, shouldn''t he?" She asked, looking at first at Ahmet, and then turning slightly to face Althos. She again looked him up and down, this time focusing more specifically on his arms, chest, and legs. Althos would have blushed, under her scrutinizing gaze if he were a creature who had blood running through his veins. Instead, he just stood there politely and waited for her to look somewhere else.


    Ahmet spoke next, determined to move the conversation along. "Precisely my thoughts dearie. Would you mind fetching Zabuli?" He asked, hoping to get Elif moving and out of his hair.I just want to see what he can do. If he someone deceived the stone.The giant thought to himself. Elif quickly began nodding at him though, before she began to speak.


    "Of course!" She said assertively, before turning around and heading deeper into the khan. She quietly opened the door that Althos had noticed earlier, sliding the thing out of her way with ease. A few seconds, and a few steps later, she was gone.


    She remained close enough that Althos could still hear her, and grinned internally as he heard begin to speak to someone not far from them. "Ahmet came by with someone new. A monk apparently. He seems to have taken a shining to the stranger. He wants you to test the newcomer." She said, her voice confident and calm. She didn''t have to wait long to get her answer.


    "A monk? That could be interesting. Alright. Give me a second to get dressed, and I''ll accompany you back to them." Said a new voice, a masculine and deep voice, one that was surprisingly quiet in comparison to the giants Althos was now walking among. And with that Althos turned his attention back to Ahmet. Althos turned to face his newfound, probably temporary, ally and began to question the man.


    "Who is Zabuli?" He asked, his eyes peering into Ahmet''s own. He had many questions, but he was content to start with that.I only know his voice. That''s not a lot.He thought, assuming the mysterious speaker he had just heard was the figure that his tour guide and the receptionist had spoken about.Ahmet turned to face him back and was still for a moment as he considered how to answer but quickly responded.


    "Zabuli is the recruiter who works in this khan. He recruits warriors and other adventurers and gives them quests on behalf of the government." Ahmet explained, before quickly adding something else to his explanation. "As a tour-guide, something I do with travelers, competent ones anyway, is take them to places like this. Places where they can be tested, to see if they can use their skills to help the city of Namira. Monks are rare here Quinn. I bet we could do something with you." He said, his eyes filled with greed and ambition.


    Althos smiled at him and considered what he said.So if I do well in these tests I could get quests relevant to the city? Okay, I guess this is as good as chance as any I could get to speedily meet people of importance throughout this place.He thought to himself and began to consider what to say to Ahmet.Should I feign gratitude? Or should I play it cool...? I should probably be consistent.He reasoned and then began to speak immediately afterward.


    "This is gonna save me the time I would have otherwise had to spend looking for lodging and for work, so thank you for that. I can''t say I''m super happy you know that I''m a monk though." He told the eager tour-guide. Ahmet grinned at him, his blue eyes lighting up with some childish emotion, like a boy whose prank was about to occur.


    "I do apologize for that. That said... a high-level monk is a treat. Monks are disciplined, intelligent warriors who don''t need magic or a weapon to be skilled in battle. I think the money you''d make working for the city would be worth more than your privacy and secrecy. Do you disagree?" Ahmet asked, surprisingly sincerely. Althos thought about what the giant said, and went silent. He grinned through, his lips subtly curling into a thin smile, which alleviated any quiet worries Ahmet may have felt at that moment.


    [I have no idea what is going on master.] Camilla told him, whispering into his mind. Althos realized that they had been speaking in the language of desert giants this whole time and began to fill his followers in on what was going down, sending them a group message.


    [This place is an inn. And it is where adventurers are recruited and trained. The receptionist you saw vanish is going to retrieve the local recruiter so that I may be "tested" and show that I can be taken into their ranks. If I succeed and pass their test or tests, then I can more easily meet influential people and subtly begin to take over this city.] He informed the non-giants he had recruited. They mentally nodded, acknowledging the message and appreciating the extra context.


    A few minutes passed by before Althos saw Elif reappear in the distance, accompanied by a surprising sight: a human.


    <hr>


    The human who wandered into the reception area of the inn was a tiny thing. He stood at about a meter and a half tall, infinitely shorter than Althos even when Althos was disguised as one of his kind. He was clad in an outfit made of fur and had a pleasant grin on his face. He walked right over to Althos and looked at the monk with a curious, open gaze.


    "So you''re the newest recruit huh?" The human asked, his eyes taking their time to examine Althos. And with that, the young deity received a notification. The knowledge notification that detailed the human race.


    [New Species Knowledge Gained: Human.


    Humans are one of the most common humanoid races found on millions of worlds. They are a relatively short-lived species, since barring magical intervention they die of natural causes before they hit 120 years of age, but they are an incredibly adaptable race.


    Humans can be found in most life-having worlds, and they have found ways to survive and sometimes even thrive in an assortment of other dimensions. Whether it''s building advanced technology that can house human lives on a star, in a dimension of nightmares, or in the depths of the ocean, if a creature gives humans enough time they''ll find or invent a way to adapt to a set of conditions.


    In the same world, some humans could be living in the heart of a cave system, relying on spears and their muscles to get food, while humans on the surface, countries away, are working on spaceships to colonize other worlds.


    Humans are some of the most skilled artisans in existence, capable of smithing excellent weapons, creating lovely statues, designing incredible cities, and brewing life-saving potions if trained properly. Most humans possess some innate level of skill with magic but are not natural experts and need to learn to use what mystical gifts they have over time.


    Humans aren''t particularly pious as a species but those of them that are pious are incredibly so. They can become powerful worshipers if converted and made into crusaders, templars, or evangelists.


    Humans don''t evolve, at least not naturally. Their genes are flexibility and can mesh well with an assortment of non-human creatures, particularly humanoids and extraplanars which means they can breed with an assortment of creatures quite well. This of course also makes them good targets for mutations and templates.]


    Althos read through the notification and then willed the thing away. He then focused on the human in front of him and began to speak.


    "Am I? I mean I''d like to be, but don''t I have to be tested first?" Althos responded, snarkily. His response was met with laughter, not just by Elif, but also by the human she brought with her. Both of them laughed at Althos'' remarks for a few moments before the human, presumably Zabuli, began to speak again.


    "True. But if your fists are half as quick as your tongue, you''ll do fine." The human said, before speedily leaping onto the desk in front of him, a desk which came all the way up to his chest and then throwing himself at Althos.


    In mid-air, the human spoke again. "Now come. Let''s see if you''re fists are as skilled as your mouth is!" Zabuli said, grinning as he hurtled through the air in Althos'' direction.


    Althos chuckled, the sound low and gravely, and then waited for the creature to close the distance between the two of them. While waiting he took a stance, spreading his legs equidistance apart, bending his knees, and drawing his arms to his side. It was a stance not unlike the horse-stance that was famous among many styles of martial arts. And then he received another notification.


    [New Skill Explanation: Martial Arts


    This is a basic-level monk skill. It fills the minds of monks withsimple knowledge of martial arts, teaching them basic stances, slightly empowering their blows innately, and enabling them to strike more swiftly. It ensures that a monk can more effectively use their bodies as weapons, be it in tossing their opponents around, or using something like an elbow as a weapon.]


    Althos willed it away, as Zabuli sailed through the air towards him.So this is what being a monk feels like?The will asked itself, smiling internally, as it felt time slow to a crawl. The little recruiter slowly traveled through the air, grinning at the giant warrior and Althos allowed it to sail unimpeded until Zabuli was within arm''s reach of the giant.


    Now!Althos thought, exploding into action all at once. The human was just a few meters away, close enough that Althos could feel the heat coming off of the human''s body. Althos deftly reached out and grabbed ahold of the robes that covered Zabuli''s chest, and then proceeded to push the human, throwing him off his intended path.


    "And now it''s my turn." Althos said, confidently. He sprung into motion, closing his fists and lunging after the human even as the human sailed through the air.


    <hr>


    Zabuli had eagerly leaped at Althos, expecting his suddenness of movement to throw the giant off for a moment. He was excited when he noticed that he was wrong.


    The giant reached out a single large hand and casually grabbed ahold of the robes that lightly touched and gently protected Zabuli''s weak humanity. The giant was grinning as he did so and pushed the mid-air human off of his intended path. Zabuli felt some adrenaline course through him as he realized that the desert-monk had merely thrown him off course, but that was because he hadn''t yet detected the deity pursuing him through the air.


    The giant appeared next to the soaring human and smirked as he lashed out with a single fist. The fist sailed through the air, even faster than either of the two creatures, and slammed into the recruiter''s torso, causing the human to come to a hard stop in mid-air, and spit out an unhealthy amount of scarlet blood.


    "Is that enough?" Althos asked, confidence seeping into his voice.


    "Ugh... yes." The recruiter groaned, pain seeping into his voice, as he felt his bones react to the blow he had just been dealt.


    Seconds later, both creatures landed gently on the khan''s rugged floor with a soft thud.

 Chapter 87:

    The assorted individuals who got to witness Althos'' first true display of his monkish skills were quiet as he starred down the recruiter who had challenged him to show them in the first place. The deity wearing a desert-giant skin-suit smiled softly at the recruiter, offering him a bit of sympathy and a small amount of respect.


    I should say something that would make him seem tough. The naive will thought to itself.


    To help heal the man''s pride, Althos spoke. "Sorry about that. I went all in, and you took it like a champ. Not many people back home could do that." Althos said, exaggerating the amount of force behind the blow and grinning sheepishly as to help really sell his lie. Zabuli grinned back at him, and the sincere pride in his smile suggested that the recruiter either believed the lie, wanted to believe it, or at least appreciated the kind intentions behind it.


    "That''s because... I''m really strong!" The man said, confidence audible in his voice, despite the force of the blow causing him to exhale mid-sentence to alleviate some of the pain he felt coursing through his chest. The other people who saw the exchange, and who understood it, chuckled at the human''s statement, grinning at each other with mirth-filled eyes.


    He''s really trying huh? There is something commendable about that level of effort. I can''t say I dislike it. Althos realized, developing something akin to respect for the recruiter. Althos considered speaking for a second before Zabuli opened his mouth to speak.


    "I think you''ll do just fine with an arm like that. If you''d like, you can become an adventurer right away." The human told Althos. Those sentences made Althos happy, and the deity responded by eagerly nodding at the recruiter, Zabuli.


    "Now that is good news." He told the recruiter, dropping a bit of his stoic act, just for a second. "I left home to become an adventurer, and knowing that the skills I have gained have allowed me to do so... it makes me happy." Althos told the assortment of creatures gathered around him, smiling at them while telling them a lie. They grinned back at him, and then Zabuli decided to dive into work and formality for the first time since the human had met the young monk.


    "Well Quinn, if you''re excited to become an adventurer, we can throw you some work right away. For now, let''s get the formalities out of the way so that when you take on your first quest everything runs more smoothly." The recruiter told the giant, walking towards the desk and towards the receptionist behind it.


    "Now Elif, be a dear and fetch us the proper forms would you?" He asked, grinning at the receptionist who nodded firmly at him and quickly searched her desk for the aforementioned paperwork. When she found the forms, she triumphantly and excitedly hoisted them from their hiding place and held them aloft.


    "Here they are!" She said, practically shouting in excitement. Althos'' will had a second to visually inspect the forms in the giant''s hand and was surprised at what he saw.


    Elif held several sheets of thick paper in her hands, pieces of paper that were sized to be appropriate for giants and were covered in runic writing.That''s... a lot of writing.The will realized, after looking at the paper for a few moments. Elif then brought the papers onto the desk and beckoned for Althos to come forward andexamine the papers himself.


    As he approached the papers, Zabuli began to speak to him.


    <hr>


    "So basically, by signing these papers you''re promising to use your powers as a monk to aid the people of Namira. And the most straightforward way you''ll do that is by undertaking quests given to you by Namira''s government. And if you need to stop a quest, you can. All it takes is paying a small fee." Zabuli finished explained, minutes after he began to speak. He was grinning at the desert-giant, who he hoped was moments away from signing the papers in front of him.


    "So if that''s all... why are there so many papers to fill out?" Althos'' second will, in his guise as the desert-giant monk named Quinn, asked the human. The human''s explanation was a bit more complex than its final sentences but it wasn''t anywhere near long enough to explain the density of the pack of papers in front of him, nor the complex runic writing which covered both the front and back of the many pages which Althos had been told to sign minutes ago.


    Zabuli sighed and had a realization after hearing the creature he knew as Quinn question him.I shouldn''t be surprised a monk isn''t in a rush to fill out these forms. They tend to be a skeptical lot. The worst kind of adventurers. Those with questions.


    The human felt a rush of annoyance, as it wasn''t often that his advances were rebuffed, especially by powerful giants from the country who arrive alone in the city. After he finished his mental complaint he refocused and looked at the desert-dwelling giant he sought to recruit.


    "That''s a fair enough question. You see these papers outline the full terms of our agreement. In addition to the money you get for completing quests, so long as you complete a certain number of quests a week your housing and a few meals a week are paid for, by the city itself." The human said, beginning to explain the terms and conditions of the agreement he hoped Quinn would sign a bit more carefully and thoroughly.


    "Oh! So some of these terms and conditions are things like that?" The giant asked, hoping to get more information this way, before eventually reading the full contract himself.


    The human nodded at him and responded to his question. "Yep! At various points throughout our history, Namira has tackled adventurers in different ways. Sometimes we''ve welcomed traveling warriors, and at other times we''ve turned them away." Nabuli explained, teasing that the history of the city was a long and complex one.


    "Our current philosophy isn''t that different from a meritocracy. As a city we no longer care about where an adventurer comes from, instead, we care more about their skill in battle. And in order to recruit the best and keep our city safe, we offer enticing conditions like this." The human smugly told the giant, a vague feeling of nationalism creeping into his voice.


    Althos grinned at the human and nodded at this rather commendable attitude.This is a good city for those who need to start over.Althos realized, before making an addendum to that statement.Provided one has a skill the city needs anyway.And then he spoke up again.


    "So let''s start over and let me make sure I understand what is expected of me, and what I''ll get in exchange for my compliance with these terms and conditions." He said to the human. When the human looked at him expectantly, he took that as a sign to proceed.


    "When I sign this, I will be indicating my consent to become a formally recognized adventurer in this city. That means that among other things I can enter and leave the city freely, and accept quests given to me by the city that allow me to solve problems locally. And in exchange for my work, I will receive financial compensation." Althos said, slowly and thoughtfully while maintaining eye contact with Zabuli. The human nodded, indicating that so far Althos was correct.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    The desert-dwelling god continued to speak shortly after seeing the human nod. "Quests can and most often do come from the government, though there are avenues which allow for individual citizens to make quests. Quests requests contain a list of tasks to be completed, a deadline before which they must be completed, and clearly state what rewards will be given to those adventurers who complete them." Althos said, summarizing the contents of one entire page of the papers he was to sign. Zabuli nodded again, smiling at his understanding of the work he may soon begin.


    "The city employs adventurers because of the diversity of talents they bring to the city, and because of their potential to spot problems that the regular citizens might be aware of, but that might be missed by the government. Additionally creating enjoyable and livable working conditions for adventurers gives them a reason to protect the city against external and internal threats." Althos said, mixing in some of his own understanding with what he had learned so far.


    "Huh... you''re mixing in your own thoughts now? Nice. And they''re smart too." Zabuli said, complimenting the giant. It was also only partially flattery because Althos'' assessment was clever and accurate. "The biases of conventional government workers inhibit the government''s ability to do it its job if all external assistance is resisted and undermined. But usually, it takes adventurers a bit longer to learn that." The human said, grinning at the deity.


    "You''ll find that when I want to be, I can be quick on the uptake. It makes sense for a city of this size to want to deputize clever, committed outsiders and use them in some official capacity, especially given the hostile environment outsiders escape from when they enter the city." He told Zabuli, understanding some of this due in part to Mahmud''s memories, and also because of a sort of odd, vaguely alien, "common sense".


    This is definitely a better attitude than going in the opposite direction and refusing to allow new people the opportunity to show their worth. It''s also helpful for me since I want to make a deal with whoever becomes the next head of this city.The will thought, grateful that this was the city''s attitude, and remembering the overall goal of the main will.


    "In essence, I am promising to aid the city a few times a month and in exchange, I am getting paid a presumably fair amount for my work and the risks I am undertaking, as well as earning free room and some free meals as well." He said to the human recruiter. Zabuli, as was quickly becoming the man''s habit, nodded. And then he spoke yet again.


    "Exactly! There''s a bit more to it, but I didn''t want to overwhelm you. I should have figured since you were a monk that you wouldn''t be so easily overwhelmed. One thing worth noting is that becoming an adventurer opens you up to a whole new world of opportunity. Successful adventurers collaborate with government employees and rub shoulders with politicians. The most successful of the adventurers even meet with Sultan Suti!" The human exclaimed.


    This caught Althos'' secondary will off-guard.That was said in the present tense. So does that mean that people think Suti is still okay?He questioned, rather alarmed.


    Boy, I''m glad I don''t have to ask about that directly.The will realized, chuckling as the thing made use of the primary will''s own mental abilities and snagged a copy of all of the human''s memories. The process took but a moment, and the will merely replicated what Althos'' primary will had done to dozens of people and creatures.


    Now... how could I scan most efficiently scan these memories?The thing wondered for a second, before deciding to see if one of two creatures in his mind could at least search the memories for him.


    [Hello. I''m the secondary will, and I was wondering if you either of you could do something for me. I just made a copy of some memories. If I... "hand" them to either of you, could you sift through them and see what this human knows about Sultan Suti?] The will asked, respectfully speaking to the mysterious advisors who dwelt primarily in Althos'' mind.


    Samyaza responded to the inquiry a few moments later with a response that excited Althos. [Hello secondary well, I can do that. Just copy your copy and imagine the memories being sent to me, and I''ll begin the work immediately.] The metallic angel informed the strange will. Althos wanted to cheer upon hearing that, and had to work to contain his excitement.


    Just... copy my copy? Alright. I''ll try that out.The will thought to itself, visualizing an orb containing years of memories spawning into the thing''s mental "hand". It took a few seconds for the strange thought to bear any sort of fruits, but without much difficulty, the exercise in creativity bore fruits, and a sort of semi-solid sphere of memories popped into existence in the mind''s eye of the will.


    Now... go to Samyaza.The will thought, aiming its thoughts at the orb of memories and urging the thing to sail towards the orb angel. In seconds the process was done, and Samyaza confirmed as much itself. [Got it! I''ll begin sorting through these memories to see what I can find about Sultan Suti. If you want, sending me a copy of Ahmet''s memories might not be a terrible idea either.] The angel pointed out.


    [True! Let me do that too.] The will responded, eager to learn whatever these two fellows knew about Suti. The second time it had to make a copy of memories it found the process to be much easier, and sent them over nearly an instant later.


    [On it! Let me see what I can find.] The angel told the deity, causing a grin to etch itself onto Althos'' face. That whole process took a matter of seconds, and in order to not have the human ask any uncomfortable questions resulting from the will''s sudden silence, Althos went ahead and grabbed a quill from Elif and signed his name where the documents he was to sign asked for his information. In seconds he had written his name a handful of times across the pages.


    "Oh! I see you were just deliberating for a second. That thoughtfulness will help you out a lot on the field." Zabuli said, encouraging Althos. Ahmet grinned at the deity, and his own thoughts were purely self-oriented. He wasn''t alone though, as Ahmet was also thinking of his future enrichment.


    I can''t wait to find out how much of a finder''s fee I''ll get for aiding in the recruitment of a monk.The self-serving giant thought, eager to have some spending money purely as a result of bringing a halfway decent warrior to an inn. He moved to approach the giant and the human, a smirk etched onto his face.


    "Friends! What a joyous day this is. Our city has a strong new defender, new friendships have been forged, and my new friend Quinn now has housing and employment. Truly this is a moment worth celebrating!" He boisterously declared, his eyes filled with selfish joy at the thought of the fattening his wallet would soon receive. He moved close to the two, and placed a firm, gloved hand on Quinn''s shoulder, and on Zabuli''s head.


    Althos chuckled at that and looked at the odd tour-guide. He then asked, rather innocently, "What would a Namirian celebration look like?" Curiosity filled his voice, and the question was asked in earnest, not just in an attempt to placate the self-declared tour-guide. Ahmet looked at the newcomer to Namira and laughed.


    Althos then looked at his companions and spoke to them in the language of the jackaloids. "Want to celebrate? I''ve got a job now. Which really means we''ve got a job now." The creatures looked at him, excitedly, before he was surprised to hear an unexpected voice chime in.


    "So they''re jackaloids? Wow! I barely noticed them, until you spoke to them." The voice came from behind Althos and spoke in the canine language of the critters. Althos turned around and looked to see Zabuli speaking to him and his allies. Shock took over his face, and after a few seconds, an astonished but excited grin began to invade it.


    "So there are humans who can speak jackaloid? That''s neat!" Althos told the human, honestly grinning at him. Althos then used his divine "Identify" power on the human.


    [Name: Zabuli Grave


    Class: Ranger


    Species: Human


    Faction: The city of Namira


    Alignment: Lawful Neutral]


    Upon reading it all over, none of it surprised the will but it was nice to have confirmation that what he had seen so far was accurate.


    "Yep! I myself was not born here. I was born in a small village not far from here and immigrated when I became an adult. Early in my childhood jackaloids began to visit the town and so some of us tried to learn their language." The human explained, grinning at the monk and his companions.

 Chapter 88: (Mild NSFW Warning)

    The darkened chapel wasn''t empty, and its inhabitants weren''t just Althos and the Mi-Go. In a backroom, the infamous sacristy where much of the previous planning to conquer Agowraith''s tomb had taken place, an unholy pair of powerful devils were busy enjoying themselves.


    Inside the room, the two devils were destressing in their own way, after years of imprisonment. One of them was struggling to stay upright as he received a vigorous blowjob. The other was standing while blowing him, as the creature she was blowing was gigantically tall.


    The woman had dark red skin, and long, jet-black wings. She was busy, somewhat robotically yet rather skillfully, blowing the high-ranking military devil. The general was taking pains to stay upright as she tongued his member, hissing in delight as he enjoyed her efforts.


    The general, Malefactor, was an enormous creature. He stood over 7 meters tall, and as such his head nearly touched the office''s ceiling. His dark skin blended in well with the innate darkness of the chamber.


    "Ugh... it''s nice to see that your oral skills haven''t gotten rusty over time." Malefactor grunted as he felt the seductress devil''s tongue warmly encircle his member. He looked down at her and saw that she was peering at him, her cold blue eyes watching him inquisitively.


    Her breath, coupled with the encircling motions of her tongue, made the devil she was fellating blush and made him feel weak in the knees. "That''s the stuff right there." The general groaned. The sound of his groaning was loud enough to obscure the sound of Heryensis'' faint giggle.


    The naked seductress stared up at the general, her eyes the only part of her face that was fully visible to the general who stared lustfully at her. Everything below her nose was out of sight to him, as she had him deep in her throat and her face was pressed up against his crotch.


    To the succubus-like creature, this was little more than an opportunity to practice skills she couldn''t use while languishing in the gullet of the undying titan. If it has to be anyone here, I don''t mind that it''s a general. She told herself, preferring to save any actual demonstrations of her sexual prowess for high ranking figures and powerful sorts.


    She was busy servicing the general when the door into the sacristy was opened from the outside. It was doubly unfortunate that the massive width and height of Malefactor prevented her from sensing whoever intruded into the tiny back-office.


    Althos, alone, stepped through the door and into the office. In doing so he saw his new general making pleasurable noises. The krieg-devil''s height and width completely hid the source of the devil''s delight.


    Whoa. I knew the two of them were in here, but I didn''t know they were... having sex? He thought to himself, his knowledge of sex rudimentary at best.


    His extreme senses allowed him to hear what was being done to the devil''s dick, but he hadn''t realized what the noises were nor that they were being done to a penis until he got closer, thanks to his naivety. This could be fun. Althos realized with a smirk, as he readied himself to interrupt their activities.


    "What''s going on here?" Althos asked, his voice filled in equal measure with humor and with curiosity. He spoke loudly enough to be heard over the various sucking and slurping noises that filled the sacristy, interrupting and catching the duo off guard.


    "Oh shit, Althos!" Malefactor declared, alarmed and frightened that he was no longer alone with the seductress devil. He backed away from Heryensis, withdrawing his erect member from her mouth abruptly and almost violently, forcing the woman off the ground for a moment.


    Moments later Heryensis turned and looked beyond Malefactor, lines of drool visibly dripping down her cheek. There was a lewd grin on her face as she gazed curiously at the deity who stood behind her new master. Althos himself looked at her, an amused expression etched onto his face.


    <hr>


    Minutes after Althos'' second will, known to the giants as Quinn, signed the papers and agreed to go to a celebration in his own honor, he stood inside of a decently sized room deep in the bowels of the khan.


    He was accompanied by his small party, consisting of two jackaloids, a warrior woman named Camilla and a thief named Kuzco, as well as a still nameless dire-scorpion familiar. The four of them looked around the room that Elif had just guided them to.


    The room was a decent size for a single giant, and sparsely decorated. It had a small and empty dresser, a giant-sized bed, a mirror, and was connected to a single bathroom. There was only a single gigantic bed, but it had pillows designed for smaller creatures. There was a table for creatures of humanoid size, fitted with chairs of equally appropriate size.


    The bathroom itself had a pair of toilets, one for giant creatures and another for smaller creatures.This is a surprisingly inclusive bathroom.Althos'' secondary will quietly thought when it first explored the bathroom.


    That thought only came from an exploration which revealed that the toilets weren''t the only thing that the bathroom had which was clearly meant as an accommodation for a creature smaller than Althos. The bathroom came with a magically powered shower, which had a spare set of showerheads and even knobs to turn to control the temperature of any water that was designed specifically for creatures roughly the same size as the jackaloids.


    The bathroom itself was immaculately clean. It had marble flooring and the room was more than large enough for the entire party.


    Not long after the party first settled into the room, Althos looked at the rest of his party and spoke to them. "Are you all tired?" He asked, looking around at the jackaloids and his pet scorpion. The jackaloids looked at each other, their eyes focused on each other for a few moments, before they spoke to Althos.


    While the two canine humanoids looked at each other, Althos received a mental message from the scorpion. It was simple and direct.


    [Hello master. I am tired and sleepy. And maybe you should stay here with us, and use your powers to do some research into who is who in the city?] The scorpion informed and then suggested to the disguised giant. Althos considered this information for a few seconds before responding.


    [Get some rest. Stay here and sleep. And I will... think about what you recommended.] The scorpion was told, by its master. Althos considered what it said to him, thinking about it for a few moments while the deity''s canine companions thought silently, considering what to tell him. And then the jackaloids spoke in unison.


    "We are tired, father." They informed the deity. Althos looked at them, nodded and then spoke to the canines.


    "I will tell you as I have told my pet. Stay here. Rest. This is our room. Please sleep for a few hours." He told them, smiling serenely at them as he said so. They nodded at him and jumped up to the top of the bed in singular leaps.


    "Wow... that''s a heck of a hop." Althos whispered, impressed that they could leap the several meters needed to achieve that acrobatic feat.


    After watching to make sure the creatures were comfortable, and aiding the scorpion in reaching them, Althos quickly and quietly walked out the door and towards the khan''s reception area.Should I stay? Because I kind of want to sit down and do some research.He wonderedas he began the walk down the hallways he''d need to walk through to return to Elif, Ahmet, and Zabuli.


    He''d debate what to do the whole time it took him to reach the reception area. In the end, it wasn''t a hard choice even though it was tempting for him to be social.


    <hr>


    Althos'' main will was quiet and waited for his two followers, Malefactor and Heryensis, to turn to face him. It took just a few moments for the two devils to look at their master, Malefactor now having hidden his member in the armored pants he wore, and Heryensis unshamed of her nude, now somewhat slick form. Althos grinned at the two of them when they approached him. He was the first one of the three of them to speak.


    "So... care to share what that was about?" He asked, curiously gazing at the two attractive devils. They looked at each other, and Althos noticed that Malefactor had a sheepish look to him, but Heryensis did not. She was proud of herself, and after a few seconds turned to look at her new master so that she could look him in the eyes while she spoke.


    "I guess... I''ll explain?" She said, pausing for a second to see if Malefactor cared to interrupt and take charge of this situation. He was silent, thoroughly mortified, and when he didn''t speak up, she hissed in anger and then continued to speak.


    "I''m a seductress devil. I was locked away for many years, unable to seduce anyone, and I just wanted to practice my skills... If you''d like, I could test them on you instead?" She explained, matter of factly. She also suggested something she thought would be pleasurable for Althos, propositioning her new master.


    Althos looked at her for a moment, and the look in his gaze was mysterious, filled with unknowable thoughts. Unbeknownst to her, he momentarily considered her offer.


    Is that... a thing I would like?He questioned. He momentarily searched within himself for a few moments, debating whether or not he''d be into the lovely devil fellating himself. He pictured it, and imagined the sensations he''d be exposing himself to if he agreed to it. He didn''t imagine it''d be unpleasant, but he also didn''t imagine it''d be something he''d be into.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    No... not really. Not now anyway.He thought, after exploring what it''d be like based on his limited knowledge of sex.


    "No, no thank you." He said, politely but clearly indicating his lack of interest in the offer. And he wasn''t done talking just yet.


    "So wait this was just you practicing your... blowjob skills?" He asked, politely and curiously looking at the she-devil. She looked at him and nodded, a mischevious glint visible in her eyes. "Oh! I wasn''t going to try and actually stop y''all anyway, I don''t care if you blow him, I just wanted to know what was up."


    At that, she looked stunned for a moment. And then she began to laugh, audibly. Malefactor also grinned, but his reaction was more subdued than hers was.


    <hr>


    Less than ten minutes passed in the time it took for Althos'' second will to rush to the reception area, inform the local giants and Zabuli that he was staying behind to tend to his followers, and urge them to celebrate without him. His excuse was accepted without much questioning.


    On the way back to his new room, he considered how best to proceed from here.I should do some research... but what does it even mean to do research in this context?He wondered for a second, before doing something he was good at that the main will wasn''t: asking questions.


    [Hello you two. I''m about to do some research, or try to at least and I want to know what angle both of you think I should take. My goal is to learn more about this place and meet creatures who might be susceptible to my influence, either as a devil or as a deity, or even both. How could I do that?] The secondary will asked, rather forthrightly.


    The first of the entities who shared space in Althos'' mind to respond was M.A., the mysterious mental assistant entity who helped modify how Althos'' system interacted with the deity. Her voice, as well as a textbook in her iconic color choice, were audible to Althos and appeared in the will''s H.U.D. as he trotted down the hallway back to his room.


    [Hello Althos. Something you could do to learn of creatures who might be susceptible to your influence is open your mind to hearing all sorts of prayers and pleas to cosmic powers. It''s an option on the religion menu. By doing it your mind will greatly expand and you''ll be able to connect with people, near and far, who feel in need of divine or devilish intervention. There are filters that help prevent this from being overwhelming, some of which categorize the people based on their needs, their distance from you, and how susceptible they are to you and to the power of the faith domain.] The assistant informed the secondary will.


    Oh wow!The will thought to itself, surprised by this news. And that wasn''t the only bit of advice it received. Samyaza, Althos'' very first companion, also informed the will of a powerful ability.


    [Hey Althos! I''m excited that at least one of you is asking questions. There is a powerful ability at your disposal that the other will recently gained as a result of his affinity with animals, plants, and nature. The other will, and therefore you, gained the ability to detect plants on his radar and awaken them.] The angel informed the secondary will. The will didn''t need long to respond to that message.


    [So wait... I can awaken plants? And if I choose too I can detect them on my radar?] The thing asked, while simultaneously willing the power to activate, therefore updating the radar. Before its very eyes, its radar lit up with an assortment of new, previously undetected dots.So it''s true...The thing realized with a grin.


    At that point, he reentered the room he had been assigned and quietly walked over to the table the room had. He silently sat down and waited as he felt Samyaza preparing a response to his questions. Within seconds it came.


    [Yep! The primary will was recently notified that he had gained the preliminary powers that came with the domain of nature and the subdomains of animals and plants. Those powers greatly expanded his abilities, especially with regard to plants, the weather, and animals. As it happens, plants make incredible sources of information, especially in places that don''t have many druids.] Samyaza informed the will, eager to help the deity learn new things in its own way.


    This was all news to the secondary will, who didn''t get immediate access to the notifications the primary will did, but instead learned about notifications minutes or hours after they were received by Althos'' main will.


    Althos sat down and thought about this. He was quiet as he did so, both externally and internally. And then he transmitted a message to the angel, grateful for its assistance. [Thank you Samyaza. I greatly appreciate you informing me as about these things. As does the main will. I hope you know that.] The deity told his most precious advisor, sincere in his remarks. Samyaza, within the safety of Althos'' mind, nodded and spoke to the deity momentarily.


    [I know Althos. I can feel your gratitude when you opt to ask me questions. I am happy to receive your gratitude.] The angel told him, doing a metallic, impassive, version of a smile.


    Althos smiled himself upon hearing the angel''s response and mentally activated the religion menu.The thing opened up in front of him, showering him with a number of tabs, buttons, and options for the deity to explore.


    There are so many options! Look at these things... holidays, prayers, attire, holy-texts... I am definitely going to need to explore this at length later on.The will realized, excitedly.But I have a mission here.It told itself, refocusing on the matter at hand.


    The thing "clicked" on the prayer button, and was delighted to see a new window open before it.


    [Hello, Althos. Welcome to the prayer menu. This menu exists to facilitate your ability to hear the prayers, pleas, and the desires of the people of the multiverse. When a soul is in need and reaches out across the multiverse in desperation, ready to receive divine aid, their prayers, pleas, or requests are transmitted here. For ease of communication, we shall refer to all of these things as prayers. Here it is possible for you, the last god, to hear and respond to prayers.]


    The window''s explanation wasn''t done yet, but it waited for the will to finish reading it before it continued.


    [Gods have not existed for eons, neither have the other creatures who could answer prayers. But that hasn''t stopped people from praying. That hasn''t stopped people from needing divine power, divine rights, and more often than not divine intercession. Now that you are here... well someone can provide that divine aid. And in exchange for your aid, and the salvation you give the people of the multiverse, you can begin to become empowered by their fervent worship of you.] The window informed Althos. And then it waited, wanting to feel Althos'' response to it before saying anything else.


    So this is a huge deal...The will realized, understanding on some instinctual level the seriousness of the words of the system that were appearing within these textboxes.


    [This is indeed a huge deal. In accessing this menu and opening your mind to the prayers of the multiverse, frankly even with the strictest of filters turned on, your mind will expand. Among other things, this will propel you to the next stage of influence over the faith domain, and due to your odd array of mind powers it will grant you the first level of influence over the mind domain.] The system informed him, causing Althos'' eyes to open wide in shock while filling the seated desert-giant with a sense of awe and a surge of confidence.


    Wow...The deity realized, grinning at the thought of being responsible for both wills experiencing a genuine increase in the power at their disposal.So because of me, right now, I... we, can undergo a potentially massive surge in power? And we can connect with potential worshipers? That''s awesome!The will told itself, hyping itself up for what was to come.


    [Your excitement is palpable. It''s interesting to feel a god be so excited about both gaining power and about connecting with worshipers. We''re positively fascinated to see what comes next. Please, Althos, tell us what sort of filters you would like to apply to your prayer sense, for now at least. All you need to do is just think up the filters you''d like us to use,]


    The system asked, its flat and machine-like voice making it difficult to tell if it was being sarcastic or not. In actuality, the thing was curious as to what sort rules the secondary will would put in place the first time it opened itself up to the multiverse, in search of prayers.


    What sort of filters? I guess if this is being done for research purposes, I should limit myself to the prayers that are in and around the city, or are asked by people with relations to the city and see if it''d possible to flag prayers by people of influence, such as government workers, spellcasters, and also flag people who may be susceptible to the power... powers of the faith domain.The will thought, after having a few seconds to think about what to ask.


    [That''s it? Oh, we can do that. Give us a second.] The voice in Althos'' mind and the textbox in his HUD informed him before it lit up again. [Filters in place... initiating the mind-expansion process.]


    Althos'' second will was suddenly shocked, to the extent that his body began to vibrate, as he felt his mind expand and push beyond the tight confines of either of his physical forms. His brain, already a deeply metaphysical thing, exploded outward, fading from either the desert-giant body or the true-devil body, and instead, fleeing even the confines of Infernius itself.


    It was as if the entire dimension was too limiting, somehow not large enough to confine the powers of the deity''s mind. And then he got a notification. One that was immediately visible to both wills.


    [Multi-Part Alert:


    Your mind is now too powerful to be contained in any singular dimension. Both of your wills remain in their bodies and retain their ability to disincorporate from their physical bodies, but your mind now exists... well for the first time it truly exists outside of your body. For now, your mind has relocated to the blank canvas that is your divine realm. Your ability to interact with the world around you is unchanged, your mind just exists somewhere else. Don''t worry about it.


    Influence Update:


    In an admittedly unorthodox way, you''ve been found worthy of wielding the first tier of influence over the mind domain. This is due to your powers over memories, which have their own subdomain, your explorations of minds, and the primary will''s battle with Mahmud Suti. This is... significant.


    This grants you newfound insight into the psyches of sapient creatures, enhances the power of your awakening ability, and awards you progress towards influence over the domain of dreams, the sub-domains of both sanity and insanity. Oh and it greatly improves the potency of your mental magic.


    You''ve also gained the second tier of influence over the faith domain. This improves your "identify" power by adding information which identifies people who possess personalities that would make them suitable members of special religious classes, like templars, inquisitors, clerics, and other such classes.


    At will, you can also look and see people who would be especially weak to the powers of the faith domain. Oh and now you can more easily infuse people with the innate spark that grants them the ability to manipulate divine magic. This is the magical spark used by clerics, knights and dark-knights, witches, wards, and warlocks, druids, and a few other classes. Congratulations!


    You''ve gained a few powers as well. More information about those will be coming shortly.]


    After the secondary will read and then reread that notification, he willed it away. And he silenced his excited mind so that he could hear the assorted prayers his mind was now open to.

 Chapter 89:

    Had anyone had the power necessary and the will needed to remotely observe the last god in the multiverse the moment his mind was expanded and opened to the multiverse for the first time, they''d have been surprised at his surroundings.


    He wasn''t in a gaudy temple surrounded by priests or priestesses, or in a massive space-ship floating through space. Instead, the part of him that actively activated the power was in a fairly average inn, situated in a lonely city in the middle of an eerie desert.


    He was seated patiently, quietly, clothing himself in a disguise modeled after a desert-giant, in the solitary city of Namira. His room was quiet, as his companions were all sleeping soundly in the gigantic bed that was presumably intended for him. His eyes were closed as he focused on the litany of diverse voices that began to slowly creep into his mind.


    He heard them, and the first instant he did so he was caught off guard. Their voices melted into one, a terrifying cacophony of dissident voices and often clashing needs and wants, that washed over him and for a brief moment startled the deity.


    Some of the louder voices were almost understandable, but due to the chaotic nature of the ability, he had just used he only heard snippets of what they had to say rather than intelligent, full statements.


    <hr>


    The young god had focused and endured through the nightmarish and jarring assault on his senses provided by the first usage of his ability to listen to prayers. Despite their lack of context, some of the jumbled and fragmented words he could piece together stuck out to him.


    Prison!


    Fire.


    Nightmare.


    Debts.


    Sandmen!


    Faeries?


    Dragon?


    These words made little sense without their full context, but the deity was sensitive to the powerful emotions that accompanied them.


    He felt the excitement of the strange voice that said something about sand-people, the curious nature of the two voices apparently asking about faeries and dragons, and he could sense the righteous indignation of the noble-sounding voice he suspected was complaining about a prison.


    <hr>


    Thankfully the instant the voices melted together, they were abruptly silenced. In the resulting silence, which was loud in its own way after Althos sat through the prior sonic assault he had had to endure, he had a second to think.


    That was... a lot.The will thought to itself.


    [Whoa. That was a bit intense. We caught it, and we''re dialing it back. Give us a second.]The system told the curious deity, unintentionally agreeing with him. Althos took a deep breath to recover from the noise he was just subjected too while the system worked its magic. Seconds later the system spoke to him once more.


    [Let''s try this... again. Just this time, ask for just one prayer before you activate your power. We''ll run through the collection of prayers that were left after filtering out the inapplicable ones, and find the one that most fit the flags you asked us to search for.]The system said, giving the will the sort of clear instructions the thing thrived on.


    [On it.] The will responded, focusing momentarily so that he could reenter the state of mind needed to open his mind to the multiverse. And this time, having learned from its mistakes, the will carefully specified that it was seeking a single prayer.


    <hr>


    Just silence your mind... melt away all distractions. Be at one... with the multiverse.He told himself, quietly and diligently, breathing slowly so as to aid the process of slowing his mind down.


    When he felt an amount of calm that he believed would be sufficient for the purpose of experimenting with his powers, he reached deep within himself and spoke softly. "This time... just one prayer is enough." He said, grinning gently and almost laughing at himself while he activated the power. His mind, previously nearly silent, was suddenly home to a new voice, one that sounded faint and far-away but also earnest and hopeful that her prayer would be answered.


    <hr>


    Althos'' mind itself was teleported away from the depths of Infernius when his secondary will expanded his mind. It was taken from where it had been, sitting in the sacristy while chatting with Heryensis and Malefactor, and taken to a new place.


    Impossibly, or perhaps merely inexplicably, the deity was aware of the fact that his primary will remained in Infernius, still chatting with the two devils about the finer points of oral copulation. Equally inexplicably, the deity retained an awareness that his secondary will was in his room in the city of Namira, having successfully reached the city and begun the process of making friends there.


    But Althos'' mind was in neither location. The area the formless entity found himself in was a blank, black space. Darkness surrounded him in every direction, as far as he could see. He took a few seconds to expand his consciousness as far as he could in this space, willing his mind outward in every direction.


    Once he had pushed as far as he could, he wasn''t surprised by what he found. None of it changed, not a bit. Every remote corner of this shapeless, featureless world was as blank as the area immediately surrounding the deity. The divine being was happy when a textbox suddenly appeared in his face, alerting him to what was going on.


    [Welcome, young deity, to your first, divine realm. In the wake of your mind-expanding outward a decision has been made to relocate your mind itself to the divine area you have total control over. Until you personally decorate it, this place will be an empty, featureless void. If that''s how you would like to keep it, that''s fine as well.]


    So this entire dimension is under my control. Wow...He realized, impressed.That''s awesome! I wonder... what could I do here?The divine entity questioned, curiosity flooding its mind. The system answered that question with its next statement.


    [This is your home. Here you are unburdened by the few limitations that burden you elsewhere. Powers of yours do not have to be recharged here, and you can populate this place with any number of any creatures you can create. Mortal worshipers of yours are brought here when they die, their souls coming to you as their god, to be with you in the afterlife.] The system informed the deity.


    So this is my home. My real home.He realized, and if he had a face it would have been grinning at this delightful discovery.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    [This dimension is inaccessible unless you will it otherwise since there are no other gods in existence who could force their way in. If you wish to create portals to it, you can create portals to it, anywhere you feel comfortable doing so. That and you manually transporting someone here are the only ways for mortals to enter your dimension.] The system politely and mildly excitedly told Althos.


    This place sounds amazing! What should I do first?He asked, talking both to himself and to the system, contemplating how to most effectively make immediate use of his new playground.


    [In order to proceed, please begin to imagine the sort of terrain you''d like for your dimension to have. This is a boundless plane, one that extends as far as you''d like, but for now and for the sake of simplicity, please just think for a few moments about a distance of say... 5 kilometers. Clearly imagine the sky, the ground, and what, if anything is located underground.] The system instructed Althos, and then it waited to put together whatever the god imagined.


    Oh! That makes sense. I suppose... I should build something I''m familiar with. I''ll start with a dense forest, with both massive trees and gigantic fungi.Althos thought, eagerly basing his dimension on what he knew and was familiar with.


    If I can I''ll go ahead and populate it with... at least two creatures of every type I can create! And the underground will have a city, like the city of Undermoon. I don''t hate the perpetual night of the desert, so I think I''ll copy that over here.He told himself, and the system, transmitting his thoughts eagerly to the mysterious and evidently powerful voice that from time to time alerted him to new powers and abilities.


    [Your route to power has been unusual and is complemented by the fact that you''ve begun the journey to become an arch-devil. Your clash against Narcolept, coupled with your powers over souls and the dark route you embarked upon when you decided to devour the soul of the first sickened bear in the world of your birth has given you an unusual option that is only truly becoming useful right now.] The system explained, filling Althos with a sense of curiosity.


    [You have the souls of humans, dwarves, and both high and dark elves within you. If you decide to devour the weakest of those souls, you can use your soul powers to create humans, dwarves, and both high and dark elves. Those are four of the perhaps 5 or so most common humanoid races. All it takes is devouring a single soul of each kind. Just four souls.]


    [This is a key moment. If you decide to do this you''ll gain incredible power and knowledge. Would you like to devour those souls? If you do they are destroyed, but they were already dead. If you decide to do this, the weakest soul of each kind within you will be utterly annihilated, and in exchange, you''ll gain the ability to craft bodies of their species.]


    Althos'' mind was still as he weighed his options.In exchange for the annihilation of four souls, I can gain the ability to construct legions of spies and servants who are utterly loyal and can infiltrate all sorts of societies. So this is just me having a use for the weakest souls in my possession. This is an easy choice to make.He realized, incorporeally smiling in the empty expanse before him.


    [I''ll devour the souls. And while the world is being made, I''ll also create two families of each kind of the new humanoids I can create.] He told the system, confident in his choice. The instant he made his choice the world began to form. And as it did so, it drew from Althos'' own boundless reserves of energy, using that energy to give life to the plants and fungi within the dimension, and drawing upon that energy to aid in the creation of the realm''s first inhabitants.


    Before his incorporeal eyes, where there was once nothingness, change happened instantly. The sky was formed at once, moonlight and starlight providing the empty void with dim illumination. A soft, blue moon was formed and hung over the sky. It hung high in the sky, splendorous in its radiant beauty.


    The surface of the world was formed equally as quickly. In a flash kilometers of verdant green soil and densely wooded areas were created at once. Trees and fungi as massive as trees sprung to life, some young, and some ancient.


    And then Althos'' own version, his own copy, of the world beneath the world sprung into being. Underneath the dense forests the system had just called into being, it began to hack and slash through the surface''s layers of dirt, soil, and rock.


    In doing this it created wide tunnels and a single enormous cavern. The tunnels were packed with roots, fungi, water, and other things critical to life, while the cavern became home to the lone premade city in the dimension. A potent mixture of magic and divine energy was thrown into the area the system designated as a copy of the city of Undermoon, so as to immediately clear it out and make it suitable for speedy construction.


    Buildings sprang into being, even as the souls that would inhabit the city were being birthed in the strange realm where divinely made souls were crafted from the energies of the gods who made them. Homes, stores, even temples and schools were made in an instant. A city made of and from divine energy.


    Aether was called upon and shaped to form the few tools the city''s first inhabitants would have access too. It was used to give them furniture, and to make their lives livable underneath the rule and perpetual vigil of a mighty and divine overlord.


    Seconds after the process began, it came to an abrupt end. The system''s efficiency ensured that the complex process by which Althos'' true home was constructed was completed not long after it began. Althos was informed of this by the system itself. [Hello Althos. For now, construction of your divine realm has been completed. The first inhabitants of this realm are being created as we speak. At the moment it is an empty and eerie place, but that won''t be the case for long.]


    Althos willed away this textbox seconds after reading it, and decided to explore the eerily empty place that was created from his imagination, thanks to his own divine energy, and shaped by the system itself.


    <hr>


    In the depths of the adequate khan Althos and the desert-dwelling party were resting in, Althos'' secondary will began the process of listening to the closest prayer the system found that met the specifications he had asked for when searching for prayers.


    In the case of the prayer he was listening to right now, it came from a local Namirian, it was prayed while the young man was within the city itself, and he was both a spellcaster and was deemed to be at least somewhat susceptible to Althos'' faith-based influence.At the moment he learned that about the prayer-giver, a young desert-giant named Berk, he grew quite excited.


    So some people still pray... I wonder if it''s because they are desperate for aid and are reaching out across the cosmos in search of it?Althos had wondered at the moment he loaded up the prayer to give it a second, clearer listen. He had no way of knowing that the first prayer he''d hear would so perfectly answer that question.


    Hello...? Can anyone hear this? Ugh I shouldn''t assume that this is the sort of thing that''ll get an immediate response. That''s selfish of me. Sorry. I just need help. And I need it pretty soon. But I guess I should start from the beginning right?


    My name is Berk. I don''t know if anyone who''d hear this prayer would be capable of determining that without me telling them, so please... mighty powers, don''t be offended if I say something ignorant. I live in the city of Namira, a desert-giant city in a massive desert, that languishes underneath an eternal moon and I need your help.


    I am in trouble. Or rather... my family is in trouble. We are farmers. There''s a drought. And we were already in debt. I honestly have no clue how prayer works, and so I''m sorry about that, but god... gods, if there''s someone out there who can hear this and who can help my family, just let me know what it''ll cost me. Please... Please! We''re good people. We don''t deserve this. If you can help us, I''m willing to do... well I''m desperate.


    I know I shouldn''t try to do something like this from a position of weakness but honestly, if someone can hear this and answer it, I''m not about to try and pretend I''ve got strength in comparison to them. Please help me. Please.


    Please help my family, the Vox family, pay off our debts. If you could help us through just ensuring we grow enough food to be able to pay off our debts, I will be eternally in your debt. Don''t let us fall victim to our debtors.


    Althos reread the prayer in front of him and then smiled.This is just perfect. This is a comically easy opportunity for me to demonstrate my power. Thanks, system!The entity thought, excitedly.


    And with that, he silently stood up and began to walk out of the room the party had received mere minutes ago. While doing so he asked for directions. He entered the hallway out of his room and immediately began to look around for exits he could take that would allow him to escape undetected.


    [So, where am I going?] Althos politely asked the system, readying a simple illusion spell to render himself invisible just in case he couldn''t find an alternate exit out of the inn.

 Chapter 90:

    The darkened hallway within the depths of the khan was silent, but it was not empty. A single creature moved noiselessly through it.


    That creature was disguised as a large and handsome desert giant and the thing moved with ease in that form, almost as if it were its natural form and not a disguise it had taken on merely hours ago to for the express purpose of infiltrating the city.


    The creature crept past numerous doors, all made of sandstone, and all of which protected the privacy of the diverse clients of the khan. The deceiver listened to the range of noises coming from beyond such doors with mild interest. He heard them and committed them to memory.


    A few of the doors obfuscated the quiet grunts of sex. Some of the people having sex were men and women, but in a number of the rooms within the khan, the coupling taking place was between diverse groups of people.


    Same-sex couples, interspecies couples, and sessions of sex involving more than two people were all heard by Althos as he walked towards the entrance of the khan.


    Some of the doors dampened the noises of conversations. Althos heard a number of those as well, the thick doors not preventing his powerful hearing from picking up what was being said in the privacy offered by the khan. Only one particular fragment of a conversation really stood out to the monk, and it was a doozy of a conversation.


    He heard it not far from the end of the hallway and noted that according to his radar the room where it was taking place was inhabited by three desert giants. The primary reason it stood out to him was that the person who had prayed to the cosmos for intercession and whose prayer was the deity''s driving motivation for leaving the khan was mentioned in it.


    <hr>


    "Did you hear about Berk?" One of the fellows asked the roundtable of thugs he had brought to the inn. His voice was deep, and his breathing was labored.


    "No, what''s going on with him?" One of the people who came to the room asked, leaning in as if his colleague was about to whisper a secret requiring tight-lips. This man had a higher-pitched voice, one that to more violent fellows might be associated with whining.


    "He''s... apparently started to... pray." Another fellow said, speaking almost the instant the person who was ignorant to Berk''s fate finished his quest. This mafioso had an unusual speaking pattern, taking deep breaths between every few words. Because of that, his speech pattern was unusually easy to remember. Not that it needed to be for the undetected spy whose attention they had attracted to be capable of remembering it.


    This last statement was followed by silence, and then peels of cruel, predatory laughter. And Althos responded to it by speeding up slightly. Within moments the young deity activated his invisibility spell and walked out the open doorway into the reception area. As he walked past the desk he had met Elif at, he noticed that she stood there blankly facing the entrance to the inn and awaiting new guests.


    I wonder how often new people arrive at this khan... The will thought to himself, as he edged closer and closer to the exit out of the inn and into the city of Namira.


    When he stepped out of the building and back into the open, moonlit city, he felt a cool breeze kiss his skin and face and grinned as he began to head in the general direction the prayer came from.


    At that moment he received a surprising notification.


    [Alert: New Prayer Quest Available.


    Prayer quests are quests that are asked of gods by non-deities. Prayer quests are significant quests that revolve around challenging objectives, come with potent rewards, and require that those who create them be praying while asking for them.


    The prayer quest that caused this notification comes from an angel trapped in the dark tower that overlooks the city of Namira. She is asking for salvation, a very literal kind of salvation in her case as she just wants to be freed from the prison, and she is willing to pledge herself towards any deity who saves her.


    The basic breakdown of this quest is simple. The objective is to bust this angel out of prison. The reward is her. Her service for as long as she lives. She''s an enemy of Paimon, and she was leading resistance efforts from within Bastille itself, which was why she was taken in the first place.


    If you choose to accept this quest you''ll receive a more traditional quest notification. Would you like to accept it?]


    The second will made up its mind the moment it saw that the person who requested the quest was an angel. He immediately responded to the system, eagerly and without fear.


    [Yes I would.]


    And seconds after receiving and then promptly willing away the formal quest notification, Althos proceeded in the direction of the first prayer he sought to answer. As he took his first steps down towards the family of farmers, he noticed that he approached the strange tower looming overhead with each step.


    <hr>


    Althos'' mind maintained a bird''s eye view of his new dimension, his own private playground, after the thing''s initial construction was completed. How beautiful... He thought, unexpectedly admiringly and completely sincerely.


    This whole dimension is my home. It''s where I am free to create, experiment, and learn. He told himself, joyously. And at that moment Althos'' mind was hit with a strong and undeniable urge to look at his dimension''s alien, organic version of the city of Undermoon. He had a few moments to observe it before the cause of the urge to examine it would reveal itself.


    In the few moments the reality-warping creature had before the cause of the overwhelming urge revealed itself, he stared at the city with his bird''s eye view of the place. Even at a glance, the sight of his city was awe-inspiring.


    The city was entire kilometers across. Countless buildings, only some of which were made of stone, lined its length. The rare few stone buildings were dismal things, tiny and possibly designed for smaller creatures.


    Althos'' divine sight allowed him to realize that many of the buildings that were within the city''s limits were made of countless incredibly tiny, compacted fungi and thick, alabaster colored plants.


    The plant-based buildings were all a single color: a dense shade of alabaster. They were of various sizes, and of different styles, throughout the city. They differed from the fungoid buildings because the plant buildings were not made up of innumerable plants working in concert, but instead, these things were singular and positively creatures in the shape of buildings.


    The fungal buildings were variously colored and differently sized, but the largest one of them all hung from the ceiling of the city and looked down on the rest of the cavern.


    Look at those buildings... He told himself, in awe of the things. And as he did so, he felt curiosity welling up within himself.


    The buildings themselves are alive, aren''t they? He questioned, sensing the incredible number of plants and fungi that already populated his city, long before other lifeforms were even created. He could faintly detect something resembling thoughts, faint mental energy, wafting off of the organic buildings, which was remarkable when he considered how far he was from the city.


    [Yes they are. This city incorporates elements from the domains and subdomains you''ve gained various degrees of influence over and has incorporated them into the architecture and vision governing the city. Buildings made of fungi answer to you and you alone. Even the smallest fungi here are fully awakened beings. These buildings are considered awakened, mobile creatures, but only move at your command.] The system''s explanation was simple.


    I definitely prefer this sort of matter of fact explanation. Althos realized, after reading the system''s message. He was grateful to it, and when it expanded further he was again grateful that the thing was being direct.


    [You can awaken the plant buildings if you wish. If you do so, they become as intelligent as the fungoid buildings.] The system provided another direct statement, one that educated the fairly uneducated deity as to neat aspects of his city.


    Mobile buildings... Even the thought of it was enough to cause the deity to tremble in awe.


    And when he looked at the gigantic, palatial fungi that hung from the cavern''s ceiling, his awe only grew.


    [System... I want to explore this city on foot. Can I do that yet?] He asked, wanting to stand within the gigantic city, wanting to explore it as an individual, and not peer down at it like a sort of omniscient, third-person narrator.


    [If you wish to explore your realm, you are more than welcome to do so. Just design a body so that if your servants see you they''ll know who you are at a glance.] The system informed him.


    [On it!] He told the strange voice, eager toappear on the surface of his dimension and experience it from the first-person point of view.


    As he retreated into his mind to begin the strange, divine process by which he designed his disguises, the city began to glow a deep shade of blue. Countless circles of swirling, dark blue, mystical energy appeared all over the city, and all over the dimension''s surface as well.


    <hr>


    Inside of her strangely designed prison cell, the angel stayed on her knees. Her hands remained tightly clasped together, and her eyes stayed shut.


    The young angel stayed still while praying her heart out. She was motionless in the lightless cell Paimon''s prison-keepers had thrown her into hours ago. Her mind was hard at work, repeating her prayer over and over. Eventually, though, she got fed up with the endless repetition of her self-assigned task.


    Must I repeat this same, blasted, prayer over and over? It''s obviously not working.She snapped, after uttering the prayer for the sixth time.


    What can I do? Can I change it somehow?She questioned, wanting to do something.I hate this feeling of hopelessness. This... inability to act.She told herself, feeling it eat away at her with each passing moment.


    I should probably change the prayer somehow...The angel realized. And then she got to work on doing just that.


    Unbeknownst to her, there was a god not far from where she was. He hadn''t heard her prayer though. Not yet anyway.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    <hr>


    Minutes later, the angel was still on the floor in her cell. Her knees were now drippingblack dirt, the same black dirt that littered the floor of her cell. But the angel was satisfied with the new version of her prayer that she had cooked up.


    I doubt this will change anything but... at least it was a nice distraction to kill some time.She told herself, almost smiling as she took a deep breath and repeated the prayer once again.


    Is there anyone out there who can hear me? Gods, I hope there is.


    My name is Angelica. I know that''s not a creative name for an angel, but I didn''t pick it. If someone can hear this message,and they oppose Paimon, the overlord of the city of Bastille, then I hope they listen.


    I am an emissary angel. And I am also a prisoner. I was part of a force of angels from the home dimension of angel-kind. We were sent into Infernius to unify and rally the enemies of Paimon, the true-devil who rules over the city of Bastille in the second layer of Infernius, some time ago and for months we were left alone to operate in relative peace.


    Days ago something happened in his city. Some creature escaped his lair or something. Whatever happened caused Paimon to go on the warpath and he sent out dozens of patrols throughout the entire place. One caught us. And so it caught some of the few devilish rebels who were the right mixture of bold and stupid to stay within the city while wanting to rebel against the overlord.


    Now I am imprisoned... somewhere. I don''t know honestly. I suspect I am not in Bastille anymore because I can''t sense my brother, an angel of war named Klaus and because this prison differs from any we knew of in Bastille. He was with me when we were captured. I don''t know where he is, nor do I know where other angels who were with us are.


    I don''t believe gods exist anymore but if there''s one out there... I hope they can hear me.


    Until now, that had been the moment where the prayer had ended. Each of the seven times Angelica had repeated her prayer, the utterance ended with Angelica declaring that she hoped that she wasn''t screaming into the void. That was understandable, all things considered.


    It was a happy coincidence that right as Althos'' secondary will was exiting the khan he had met Zabuli and Elif for the first time, Angelica decided to tack on a new ending to her prayer.


    If there is a god somewhere out there, and they can hear me I have a quest for them.


    If they can hear me and if they want an angelic servant, they must come and rescue me. I''ll pledge myself to any god who rescues me. Frankly, at this point I''d pledge myself to anyone who''d rescue me.


    If you''re out there and you can hear me... use my prayer to come and find me. Save me and I''ll serve you loyally, for as long as you wish.


    In a way perhaps only the system itself could explain, her prayer made something happen.


    The prisoner''s prayer was a powerful one. It filled her cell with potent angelic energy, something comparable to a watered-down version of divine energy. Each repetition of it, even before the prayer was muttered relatively close to Althos, had caused her prison cell to gloriously glow for a few moments.


    The source of this strange glow was Angelica herself. It was her angelic energy pulsing out of her veins in staggeringly powerful and momentary explosions of light.


    The light that exploded out of her at the moment she transformed her plea for salvation into a quest wasn''t merely glorious, it was remarkably radiant. Even her shut eyelids weren''t enough to shield her from the intense, sun-like glow she momentarily radiated. The darkness of the prison cell fared no better against the unstoppable onslaught of her glowing skin.


    The all-consuming light that poured forth from her body escaped her veins, temporarily defeated the darkness of the lightless room and was only kept from illuminating further areas due to the interference of the obsidian walls of her cell. As it began to occur, when her eyes stayed tightly shut, she had a few moments in which she was able to question what was happening.


    What is this light? Is it something helpful?She asked when her eyes were still shut. She had no desire to harm her vision after all.


    But in time, specifically a matter of seconds, she excitedly opened her eyes after her prayer was finished. She immediately began to search for the source of the light and discovered to her dismay that she was the source of the explosive light, a realization that saddened her. Her mood got worse instantly as she realized that the light was beginning to dim.


    <hr>


    This dismal atmosphere would only last for a few minutes. Because minutes after learning she was the source of the light she received a surprising and earthshattering notification.


    [Prayer Quest Alert:


    Angelica, your prayer quest "Save me and I''m yours" has been accepted by Althos, a young deitywho possesses a number of titles, including"The Honorable Liberator" title.


    Prayer Quests are quests that non-deities ask deities to undertake while in prayer. In order for a quest to become one of these sorts of quests, there are a number of hurdles that must be overcome.


    First, the quest matter must be something of considerable difficulty. If a non-deity asks a deity for a pet while in the middle of prayer, or for a small amount of money, that won''t be enough for that request to become a prayer quest.


    Second, a prayer quest must be something that the requester sincerely and whole-heartedly wants. Prayer quests cannot be made deceptively or under duress unless the prayer quest is about saving the lives of the people who requested it.


    Third, a prayer quest must be requested while the requestor is in prayer. This one is really self-explanatory.


    Fourth, the reward that a requester offers a deity must be something of considerable value. A pledge of loyalty or the pledging of one''s soul is enough to fulfill this regardless of what resources they have at their disposal, but people of considerable means need not pay this permanent price to secure a prayer quest.


    If you rescind your reward, turning your back on your savior, the system itself will punish you. And if Althos quits the quest then you will be notified immediately.


    In your case the prayer quest was made for the following reasons: you are trapped in a well-protected prison behind layers of guards and wards, you sincerely want to be free, your quest was asked while you were praying, and your offer to serve whoever freed you was deemed significant enough to make this a prayer quest. Congratulations!]


    Is this... real?She asked, trying to temper her optimism with careful skepticism.I haven''t heard of any new gods appearing in... my entire life, and now one just agrees to save me in my moment of need?The angel questioned. But her skepticism was responded too by the system itself.


    [Althos is very real. And incredibly young. He appeared, fully grown, mere days ago in a distant and unremarkable mortal world, but has since done some incredible things. That said, your skepticism is both commendable and understandable. If being skeptical makes sense to you, stay that way until he appears. And when he does he''ll convince you of his divinity.] The system told her, its distant, mechanical voice ringing in her brain.


    Angelica tempered her optimism and got off of her knees. As she did so some of the black dirt that covered her pants crumbled off of her and crashed back onto the floor at her feet.


    <hr>


    I''m... cold.The first complex, verbal thoughts of the first humanoid Althos ever created were simple thoughts. But they weren''t inaccurate. The barely clothed humanoid was, in fact, cold.


    Deep in the subterranean depths of the divine realm the air was indeed frigid. The humanoid who was cold was a male high-elf, and his body was the first to emerge from within one of the womb-like eldritch circles.


    The circles, presently a common sight throughout the dimension, were powerful divine devices that used divine energy to actually create physical bodies for souls. In order to do this, the things were supplied with metaphysical blueprints for bodies. They then used a costly mixture of ambient magical energy and divine power to mystically weave physical shells that souls could inhabit.


    It''s... dark.The high-elf thought, seconds after his first earth-shattering discovery. This observation, while still true, was true in part because the high elf''s eyes were closed.


    The elf''s creator stood beside him. The thing''s faceless head was watching the new lifeform, studying his body with an intensity the god had only ever previously shown to footprints in the sand.


    Althos peered at his creation. His new form''s faceless head made for an odd image as he methodically scrutinized the high elf. Had there been any uninformed observers watching this without any precious context, what they would have seen would have been disconcerting.


    They would have been watching a nameless street in a strange, organic city. And on that street they would have seen two creatures standing close to each other. One of them would have been a pale-skinned, lanky elf with closed eyes stand perfectly still.The other creature would have looked like an import from a child''s nightmare.


    If someone looked just at his legs, and then slowly panned upwards until they reached his neck, he would have looked like any masculine, ebony-skinned, elf with thick, combat-tested muscles. But the creature became something disturbing when someone peered at its head. And it was because of a single unusual cosmetic choice.


    The difference wasn''t anything major. Barely noticeable really. The ebony-skinned elf just didn''t have a face.


    His head was similar to that of his Mi-Go creation. A featureless oval. Althos'' form lacked eyes, ears, hair, a nose,and a mouth.


    [Open your eyes.] He commanded, his deep voice flowing effortlessly from his mind into the mind of his creation. The high elf who heard the voice of his creator began to move for the first time since forming within the circle.


    Althos waited for the creature to truly spring to life, and while he did so he mentally wrote a message for the system.


    [Hey, does my ability to create souls and shape them into various types of creatures improve as I gain influence over a broader spectrum of domains and subdomains? It does, doesn''t it? Or am I misunderstanding something?] Althos'' mind asked the system, the strange entity that seemed to play some unclear role in the day-to-day operations of the multiverse itself.


    Seconds later, just as his first humanoid creature began to slowly convulse in front of him, and he mentally scanned his list of healing spells, Althos received an answer from the system.


    [Hello Althos. Yes it does. And the truth is your influence over nature, animal, plant, fungi, and soul domains and subdomains are incredibly important in this context. Because of them, you can create well over a hundred different types of lifeforms, the majority of which you''ve yet to encounter. Your knowledge level will automatically increase because of this moment. Do you have any sort of creatures you''d like to meet right now?] The system informed him.


    Althos thought about that, at the same moment as he received an alert notifying him that his knowledge level was now level 3. He sighed and willed the thing away, despite the fact that he was smiling.I''ve created a fungi-person now in the form of the Mi-Go... should I meet some plant people?... I should. Yeah. I think that''s the right move.He thought, grinning at the idea of meeting plant monsters even remotely comparable to the Mi-Go he had created in Infernius.


    [Yes I would actually. If there are any humanoid-like plants, I''d be thrilled to go and meet them.] He said, informing the system as to his desire to meet plant-people.


    [There are a number of powerful plant creatures, some of which are humanoid-like plants. Including some types of faeries. Would you like to meet them? They are situated above your current location. On the surface of the realm.] The system told him, mentioning an odd word he had heard something similar to once or twice in the past.


    I''ve heard that word before, but I didn''t really get to know what it meant. I think it''s time to find out.Althos recalled,while considering how to respond to the system''s questions.


    [I would but first... what are faeries?] Althos asked, curious about the things. [And by chance are they related to fey lords?] He added, remembering how that word popped up hours ago, while he dealt with Agitha and her husband back in the dark city of Undermoon.


    [The terms "fey" and "faeries" refer to a loose grouping of creatures, spirits, and beasts with connections to aspects of nature. Many but by no means all of them are plant or fungal creatures. These strange beings inhabit a number of dimensions and countless worlds, but they are most often associated with a place known as the Land of the Faeries, a dimension like the Heart of Darkness or Infernius.] The system told Althos, readying even more information for the curious god.


    [Fey-lords are a sort of superior being to them like gods are to mortals and arch-devils are to other devils. Fey-lords are also like gods and arch-devils in that they are worshipped by a range of beings but especially by faeries. Another similarity between the three types of beings is that they all have places they lord over. Arch-devils have layers of Infernius, gods have divine realms, and fey-lords have courts.] The voice informed Althos.


    [Oh! Wow so there really are all sorts of "superior beings" aren''t there?] He asked, excitedly learning about even more creatures.


    [Oh yes. And each type of superior being has access to unique feats and abilities. But getting back to the topic at hand, if you''d like to meet plant creatures and faeries go up to the surface of your layer. Your forest is filled with wild animals, plant creatures, and faeries of all sorts. There are still innumerable faeries, plant monsters, and animals you can''t create, but thanks to your unusual distribution of feats, powers, and experiences, your forest is... it''s a sight to behold.]


    Upon hearing that, Althos looked at the ceiling with a curious gaze, grabbed the slowly awakening high-elf to have a companion, and made use of his teleportation ability to exit the strange city and ascend towards the fertile forest.

 Chapter 91:

    Minutes before Althos'' escapades in his personal divine realm awarded him a critical upgrade to his "knowledge" level, the primary will of the irregular god found himself deep in the first memories of one of his more fervent servants: the dark elf witch, Qu''Ren.


    <hr>


    The first sight to ever grace Qu''Ren''s vision was the ceiling of a dark bedchamber, the ceiling of the room she was born in. It was an impressive thing, made of handpicked, shadow-kissed, obsidian colored stones. Each of the stones was deliberately placed to form intricate, artistic, and magic-filled patterns.


    The infant elf''s very earliest thoughts were simple ones. Like most humanoids, she wasn''t capable of linguistic thoughts immediately after her birth. Instead, her first displays of rudimentary intelligence were wordless outbursts of emotion and before Qu''Ren even laid her eyes on her mother for the first time, one of those outbursts occurred.


    The first of these outbursts was a joyful one provoked by the sight of the mystical patterns that floated high above the infant. This was accompanied by light giggles from the newborn.


    <hr>


    [System Alert:


    Your dimension-spanning and in a few cases species-altering adventures have resulted in you gaining a hitherto unparalleled level of knowledge relative to the incredibly few days you''ve been alive.


    The knowledge domain wishes you''d be more focused and assess more memories thoroughly, but given that that is what one of your wills is doing right at this moment, the domain is beginning to get a bit more excited by how you''re using your assorted wills.


    Both the system and the knowledge domain agree that you deserve a reward. You have now reached an overall "knowledge" level of 3. This exciting update comes with a new upgrade unique to you.


    You can now gain "knowledge" updates in all situations. This does a lot more than merely allow you to gain "knowledge" notifications, alerts, and updates when conducting an in-depth examination of someone''s memories, thoughts, knowledge, and secrets, but given your knowledge gaining habits, that is the most important thing you need to know right now. If you need a knowledge notification about something new, so long as you can see it somehow, all you need to do is ask. Whether you''re in a memory, in front of a creature, or standing over a corpse. Just ask.


    You''ve also gained a new divine power: "appraisal". This power grants you access to a new type of notification: item knowledge. "Appraisal" is a power similar to your "identify" power, but for items.


    And you can now identify traps, spells, and enchantments placed on items at a glance.


    Congratulations!]


    <hr>


    Almost as if inspired by the very first moments of Althos'' life, the place his mind teleported into from within the depths of his newly created city was a verdant forest.


    He and the first of the humanoids he had created that was slowly gaining consciousness, an unnamed, male, high-elf,began to materializein the middle of a gigantic forest, beside a majestic and imposing tree that towered high into the unearthly sky.


    The process by which the two of them materialized wasn''t unlike the strange process by which souls crafted by Althos or beings resurrected by him sprung to life: two mystical circles appeared on the forest floor, and began to construct their bodies from Althos'' reserves of mystical energy.


    This differed from Althos'' past teleportations, but he himself was unbothered by it.There''s no rush. I might as well relax and enjoy this.He thought, patiently allowing the circles to recreate their bodies from the top down.


    In a matter of moments, the two odd beings were fully formed, and Althos was able to fully examine the forest his energy, memories, and the agricultural shapings of the system itself had created.


    The forest wasn''t quite a one to one replication of the one that inspired it. The first difference Althos noticed between it and the forest in the world of his birth was that this forest was made up of primeval wilderness. And he wasn''t alone in that. Nor were he and his companion alone in the forest.


    My abilities are really amazing.He thought as he reflected on the knowledge that surged into his brain as a result of his abilities.


    Althos had two abilities that were alerting him to the diversity of life that surrounded him and his creation. His first ability that was alerting him to the sorts of creatures that were nearly imperceptibly closing in on the duo was his tremorsense ability.


    Tremor-sense was the first of the divine powers that had made itself known to him. With it, he sensed minute vibrations in the earth at his feet each time a creature up to one hundred meters away from him set foot anywhere in that range.What a nice ability to be reminded of.He thought when he first felt it activate, having long set the ability aside and not using it actively.


    The power had been receiving quiet upgrades over the course of Althos'' life, and now it wasn''t as limited as it had been when he first learned of it. Its range had doubled, and it was now capable of penetrating trees and plants.


    It was that part of the power which alerted him to creatures within its range even if they hid inside of plants and trees so long as he could sense the trees and plants they hid in, which was how the power alerted him to the presence of spirits within the trees in the forest around him.


    Uses of tremor-sense alerted him to the fact that he and his high-elf creation were being slowly surrounded by curious tree spirits, creatures known as dryads, only a few of which had been present in the trees in this part of the forest when he and his creation first appeared here. It wasn''t the only ability that alerted him to this either.


    His mini-map and radar, two things tucked away in a corner of his vision, flickered and revealed the same information. With the radar, Althos was able to see the direction from which the spirits came, and when he turned in their direction he saw them.


    A number of women soared through the upper layer of the tree-line, zipping through the shrouded sky and into the trees themselves before launching their spiritual forms into other trees to quickly arrive where he and his elf creation were standing. Althos studied their forms and what he saw drew his interest.


    Their appearance was almost tailor-made to appeal to a god of nature, fungi, and a number of other things because they were dangerously beautiful women whose bodies were clad in "outfits" made of bits of nature, leaves, colored dust, and dew drops. They had light green skin, their curves the color of the healthiest leaves, and they had delicate, artistically made faces.


    They giggled quietly, though the sound was heard by Althos thanks to his impossibly sharp hearing, as they sailed through the air just underneath the canopies of the tallest trees.Dryads huh?He thought after his tremor-sense''s claims were reinforced by the information displayed on his radar.


    Hey, can I get a knowledge notification about a dryad? I can see some after all.Althos asked, directing his question towards both the system and the domain of knowledge. He didn''t feel a response immediately, but half a second more passed, and he got one.


    [New Species Knowledge Notification: Dryads


    Dryads are powerful tree-spirits. These faerie creatures are mighty nature spirits who act whimsically to get those they fear and those they despise to have the wrong impression of them and think of them as flighty spirits when in actuality they are steadfast and uncompromising defenders of nature and of forests.


    Dryads are spirits of forests whose powers include the ability to magically charm creatures, to speak with animals and plants, the ability to zip from one tree to another, and the power to attack enemies on the ground by controlling the roots of trees and using them to pummel or stab those who''d harm forests.


    Dryads are loved by some kinds of humanoids, such as elves, and hated by others like orcs and humans. Creatures that live in harmony with nature have nothing to fear from these beautiful tree women, but creatures that tend to usurp nature in favor of industrialization or "civilization" are enemies that dryads seek to weaken and ruin.


    Dryads are social creatures, positively adoring chances to make new friends and judge individuals far less harshly than they judge groups. Individual humans and even individual orcs can get along quite well with dryads who on a one to one level are gregarious, welcoming, and tolerant individuals. It is common for high elves and wood elves alike to ally with dryads and sometimes even aid them in getting rid of nearby communities of less harmonious beings.


    When Dryads evolve they become immensely powerful beings known as hamadryads who bond with individual trees and become far harder to kill their lesser cousins. They sacrifice freedom for power and immortality becoming true, sometimes terrifying guardians of both forests in general and especially their specific trees as so long as the tree lives the hamadryad cannot be truly slain.]


    <hr>


    [Open your eyes.]


    Those words were the first that the high elf had ever heard. And moments after hearing them, before he could obey them, the young man felt a hand settle on his shoulder and felt heat radiate from underneath himself. The heat aided the unnamed elf in the process which the elf was undergoing: that of truly awakening and taking legitimate control of his body.


    He was ignorant as to what was occurring, and to the subtle aid provided by the heat of the mystical circle, but he faintly hoped it was something good.


    The truth was that his creator didn''t feel like venturing out onto the surface of the realm he lorded over all alone, so he decided to have the elf accompany him, inadvertently aiding the elf in becoming himself.


    By the time the circles finished their task of teleporting the pair into the forest, the elfhad, in fact, opened his eyes. And he did it while Althos was looking elsewhere, studying the forest. The newly created elf''s first sight was the sight of the vibrant forest.


    "This place is... beautiful." The elf said, as he stepped out of the circle and felt the cool grass underneath his feet.


    He was surrounded by massive trees, and his hand was firmly grasped within Althos'' hand. He smiled as he felt the warmth of the creature he instinctually knew created him, and despite the darkness that surrounded them, he felt safe next to the mysterious creature next to him.


    Althos'' head was turned away from the high-elf, and so he couldn''t see Althos'' face. Or more accurately, he couldn''t see his lack thereof. The god was studying the forest, his divine senses allowing him to sense the immense variety of lifeforms, bestial, magical, spiritual, and otherwise, already present in the forest.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    "It really is. It''s just gorgeous." Althos responded, his low voice echoing softly in the heavily wooded area, bouncing off of the dense assortment of trees.


    [New Species Knowledge: High Elves


    High Elves are among the strongest and most magically inclined kinds of elves. They live in organically grown and tended settlements that include massive towers of vines and trees, and they are an independent species of proud beings.


    In the past they lorded over an ancient empire of elves who sought to justly rule worlds and protect other humanoids, kinds they viewed as inferior creatures who ought to be protected and nurtured. In the age of godlessness, that empire fractured and disintegrated due to immense infighting. There are undoubtedly some high elves throughout the worlds who wish to form a new empire.


    They are naturally skilled at forged alliances with faeries, and with other humanoids who are inclined to protect nature.


    High elves are naturally inclined towards being lawful neutral with a keen respect for authority and an adherence to tradition. Royal high elves tend to be the ones who dictate the directions an individual high elf community will go in, with regards to how they treat creatures they are not allied with.


    These creatures walk a very fine line between being humanoids and faeries and those of them that evolve become a sort of faerie that most represents the contents of their soul. Common kinds of faeries they can become include tree-folk, nymphs, and satyrs.]


    Althos'' faceless form willed away the notification and turned to examine the elf. The elf noticed this, grinning at the god as he turned in his direction, but suddenly gasping when he realized that his creator didn''t have a face.


    "Whoa... where''s your face?" He asked, rather insensitively.


    A laughing sound emanated from Althos'' body, coming out from his core, rather than coming out of his head.


    "I am a god. My body is a lot more... customizable, then yours is my friend." He explained, taking a second mid-sentence to think about how to word his statement.


    "I have direct control over my appearance. I can shape my body in any way I like.My appearanceis... flexible." He said, continuing after a few seconds of silence. The high elf was quiet, as he processed that statement. After another few moments of silence, the high elf had a question.


    "What is a god? I know the word somehow..., but I''m afraid its meaning isn''t clear to me." The elf asked, curiosity seeping into his voice. Althos chuckled at that question, curious about it himself.


    I guess I''ll tell him what I was told once, a long time ago... relatively speaking.Althos thought, grinning as he remembered what Samyaza once told him.


    "I don''t know the best answer to that if I''m being honest. Instead, I''ll paraphrase what someone once told me. Gods are beings of creation and power. We can bend reality to our wishes in ways unimaginable to mortals, which is what you are. You are many things. You are a high-elf, a humanoid, a mortal, and before all of that you are my creation." Althos declared to the high elf.


    At the end of that remark, the high elf looked at him inquisitively and studied the body of the creature who declared that he was its creation. He knew Althos wasn''t lying, but given Althos'' form, it was still understandably hard forthe nameless creation to believe the being who boldly declared that it was his creator.


    "You... created me?" The elf asked, looking at him with a stare that was equally curious and serious.


    "Yes." Althos said. The single word wasn''t spoken curtly, as single-worded statements often were, but instead conveyed honest joy and even a not insignificant level of pride in his creation.


    The elf heard that emotion and the honesty that accompanied it and looked at his creator in a new light, not just as a powerful being but as a friend and life-giver. His gentle eyes filled with joy, joy matching and even eclipsing the joy Althos felt, though the faceless creature found it difficult to express that joy at the moment.


    "Creator." The elf whispered, accepting the simple truths of Althos'' words in the wake of his maker''s honest declaration. He fell to his knees before the god, who was silent in the wake of the elf''s display. Althos allowed the elf to kneel before him for nearly an entire minute, before speaking again. His voice echoed out of him, spreading outward like a ripple.


    "Arise my child." Althos told the elf, internally and invisibly smiling even though his face remained as blank as it had for the past few minutes. The elf lifted himself off of the ground, his youthful face aglow with joy, pride, and an almost unfathomably powerful sense of awe.


    At the same time as the elf lifting himself up, the forest surrounding them sprung to life, having grown tired of merely passively watching their discussion.


    <hr>


    The elf stood up just in time for one of the women who had been hiding in a nearby tree to leap out of her hiding place and land on the ground beside Althos. The faceless creature turned to the tree-woman and studied her in much the same way as he had studied the elf. The tree-woman''s collision with the ground was loud and startingly, causing the elf to cling to his creator''s side.


    The dryad was gorgeous. She had an hourglass figure that emphasized her luxurious curves, and soft green skin the same color as poison ivy during the spring. Her lips weren''t green but were a deep red that would have stirred the hearts of poetic men and women had they been the figures to lay their eyes on her instead of Althos and his elven creation. Her more womanly parts were hidden from view by golden leaves that clung tightly to her. Her hair was the soft brown color of lighter bark and fell straight, long enough to go below her shoulders.


    Althos was the first of the two to speak. His head remained trained on her form while words came out of his core in an eerie and supernatural mimicry of conventional speech. "Hello. I am your creator. My name is Althos. It is nice to meet you, dryad. And your sisters as well." Althos told her, sweeping his hand in the direction of her siblings, still hidden in the trees when he said that last sentence. And he wasn''t done either.


    "Do you like the forest I created?" He asked. Both the elf and the dryads could almost hear asmile in the thing''s voice.


    The nameless elf who accompanied him was rendered speechless by the simple, yet true words of the unusually social and talkative god.To create a forest on your own... and to make not just humanoids, but even spirits... How strong are you, Althos? Can you do anything?The elf asked, inwardly wondering if this self-described creature of power and creation even had a limit to his strength. His questions didn''t go unheard by his creator, who began to wonder the same thing.


    And then the elf turned to face the dryad.


    As the elf looked at the dryad, he felt a deep and powerful sense of awe that would have made talking to the plant-woman a challenge. It wasn''t as significant as the awe he felt towards his creator, but it was still potent and it made him want to do something that honored the woman, not speak as dryly as Althos had to her.


    The dryad smiled at her creator and nodded graciously at him. "We do, my lord. We know that you are our creator. When we sensed your presence on the surface we flocked to you. Thank you for creating this wonderous place for us." She said, her voice deep and earthy. Her eyes flickered in the direction of her sisters, all of whom were hidden within nearby trees "Sisters, please show yourselves." She instructed her family, and they immediately obeyed.


    Other dryads began to peek their heads out of their natural hiding spots, and the elf was surprised to see that there were so many of them. At first, he only saw ones that were immediately behind the one who spoke, but he decided to turn and see if there were more.


    What he learned from his visual exploration of the scene he was in was that there were several dryads surrounding him and his creator. Their faces peeked out and pressed against the trees they hid inside of, grinning at the elf and the god he adored. Their grins were dazzling, and the elf began to mentally utter his sincere thanks to his creator for allowing him to witness a sight of such beauty.


    All of these heart-rendingly beautiful nature spirits were created by Althos? And even creating this whole forest was within the scope of his power? I am so lucky to have been created by a giver of life with such power!


    Althos'' upgrades to his mental and faith-based abilities empowered him enough that he could ambiently detect thoughts from nearby creatures so long as they were about him. This allowed him to hear his newest servant and creation and because of that he internally chuckled at the elf''s simple-mindedness. But there was a part of him that didn''t chuckle at the elf''s statement. A small part of his mind honed in on a simple part of the elf''spraising words. And not just these words, but the earlier thoughts the elf had had.


    Is there a limit to my power? I haven''t actually meaningfully tested it have I? I think I should. In fact... I think I will. Now... how can I go about doing that? Is there a way for me to create a place where I can unleash all of my abilities, test my spells, and summon even the most dangerous things I can summon?


    [Actually... yes there is. You can create a place within your divine realm, an isolated space where you can unleash even the most destructive powers or cruelest spells. You can decorate this place however you want, whether you want to populate it with dense trees, make it look like a massive tunnel, battle in the sky, or make it a barren desert. Would you like to create this place?] The system asked, already aware of what Althos would say.


    [Oh heck yes. If you could please prepare this place, that''d be wonderful. Make it really plain. I''ll go and help, but before I do, let me do something.] He told the system. And then he immediately retreated into his mind.


    I am going to announce my presence to my whole realm. At once. So as to avoid a lot of one on one introductions. There''ll be time for those later.And that was precisely what he did. But not before searching his mind and calling out to the incredibly useful power of the faith domain.


    His entire realm was immediately inundated with the faint, smokelike vapor of the faith domain''s subversive power. Every centimeter of the place was covered in it, even the moon that shone far above the surface didn''t escape the reach of the power. The entire world took on a faintly blue tint as Althos readied his announcement that he was the creator of everything this place''s inhabitants could see.


    Then he unleashed a burst of sound outward, the noise reaching the entire dimension at once. It surged out of him like he was in the eye of a verbal hurricane.


    "Hello! My name is Althos, and I am a god. You all are my creations. Even this very world you live, all that surrounds you, is a realm that I created. Many of you are the very firstmembersof your particular species that I have ever created. I am proud of all of you, and I want to know you, I want for you to know me and ultimately to aid and serve me." He announced to the residents of the multiverse''s newest dimension.


    <hr>


    All at once, the realm fell silent. In the wake of the god''s declaration, his proclamation that he had created this place and all of them, each creature in the realm was rendered speechless at once.


    His voice touched even the most remote corners of the dimension, leaving no doubt in any of the creature''s minds who heard him that he was real and that he was the lord of this place.


    Genies, demons, devils, angels, and humans alike were overwhelmed by the sound of his voice. It rocked them to their very cores, touching their hearts, souls, and the veryatoms that made up their bodies. No living creature in the realm was deaf to the sound of their maker''s voice. It seeped into them, immediately evoking awe and pride in even the weakest among them.


    For many of the creatures, particularly the humanoids, fungi, plants, and animals in the realm, this was the very first thing that happened to them. And for them, it was an indescribable, mind-altering experience.


    They had just sprung to life, and moments later they heard the voice of their creator assert his existence, give them a purpose, and make it clear that he''d personally get to know them. Even the least intelligent of them, the simplest plants and fungi felt moved by that, and so Althos'' words etched an undeniable, radiant mark on the souls of his creations.


    The creatures who lived in Althos'' realm felt an incredible joy radiate out of them, and that joy flowed outward and into their creator. Even a deity like Althos could feel the intensity and power of their emotions wash over him like a tidal wave.


    [I think you may have just created your first large-scale miracle. Congratulations Althos!] Samyaza, now not the only observer angel in the god''s service, told the deity he served as an advisor. As that happened, Althos fell to his knees and felt the emotions of his creations flow into his divine soul.


    Little did the deity know that his secondary will was about to create a few miracles of its own, aided by an unusual ally: the trickery domain. But before he learned that, and before he went to go and create the isolated space where he''d be able to test his powers, he received one last notification.


    [Feat Gained: Godly


    Benefit: Acts of creation, destruction, and displays of power are more effective than before. Your creations, including ones that were already created, gain power. Your magic and your divine abilities increase in potency, particularly ones that involve creation or destruction. Mortals are more easily convinced of your divinity, and are more easily convinced to worship you. Immediately gain the ability to speak with any and all domains and subdomains, as well as the ability to gain domain and subdomain quests more easily.


    Method of acquisition: Perform an act that is undeniably godly and sways over a thousandmortals to worship you at once without any outside aid or advice. In your case announcing your presence the way, you did to all of the literally thousands of lifeforms in your realm pushed your cult from having a little over one hundred members into a number almost fiftytimes that in an instant.


    Flavor text: Gods are unimaginably powerful creatures. Even a god of average power could destroy entire civilizations in an instant. Being able to sway thousands to believe in you at once is a simple task that shouldn''t be difficult for gods of any real level of talent. Congratulations on reaching that level of power.]


    And that made Althos smile internally.What a time to gain a boost to my power huh? Right before I go and testmyself out. How... exciting.He thought, happiness flowing both into and out of him.

 Chapter 92:

    The moment that Althos gave his permission to the system to create an area where he could practice his powers, something happened. The system, or at leastitsmost intelligent and most independent part, departed from Althos'' mind. What was temporarily left behind was the system at its most automatic, merely an automaton that could do little more than relay simple information.


    The system''s more complex self departed from Althos momentarily. It left him for the sake of executing his will: it sought to create a simple training area where he could practice the varied skills that he had at his disposal. And the space in which it did so was just one part of the deity''s limitless plane that was left unshaped in the wake of his initial bout of creation.


    For the indescribably ancient system, one of a handful of leftover relics from the time of the most ancient gods, gods who were long gone even eons before the most recent set of gods sprung to life, the act of creating a training ground wherein Althos could practice his skills was child''s play. All the system needed to do it was for Althos to give his express permission, and for the system to tap into the god''s limitless magic and divine might.


    At the moment the area was created, the system made use of divine energy and of ambient fragments of godly intention to create a simple, flat layer of solidified magic where the god would stand if he felt like standing at all. The almost earthlike magic stretched on for a few thousand meters in every direction.


    The magic was then made solid through an immense amount of intention and forceful manipulation, like a wall that resisted being destroyed.Finally, the magic was loosely colored with a simple layer of illusion magic, designed to resemble a barren plain, perhaps one that was the sight of a devastating battle and never recovered.


    A simple two-step process. But one that would have simply used up too much magical energy to be done by mortal spellcasters.


    <hr>


    Althos was still, his featureless face perfectly stationary as he stoically absorbed the emotions of his creations. They flowed into him, invigorating him and reinforcing the reality that he was, in fact, a god, not merely another living creature.


    This power... it feels divine. This is an incredible feeling. I must be worthy of these feelings. I must... mature. I must be divine.He realized, feeling for the first time, the addictive feeling of true, honestly gained and deserved worship of mortal beings.


    And as he did so he felt a small seed of responsibility be planted within his heart, a tiny seed of responsibility centered around these creatures, the ones whose devotion and admiration for their creator was empowering and feeding him.


    It reminded him of what he was once told."You gain power from your worshipers and servants."Samyaza once said that to Althos.


    It was the angel''s remark when Althos was an even younger deity, and he gained his first servant: the orcish brawler, Bazur. Ever since that moment, he hadn''t yet experienced a sudden and dynamic surge like that again, even when he turned the jackaloids, an entire tribe of the creatures, into his servants. Instead, he felt small bursts of energy flow into him, not raw, powerful emotions like this.


    He could physically see the emotions that surrounded him and suffused the air he breathed. They appeared like a thin vapor, perceptible to his eyes and his eyes alone, a kaleidoscopic burst of misty color.


    "So this is true, heartfelt worship?" He questioned, as he began to recover from the surge. "I wonder if gods got... addicted to this feeling?" He asked, distracted by his own thoughts which rendered his words odd and devoid of necessary context to his followers, the elf and dryads around him.


    He looked out at them and saw that they were mystified by his remarks.Oh... I should explain myself, I suppose.He thought after he saw the confusion on their faces.


    "I was remarking on how the emotions of you, and my other creations feel. You see, I can feel your reverence, your worship. It... seeps into me. It is unlike the other worship I have received." He told them, and once again they could somehow hear that their creator was smiling at them.


    "''Other worship'', creator?" One of the dryads asked, curiosity and... something else, seeping into her voice.Is that... envy, I hear?Althos asked himself, largely unfamiliar with the emotion but aware of its existence partially through what memories of the desert titan he had studied and lived through.This may require further study.He thought though the god didn''t hate that that may have been what the dryad felt.


    "Yes, little one. You are some of the youngest creatures in all of existence. There are other worlds, other places, far away. And I have explored... an unimaginably minuscule percentage of parts of those places. Those places have inhabitants. I have begun the process of making some of them my servants, my worshipers. Yet... your worship feels different. Stronger. Purer perhaps." He told tree-spirit. There was honesty in his voice, a distinctness and a directness that assured his listeners that he told the truth.


    "I see." She responded, though somehow there was something happy in her tone, something... satisfied. "I see?" But with a positive tone? Perhaps I navigated that... well. Or well enough.He thought, safe in the privacy of his mind.


    [Althos, your training ground is ready for you. Come to it whenever you feel ready to do so. In order to arrive, just focus on this image and visualize yourself there.] The system instructed, returning to him in force even though he hadn''t known that the smartest parts of it had even departed, while simultaneously transmitting an image of a nondescript plain. A truly plain, plain.


    Althos received the message and responded to it quickly. [You didn''t need any help?] He asked, his mental tone conveying a bit of disappointment. After that he mentally viewed the image that the message contained, opening it and memorizing it, before willing away the notification with a nearly unconscious thought, a sort of mental reflex.


    [Nope. This is a really simple process. What we needed was your permission. Even we cannot build in your realm unless you allow it.] Althos was told, by mental message seconds later. Mentally he nodded at the message, so as to signify acceptance of it and an acknowledgment of what it said. Then Althos refocused on his current surroundings. And on what he planned to go and do: discover his powers and begin to gain an understanding of them.


    He looked upward and stared at the canopies of the trees. As he did so, he thought something dramatic.What if I''m not the only one who discovers my powers?He wondered, smiling as he imagined all of his servants, both here and elsewhere, witnessing his might even as he discovered what he could do.


    How can I set about making the next few minutes an event that I undergo, and that my people witness?He asked himself, mulling it over for a few seconds before realizing something he often forgot.Oh, why do I keep acting like I''m all alone?He questioned, feeling rather foolish for a moment. He prepared and then sent out a message to his advisors, the system, and even Qu''Ren, figuring the witch might have useful advice for him.


    [Hey, is there a way for me to share what I''m about to do with those who worship me? I want to go and explore my powers. I want to gain an understanding of what I can do at the moment, and of my magic. And so I''ve created, or rather I had the system create, a place where I could test my powers. I''m about to head there now, but I think that using this to inspire those who follow me might invigorate them and in many cases show them I''m a real, living thing.] He said, wisely sharing his thoughts and the problem before him with his allies.


    [I want to show all of my worshipers, and my servants, my power. I want them to see me, and to see the abilities at my disposal. What I need help with is the "how" of going about this. Do you know of any magic or even any divine abilities that may allow me to do this?] He added, clarifying what his main concern was.


    He was met with silence for a few moments, silence from each of the figures he hoped would have an answer. A silence that continued until his handy mental assistant, the entity known as M.A. spoke up with a clever suggestion.


    [Althos, why not use your vision menu? It''s part of your religion menu, and normally it''s used just for oracles, like Drow and his family but deities can gift anyone with visions, especially if they are willing to make those visions into dreams, which are easier for many mortals to process.] M.A. told her master.


    [Mortals who can''t handle visions can be hurt by them. If you use dreams instead, you should be able to record your actions as part of a message you transmit to your servants and do so safely.] Althos'' ally told him, all while also transmitting the message to all of the other recipients as well, to ensure everyone knew that this question had been answered.


    Dreams huh... Okay. I can do that.He realized, grinning internally.A simple, elegant, and safe answer. Not bad, M.A.!He added, before he composed a message to her and the other recipients as well.


    [Thank you! That''s precisely the sort of answer I was hoping to get, without even fully realizing it.] He said, his mental voice now coming across as grateful and eager to those who heard it, a pleasant change from the oftentimes neutral or apathetic voice they heard when Althos'' mind spoke to theirs.


    And then Althos spoke to his worshipers who had gathered in the forest. His faceless head was still and seemed to point blankly ahead as his voice came out from within his core. As he did so he began to focus on thegeneric plain the system had shown him earlier.


    "I am going to demonstrate my power. When you sleep, when you dream, you will see a dream of my might. It will be no mere dream, but a display of my majesty. It will show you my power. My abilities. I hope it inspires you. I hope it reinforces your loyalty, your devotion, and your desire to know me." He said, not only to the creatures assembled before and around him, but once again to all of the creatures he had created to inhabit his dimension.


    His voice surged out of him, flowing in all directions and even into the skies above and the tunnels below the god. Once again all of his people heard his words. And as soon as he finished speaking, as soon as the word "me" escaped his odd form, he vanished. And in an instant, a mere nanosecond, he went from being surrounded by trees and his other creations, to being all alone in an unremarkable and safe to destroy plain.


    <hr>


    The place Althos found himself standing in, following his teleportation was uniform in all directions. The plain stretched farther than he could see, but there were no identifying features in any direction.


    The ground at his feet was a rather bland shade of brown, and there was a sun that shone in a cloudless, beautifully blue, sky above him. There were no lifeforms of any kind in any direction. He was as alone as he could be, given that he had still had the system, M.A., and Samyaza with him, and in a way inside of him.


    So this is my training ground huh?He asked himself, thankful for its barrenness, even if he wasn''t expecting it to be so utterly empty. [You did a good job with this.] He said, messaging the system. After a few seconds, none of the odd voices that sometimes accompanied the system''s textboxesresponded.


    I hope it doesn''t think I''m being sarcastic...He thought, almost worried for a second before the system spoke up. [We don''t. We just weren''t sure how to respond to that.] The thing told Althos, a reaction which caused him to smile.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    [Oh! Don''t worry about it. I get that.] He said, lying. He didn''t understand the thing''s reaction, but a small part of him, a quiet part with a better understanding of emotion, perhaps one that had seen and begun to understand the emotions in the memories of Mahmud, urged him to respond that way.


    Althos felt a small, alien sensation of gratitude well up within the part of his mind where voices from mental links came from, the part of him that was most intimately connected to other creatures.Is that... gratitude? From the system? Wow... could it be that I''m slowly understanding emotions better?He wondered, allowing himself a few moments to celebrate this small victory.


    And once nearly half a minute had passed, the creator of the dimension turned inward and opened his religion menu so that he could begin the process of creating the dream he sought to gift his followers.


    <hr>


    The secondary will found itself wandering alone in the city of desert giants, an ancient place named Namira. All around himself, the will was exposed to new things. And because of that, its thoughts were alight with notifications.


    The will was almost at the only stop it was going to make before it went towards the tower that contained the object of a quest it was undertaking: the liberation of a young angel from an enigmatic prison.


    Each of the giant steps Althos'' desert-giant disguise took led him closer and closer to a strange farm that was not only within a city but located inside of a city in the middle of a massive desert. The will was curious as to the sort of vegetation that could even grow in a farm in a desert-city since most of the plants it had come across in the desert weren''t plants that struck it as being good to eat.


    What sort of plants do these people eat? All the food I''ve seen, even according to my new knowledge powers are meat.The will noted, having made extensive use of its new abilities in the time since it had begun this new phase of its grander quest to corrupt souls in the desert.


    That said... some plants do grow here.Althos noted, sensing their presence nearby. He sensed them much like how the deity''s mind, currently preparing to practice its powers, could sense things.


    Althos, including his second will, could detect nearby plants thanks to his ever-active detection powers: the radar and tremor-sense. And in the wake of gaining his recently newer powers, the young god could also hear them. The plants whispered when he got close, their voices soft and difficult to focus on, but perceivable and receptive to his presence.


    The plants he saw, both in the wild desert and in the city itself were plants that were quite pretty and resilient. Cacti grew in the desert and in the city, including kinds without external spines, but the further Althos walked into the city, the more he saw a wider variety of plants like pleasant-smelling wild and domesticated flowers and aggressively thirsty desert reeds.


    The further he went into the city, the more people he saw. Both his radar and his tremor-sense began to come to life, sending him dozens of tiny, ignorable alerts with each step he took.So this city is one of those cities with more people in the interior than the exterior huh? The opposite of Undermoon.He thought, grinning as he smiled at children who stepped close to him and chuckling as their families would then grab them, pull them close, and sternly lecture them, chiding them for even casual interactions with adult strangers.


    And in time, after he had spent perhaps half an hour or so walking from his khan towards the tower, the black tower loomed even larger than before. And Althos made it to the outermost farm that was safely tucked within the city.


    The ground at his feet was no longer made of paved sandstone or worked rocks. The ground at his feet was sand, which to this particular aspect of Althos was a pleasant and comforting feeling, one he had grown accustomed too.


    What he saw when he looked out ahead of himself was a gigantic expanse made up of countless tilled fields. And between each field, there were tiny, controlled streams of water that ensured that the soil and sand were close enough to water for healthy crops to grow in them.


    Countless, possibly hundreds, of desert giants of every age and gender worked these fields. The scent of their sweat mixed with the scent of the water that they were close too, and the strange, cloying scent of the plants they were growing. These plants also reacted to Althos'' presence.


    "Whoa... who is that?" They whispered, their voices mellow and calm, even as Althos'' presence invigorated them and caused them to sense his proximity.What sort of plants are those?He wondered, as even the closest ones he could make out were nothing like any plants he had ever seen.


    The closest plants were themselves growing in the tiny, controlled streams of water that the giants relied on to keep their crops hydrated. They were gorgeous blue flowers, and on average the ones that grew in the streams Althos could see were about a bit larger than a human hand. They had thick petals that were blue on the outside and white on the inside, which protected fiery yellowfilaments and anthers.


    He quietly invoked one of his newest powers: the ability to appraise items, and targeted the plants.


    [New Plant Knowledge Alert: Blue Lotus.


    Blue Lotuses are a type of water lily. These beautiful plants are grown for a range of reasons, but there are two primary factors that drive agricultural creatures to plant them.


    The most prominent reason why desert giants in particular plant them is that they havepsychoactive effects and are a popular drug, among both desert giants and the few trading partners desert giants have, such as desert-dwelling humans, and travelers who come to this layer from other dimensions or layers of Infernius. When grown exclusively for the purpose of being used as a drug these plants can be consumed or otherwise used in a range of ways.


    Another reason why they are grown is that they are beautiful decorations or accessories, and many visitors to the desert are surprised to find them and eager to buy them. Desert giant artwork has included its usage in a range of ways throughout their history, in Infernius and beyond.


    The kinds found in Infernius are considerably darker than their extraplanar counterparts, and they are far more potent when used as a drug. This has led to a situation wherein they are grown far and wide throughout the city of Namira, though they are from the only sort of drug grown in the city of Namira.]


    Oh! Those gorgeous plants are... drugs?Althos learned, after having read the alert.What are... drugs?He paused, asking himself a valuable question.


    <hr>


    Althos'' latest usage of the religion menu brought him more knowledge. He spent a few moments sorting through the thing, reaching the visions sub-menu, and then selecting the dream menu. It was a simple thing, and it provided him with a number of different options to chose from. While he was using it, he vanished from the view of the dryads and restored his face, the face of his default human form, the one recognizable to Bazur, and the other orcs.


    The first moment he truly hesitated and thought for a second was when he was presented with a choice. A choice that involved who all would witness Althos'' demonstration of power.


    [Who all will witness this dream? And for extraplanar creatures is it acceptable for this to become an unintrusive vision instead?] The system asked him.


    [Unintrusive vision? Can I choose that option for mortals too?] He quickly responded, a split second passing wherein he hoped that he may yet get to just craft a vision instead of a dream. The menu shut him down quick though.


    [Nope! This option is only for extraplanars. You see, extraplanars don''t sleep. Or at least... incredibly few of them do. So gods used to send them visions. The reality is that if an extraplanar received a normal vision at an inopportune time it could be fatal. So eventually the system created this alternative to visions and dreams, which is a vision that activates only when the extraplanar can safely be temporarily indisposed. Due to the nature of mortal minds, there''s no way to create safe, unintrusive visions for them.] The menu politely informed Althos.


    [Damn. Okay, extraplanars can definitely view this in an unintrusive way. And as for your other question...] Althos was now faced with the question of what to say about this most important of questions.


    Who all should see this?He asked himself.Are there any benefits to making this something all of my servants and worshipers see? Obviously. That''s a dumb question. This, if it goes well, will reinforce viewers'' faith in me. Now... are there any downsides to the decision to show this to everyone? How could it go wrong?Althos'' thoughts were purposeful and careful.


    Have I made any servants or worshipers who might be frightened of power to the point of leaving my service?... No. I don''t think I have. So should I show this to everyone? I...He reflected on his life.


    He remembered the creatures he had met that weren''t his servants or worshipers.The goblins... the dark unicorn... the bears and the wolves... so many dark elves and even a few orcs. Not to mention the desert giants I''ve met who don''t know my true nature. What if this is enough to convince them to worship me? Many of them never saw my true power, those of them that met me only saw that I was a powerful creature.He realized, feeling a bit of ambition creep into his heart.


    If sending this to the creatures of the places I''ve been too and the creatures I''ve met who''ve yet to join me, drives them to me, it will be worth it. And if not, that''s fine. I can''t imagine that this would somehow hurt me.He reasoned, after contemplating possible impacts of the dream he was about to create, and possible effects it could have on mortal minds.


    [All of the mortals I''ve met, including animals and even desert giants will see this dream. And all of the dark elves of Undermoon as well. The purpose of this is to get people who are not yet in the fold into it by allowing my abilities to speak for themselves. And to showcase the fundamental truth that I am a god, one who possesses incredible power.] He told the menu, allowing himself to feel some nervousness as the menu accepted his choice.


    [Okay. From here on out, everything you do will be recorded. Once you''ve recorded what you wish to show mortals you can inform the menu with a thought, and then you''ll have the ability to edit the material you''ve recorded or even use divine energy to create whole new scenes. Good luck on your dream-crafting endeavors!] The menu said, teaching Althos the simplest version of how it worked.


    "Okay! Cool. Here we go." He said. And then he stood still. For one of the few times in his life, he felt nervous. "What... should I try out first?" He asked himself, experiencing an unpleasant feeling that mixed stage fright and general uncertainty into something toxic and halting.


    After a few moments passed, he took a deep breath and then hissed in annoyance.I can''t let... stage fright or whatever this feeling is, get in the way! I''m here to experiment with my powers, and I''m gonna do it.


    "I can do this!" He shouted, smacking his head with both of his palms to beat the nervousness away. And then he turned inward, recalling the wide diversity of powers he had made use of over the course of his short life.


    "I can do a lot. I can control the very earth at my feet." He told himself, feigning confidence as he recalled the first time he ever used magic. He unconsciously gathered magical energy in his hands and then he turned his hands so that the palms were facing the ground, and opened them. Magical energy poured out of his hand like sand, seeping into the ground at his feet, and the ground in front of him began to shake.


    "If you fight me on the ground, I control the battlefield." He said, and as the ground beneath his feet trembled because of his magical power the confidence with which he spoke was less feigned than it had been before. "But that''s far from the limit of my power." He told no one in particular.


    "Plants are my servants." He said, purposefully deepening his voice as he willed the earth beneath him to stop shaking. He dramatically flared his hand outward, opening it wide in front of him and willing a burst of divine energy out of him in a specific form.


    Vines exploded out of his hand, being conjured by magical energy, and bending to his whims thanks to his usage of divine energy to control their growth and direction thanks to his powers over the plant subdomain. "I can aim my floral children into the ground." He said, kneeling down and plunging a hand into the ground.


    A moment later vines and roots began to crack through the ground in front of him and surge forward, disturbing and pushing dirt away while leaving a trail of vines, roots, and even a few flower blossoms in their wake. He visually followed them for a few moments, before focusing once again on himself and speaking yet again.


    "Plants... the earth... even fungi follow me." He said, inhaling at the end of his statement, and then exhaling dramatically. Hundreds of nearly invisible, but faintly glowing spores flew out of his open mouth, tinting the air in front of him.


    He was still kneeling and so he gently placed his other hand on the ground. He willed the earth in front of him to become an explosive fungal bed, fungi emerging spontaneously and speedily, surging forward in a manner not unlike the plant vines did. The fungi grew, not content to remain tiny mushrooms. Instead they grew bigger and bigger, eventually shading their creator and shielding him from the sun.


    Althos quietly pulled his arms from the ground and the floor. And the god, trying to make this as dramatic as possible, closed his eyes. "Nature is my weapon." And he opened his eyes. They changed while he had closed them, becoming a new color and larger.


    His eyes were now pure red, deeply fiery orbs. "And nature is more than just the earth and plants. Nature is fire." He said, grinning as he felt flames well up within him. "Taste my... fire." He told those who''d view his dream, willing the heat and blaze that surged within him outward, out of his body and into this safe to destroy plain.


    The fires slipped past the confines of his physical form and as they surged out of him they surrounded him in a jade-colored egg of flame.That''s it... this is really neat!He thought, getting more and more excited with each display of his own powers.


    But for the most part... this has all been stuff I''m familiar with. Aside from the plant thing anyway.He thought, readying himself to begin to practice his more eerie and strange skills, especially ones he hadn''t used yet.And now... magic.He told himself, smiling as he did so.

 Chapter 93:

    "I am power incarnate. And not just due to my ability to control the elements around me." Althos said, intentionally lowering his voice so that it reverberated through anyone who''d witness the vision and dream he was creating, but so that it added to the impact of his upcoming display of arcane power.


    "I can change the world through magic alone." He told his future audience, willing away the jade-colored egg of flame and heat that surrounded and shielded him from view with but a reflex of his will. The flames were snuffed out as suddenly as they had leaped out of him, and in an instant, he was again visible.


    Ecomancy, here I come.Althos told himself, as he searched for a suitably dramatic ecomantic spell at his disposal. It took a matter of seconds for him to find a spell that was perfect for theatrics like this.


    [Spell type: Ecomantic


    Spell name: Create lava


    Description: Provided there are no anti-magic shields or effects on the area in question, ground in front of the spell''s caster is immediately transformed into a pool of lava. The affected area is a square that is around three meters long by three meters wide, and anything on top of the affected area immediately falls into the lava.


    Spell cost: 1,000 magical energy per cast.]


    Althos simply snapped his fingers and his potent magical energy surged out of him like a tsunami, flooded the ground in front of him, and ate it away in an instant. The shallowed ground was replaced with bubbling lava in the blink of an eye.


    Althos leaned down and dipped his hand into the lava, feeling its warmth wash over him and lap at his hand like he was sticking a stray finger into a hot-spring. "And this level of heat is nothing for me friends." He said, all while smiling at nothing more than empty air.


    "But we don''t want to get too hot now do we? Let''s bring down the temperature." He told his future audience, continuing to speak in his calm, deep voice, and using it to wash over anyone who''d listen to him.


    He willed a dark blue vapor into being with little more than an idle thought, the same sickly blue vapor he was fond of using to wipe away doubts and urge fanaticism towards him.


    And then he readied another ecomantic spell.


    [Spell type: Ecomantic


    Spell name: Conjure snowstorm


    Description: Conjures a snowstorm that affects an area up to a single kilometer wide. The snowstorm is not very intense, but it does cool down the temperature of its effective radius enough for the snow to linger the rest of the day.


    Spell cost: 3,000 magical energy per cast.]


    He rose his hand into the sky and a moment later a white flash shot upward into the sky. The clear blue sky was suddenly blocked from view by thick, blanket-like clouds. Seconds after that the spontaneously generated clouds began to exude thin snowflakes.


    Althos was still, his hand flared towards the sky.Next, let''s do some necromancy. Once the snow-flakes are within view I''ll practice the dark arts.He thought while he posed dramatically.


    He stood still until the first snowflakesbegan to leisurely float close enough that even mortal eyes would be able to perceive them in the distance. It took perhaps a minute or so before they slowly came close enough that he felt safe ignoring them. He softly grinned and drew his hand back to his side.


    Althos rose his other hand straight ahead of him, opening his hand and turning it so that it was opened upwards.Let''s start with a dark sphere.He calmly told himself, preparing to cast one of the first spells from the school he had gained. Shortly before he cast it, he received a nice notification that educated him as to the ample usages of the spell.


    [Spell type: Necromancy


    Spell name: Dark sphere


    Description: This simple but useful spell conjures a sphere of darkness equal in size to the amount of magical energy used when casting the spell. This sphere of darkness can be hurled at enemies or slammed into the ground or a wall and whatever it hits is shrouded in darkness.


    Darkness can be used in illusion magic, necromancy, and in a few advanced schools of magic. The sphere of darkness does not actually inflict harm on anyone unlucky enough to be hit by it, but it can blind them. Even extraplanar creatures can be blinded by this if they get hit directly by it, which is a rarity as usually such creatures are resistant to those conditions.


    The spell may not directly do harm but it is dangerous. One powerful way it can be used is that it can allow spellcasters to drain life from the very world, stealing nutrients, consuming roots, and absorbing water from the soil and even killing things that dwell underneath the world.


    It can also be used to control life that dwells underground, in soil, and in tunnels. Merely command the darkness and be ready to pay the magical cost.


    Spell cost: Varies


    Note #1: Spells like "Dark Spear", a powerful nightmare spell, require darkness.


    Note #2: When used against another person or living creature this spell is more effective if the sphere hits someone in the face with it. It engulfs whatever it hits, including people, in darkness.]


    A sphere of pure, inky darkness formed in the palm of his open hand. It wasn''t a particularly wide thing, nor was it impressively big. But it absorbed light greedily, hungrily even. Only Althos could see the sights that were obstructed by the orb.


    Thank goodness I don''t need light to see.He thought humorously, as his eyes effortlessly saw through the orb. The only view the orb obstructed was the view of the plain behind it.


    Althos chuckled and bounced the sphere in his hand a few times. The orb was a thin thing, tiny and bouncy, and it responded well to his playful interactions with it. It sailed out of his hand, reaching a height of a few dozen centimeters over his hand before lazily beginning to float back down to just above his open palm.


    Althos bounced the orb once more, tossing the thing into the air for the sixth time, and this time he didn''t catch it. He retracted his hand, and let it fall to the ground close to his feet. It sunk into the ground, passing into it with no resistance, and corrupting the ground at Althos'' feet.


    The deity took a few steps back as the ball''s darkness spread and drained the color from the earth itself.


    "Shadows and darkness give me power my children." He told those lucky creatures who''d get to witness this vision in the near future. His voice was sinister and sly, designed to sneak into the hearts of those who watched his display of eldritch mysticism.


    Feed me.Althos instructed what the darkness, his mind commanding the thing authoritatively. He felt the darkness begin to devour the magical plain at his feet, though at the time he instructed the orb to act he didn''t know that was how his orders would be followed and watched with a shocked expression as the darkness eroded away the surface he stood on.


    Energy surged into his mystical maw, causing him to feel stronger for a second even as he began to float because the darkness greedily devoured the magic that made the floor at his feet.


    Huh... well that was unexpected.He thought, his eyes widening a bit at the open-air underneath his feet.


    [Whoa! We weren''t expecting that. Althos the surface here is hollow and made of solidified magic. Because of that the darkness eating away at it wasn''t draining life, it was absorbing the magic that you stood on.] The system revealed, to an internally chuckling deity who floated carefreely above the new, tiny pit.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    [Oh. Well that can be fixed easily enough.] He responded, pouring his own energy back into the pit, and uttering a single command to the darkness.Cease.


    The darkness came to an abrupt stop the instant he began to mentally utter his second instruction to it.Fade.He told it, and before his eyes, the darkness dissipated, fading into nothingness. That is some power.He realized, acknowledging the might of the odd spell.


    I may need a chance to practice this magic soon. Gain true familiarity with it.He realized.But how? I can''t really use this school of magic alone, can I? I need... victims. Test subjects. How can I get them?He realized, grimly even as he practiced his abilities theatrically.


    But he quickly committed that question to the back of his mind rather than focusing on it.I''ve got more pressing tasks to attend too.He remembered.


    "Evocation''s next!" He shouted, and he instinctually opened his codex, one of his menus that contained all of the hundreds of spells at his disposal.


    The mental menu was a potent place, one filled to the brim with hundreds of spells. At the moment that Althos was flipping through its countless spells.


    The tome contained well over a thousand ways that mystical energy could be manipulated and countless descriptions of ways to use the limitless magical energy that made up the inner workings of the god so that he could bend reality.


    His mind eventually settled on a pair of evocation spells that he thought were suitably dramatic. One was a potent lightning spell. And the other was a mighty spell that struck foes with acid.


    This''ll be fun.The experimenting god thought, as he took a hand, pointed it at the ground, and willed lightning to shot out of his fingers.


    Five streams of blinding, electric, lightning flew out of his fingers and penetrated the ground underneath the floating god, the very same ground he had just recreated.


    The ground stayed strong in the face of his arcane onslaught, only being scarred by the superheated rays that Althos cruelly unleashed, instead of falling apart or cracking in the face of superheated, electrical, eldritch energy.


    "Well... that ground is surprisingly strong." The odd deity muttered under his breath after subjecting a small part of the plain to his experiments.


    "It won''t be for long though." He said, subtly casting the second spell he had settled on, but channeling it through his floating feet. The acid spawned just underneath Althos and was pulled by gravity onto the plain from the sky above it.


    The acid dripped onto the earth and produced a deep hissing noise. It immediately began to eat away at the arcane surface. This caused the dark deity who was enjoying experimenting with more of his magic to grin darkly. He began to speak shortly thereafter, this time relying on little more than instincts to guide his speech.


    "My powers are not just destructive. I am a god. And gods are beings of more than mere destruction. We are creatures of creation." He told his audience. He began his show of creation with a boom.


    The deity threw himself at the ground underneath him, and right as he landed on it he spontaneously shapeshifted. His form was transformed from that of his human body into something considerably more lupine.


    He took on a hybrid form, his clothing retracting into him and was speedily replaced by armorlike black fur that allowed him to take on a far more bestial appearance.


    His face shifted and contorted uncomfortably as his noise and mouth fused and stretched into a fierce, canine snout. His teeth quickly sharpened and elongated, becoming daggerlike fangs and destructive weapons in their own right.


    His chest broadened even as it was hidden from sight by the forest of fur that covered his body. His arms were enlarged by his transformation and his fingers and nails transformed into intimidating claws. Even his mind wasn''t spared from a transformation.


    These features... I am a living weapon. Will I ever get to use these claws, or my jaws on my enemies? I want them to bleed onto my claws, to plunge these limbs into their chests... Or even sink my teeth into their skin, injecting them with my spores, or my bestial instincts, and turn them into my whimpering servants.He thought, his mind swimming with images of savage violence.


    What am I thinking!? I need to get a grip.For a second the explosive nature of his transformation overwhelmed even him, allowing it to not so subtly infuse him with bestial bloodlust. But he quickly recovered, quieting the lust for violence that crept into his mind and tried to creep into his heart.


    His legs were not spared from the monstrosity of a transformation he was undergoing. They expanded, both stretching taller and wider, due to an increase in height he was going through and an explosion of muscle mass throughout his body.


    A thick, clublike tail of knotted fur sprang from his behind and began to swing idly behind him. The next thing he knew, his vision was partially taken up by an explanatory textbox.


    [New Divine Power Explanation: Predatory Pate.


    This is one of the minor powers that come with the animal subdomain. It affords those who gain it the mind of a predator, particularly when they are in the form of an animalistic hunter. Their instincts become keener, their thoughts more brutal, and their bodies more suited for violence. This power activates for the first time whenever a deity takes on the form of a predator.]


    Figures. Not a bad power though.Althos thought, idly dismissing the notification seconds after receiving it.That ought to help me fight it though. Knowing where it comes from helps make it easier to push down. This lust for brutality isn''t mine. it''s not a part of me, or at least it''s not an organic part of me... it''s just an eerie power.He thought, explaining away the savage influence of the power.


    "I can create new forms for myself." He explained, grinning animalistically at an audience that would soon view this strange transformation. "And I can create more than just that." And then the wolf-god began to ferociously howl, even as his shadow expanded and his newest creations began to pull their way out of it.


    The god''s howl was incredibly loud, a powerful noise that roused the stranger things he could create, who were forcing their way out of the darkness his muscular shadow created within the plane. While he made that noise he was creating numerous divinely crafted souls, and beginning to wonder what he could shape them into.


    I should create something... lupine. Just to keep this up, thematically. Do I know anything like that?He wondered. Fortunately, he was answered quickly enough by the system once again.


    [Hey Althos, create hell-hounds. Hellhounds are devilish beasts that you can create directly from souls, rather than creating a soul, forcing it to become an imp, and then promoting that, you can just create a hellhound.]


    [When you gained the first tier of influence over the animal subdomain they became a thing you could create so you can force yourself to gain knowledge about them, even before creating one. Plus they are massive lupines, so they fit with your current form thematically. To learn about them, just force yourself to gain a knowledge notification.] The system said, offering exactly what Althos was looking was for.


    [Oh hey, that''s perfect! Thank you!] Althos said, grateful to the mysterious voice that sometimes aided him in accomplishing his diverse goals.Now... give me that notification!He thought, focusing, demanding and willing it to happen, not half a minute after he thanked the system for its assistance.


    [Alert! New Species Knowledge Gained: Hellhound.


    Hellhounds are a type of Infernian predator, the realm''s own perfected and muscular version of the wild wolves that haunt the forests, plains, and frozen tundras of mortal worlds. Hellhounds mix the appearances of particularly potent wolves with Infernian traits.


    Hellhounds are sapient beings with a fierce devotion to hierarchies and order, who also happen to have the intimidating appearance of some of the most feared predators in many mortal worlds. They obey their alphas, often by serving as scouts, literal attack dogs, and rarely as prized pets.


    Hellhounds have keen senses that allow them to track prey across planes, they can fly by gaiting across the sky, they can breathe fire, and they can temporarily paralyze those whose eyes they look into.


    Hellhounds don''t evolve, but they can be mutated into some interesting creatures, including the shapeshifting intermediately-tiered fiends known as barghests.]


    Althos'' mind immediately received an image of one of the fiery, imposing creatures. The brutal, hellish thing was, to the wolfish Althos anyway, quite striking and regal. It had a thick, lionlike mane of flames and unholy energy, as well as razor-sharp fangs that promised an efficient but messy death to anyone unlucky enough to be on the receiving end of them.


    The canine warrior who was putting on a dramatic show for his followers and worshipers began the process of shaping a handful of the newly created souls, souls made for the express purpose of becoming lupine things of some sort into the hellish warriors and hunters he wanted to craft.


    His mind speedily withdrew from his body so as to focus on the difficult process that was shaping a soul. And the god kept howling all the while.


    The small part of his mind that was reservedly working on figuring out how to most effectively practice his twisted, necromantic abilities was beginning to suss out the most effective ways he could do that. At the moment he considered three possible routes.


    The first route was to help the orcs.I could do some scouting, find a nearby village or even just a group of people.


    And then I could inform the orcs of that village or those people. We''d attack, I''d gain some experience with collaborative battles, they''d get to know me.


    I''d take a few, or even just one, of the survivors with me. And then I''d experiment on them, maybe even rope in aid from my Mi-Gos.That option would work, but was also cruel and random, unless the orcs had an enemy of some sort to rally against.


    The second route was more purposeful but also disdainful in its own way.I could help Hagitha with the establishment of her cult. And together we could pick the cult''s first sacrifice.


    Once we know who we''re going after... it''s a simple matter to secure them. I''ve no doubt I could create something new and use it to secure whoever our target is. Afterwards I could experiment on them, until they are inches from death. And finally, I have one of her allies finish them off.Helping Hagitha was something Althos didn''t want to do, but it would ultimately push her to work harder and therefore increase his strength and necromantic powers.


    The last route was random and helped no one but Althos.I could go out on my own and wait until something attacks me. But with my influence over the animal domain that''s a lot of creatures that won''t go after me... which means it''d take long unless I just attacked something without provocation.


    Or I could turn some of Paimon''s minions into my toys. Which feels...needlessly violent without real cause and I don''t think it''s very real if I go to them for the sake of getting them to attack me.He realized, annoyed at how challenging this seemed to be.

 Chapter 94:

    For the first time since entering the training ground, Althos was no longer alone. Two figures crept out from behind him, as he began to wrap up his howling. They trotted out from behind him, each of the two them carried on four powerful, albino-furred legs.


    The two creatures were over three meters long and covered in dense, albino fur. They were around three meters tall, and to the uneducated eye, they probably looked more like gigantic bears than canine creatures. They walked on powerful legs, ending in knifelike claws, and their maws contained countless razor-sharp fangs.


    Their faces weren''t defined by their intimidating snouts or razor-sharp teeth. Instead, they were defined by their eyes. Their eyes were not conventional lupine eyes but rather orbs of fire situated where eyes ought to have been.


    Their eyes smoldered with intelligence, and at the moment they looked around their master, eager to be ordered by their creator.


    And the other defining feature of the hellhounds was the lion-like mane of felfire that grew from their faces. The fire was a sickly green color and burned brightly. One of the effects of the heat was that it caused the air around them to shimmer and almost sparkle blindly.


    Althos turned and looked at them, studying them closely, the instant he finished his howl. After a few moments, he began to be overtaken by a powerful sense of curiosity.


    These are powerful things. Are they the strongest creatures I''ve created to date? They very well might be, even if I''m thinking about all of this place''s inhabitants... I wonder how smart they can... Can they speak?Althos'' last question lingered in his mind before he decided to find out.


    And then he uttered a single word. "Speak." His voice flowed out of him, reverberating throughout the plains and compelling the already eager creatures to obey him.


    <hr>


    Althos'' primary will, the same body that sprung to life deep within the forest in Sailos, appeared to be either sleeping or in deep, contemplative meditation, as it explored Qu''Ren''s memories.


    The thing was seated on the floor in the same room he happened to find Malefactor and Heryensis in the middle of some pleasant fucking. They were long gone from the room, having gone elsewhere after having a brief conversation with the strange rebellion leader. Now the god was alone and his eyes were closed.


    His breathing was slowed, his countenance serene, and his mind was calm. The eerie creature gently radiated an aura of powerful calmness, one that would have infected anyone who tried to approach him, had anyone done such a thing. No one did, since the cathedral he was inside of was now closely guarded by fanatical soldiers and other infernal leaders.


    The entrance to the obsidian building was closely guarded by two phalanx devils. They were silently obeying an order given to them by Tristan, who had ordered them to stand outside of the religious building once she learned that Althos was mediating inside of the room that often served as her bed-room and headquarters.


    She herself was presently one of several people in the cathedral''s nave. She, her father, the imps, and the pious devils were all scattered about the darkened focal point of the cathedral. Each of the groups were seated in or around a pew that was located away from the others.


    The knight-devil, Sir Casis Outborn, was located right outside of the sacristy, idly protecting his master. He stood still, glowering intimidatingly at anyone who dared to look in the direction of the back office of the religious building.


    So this is what having people here feels like...Tristan thought, grinning as she stared out at the creatures around her and maintaining a grin on her face even as she nearly attracted another annoyed stared from Althos'' self-appointed protector.


    She could hear snippets of conversations all around her. She heard the plotting of pious devils, Salifinos struggling to teach a gradually growing gaggle of imps, and even the occasional mutterings of her father as he quietly commented on whatever Salifinos was lecturing his young proteges about.


    "I see." The moth-devil, a refined nobleman with the eyes of a powerful moth and clad in the torn livery of a nearly fallen order, muttered quietly. He was listening carefully to Salifinos as the imp told the younger imps about the history of the layer. The noble-devil was listening as intently and as passionately as the devils who had been created by Althos'' potent devil-craft were.


    The pious devils were muttering about the state of the cathedral. Their eyes zoomed from dark corners to dark corner and their words weren''t always kind ones.


    "Is this place a fit monument to our dark liege?" One of them, a nun clad in clothes not unlike Tristan''s own, asked. Her tone was sincere, not scathing, which made it hard for Tristan to be annoyed by the casual meanness of her question. Hard, but not impossible.


    Well... it''s been maintained by one person for decades so, probably not.Tristian thought to herself, somewhat annoyed by how her peers quietly questioned the state of the place instead of being grateful that such a place still existed in a layer of Infernius lorded over by a devil hostile to prophesy.


    There are ups and downs to there being a lot of people here.Tristan realized, sighing as she began to look around for something to do.


    And she was given something to do, by an unexpected source: the second dark saint, Althos himself.


    <hr>


    "We serve... the alpha." One of them said, speaking in haunting Infernian.


    The alpha huh? So these ones know me by my mercurial alpha title? Is that the title all beasts know me by? I wish I had a better one if I''m being honest...Althos thought, after hearing the thing speak.


    Its voice was low and each word was little more than a growl, but the mere visual power of the massive beast, coupled with it speaking at all was something that Althos felt would send a good message. Each time the thing''s mouth opened some smoke leaked out of its maw, obscuring the sight of its teeth and its face.


    Althos smiled after it spoke, patting the thing with one of his fur-covered paws and then began to speak himself.


    "I can create as easily as I can destroy. Power, in my case anyway, isn''t limited to acts of destruction, or shows of force. I am a god; a being of power. And my goals are simple." He said, his voice confident and self-assured.


    "I seek knowledge. And I will gain it. I will gain all the knowledge that ever has been and ever will be. I will learn everything. One memory, one secret, one spell, and one ritual, at a time. Today, right now, I am committing to building an empire." He told his future listeners. He grinned as he said this.


    "I will become an archdevil, a true one, and seize control of Infernius. And I will take the mortal dimension. Orcs and dark elves in one world already serve me. Others will come, in time. It may take a year. A decade. A century. An eon. But I will do it." He said, arrogance radiating out of him in a manner not unlike how he often emitted waves of power, even idly.


    "There will be no tiny sliver of the multiverse where I am not known. No distant world where my name isn''t uttered in praise." He said, imagining the scene himself, bolstered by memories of the moment when he gained his first worshipers and his servants.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    How much of this is a show, a lie to gain worshipers? And how much of it is my true, dark, pride?He wondered, in the safety of his mind.


    And then he revealed a secondary, yet no less important, in the long run anyway, goal.


    "I will master every domain and subdomain in existence. I will gain the power to reshape existence as I see fit. Whether I manifest this by resurrecting creatures, shattering silly curses petty gods subjected their servants too, I will gain the power to reshape everything as I wish." He said, feeling the potent pride of a god well up within him.


    "I am power incarnate and I will not be limited. I will not be denied. Not forever anyway. But I am not without kindness." He said, beginning to attempt to assure those who wondered if he was pitiless.


    "I will not harm those who come to me, those who recognize my power. I won''t even go out of my way to harm those who cling to their pride, those who see me not as the embodiment of power but as a dangerous, possibly mad, entity unless they attempt to harm me or my servants." He said, confidence audible in his voice.


    He looked straight ahead and began to call out to the mystical energy that flowed through him. He sung to it, drawing it to two specific parts of his body. And in moments he felt it well up in his hands, the concentrated eldritch energy electrifying the air around him.


    And then he wordlessly flipped his hands so his palms faced the sky. And he cast one more spell. Dark energy began to radiate out of his hands, turning the air in front of him a miasmic shade of black. And that energy took hold nearly instantly, acting fast in accordance with his worshipers.


    The ground in front of him exploded, dirt violently sailing upward as rows of zombies punched their ways through the illusionary surface. The moans of the dead filled the air, as shambling corpses began to pull themselves out of the ground and into the presence of their lord.


    "I will master all that there is. Including death. Death will not provide anyone who opposes me with an escape, and it will not be an obstacle my servants need fear." He said as the first head of the fastest zombie began to peak out from the surface of the plain. The thing was bald, and its eyes were white orbs, as cold as death.


    "Serve... me." Althos commanded, his voice not directed towards the undead he had just called forth from nothing, but rather at anyone who would witness this vision.


    "You will worship me." He said, not asking, but demanding. At that moment the god was filled with arrogance and with power.


    "And together, we shall create something new." He said as he willed assorted fungi into existence in front of him.


    "I shall rule. And if you worship me, if you serve me, you will not need to fear death. Or pain. Or suffering. You will be the heralds of those things." He whispered as he loaded the vision with potent illusions, weaving together scenes of conquest, of domination, and of ambition into the mystical effect he was imparting on the vision.


    I will speak the language of the ambitious. Of those who seek power. And I shall make them dependent on me. Make them feel powerful.He told himself, grinning internally all the while.


    "If you serve me, whole worlds becoming yours isn''t out of the question. After all, I can seek knowledge and you seek power. I care little for individual worlds. If you serve me well, convert people, animals, and all other living things to my service, you will be rewarded."He promised his most arrogant servants, those who saw themselves as grandiose and tyrannical. He loaded his words with arcane weight and eldritch oaths.


    He began to end the vision, at least this sort of directly captured part of it anyway, by sweeping his arms in front of him and willing plants and other lifeforms into existence with little more than instinct. Humans were created next to trees, flowers sprung up beside dwarves, animals and trees sprung to life.


    "I am a god. This power and more are at my disposal. If you join me, if you dedicate yourselves to me, this is the power that you are serving. That you are joining." He said as the eyes of his newest creations, all soulless automatons, weak things that he created for show, opened at once.


    Their eyes gave them a purposeful, intense stare.They look... confident. Self-assured.Althos realized, after staring at them for a moment.Why is that?He wondered.


    All of the things looked at him, their stare fixated on him, and then they fell to their knees before him. They bowed their heads, respectfully, and fell further still until they were prostrating themselves.


    Oh! They are... submitting to me?He realized, curiously.Why is that? Is it that they are automatons and recognize me as their master?He questioned.


    "Hey... what''s up with this?" He shouted, and spoke mentally, reaching out to the system and to his advisors. He also took a second to inform the system that he was done recording scenes for the dream and vision he wanted to create.


    [You made constructs. And because I know you''re going to ask, a construct is a created creature that exists to obey its maker. What you created were humans and other creatures, but they lack a soul. Because they lack a soul, they lack the same sort of free will that you and your other creations have. They are basically flesh-puppets. Use them for labor or something.] Samyaza responded, quickly informing Althos as to what he did.


    [Oh! Cool. I didn''t know I could do that.] He said. And then he teleported the things away, blinking all of the creatures to Infernius.


    [It''s basically the usage of your original reconstitution power but since you have a more powerful mind you can mimic its effects without the limitations that that particular power had. You weren''t intending to make constructs which is probably by you didn''t get a notification or anything for making them the weird things that they are.] Samyaza responded, at this point quite used to shocking growth spurts when it came to Althos'' power, so the angel was fairly unfazed by this new development.


    Althos, for his part in all of this, was preparing a message for one of his servants: the half-devil Tristan Devil-Kiss. It was a simple message, just to make sure she understood why a bunch of barely alive things showed up in their settlement.


    [Hey, I can create... we''ll call them flesh puppets. Use them for labor. I''ll tell them to obey you.] Althos said, followed by immediately mentally linking himself and Tristan to all of the dozen or so odd, barely animate humanoids and animals he had created.


    Althos finally felt satisfied with what materials he had gathered. And so the deity began the curious process of tapping a few menus. By the time he stopped he had informed the visions portion of the religion menu that he was, for now anyway, finished gathering scenes for the vision and dream he was going to put together.


    And now I can reflect on the skills I practiced, the knowledge I gained, and even what I want.He told himself while doing his best to get into the necessary headspace for a successful period of introspection, the sort he had hoped to do more regularly after reflecting on the encounter he had had with Mahmud.


    I should really think about how much that stuff I said, in the height of the moment, about building an empire.He thought, ready for some eye-opening introspection.And about how to do that.He realized, almost laughing as he figured that he didn''t have the slightest clue about how to build an empire.


    <hr>


    The blue lotus field stretched on for a considerable distance. Althos suspected that it went on for over an entire kilometer.


    Countless blue lotuses bloomed in the water, their buds open for a sun that would never come.It''s weird that these things have open buds. This massive field is directly underneath the black tower. Shouldn''t the buds only be open if there''s nearby sunlight to feed off?


    As he noticed this, Althos tilted his head upward. He could see the thing: the massive black tower that cast a deep, haunting shadow on the fields, directly overhead.


    This close to it, his current closeness infinitely higher than when he wasoutside of the city, he could see that the tower was actually tilted.It looks... like its unbalanced.He realized.What even is it?He wondered, before deciding to take the initiative and investigate the thing himself.I''ll just appraise it.He thought, deciding not to waste another second.


    He broadcasted powerful thoughts to the system, centered around the tower, and asked for assistance via an appraisal. Seconds later he got a rather surprising one.


    [New Knowledge Alert: Multi-Use Building: The Onyx Obelisk


    This place is a dungeon, a prison, and a barrier maintenance facility all in one. This prison is maintained by the forces of the sinister, fraudulent overlord of the city of Bastille, the true-devil named Paimon.


    It houses enemies that if left in Bastille would be dangerous, pro-chaos and pro-goodness creatures. Creatures like angels, demons, and potent humanoids are imprisoned here, trapped in a range of oddly constructed yet undeniably useful prison cells.


    The obelisk has a dungeon heart. It is a living, breathing place that is currently controlled by someone who has hidden their name using the barrier that is the most important function of the city.


    The city of Namira''s fortune comes from a potent barrier that is kept up to date, healthy, and stable, through this dungeon. At the top of the obelisk, magical energy is woven and projected outward to ensure that the city''s crops grow healthy and strong without a sun present to aid in photosynthesis.


    Without the barrier, or a powerful alternative to it, the city of Namira would lose a major source of food and of wealth.]

 Chapter 95:

    Althos read and then promptly willed away the notification, all while maintaining a pace that he hoped looked casual but was focused on speediness.This must be part of how this city is kept safe. One of the rulers, possibly Mahmud, must have struck a deal with Paimon.He thought, reflecting on the varied uses of the massive tower, including as a prison, that loomed overhead.


    He sped through the field, spurred on by the new knowledge he had gained, coupled with his awareness that he was closing in on the farmland of the giant who prayed to him. He walked just a bit faster than the fastest person he could see.


    That person was a desert giant in the distance, who was walking while peering out at the fields with an inquisitive gaze. After a few moments of tentative exploration mixed with a healthy number of studious gazes, he began to mutter to himself.


    "This whole area..." He said, exasperation audible in his voice. Althos could hear him clearly and listened intently even as he walked in another direction, away from the exhausted giant.


    "Why are none of our ponds producing as much as they did last year?" The giant asked himself, sounding rather exhausted with the whole thing.


    So it''s not just Berk''s family? How... suspicious.Althos thought, even as he sped down the centralized path leading in and out of the massive drug-fields.


    I guess I can investigate the whole obelisk... though for now that may not be the right move. Or even necessary.The deity told himself, cautious about this development given the string of strange events in the city.


    After thinking about that, Althos continued forward. He rushed just a bit faster now, curious to uncover the truth behind the assorted mysteries that were afflicting the city.


    As he walked away from the frustrated desert giant, he began to make out a pair of small buildings that were off in the distance. They were small things, perhaps storage facilities or administration buildings for the fields, and the sight of them marked a notable change from the fields Althos was quickly grew tired of.


    Those buildings stood out because they were the only buildings that were visible unless he turned around. He was naturally approaching them just by walking in the direction he had chosen to travel in and so he trotted along, approaching them with every step.


    [The first prayer you''re seeking to fulfill was made by someone who lives beyond those buildings. In a tiny farm, you''ll be able to see shortly after walking past them.]The system alerted him, causing the mobile god to grin in delight. He proceeded towards the buildings, excited to see what laid beyond them.


    <hr>


    In less than ten minutes Althos'' speedy pace got him close enough to the buildings for him to begin to make more sense of them.


    During the trek towards the buildings, discoveries were made by the odd god. The first of which was that these buildings had multiple entrances. They were square-shaped buildings and each side of both buildings possessed a single entrance.


    Those entrances were at first only known to Althos because he could see creatures entering and exiting the black box-like buildings. It was when he had walked for five minutes that he began to make out the rectangles that opened and closed without so much as a peep whenever a giant approached, the entrances and exits of the buildings.


    They were precisely cut, neatly arranged in the center of each side of the buildings, and even when Althos drew nearer to the buildings he couldn''t see what laid beyond them.Magic. Just like with Qut.He suspected, recalling how early on in his life, his senses had been obstructed by a barrier, a barrier which even his vision wasn''t able to truly see-through.


    Another discovery came soon after. At this point Althos was within two minutes of walking beyond the buildings and had been waiting for a pair of particular giants, ones who had entered one of the buildings a minute ago, to exit it.


    Much to his surprise, the giants did exit the buildings. But they came out of the one that they hadn''t entered. Althos, watching this, began to think through possible reasons for it:Is it magic? It''s probably magic, but it could be that the buildings extend underground and are connected that way...He realized, at the perfect time for him to get close enough for tremor-sense to reveal the truth to him.


    His steps, not on the sand like in the desert, but on a paved road leading in and out of the gigantic farmlands, educated him as to the nature of this particular mystery. Soon enough he felt a familiar sensation: the mental waves he regularly unleashed in all directions around him whenever he stepped close enough to a creature to sense it exploded out of his mind and subtly touched new creatures, immediately informing him of their proximity.


    His mini-map was updated and revealed numerous giants lurking underneath the road, traveling to areas under the buildings, always in the same straight line. Assuming Althos kept walking straight, soon enough he''d reach an area where he''d be directly on top of them, something which he was fine with since he knew they were underground.


    <hr>


    It took the deity another five minutes for him to get just beyond the buildings. Once they were behind him he stopped for a second and examined his surroundings.


    His enhanced senses and potent detection abilities did the bulk of the work necessary for him to understand the gist of what he needed to know. Because of his two powerful detection abilities, he could sense beings that approached him from any direction and had a powerful three hundred and sixty degrees of vision, rendering him difficult to surprise. That said he actually looked around to get a true understanding of where he was.


    The place he stood in was a thin square that separated the massive communal fields from nearby, thin, privately owned fields that appeared to be attached to nearby homes, tall buildings with multiple floors that Althos'' powers alerted him were populated with a number of desert giants. Althos'' sense of smell was assailed by a range of scents, due to a healthy mixture of drugs growing here as well as being produced here.


    A few of the homes Althos could see not far from where he stood had thick chimnies coming out of them. Dense clouds of white, speedy smoke billowed out of them, and those chimnies were also the origin-points of the assorted, possibly mind-alerting scents that filled the strange square.


    The young god himself would learn this after requesting knowledge notifications on the nearby plants. He didn''t have to wait long for a notification from the system to inform him as to the nature of the plants he could sense


    [New Plant Knowledge Alerts: Papaver somniferum, Cannabis sativa, Ephedra Sinica]


    Drugs. A lot of drugs.Althos realized, shortly after reading through the trio notifications piled into one single, lengthy notification.


    Do these giants grow food?He wondered, before opting instead to ask that to one of the giants who was nearby.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    Althos stood square in the center of a square. He was far from the only person either in the square or who stood in it, taking in the sights and smells of the district''s central square.


    All around him were other giants, some working near their homes or the homes of their employers, others who were merely traveling through the square on their way to some other part of the city. And there were a few nearby giants who like him were still, taking in the sights and smells of this part of the city.


    Althos turned and looked at one of the ones who was still, probably distracted taking in the odd sights before him. He was a giant of average height, perhaps 4 meters tall, and he seemed content and mellow where he was, breathing in the potent smell of a number of different drug production facilities being so close to each other. Althos didn''t study him extensively at that moment instead he approached the man while continuing to look around.


    The inquisitive god inched closer to the mellow giant and whistled to get the man''s attention. It didn''t work. The giant wore clothes that were reasonable for traveling in the hot desert, an open shirt and light-colored pants, not unlike Althos'' own outfit.


    As Althos drew nearer to him to try and engage with him again, he was able to smell the man over the powerful scent that polluted the square''s air and wasn''t particularly surprised at what he realized. The giant smelled of a powerful scent that mixed the smell of mint and of a fresh pine forest. He couldn''t identify which specific drug the man had used without using his powers on the giant, but the smell was vaguely similar to the scent pouring out of one of the chimnies.


    He had a handsome, but currently slack face. The expression on that face was one of impressed awe, but his eyes were glazed and nonresponsive.


    So "drugs" can make someone... less responsive?He hypothesized, after nearing the giant and waiting for the man to respond to his sudden closeness. While he waited for the man to react to him, he got a message from M.A.


    [Well... yes and no. Drugs can do a lot of things. Drugs can be used to heal mortals and their kin, or they can be used to harm them. Some drugs have mind-altering effects, others can cause their bodies to heal quicker. The sorts of drugs these giants are growing are all mind-altering ones that cause a variety of physiological effects on those who consume or otherwise use them. Some of those effects, but not all of them are harmful.]She informed the desert-dweller.


    Althos sent her a response that was the mental version of him respectfully nodding at her and at that same instant the giant Althos was waiting for began to stir. The giant looked up, his facial expression changing gradually from one of awe to one of moderate confusion. And then he tilted his head towards the deity disguised as a giant.I guess I can talk to him now?Althos wondered, before opening his mouth to speak.


    "Hey, are you also a newcomer to this city?" Althos asked, now taking some time to study the giant. The giant listened, but his eyes remained glazed and it took him a second to begin to open his mouth. The scene Althos was watching was like watching someone mock a sloth by speaking in slow motion but without any humor.


    Althos waited, albeit impatiently, as the giant opened his mouth and began to mutter sounds. The young god got to see the giants imperfect teeth, and his long yellow tongue, in the time it took for the giant to begin to speak.


    "He...llo. I am... Taruk. Yes... I am... new to this... city." The giant responded, over the course of nearly an entire minute.


    "Hello Taruk. I am Quinn. I''m also new here. It''s nice to meet you!" Althos said, introducing himself using his pseudonym. Taruk nodded in response, still slowed down.


    "It''s... nice... to me...et you too. I apolo...gize for... my... difficulty... speaking." The giant told Althos.


    Oh no did my impatience appear on my face? Yikes. Let me do something to make slight amends for that.He told himself, mistakenly thinking that the giant must have apologized because of a detected hint of impatience.


    Althos scoured his healing spells and it took him just a second to find the perfect spell: Clean Slate.


    Wordlessly and without any odd hand-motions, Althos activated the spell and aimed it at his new acquaintance. The spell washed over the giant, invisibly and nearly imperceptibly doing so. The giant felt little more than a refreshing breeze blow over him, and in an instant, the man''s full awareness began to speedily return to him, though it took him a second to feel his buzz begin to fade.


    The deity began to speak to allow Taruk a second to truly regain his full awareness. "Hey, don''t apologize. It''s okay to need a second to adjust. I was just wondering if you knew if all of these farms just grow drugs? I''m from far away, and this is my very first visit to Namira." Althos asked, grinning by the time he finished speaking.


    After hearing this, Taruk smiled. The few seconds Althos was speaking were enough for the giant''s senses to adjust to their new, corrected reality, even if he wasn''t aware of exactly what had happened. He opened his mouth to speak, revealing thick and misshapen teeth.


    "Why yes my friend! I''m a newcomer here too, but even I know that. You must be from really far away, perhaps a mine, if you arrived here without knowing of Namira''s somewhat infamous drug-fields." The giant said,braggadociously. "You see, what Namira offers the other... less friendly inhabitants of the desert are little things that make them more friendly." The giant explained, educating Althos even while gently mocking the fake-giant for his ignorance.


    Althos chuckled at the giant and began to speak up to clarify his origins. "I''m not from a mine, I''m from an outpost. One... very far away." He explained, grinning freely at the giant.


    "Well... regardless of your origin story, I thank you for... whatever you did. My head feels far more clear than it has in days." Taruk told him, smiling softly at his newfound friend. His eyes were a soft green color and they were filled with genuine happiness. "Perhaps you''d like to meet my friend Berk?" The giant asked.


    Are you kidding me? Is it really that easy?Althos asked himself, nearly inadvertently displaying his inward shock outward. The deity managed to control himself enough to speak and had even opened his mouth to talk right before Taruk continued speaking.


    "I was supposed to meet her today but I got... distracted." The giant explained, somewhat sheepishly. This gave Althos pause. The giant was quietly poking fun at himself, in his own way, but Althos didn''t notice it right away because of something odd that Taruk had just said.


    Her?He wondered, having believed that Berk, the prayer-giver was a male desert giant. Althos looked at his new pal and began to speak.


    "What does she do?" The fake-giant asked, curiously, and slipping in thatsherather seamlessly despite his shock at the realization that this particular person might share a name with the person who prayed to the cosmos but may not be that person. Taruk''s eyes narrowed and his gaze intensified after Althos asked him that. It caught the deity off-guard, but again he hid his surprise well.


    If this Berk person is a farmer or the children of farmers than it might be worth going with Taruk. He might just lead me to who I''ve been looking for.Althos realized, readying himself for a bit of an unexpected surprise either way.


    Taruk looked him up and down, appraising him for a moment. There was a previously hidden sharpness in his stare, that the giant hadn''t had before, and he spent several moments studying Althos before opting to speak. "You helped me sober up so I''ll pay one kindness with another: there''s a rumor that Berk is the daughter of..." Taruk spoke softly now, his voice low and Althos could have sworn he heard a sweet note of fear in the giant''s voice.


    "I... I heard that Berk is the daughter of hags. That she''s the child of nobility and a hag. We met at a get-together and she took a liking to me, because I give her some of my... happy powder, but she''s got some real powers. Magical ones!" The giant said, his eyes filling with a bit of genuine fear, even as he almost whispered the words he had just said.


    The child of a hag and nobility? I don''t know what a hag is, but if this person is a noble''s child... than it''s possible that this specific Berk might be one of the ambitious people I need to identify for my quest.Althos thought, in the wake of hearing about this other person, also named Berk.


    But for now, I should stay focused on what I know. On who I know needs help at the moment. It doesn''t sound like this is Berk needs anything urgent. I need to not lose focus on none-time-sensitive things.He thought, remembering what drove him out to this part of the city in the first place. He looked at his new acquaintance and shook his head.


    "I''m sorry Taruk but I can''t join you. Not this time anyway. I''ve got my own tasks to do. But let''s meet up later." Althos told the drug-dealer, smiling gently at him, before stealthily establishing a mental connection with the man.


    "I''ve got... a feeling we''ll find each other again." He added, chuckling knowingly. Taruk studied him again, his eyes filling with a strange emotion, perhaps some sort of extrasensory awareness, before he chuckled himself and nodded back at the fake-giant.


    "We''ll see Quinn. That said... I won''t forget that you... were here while my head cleared. I appreciate the company." The giant told him, smirking more at himself than at Althos. Althos nodded at the man, and then Althos turned to keep on walking towards the base of the black tower, and the farm owned by the family of Berk, the male desert giant.

 Chapter 96:

    A desert giant stood over a patch of parched farmland, sickle in hand, a look of determination etched onto his bronze face. He held the iron instrument carefully and stared out at the tilled dirt in front of him. He watched it like a hawk waiting for a sign of weakness. Though in his case what he was, was a farmer who was waiting for a sign of movement.


    "Come on... come on! Why won''t you grow?" He asked, frustration audible in his voice. The dirt in front of him contained seeds and even a few crops that were starting to get tantalizing, teasingly close to blooming.


    "It just takes time." A voice from behind him shouted out. The voice belonged to his mother, a sweet woman who apparently was a firm believer that what the family was out of wasn''t money, but patience. It was possible the elderly giant recognized the reality that they lacked both, but if she did she had yet to make that clear.


    "You know... you could be onto something," Her son responded, not bothering to turn around. "But the problem is... time is one of many things we don''t have. Like money. Or food." He quipped, almost chuckling at the wittiness of his one-liner, before his stomach quietly rumbled, complaining that his remark hit too close to home for it to provide any real comfort.


    Behind him, his mother quietly sighed. She was seated and watched her son idly from the luxury and comfort of a simple but comfy chair seated on their back porch. "Have you ever considered that maybe you just have... an abundance of energy?" She asked, stopping mid-sentence to think of a polite way to word her question.


    Her son had always been the overactive sort, and though she had mistakenly believed that it would only last as long as he was a child, now that he was a man he still clung to the restless energy of his youth.


    Berk was a tall man, standing over 5 meters when he was being polite and standing upright. He had deeply tanned bronze skin. At the moment he wore no shirt, his dense muscles that arose naturally as a consequence of years working as one of the city''s trained guardsmen, plainly visible.


    He held a sickle in a well-trained hand and seemed ready to use it. He exuded a sort of confidence ambiently that gave those who beheld him the impression that he sought to use the sickle for its intended purpose, but was also ready to use it in self-defense if it came to that.


    "Mother... you aren''t wrong. I''ll admit that. But still. What we''re missing is... it''s a lot more than mere patience!" He said, begrudgingly acknowledging that her remark wasn''t incorrect, even if it was an attempt to cover what he felt was a fundamental reality they needed to face.


    From behind him, under the shade of a covered porch, Berk''s mother smiled. Her ruby-red lips once got her attention, favors, and gifts, from the men of her part of town. At this point, a small part of her was considering whether or not she ought to see if she could still get those gifts.


    Berk''s mother was shorter than he was. She stood just over four meters tall. Her own skin was far fairer than her son''s, due not only to her tendency to stay indoors but to her strict adherence to cultural norms about desert giants.


    She was clad in heavy clothes, robes which prevented men from laying their eyes upon her bare flesh. Her face was visible, but not much else was. Her clothing was made from light material, but because there was so much of it it was difficult for her to be truly comfortable in the outfit. She was a gentle giantess, and she relied on patience, charm, wit, and subtlety to get her way.


    Her son had a far more commanding presence than she did, though she had a far more gentle appearance and attitude than her son, who very much embodied the heat and energy of a desert sandstorm, while she embodied the calmness of a plain of sand. The two of them studied the field they owned, examining it for any signs of crop growth.


    They were quickly disappointed to find that the field was as barren as it had been yesterday. And because of their studious examination of the field they didn''t realize that they were being watched.


    Off in the distance, a creature was watching them as intently as they were watching their field. The thing looked like one of them, a member of the same species, but it wasn''t. It was wearing a magically crafted disguise, one that it wore to infiltrate their society and to usurp it, in the name of an eerie trial.


    Althos stared at them, keenly aware that at last, he had found Berk, the same desert giant who had prayed for intercession, for salvation from debt and possibly starvation.


    <hr>


    Much to his surprise, it took the speedy giant a mere five minutes of waiting after he departed from the company of Taruk to reach the first of his two destinations.


    He reached a place from which he could safely spy on the narrow plot of farmland and the tiny familial home owned by Berk''s family with just a few minutes of leisurely strolling through the area just beyond the storage buildings. And once he was in his spot, he didn''t even bother to activate any sort of invisibility or natural camouflage.


    I''m far from them. If they could see me at this distance I doubt they''d have any particular way of knowing that I am responsible for their change of fortune. He thought to himself, not yet wanting to reveal his role in what was about to transpire.


    If I''m careful this could give me a safe way of seeing how these giants react to magic, miracles, or anything supernatural. I''m cool with them learning about me, I just want to be sure that they don''t react with hostility towards my magic. So far I haven''t yet seen any spell-casters or magic aside from the Oynx Obelisk. This is just a fun exercise. He mused, opting to play things slow and cautious before revealing himself in his full glory.


    As he peered at the field and the familial home, he made liberal usage of his identify power to learn the identities of the two giants he could see.


    One of the giants was further away. He was a tall giant, standing around five meters tall. He had a warrior''s build, with dense abdominal muscles, and was shirtless. He held a sort of tool Althos had never seen before in one of his hands. The tool was the target of a single usage of appraisal.


    [New item knowledge alert: Sickle.


    Sickles are farming tools with semicircular blades that are used to aid in cutting grain, lopping, trimming, or in worst-case scenarios self-defense.


    These tools were some of the first designed by humans and other agriculturally inclined humanoid races. They have a long and storied history that transcends universes, dimensions, and races.]


    Oh! That''s neat. Althos mused, mildly entertained by the new knowledge. And then he began to study the familial field, his eyes potent enough for him to see the thing, even nearly a hundred meters away from it.


    Althos, like a good druid, carefully studied the field. He saw rows of soil, and each row contained a not inconsiderable amount of dense, golden sand. That''s not great. He realized, his connection to plants filling his unconsciousness with an instinctual understanding that what he saw wasn''t healthy.


    Another thing that tickled Althos'' unconscious was that the fields he saw were desolate. He didn''t detect any life from them, which was odd to the deity.


    Althos came to life in a forest. His first supernatural ability was the ability to detect lifeforms that were on or in the surface. For the majority of his life he had grown accustomed to being near lifeforms.


    Be they vermin, underground critters, or tiny lifeforms that scurried inside of ruined homes, he was used to a range of lifeforms being nearby. And the soil he was studying was barren, not just of plant life, but also of insects.


    No worms, beetles, ants, or other creatures wriggled around the soil that Berk stood on top of. And to Althos, a forest native, that was a weird, subtle red-flag.


    Why is this soil... so lifeless? He asked, astounded by the weirdness of the patches of soil he was sensing. He wasn''t the only person wondering that, though the family of desert giants was wondering it differently, and in Berk''s case less politely than he was.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    At this point Althos began to inch closer to the patches of farmable land owned by the family, crawling forward so as to avoid notice. The deity was far enough away that he wasn''t in any real danger of being noticed, but he was being careful and wasn''t truly aware of the limitations of mortal senses.


    As he got closer and closer to the small family he grew aware that more and more of their soil was odd. Even from here, I can feel that their soil is... damaged. He realized, his innate, naturalistic sensitivity increasing as he drew closer to the soil he was hoping to either heal or at least learn about.


    The deity approached the home from far away. What surrounded him were other homes, homes which also had damaged soil in their equally tiny patches of privately owned farmlands. And in a matter of seconds he realized this, which annoyed him.


    I hate to give the primary will more work, but I need some assistance here. The secondary will told himself, before beginning to subtly enter the minds of nearby giants, many of whom were also farmers, and sneakily copying their memories so that he may begin to unravel the true cause of this sad harvest season.


    As he studied the situation plaguing the farmers, he had a neat realization. If I can... help, one farmer, why can''t I help more than one?


    And I wonder if I couldn''t begin to get these farmers to worship me as a god of agriculture... I think I could. If I''m patient. He told himself, grinning as he felt a faint spark of approval from two separate domains: the bigger spark was from the domain of trickery, and there was a smaller but still palpable spark of approval from the subdomain of plants.


    Why is the domain of trickery approving of this? Wouldn''t this actually make me a god of agriculture, or at least begin me down that path? He wondered, momentarily, before refocusing on the matter at hand. He prepared a brief message for his older self, the primary will, doing something he had never done before: preparing to talk to himself.


    <hr>


    [Can you hear me? This is... weird.] The secondary will asked, transmitting a message to someone it had never tried to talk too directly before: itself.


    It was met with silence for a few moments. And the silence was awkward. The secondary will didn''t like it at all. But then, the silence was shattered.


    [Whoa, what? Who is this? Is this... me? It sounds like me.] The primary will responded, astounded that the secondary personality could directly reach out and message him.


    [Hey! Yes, yes it is. I know... I know that this odd but I need your help. I''m hoping you can learn something for me. For us.] The secondary will told its creator, hoping that he would be receptive.


    Althos'' initial will was silent while he considered what to say. It was an odd request, to be sure, but Althos was intrigued that another personality of his wanted his help gaining some knowledge. After a few moments, Althos'' original will responded.


    [Sure, what''s up?] He said, somewhat curt, but also curious.


    [I''m in Namira, and I''m about to help us get a new worshiper. There''s a chance, that if I handle this well I could seed a new cult here. You see a farmer prayed not too long ago and when I opened our mind to prayers I was able to hear his request.] The secondary will informed its creator. Though it couldn''t see him, the primary will nodded at this declaration, curious to see where it would lead.


    [Farmers all over the city are struggling to grow a good number of crops. I''m in their farmlands right now, and it seems that a lot of their soil is heavily damaged. The farmer who prayed is in debt and needs his crops to grow. We can do that without any problems, but I''d like for us to do something slightly different.] The will told its creator, about to reveal a scheme.


    [If we''re careful here, we could establish ourselves as a god of agriculture. But for us to do that, we''d need to do more than heal a single field. I''ve got the beginning of a scheme in my mind, but first, I stealthy made some copies of memories and knowledge. If I give them to you, can you assess them? We''re looking for information that might clue us in on what''s going on with these farmers, and any knowledge that may help us heal it.] The will ask, ready for rejection.


    The primary will sighed, but the desert-dweller could detect a smile in the sigh as well. [A "scheme"? I''ll admit it... I''m interested. I''ll help you with this plan of yours, but don''t let it distract you from our grander goals okay? Help the person who prayed, and then head out to this prison place.] The will said, agreeing to help the secondary personality execute its scheme but tempering it with a reminder of their larger goals.


    [Thank you! I''m on it, I promise.] The younger entity told its older self, sounding positively childlike as it excitedly responded to the words of the older personality.


    [Yeah yeah yeah, go help our new... friend.] The older will said, chuckling all the while.


    <hr>


    Now that a part of me is preparing to delve into the memories I grabbed I can go ahead and do this. The secondary will told himself as he prepared to concoct a custom-made mystical effect that included a distraction whose whole point wasn¡¯t to distract, but rather to ensure the giants knew who was responsible for the miracle that was about to change their lives.


    At this point, he wasn''t far from the home of Berk and his mother. He was still undetected by either of them for two reasons.


    The first reason was that their home was atop a gentle slope, and Althos was beneath their line of sight. Not even the top of his head could be seen, even if either of the two he was closer than ever too had been actively looking for him. The other reason was that they were distracted.


    The mother and son duo distracted themselves by sitting and talking in porch-chairs. Althos took advantage of their ignorance of his existence to get closer and closer than ever to where they were located, and began to ready his magic and powers. In time he drew close enough to them that he knew he was ready to activate his magic.


    I can do this. I can do this! He thought, hyping himself up before casting a miracle. He gathered magical energy in his palms and then aimed them at the pair off in the distance. When he expelled the gathered arcane energy, it sailed speedily, and invisibly through the air before colliding with the two giants.


    Before they even knew it they were affected by his strange powers, falling victim to an illusion that appeared before them, one that would reveal partial truths to them.


    <hr>


    Berk''s mother was in the middle of a sentence when the eldritch energies of Althos sailed through the air and collided with her and her son.


    "And so I told Zeynep -" Azra, Berk''s mother stopped mid-sentence when the spell collided with her. Her sudden stop wasn''t due to some odd energy slamming into her, it was due to one of the spell''s effects.


    It was because she saw something in the corner of her vision, a new thing, a new person, that appeared in her fields. The person had phased into existence and lightly set foot on some of the soil in which the family hoped to grow vital crops for consumption. She was a massive, giantlike creature with a nature motif.


    She stood over eight meters tall, considerably taller than even the taller desert giants. She was a woman, with wings that ended in branchlike growths that held her feathers together. Her clothes were made of nature, of leaves held together by some ethereal force.


    She looked at the family of desert giants and began to walk towards them, a smile plastered on her motherly face. At the same time as she approached, distracting them, Althos looked at the seeds that were planted in the soil that Berk had previously stood over, and the other seeds scattered throughout the soil and focused on them.


    <hr>


    I can do this. I can will these things to grow. He told himself, focusing on commanding the simple things to bend to his will. His mind reached out beyond his physical form and crept into the soil. It began to crawl over the dirt at his feet and in the direction of the crops, causing all sorts of plant life to grow speedily. Plants reacted to his proximity and reached out to him with their roots, hoping to say hello, in their own way. But he was a man on a mission.


    Althos'' mind was undistracted as it crept through the farmland, crawling like a ravenous beast towards the plants. And in a matter of moments his mind was over them, not bothering to check their conditions, but opting instead to forcibly enter the minds of the plants.


    His potent mind met no resistance from what passed for their minds, and he easily began to coax the things to mature rapidly, growing in seconds.


    Before his very eyes, Althos watched as a handful of seeds planted all over the field began to writhe and undulate in response to the strange, arcane energies that pulsated through them. Those seeds began to grow, spontaneously inching towards a more mature existence, touched and embraced by Althos'' powers.


    <hr>


    His illusionary angel commenced its very brief distraction of the family with a serene smile and by uttering a single truth.


    "Hello! Althos sends his regards. He sent me here to help you with your crop problem, and to show you we mean business, we already have done that!" The angel declared excitement audible in her voice.


    The two giants were puzzled and decided to wait to see what the angel had to say before saying anything. But the angel also knew that what laid behind itself, the crops that Althos had touched and willed to grow faster, were capable of speaking for themselves. Figuratively, not literally speaking for themselves.


    So the angel opted to not be surprising and merely tell them what was going on after their faces became confused masks in response to the angel''s "we" remarks.


    "I am an angel, a servant of a god. And that god heard your prayers," At this point the angel pointed at Berk, to indicate that he was the one who prayed, just in case any doubt existed in the minds of either the mother or her son as to who was responsible for this.


    "And sent me to fulfill them." She explained, her voice was beautiful yet hauntingly inhuman. A near-perfect blending of human speech and bird-speech.


    "I am a creation of and servant of Althos, the honorable liberator, a young and existent god. Now, please take a look at your plants. I think you''ll find that something has... changed." The fake angel told the giant family, moving slightly out of the way as Althos approached on foot, so that they could see what Althos had done to their crops.


    Althos himself was nowhere to be seen, and though he was close he had magically rendered himself invisible as a way to he ready himself to observe how they reacted to his magic and the truth of his divinity. He grinned as the realization that their seeds were now crops began to dawn on them.

 Chapter 97:

    A walking nightmare trudged along the border between the verdant grassland Althos had created and the desert. The thing that stalked the outermost edge of Althos'' home was a massive cross between a powerful ape and a tusked pig.


    It walked slowly, tirelessly serving the whims of its master. At the moment it hadn''t captured any new creatures, though over the past few days it had taken dozens of tiny and sometimes poisonous animals to Tristan, one of the many creatures who also served its master, the odd god Althos.


    Raverangos scanned the area in front of it, its pitch-black eyes obsessively searching for new presents for its master. The hulking, winged demon also wanted the chance to rake its teeth along the flesh of a living creature, as it was a simple and often cruel creature who desired little more than violence.


    "Where... are... you?" It sang out, the abyssal words it spoke ringing out painfully across the infernian landscape it stalked across. The eerie monster had spent the majority of the past few days doing this, spending innumerable hours searching for creatures on which it could satiate its innate lust for violence.


    Each time the sentinel demon opened its mouth, rows of frighteningly sharp teeth were exposed to the warm desert air. And with each word, warm desert air filled Raverangos'' lungs. The demon didn''t mind it, as the air here wasn''t totally unlike the arid air that was located in the demonic castle it had once lived in.


    Raverangos continued its endless hunt, energetically exploring the odd boundary that marked where Althos'' territory ended and Paimon''s territory began.


    <hr>


    The angel had shifted herself slightly so that her imposing mass no longer obstructed the family''s view of their fields. What her move revealed to the two giants rendered them momentarily speechless.


    Behind her, there were countless crops, ranging from tomatoes to peaches, to cucumbers, to other sorts of crops like cannabis, poppy seeds, to rarer plants like lemon verbena and erect spiderlings. The entire field was growing and expanding before the eyes of the two giants and their angelic, illusionary, visitor.


    "What... what is this?" Arza, the female giant who had spent the last few minutes watching her son labor over the fields, asked. Her question wasn''t directed towards anyone in particular and lingered in the air, even as the newer and newer crops began to energetically burst out of the dirt as if they had always been just beneath the surface but only just now got the energy needed to escape their dirty confines.


    The beautiful angel Althos had created using illusionary magic looked straight at Arza before she responded. She waited for the giantess to make eye contact with her before she next spoke. When the giantess turned to her, eager to learn about what had just happened, the angel opened her mouth and began to speak.


    "It''s as I said. Althos is fulfilling the prayer of your son. He sent me as his emissary and to inform you of his existence. And now that I have and you are informed that he exists, he seeks your worship." She said, her voice beautiful and haunting. She wasn''t done speaking either.


    "This is the bare minimum of Althos'' power. He decided to introduce himself to you this way because, in Berk''s prayers, he revealed that this was what he needed, what he desired. Althos came and he has fulfilled that need. Please, test the crops before you to your satisfaction, and when you''re done, I will tell you more. There is much to discuss." She said.


    Then the angel waved to the giants and urged them to walk into the field where their spontaneously generated bounty awaited them.


    In the distance, Althos watched them with a smile.It''s about time I continue isn''t it? The prison awaits me. But first... let''s try something.He thought, before raising his hand and aiming it at the angel.The gears in the mind of the god were turning, and Althos was exploring ways to make the angel a far more real creature than it was at the moment.


    Let''s see what the school of alteration can really do.He thought, grinning as he began to craft a custom magical effect. He also activated his soul-construction power and created a simple, loyal soul, one that he hoped he''d be able to use very soon.


    He gifted the soul with two of his usual choices of powers: omnilingualism, mental abilities, and a third, more unusual choice. He gifted the soul with the ability to speak to and manipulate plants, though to a lesser extent than he could. Althos could cause plants to grow in seconds, and this soul could only speed the growth up by a tenth of that.


    Within moments he felt the soul come to him, its construction finished, and settle in the palm of his hand, ready to be launched towards a body.


    I need to make this illusion real. Can I do that with alteration magic? I should be able too.He thought, wanting to transform his odd angelic illusion into a real thing, a true, living creature and not an ultra-powerful illusion.


    A few seconds passed while the god settled on what he wanted to do. Eventually, Althos was confident in the approach he wanted to take: he wanted to alter his angelic creation so that she was a real, living creature, and immediately infuse her with the simple soul that he had created, a soul that was utterly loyal to him and able to think on its feet.


    Once he was sure that that was the route he wanted to take he called out to the magic that made up his physical form. He speedily touched it, manipulating it, and influencing it so that it could make his wishes a reality. In seconds he felt that that potent arcane energy that infused him like blood infused mortals was ready to alter his latest creation, and he unleashed it.


    The magic surged out of his outstretched palm at the same time as the soul flew forth towards the false angel, commanded by its creator to do so.


    It took but an instant for both the soul and the magic to collide with the illusion, and from behind the giants the angel silently fell to her knees as the soul and the magic Althos had created overcame the initial nature of the illusion.


    I''ll stay here just an instant longer.Althos told himself, while he waited to see if his magic had worked as intended.


    The angel, an intricate illusion made of angelic energy, and powerful nature magic, began to shudder. Althos watched, excited and curious to watch his illusion spring to life.


    [Whoa... this feels... weird.] A voice said, directly into Althos'' mind. And this surprised the young god, who was momentarily taken aback.


    [Is this... are you the angel?] Althos asked, responding to the mysterious voice that had just spoken to him, confusion and excitement audible in equal measure in his mental voice. And then, silence.


    Althos didn''t receive a response for a full minute, a minute during which the angel recovered from her state of shock, and during which Althos received and read through a notification.


    [New Magic Alert:


    The custom effect you''ve constructed was successful. The illusionary angel is undergoing a few quick modifications to make her an arboreal angel, a type of angel that in the mythic age served gods of nature.


    Your creation is loyal to you and recognizes the truth that you are a god. She will serve you loyally, particularly as it relates to things that incorporate and further your influence over the nature domain.]This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    At the moment that Althos read and then reread the notification, he was moments away from getting another message. He willed away the notification, grinning, and received another message from his newest follower.


    [Yes. Yes, I am. Thank you, creator, for gifting me with true life.] She told him, her voice soft and sincere. Althos could hear the awe in it and grinned at her.


    At that moment, he felt a sudden and powerful urge well up within him. He felt a single word embed itself in his brain, a single, long and odd word.Menanam.A part of him wondered what it meant before the system itself spoke to him.


    [The system has noted your difficulty with naming creatures. Menanam is a word in a language from a distant universe that means, among other things, "plant". This would be a good name for your first arboreal angel.] The system explained its mechanical voice speaking to Althos quite simplistically.


    Althos smiled at the suggestion, and decided to accept it. He politely thanked the voice in his mind, reminded of his duties to eventually name his newer companions, before speaking to the angel once again.


    [Your name is Menanam. Now go, and convince those people to worship me as a deity of nature, harvest, and agriculture.] He instructed her, his pronunciation of the word flowing out naturally and easily.


    He saw her nod and felt satisfied with the trip out to the field. He turned away from her and from the family of giants he knew would soon join his fold, becoming this city''s first Althonians, and looked up overhead.


    What he saw looming not far from where he was was the gigantic tower, the enormous obelisk. And so he began his trek towards its entrance, towards the place that imprisoned Angelica the angel.


    <hr>


    "Imps are in a weird position in Infernius. We occupy the lowest real rung of the infernal hierarchy, yet we do incredibly valuable work." Salifinos said, seated comfortably in one of the dark chapel''s naves.


    He was lecturing to a trio of young imps, all of whom were Althos'' direct creations. The three of them stared at him and paid studious attention to each of his words.All three of the imps had wide eyes and were eagerly listening to each and every one of the imp''s lessons.


    "We are the devils most commonly summoned to the worlds of mortals. We do incredibly valuable work as scouts and tempters, and we are frequently summoned by young and ambitious wizards and other spell-slingers who want to make deals with us." Salifinos said, preparing himself to launch into a speech.


    "We are what are known as ''familiar class'' extraplanars, which means we are considered skilled aides to magicians and are thought to be intelligent advisors. Demons, titan-spawn, abyss-dwellers, nephilim, pain-mongers and other types of extraplanars all have their own ''familiar class'' extraplanars as well." The imp proudly said, proud of the fact that even some chaotic creatures like demons could fit a certain type of hierarchy.


    "Though each kind of familiar has different strengths and weaknesses, what strengths imps have is that they are a part of a grander network. Imps are able to take advantage of the connections they have to Infernius and tempt wizards, spell-singers and the like, with great rewards in exchange for their souls." The lead imp explained, both to his pupils, and unknowingly to Althos, who was listening to their conversation from the chapel''s sacristy.


    Althos, taking a short break from an in-depth study of the first memories the secondary will had gotten him, had been listening to Salifinos'' imp-lessons for a few minutes now. He was absorbing the knowledge eagerly, grateful for a chance to learn about the abilities and perspectives of one of his followers.


    "Imps exist to help populate Infernius, especially with the souls of magic-users. We may occupy the lowest rung of the hierarchy of Infernius, but only the worst of us spend much time here. Normally we''re in the mortal plane, where we are free to corrupt souls and to twist mortals into our playthings. We do so by serving them, loyally at first, and then beginning to suggest they are weak or could become stronger... if only they''d listen to us." Salifinos instructed his proteges, smiling sinisterly as he spoke.


    "In fact... let me tell you a story, to really hammer this home. A story about a spell-slinger named Modred. He was my most recent ''master''." The imp declared, causing his little students to look even more eager than they usually did.


    A spellsinger? Like Hagitha? Like the odd human who led the human soldiers against the orcs?Althos thought, surprised.Should I go into Salifinos'' mind and make a copy of his memories? No... Not yet anyway. He''s about to begin his story.


    And with that Althos readied himself to learn more about his impish familiar.


    <hr>


    It didn''t take the secondary will long to reach the onyx obelisk. The thing stood out like a sore thumb, and Althos'' secondary will merely walked in the general direction of the looming sky-scraper like, edifice until he arrived at its base.


    It took him perhaps a dozen or so minutes of rapid walking to arrive at the entrance into the building that towered over the rest of the city. When he did so he found himself standing in front of another city-square, a massive clearing which was populated by a mixture of soldiers, giants wearing armor and regalia similar to that worn by the guard who had permitted him into the city, not long ago, and civilians.


    Althos was directly across from the open entrance into the black obelisk, and away from it by over a hundred meters. He was now surrounded by buildings, many of which seemed to be either academies of some sort, or homes for large families, judging from what both tremor-sense and his radar told him.


    He inspected the square and found that in every direction he could see, as in ones not blocked by the incredible mass of the prison, other entrances to it, which were framed similarly to the one he was just inside of: by massive buildings exactly like the ones that surrounded him.So this part of the town might be the heart of the military-district since the obelisk serves so many different functions.


    Around him, dozens of desert giants went about their business. Many of them were clearly guards and soldiers of some kind, and only some were not warriors of one sort or another.


    Those who weren''t guards, were universally younger desert-giants, both shorter and more youthful-looking than the grizzled warriors who kept watch around the square. They sat on the ground and traded stories, exchanging gossip and creating tall-tales to startle their friends with.


    Althos quickly began to filter out their comments, ignoring them before looking to the ominous-looking onyx obelisk that loomed in front of him. "And so it begins." He muttered to himself, taking his first steps into the square.


    He could see the entrance into the obelisk and noted that there was no traffic heading towards it. The place was well-guarded, and the majority of warriors there carefully kept their eyes open, scanning the square for anyone who sought to enter their prison.


    They might be on the lookout... but they won''t spot me.Althos thought, grinning all the while.


    <hr>


    Within a few minutes the deity found himself at the entrance to the building. The gigantic black tower, visible to people from dozens of kilometers away, was now right in front of him. He was still invisible, and he stood just outside of the thing.


    It felt even larger up close, and now that he was close to it he could see that its base must have been around three hundred meters wide, and it extended as far up as even his godly eyes could see. The thing was made of some sort of jet black desert metal, something, unlike anything Althos had seen to date.


    Its entrance was dozens of meters tall and over two dozen meters wide. Althos was beyond one part of it, but it was segmented into two different sections and he had yet to infiltrate its innermost section.


    All around him he could see and hear desert giant guards. The heavily armored figures studiously scanned every part of the town square, and carefully studied every detail their keen eyes could pick up. Althos was almost impressed, but he was also aware that no matter how hard they tried they wouldn''t be able to see him.


    Illusion magic is truly powerful. At least when I use it.He thought, confident in his ability to move forward undetected.


    Before him stood the entrance to the enormous building, a massive and open area within which stood even more guards. They were all heavily armored and tightly clutched imposing-looking weapons, clubs of dark desert metal. They wore dark armor, made of the same material as their weapons.


    The entrance was also marked with a translucent layer of air, simmering and distorting the area beyond it. Althos, thanks to his recollection of the barrier that protected the city, now recognized this sheen as a barrier, a barrier he quickly realized was within another barrier.


    Wow... this building is capable of producing a barrier within a barrier.He realized, curious as to what would happen once he went beyond it. He took a deep breath and did just that, stepping through the translucent sheen silently.


    When Althos took his first step into this open area he felt a sudden shift in temperature. Outside of the area it was warm, thanks to the well-heated desert air. And now that he was within the secondary barrier he felt asudden and biting chill.Why is it so much colder in here than out there?He wondered, silently hissing in annoyance at the abrupt change.


    He was now inside of the obelisk for the first time, evidently undetected, and after recovering his composure, readied himself to venture into the true dungeon stretched out before him. Within moments he began to grin widely, eager to explore whatever mysteries awaited him inside of the dungeon.

 Chapter 98:

    Outstretched before the secondary will stood the interior of the gigantic building known only as the Oynx Obelisk. He took a second to visually explore this place, his keen, divine, vision preventing any of its secrets from hiding from him.


    He was inside of a grand foyer of some sort, the sort of room he was only somewhat familiar with thanks to his exploration of other creatures'' memories. This part of the dungeon was not as rigidly populated as the exterior of the building was, only a handful of darkly dressed guards milled about and stood next to thick, precisely cut rectangular doors all of which undoubtedly led deeper into the dungeon.


    Althos could see three doors, one of which was directly in front of him, though spaced several dozen meters from where he stood. Two others were situated on the far left and the far right parts of the foyer.


    The grand foyer''s roof was located only three dozen meters above the deity, surprisingly low for a building of this magnitude. The roof was a jet black thing, made of the same dark material as the rest of the building, and therefore from inside of the building probably almost imperceptible to people with lesser vision than Althos.


    Althos'' visual exploration of the entrance to the dungeon eventually turned to the walls that defined the width of this place, jet-black walls that seemed to hungrily devour any color or light that came close to them. The only source of light came from right behind him.


    The entrance to the dungeon, where he was, was a thin entranceway inside of which was a subtle barrier. The barrier dimmed what little light dared to invade this seemingly sacred place, and cast a thin sliver of light into the dungeon''s mouth.


    His vision rested on the walls that encircled the foyer, while he used his appraisal ability to learn more the dark material that the walls were made of.


    [New Knowledge Alert: Obisidian


    Obsidian is a volcanic glass that is formed as an extrusive igneous rock. It is often used to create exceptional weapons, but when used by magical architects, or by civilizations with immense metalsmithing knowledge, it can be used to form light-absorbing walls, or even to create beautiful buildings.


    Obsidian''s usages in practice are highly dependent on the sort of creatures using it. Civilizations in deserts tend to use obsidian and onyx in conjunction to create beautiful artwork, or to create powerful, life-draining weapons for use in ritual sacrifice, combat, or trade.]


    When he was done reading the notification he willed it away with a thought andconsidered which of the few doors this place contained to walk through. As he was doing this, his other senses began their own unconscious reconnaissances of the foyer, while he consciously focused on his radar.


    His sense of smell exposed him to the scent of unwashed bodies, a scent that lingered heavily in the foyer. His hearing allowed him to hear the occasional and slight shuffling of the guards who stoically stood watch within the foyer.


    His sense of touch allowed him to feel the precise construction of the obelisk, as the floor underneath him was painstakingly even, lacking even a single imperfection that otherwise may have led to someone tripping onto the dark floor.


    Only his sense of taste was unused in the dungeon''s foyer.I could transform my fingers into hyphae... but then I''d just taste the taste of unwashed, unclean desert giant guards. No I think it''s better if I don''t.He decided, not taking long to opt against loosely tasting unclean giants.


    His conscious mind, or at least the largest portion of it that was currently active, was exploring his radar. The radar, coupled with his mini-map revealed to him the locations of all nearby creatures, and now their names as well, thanks to his increased knowledge.


    So there''s a handful of guards here, and some in that room.He thought quietly as he assessed his mini-map, "that room" referring to the door directly across from where he was silently and invisibly standing at that moment. It was guarded by two desert giants, both clad in the same dark armor that their peers wore.


    Althos began to walk towards it, his footfalls causing no noise, and his presence undetected by those tasked with keeping this place undisturbed. Illusion magic, when used by a god, truly was something powerful.


    <hr>


    In a matter of moments, the young god stood just in front of the wall that separated him from the next room. The room was the first room that would be untouched by the light of the eerie moon that was perpetually visible throughout the surface of the layer.


    The entrance to it, one of the precisely cut rectangular doors, was guarded by two desert giants, both of whom held obsidian blades in their hands. Althos looked up at them, as they were taller than he was, and his mind lit up as he carefully considered ways through the door that wouldn''t alert them to his intrusion.


    How do I want to do this?He wondered, his mind racing as he considered how to approach this possibly sneaky and stealthy invasion of an enemy''s prison.Obviously doing this sneakily is the best possible approach to this, since this is, in essence, a prison break, but I have a variety of tools at my disposal that''d allow me to handle this... creatively.He thought, chuckling internally.


    I could create an area-wide illusion that causes everyone here to not perceive any changes while I open and shut the door.He thought, imagining that such a magical effect would either be possible to cause through a spell, or a magical effect he could invoke as a god.


    I could simply phase through the door, incorporeally.He realized, recalling how the primary will had repeatedly done such a thing when it was pursuing Hagitha and her mate after the pair had beaten Drow.


    I could cause these giants to open the door for me, but that''d be weird for those on the other side of the door... It seems just phasing through the door is the right play for now.He realized, learning in his own way that simple actions tend to be better than complex ones for subtle things like this.


    Once he arrived at his chosen conclusion he took the few steps he needed to take to reach the door and willed his body to lose its physicality moments before it would have collided with the obsidian wall that obstructed his view. In an instant his form truly became incorporeal and he passed through the door, unobstructed by its solidity in the slightest.


    <hr>


    The room beyond the obsidian door was a narrow, for desert giants anyway, hallway. The thing stretched twice the length of the grand foyer, though it wasn''t long enough that its exit was hidden from Althos'' view.


    Its most distinct feature was something that immediately stuck out to Althos: countless mirrors made of polished glass, regular glass, not obsidian, made up its walls and the ceiling up above the giants who kept watch here. The guards that walked the length of the hallway kept their eyes trained in whatever direction they walked and silently patrolled the eerie place.


    The only noise that Althos heard was the constant footfalls of the guards throughout the hallway, everything else was silent. This room was warm due to its tighter confines than the grand foyer Althos had just left, and it also smelled worse here than it had there.


    Althos began to take his first steps into the hallway, his form still incorporeal. As he did so he took a look at the mirrors, aware of their reflective properties, and exhaled a sigh of relief when he found that he was as invisible to the mirrors as he had been to the giants who guarded the grand foyer.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    <hr>


    The odd cell that held Angelica was no longer a prison to the skilled diplomat. Now, as she quietly explored it, it was little more than an obstruction that she hoped she''d be free of soon.


    The young angel was sure to temper her optimism, carefully reining in any overly hopeful thoughts that snuck their way into her mind, but it was difficult for her to truly clamp down on the hopes that infused her.


    I was raised on tales of gods doing the impossible, and rewriting reality. If one truly is on his way...She thought, her mind picturing all sorts of scenarios involving a god known to her as "The Honorable Liberator".


    She spent some minutes picturing Althos'' invasion of the prison as a violent affair, the deity carving a bloody swath through the dungeon while displaying arcane and eldritch mastery over assorted powers. And she spent some minutes imagining it as a sneaky infiltration of the prison, with the deity clinging to the shadows and clothing himself in darkness to sneak past guards.


    Her creative mind, and the experiences she had gained throughout her life allowed the scenarios she envisioned to be particularly evocative, and she delighted in spending her downtime in them even outside of the prison she was now, temporarily, trapped within. In her moments of need, like now, it gave her a way to temporarily and mentally escape this place while her savior drew ever nearer.


    <hr>


    These mirrors are... weird.Althos thought as he delved deeper and deeper into the dungeon''s first hallway.


    At this point the deity had taken his time walking stealthily through the depths of the dungeon, and he had had several minutes with which to studiously examine his surroundings. The mirrors could not reflect him, but Althos had easily snuck past a pair of the guards who patrolled this place.


    Their reflections were distorted, grotesquely transforming into roiling monstrosities that resembled at most nightmarish fusions of devilish monsters and naked, muscular, desert giants. Althos had studied them, almost admiringly, but had continued his journey through the hallway.


    It was when he was about halfway through the hallway that he began to hear the few giants bold enough to converse in this eerie place that he began to learn things about the odd prison he was now breaking into.


    "Hey Adil, did you hear?" One of them asked, his voice not quiet and rather relaxed given the unsettling nature of his occupation. He was patrolling the hallway a fair distance from the giant he was speaking too, someone who was located behind Althos. The giant who had just spoken was located in front of Althos, in the direction he was heading towards.


    "Hear what, Akhun?" The giant asked, his own loud voice booming from behind Althos.


    This is a weird place for them to speak so casually.Althos thought, as he walked towards the giant named Akhun. He was striding confidently through the hallway.


    "I went drinking with Alp the other day and he told me some interesting... dedikodu." The giant said, responding to his colleague. Althos'' head tilted slightly as he heard this, knowing immediately that dedikodu was a word in another language, not the typical desert giant one, that meant something along the lines of gossip.


    His speedy walk was undeterred by this gossip, but the curious god did hope, ever so slightly, that the two would speed up the pace at which they spoke.


    "You see... it seems that some of these cells hold demons." The first speaker, Akhun, said. Now his voice lowered to a more conspiratorial tone, barely a whisper, only so that it could travel the distance necessary for it to be audible by his companion.


    Demons? Huh... That might be worth following up on.The secondary will thought to itself, a grin spreading across Althos'' face as he continued his trek through the halls of the dungeon, his incorporeal form effortlessly hidden from detection by mortal guards who were only half paying attention to their work.


    "Demons? That''s... that''s a heck of a claim." Adil responded, skepticism clear not only in his words but also in his tone. The guard responded to his companion''s gossip incredulously, and Althos could hear his breath hitch and catch in his lungs as if the giant was about to chuckle but reconsidered it at the last second.


    "That''s not what Alp said the other day." The giant said, actually chuckling as he responded to his skeptical compatriot. He sounded confident, and the confidence itself might not have swayed Adil, but it was intriguing to the sneaky god who was creeping in the hallway.


    <hr>


    Althos listened intently as the two guards ignorantly conversed around him. He was silent, a grin etched onto his face, as he pictured a number of monstrous beings, beings like Raverangos, and like the abominations that colored the memories of one of his servants, the witch Qu''Ren.


    He pictured creatures infinitely more monstrous than the odd devils he had met so far. Creatures of bone and fang, creatures of living, hateful flame, and unholy fusions of insectoid limbs and plantlike sinew. And other, indescribable things, things of living malice and the embodiments of wrath.


    When Althos heard the word "demon" his mind was filled with images, images that excited the part of his heart that was already colored by cruelty and tyranny, even if it mildly frightened the other, more ordered part of him, and even the few parts of his being that were colored more by healing and kindness than by tyranny and order.


    The idea of having more demons is an intriguing one. But... could I even control such creatures? I know that Raverangos was swayed to be mine by power and power alone, but controlling a single creature isn''t the same as being able to control more than one.He thought, tempering his excitement at the prospect of more monsters like Raverangos with the vital realization that he had no way of knowing if he could control such things.


    That filth demon attacked me straightaway. It''s entirely possible that any other demons I approach might do the same thing.He recalled, remembering the thing that assaulted him and his companions the first time he walked into the part of the mortal world of his birth known as the "World beneath the World".


    Still... it might be worth investigating these rumors.He wondered, his thoughts solitary and inward as he dove deeper and deeper into the eerie edifice that loomed over the city of Namira.And it''s not like I''m alone.He realized, deciding to share his concerns with his advisors.


    [Hey, are you two listening to what''s being said around me?] He asked, his mental voice turning inward and asking his advisors for their own insights.


    [Yep. I think it''s worth at least investigating these rumors. Once you''ve secured Angelica, of course. Demons come in a variety of forms, countless actually, and they were frequent servants and allies of gods of chaotic evil in the mythic age.] The angel said, its mechanical voice calmly speaking to the deity.


    [Whatever demons are contained in this place must not be particularly powerful ones if they can be kept in a prison not directly overseen by devils.] Samyaza said, informing the secondary will of the likelihood that whatever was kept in this place wasn''t particularly mighty.


    [I agree. They might not be creatures that we can take with us, but even the act of breaking them out of here might strike an unexpected blow to Paimon. If they are kept here... they are his enemies. It''s not true that every "enemy of our enemy" is our friend, but that doesn''t mean they don''t have their uses, even if as mere distractions.] M.A. said, her voice soothing and calm as she delivered her assessment of the current situation.


    Althos quickly considered their advice, reflecting on it for a few moments before he decided to comb their combined intelligence for advice on how to best engage such creatures.


    [If I were to approach them, and if I wanted to engage them in conversation... should I do what I did when I gained the service of Raverangos? Either grievously injure them, or even nearly kill one of them, before trying to talk?] He asked, wary of the real possibility that they themselves might strike first if freed and able to do so.


    At this point, Althos had reached the edge of the hallway, and just like before was about to fade through the obstacle in front of him. He heard Samyaza''s voice right as he reached the unguarded door and dove, face-first, into it, its perfect darkness indifferently greeting him even as he immaterially passed through it.


    [The best move would be to speak first. Demons are creatures of misery, evil, and chaos, but that doesn''t mean they are all violent beings. It just so happens that the first two demons you''ve met were aggressive towards you, creatures who were ignorant of your power and who paid the price for their foolishness.] Samyaza told him, advising the god to err on the side of patience and diplomacy.


    Althos nodded, even as the rest of his body followed his face through the door and into the stairwell that awaited just beyond it.


    <hr>


    Althos'' face was the first part of himself to phase through the door that separated the mirrored hallway from the darkened stairwell. As the rest of his body followed his face, he was able to look around and build an impression of what stood before him.


    He found himself at the lowest part of a long, vertical chamber. This chamber was practically overflowing with staircases, each of which carried those who climbed them into deeper, even darker, darkness than the darkness that greeted him. Nonsensically, Althos found that the obsidian floor of the long, vertical chamber, was the brightest part of this weird place.


    He sighed, somehow feeling tired looking at the darkness that waited for him, and when the rest of his body was through the door, he walked forward and willed himself upward. His form lifted off of the floor and ascended vertically, into that oh-so-welcoming darkness.

 Chapter 99:

    At the bottom of the stairwell, seconds before I began my ascent, I carefully observed my surroundings. All around me, darkness loomed, darkness which would have blinded lesser beings but had no effect on me, a creature whose sight wasn''t reliant on light but rather was powered by an internal source, in my case; magic.


    It was powerful, hungry darkness that lurked, omnipresently, throughout the stairwell. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before, be it "myself" as the secondary will of Althos, or "myself" as a complete, tri-minded entity.


    And yet it didn''t hunger for me. It felt odd, unnatural even, to be within the reach of such hunger, yet completely overlooked or even ignored by it. That was something that took a moment or two to adjust too.


    After a few seconds of observation, and mental adjustment, I felt satisfied with my situation. Aside from the darkness that loomed, hungrily and impassively in the stairwell, there was nothing of concern that prevented me from going on my journey upward, further into the belly of the beast, as it were.


    Freeing myself from gravity was easy enough. It took just the desire to be unchained from the ground for my body to begin to float upward, no longer limited by something that held down mortal creatures.


    I began my ascent slowly. Flying felt odd, even to me. It was if gravity held no power over me as if it couldn''t contain the unspeakable power that made up every atom, every fiber of my being. Moments after I felt gravity lose what will hold it held over me, and I had floated up a few meters into the air, I glanced down at the floor I had just left.


    The floor underneath me was also made of some dark material, but it wasn''t the same sort of dark material that the walls were made of, obsidian. I gazed at it, studying it, and eventually opted to just use one of my divine powers: appraisal.


    In perhaps a matter of nanoseconds after I made the decision to use my power, I heard a familiar mechanical voice speak directly to my mind, even as the green text I had long grown accustomed too lit up my vision.


    [New Knowledge Alert: Ceramic Tile


    Ceramics themselves are solid material made of hardened clay. Clay is a substance that can be found all over the planes and can be reliably be used to form a variety of instruments, vehicles, and other things sapient species use to improve their lives.


    Ceramic tiles are used to cover the ground in homes populated by creatures who create things like settlements. They can also be used as decorations themselves, but that is not their primary purpose and typically the sorts to use them that way are the artisans who create them for others to use.


    The particular ceramic tiles you appraised were originally a different color and got dyed to their current color, after being covered with a dye made of the juice of local fruits.]


    I studied the entry for a few moments and then willed it away. Doing so was easy, all it took was the desire to get the thing out of my sight. That knowledge was like many other bits and pieces of knowledge I knew, odd little facts that I sprung into being already knowing, and by now it was something I was growing increasingly comfortable doing.


    Once the entry had faded from my sight I continued my upward ascent.


    <hr>


    Ascending through the darkened, vertical chamber was odd. I flew upward at a leisurely pace, all while keeping my eyes open for anything worth inspecting and found no such things in the stairwell.


    After I released myself from gravity''s binding, I floated lazily through the vertical stairwell. My mind and body were in the chamber, but my focus wasn''t on anything in front of me: it was on my powers.


    Specifically, I was focused on my radar. I intensely focused on it, waiting for it to change, wondering if it would.


    I know this place has multiple, probably hundreds, of floors. So far everything my radar is showing me appears to be on this floor, the ground floor. If I float up... will it change?I wondered, and while I did so, I opened my mind to truly explore this chamber.


    As I casually floated upward I allowed my other senses to inspect the chamber as thoroughly as my eyes had before I took to the sky. They flooded my brain with sensory information.


    The smell of sweat, fear, and stubbornness filled my nostrils each time I inhaled. I could smell a few separate scents of sweat, one of which belonged to a... what I assumed was a desert giant who favored spicy food due to the amount of sweat they exuded, and another of which appeared to belong to a giant who favored food that exuded strong scents.


    Their sweat lingered heavily in the air, and whenever I opened my mouth it surged into the open orifice, coating my tongue and forcing me to endure the unpleasant taste of their musk. On the other hand, their emotions also coated my tongue and pleased my palate, but weren''t pleasant enough to offset the unpleasantness of their bodily odors.


    While studying this strange chamber I resolidified a single part of myself, and gently placed that part, my hand, on one of the staircases as I floated upward. I didn''t try to stop myself, as that would have been easy for me to do with but a thought. Instead, I wanted to feel the ceramics.


    They were cold and hard in my hands, solid and reliable even if I had opted to walk on them rather than fly through them. Their solidity made sense, this was a stairwell designed for creatures of at least giant stature after all, so they''d need to be solid and unyielding against force or weight.


    This stairwell was silent. It wasn''t eerily silent or anything, I heard faint voices coming from beyond doors located throughout the chamber, but the chamber itself was quiet. It was one of those loud silences too, the sort that felt heavy. I listened to the voices, but even for my hearing, they were too quiet for me to make out what they saying, at least so far.


    <hr>


    The first time my radar shifted happened about two minutes after I began my quiet, incorporeal, ascent through the dungeon. At that point, I had ascended through several staircases and was floating high above where I had begun my ascent.


    The radar''s shift was quick and quiet. One moment my minimap, the visual representation of my radar, showed the creatures I had seen and heard when I crept through the first floor of the dungeon, and the next it was changed.


    New dots appeared on the minimap, more than there had been on the other floor, and located in new places relative to myself. They were scattered throughout the part of the dungeon the system appeared to believe I was now in, and seconds after the shift I floated through the top of a staircase and found myself facing another rectangular door. I stopped my ascent and took a second to get my bearings.


    Rather than opt to read through the newest dots to adorn my mini-map, I quickly decided to see if I could outsource that. And I knew exactly who to ask.


    [Hey, system, can you summarize what the radar is picking up from this floor?] I questioned, hoping that the system would have that capability if I asked for an assist.


    It didn''t take long for my brain to be filled with the familiar voice of the system.


    [Hello, we can actually! Do you want that to be what happens from here on out? You can change this back anytime you want. If you decide for us to do this, then whenever you reach a new floor in this dungeon you''ll get information about the composition of its inhabitants.] The system informed me, its mechanical voice as relaxed as ever.


    I nodded and prepared to respond. I wouldn''t have too. The system, evidently seeing my nod, decided to take it upon itself to just go ahead and inform me of the inhabitants of this part of the dungeon.


    [This floor contains the first cells of the prison. It houses conventional prisoners. Both desert giant guards and desert giant prisoners exist here, as do a handful of domesticated animals that serve this facility''s guards. All of the cells here are cells fit for giant prisoners, but are otherwise conventional prison cells.] The system informed me, nonchalantly discussing the state of this floor of the prison.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    I''ll come back here, either later, or after I rescue Angelica.I told myself, content to mark this place for future exploration at a later date, given the priority and timely nature of the mission I was on.But I might as well double-check what the system told me. Briefly, anyway.I thought, grinning and inspecting my radar myself.


    In seconds I found that it was telling me the truth. Not that I doubted it, but double-checking it didn''t hurt me in any particular way.


    Some of the animals the radar could detect included venomous snakes and a handful of "Massive desert worms", creatures which were unlike any I had met to date.I''ll be back, and when I am... I might just play with one of those worms and a few snakes.The idea of interacting with new creatures, especially ones unlike what the primary will had met, was intriguing to me, but not interesting enough to distract me from the matter at hand.


    I turned my head away from the door in front of me,looked straight up at the underside of another staircase and willed myself upward yet again. In an instant, I continued my journey through this dungeon.


    I had no way of knowing that prisons tended to be kind of repetitive. I''d learn that soon enough.


    <hr>


    Are prisons... boring?I asked myself after my journey into the depths of the Onyx Obelisk had been underway for the better part of an hour.At that point, I must have ascended deep into the dungeon and therefore been high up within the tall tower.


    I hadclimbed over three dozen staircases in the vertical chamber, each higher and higher than the last, and each time I had reached a new floor I had been informed that "this floor houses giant guards, guarding giant prisoners." Nothing distinct, nothing that stood out, aside from the different kinds of animals aiding the faculty of the place.


    So far this has been pretty boring.I told myself, with a heavy sigh. But I continued my task, knowing full well that the award that awaited me upon completion of this task would be one worth the drudgery I was undergoing at the moment.


    I was two dozen floors away from reaching a place of interest, but I wouldn''t know that for another few minutes. When I finally reached the mysterious yellow door that signaled a change in the prison''s population.


    <hr>


    By the time I reached the sixtieth floor of the Onyx Obelisk, I was beginning to grow impatient. I hadn''t really known that I could experience impatience since before I found all of my tasks to be moderately interesting and not at all repetitive, even the trek through the desert since I had been accompanied by worshipers and allies and hadn''t trekked through the wastes alone.


    Ignorance of my ability to experience inconvenient mortal emotions hadn''t prevented me from growing mildly annoyed by the time I was on the 59th floor of the dungeon. I had sighed in annoyance as I took off yet again, in the wake of an all too familiar explanation from the system that yet another floor housed some animals, some giant prisoners, and some guards.


    At that point, I had flown enough in this chamber to have an instinctive awareness of what speed I needed to go to quickly reach the next floor. In a matter of moments, I was on the next floor, my incorporeal feet planted as firmly as they could be on the floor that connected the staircase to a door I had expected to look different.


    The door that greeted me on the sixtieth floor was unlike the obsidian things that had greeted me over and over again thus far. No, what stood before me wasn''t an ominous slab of dark stonelike glass, it was a bright, metal door that loomed large in my vision, even in comparison to my massive frame.


    The door must have been twenty-five meters tall, and it was made of some bright yellow metal. I stood and stared at it, shocked to see it, after growing used to the familiar and unwelcoming doors that had littered the dungeon and prison thus far.


    It was when I had studied the eerie thing for a few moments that the monotone, mechanical voice of the system filled my mind once more.


    [This floor is the first of the warding floors. These are floors that house specific, unusual prisoners.] And at that, despite the fact that the system wasn''t done explaining itself just yet, I felt myself begin to grow just a bit excited, daring to hope that maybe I was nearing my goal.


    [This floor and in all likelihood the next ten or so floors, do not house angels or demons. This floor houses ogres, powerfully built and simplistically minded brutish humanoids who in the worlds of mortals are known and feared for their cruelty and strength.] By the time I finished reading that notification, I could feel my eyes widen.


    Powerful, simple-minded, brutish warriors.I thought, grinning at the similarities these creatures shared, even more-so given their names, with other powerful and brutish warriors I knew of: orcs.


    This... they could be useful. Though... it''s not like they need help now. It isn''t pressing or time-sensitive.I told myself, quickly regaining my focus and refusing to be swayed by the newest of the things and creatures I could find some way to add to my worshipers.I''ll be back soon.I reassured myself and readied myself for even more flying.


    I took off with a thought, once again willing myself ever higher, and allowed my mind to wander for a moment.Now we''re starting to get somewhere... a bit more interesting.I thought, chuckling.


    <hr>


    [This floor is guarded by a large number of giants. And this floor houses demons.] When I heard the voice of the system, an androgynous and mechanical voice I had heard over and over again, tell me that, I began to experience the sort of sensation that a mortal might describe as "their heart racing". And then, after giving me a second to catch my breath, as it were, the system continued its routine explanation of the floor and its inhabitants.


    [Specifically, this floor contains Colo Colo demons, rat-like demons of sloth. These critters are gnome-sized rat-demons who sneak into buildings and who drink the bodily fluids of a building''s inhabitants, which allow them to drain the energy of such people until their victims either die of exhaustion or succumb to deadly diseases.]The more you tell me, the more excited I get!I realized, with a start.


    Rat-like demons? Creatures of subtlety, who cause inhabitants to feel exhausted and drain them of energy? Oh man... I could do a lot with creatures like these. I thought, grinning all the while.


    [Hey system, can you pull up a new species entry on Colo Colos?] I asked, eager to learn as much as possible, even while I once again willed myself upward, now beginning to float to perhaps the seventy-second floor of the dungeon.


    [New Species Knowledge Gained: Colo Colos


    Colo Colos are a type of demon tied to the sin of sloth. Sloth is a reluctance to work or make an effort, and demons who are tied to it are creatures with powers that specialize in snatching away the wills of their enemies to resist, or the ability of the good-hearted to do the work necessary to overcome evil.


    Colo Colos are surprisingly speedy, ratlike entities who feast on the bodily fluid and waste of civilized creatures. Through potent sin-magic, magic that infuses their very being, Colo Colos are capable of draining the energy of those who fluids sustain them.


    These demons are surprisingly skilled at assassinations and are great at weakening a community''s defenses by either reducing the number of defenders through assassination or forcing a community to take time to recover from their vicious and underhanded methods, reducing the number of people they can rely on to muster an effective defense against invaders.


    Colo Colos who evolve often evolve into other sorts of subtle demons. Colo Colos who frequently targeted humanoids become succubi, liliths, and other seductive sorts, while Colo Colos who targeted nonhumanoid creatures become demons that can infiltrate the communities of creatures who found themselves frequently antagonized by the Colo Colos in question.]


    These creatures are definitely worth trying to recruit. Even if I can''t use them against say... Paimon, if I decide to raid a town in the mortal world, or launch an attack against a house of dark elves, these creatures would be potent allies and servants.I learned, assessing their capabilities from what the system told me, in a matter of seconds.


    And as I was distracted by schemes, I came to the seventy-third floor of the dungeon. And faster than it had happened so far, the system roused me from my distracted thinking with a notification I had spent a while waiting for.


    [This floor houses a single angel. The emissary angel, Angelica. It is guarded by a single creature, a devil. A devil who can see incorporeal creatures. A single, perfect, guard. A monje devil.]


    I scanned my radar and found that beyond the door in front of me, which was also an odd yellow color, there was only one creature. A monje devil named Lucien. And so I simply asked for a new species knowledge notification about monje devils, as I moved to fade through the door that stood between me and the guard who''d no doubt try to prevent me from reaching Angelica.


    I quickly got the notification I was looking for, as I pushed my face through the door and prepared to peer at the one enemy I wouldn''t be able to hide from.


    [New Species Knowledge Notification: Monje Devils.


    Monje Devils are hand to hand fighters whose discipline surpasses that of mortal monks. They are ferocious fighters whose mastery of their bodies is unmatched and whose philosophies revolve around the idea that when all else fails when swords shatter and shields break, their bodies remain.


    These creatures are devoted guards and potent fighters. When assigned a task they complete it or die trying, and they are more proud than the most arrogant mortals. They are also infinitely more skilled than their weaker, mortal counterparts.


    These beings can evolve into other fierce devils, particularly high ranking military devils or assassin devils.]


    This could be fun.I thought as I laid eyes on the one obstacle that yet remained between myself and Angelica.

 Chapter 100:

    Pushing my face through the door that separated the vertical chamber from the hallway that led to the prison cells, I got my first view of the Monje Devil who was likely tasked with overseeing Angelica. The creature that stood in the hallway was impressive looking to say the least.


    A few dozen meters away from me stood a lone figure. He was a shirtless warrior, whose rippling muscles added to his width and spoke for themselves. He must have been just a few meters tall, perhaps somewhere between two and three meters in height. His legs were hidden beneath loose linen pants.


    His skin was a dark blue hue, and he was looking at me intently. His amber-colored eyes were studying me, no doubt, in the same way, that I was studying him. I chuckled as I finished pulling myself through the door that separated us. He began a slow approach, cautiously closing the distance between us with a neutral expression on his face.


    Mere moments after I finished pulling myself through the door that obstructed me, I too began to close the distance that separated me from the one obstacle that appeared ready to stand between me and Angelica.


    <hr>


    When the distance between the monk-like devil and myself was little over ten meters I moved to speak to my potential enemy. Alright... here we go. I thought to myself as I mentally prepared for failure and a bit of disappointment.


    "Stand down, warrior." I commanded, hoping to get the figure to speak more than I expected him to obey me. He didn''t stop his careful advance, but his neutral expression did change. The corner of his mouth inched upward ever so slightly, indicating that the warrior understood me and was amused by my command. Seeing the change in his expression provoked my own, and unlike the devil, my smile wasn''t hidden, slight, or subtle.


    I continued my advance, grinning all the while. I wasn''t surprised when the warrior began his assault, which he did the instant he was close enough that a single leap would allow him to be within prime punching distance. He took to the air relaxedly and aimed a closed fist at my face.


    His thick fist sped through the air and the expression on his face changed, becoming more and more savage and battle thirsty the closer the attack got to me.Should I dodge?... No, I''m incorporeal, I''ll be fine. I thought, grinning and smirking stupidly.


    I continued to think that as the fist continued its trajectory and then collided with my right cheek. Pain exploded across my face as the rock hard fist wounded me and my pride.


    I threw myself backward in response to the punch, aided by its force and momentum all while raising my muscular, incorporeal arms in front of my face in case he tried to strike again. The devil landed on the ground causing a soft "thud" noise while smirking at me. His amber-colored eyes were alight with blood-thirst.


    It was at that moment that the system''s mechanical voice filled my mind, giving me an alert I would have greatly benefited from getting before getting socked in the face.


    [Alert!


    Monks and creatures with monkly abilities can hit incorporeal creatures. Their fists are infused with qi, and they are unarmed attacks can solidify ghosts, shadows, and even incorporeal creatures like astral-projections are vulnerable to their attacks.]


    Well, that would have been very good to know before I got punched in the face! I mentally shouted, annoyed by the pain that now rocked my skull. After sassing one of the voices in my head, I refocused and examined the devilish warrior who stood between me and the completion of the quest that led me here in the first place.


    The devil was also studying me, and he was confident enough in his power to seemingly wait for me to make my move. He heard me hiss in pain and annoyance, as I activated my identification power and waited for my mind to fill with information about him. Thankfully I didn''t have to wait long.


    [Name: Bluemoon Thunderfist


    Class: Monk, Level 15


    Species: Monje Devil


    Faction: Paimon''s dictatorship


    Alignment: Lawful Evil]


    Well... very little about this is surprising.I thought, after inspecting the information that my ability revealed to me. At this point I figured I ought to learn more about my monkly powers.


    [Hey system, can you let me see what abilities I have as a monk?] I asked, as I kept my gaze firmly on the enemy in front of me. I followed him like a hawk, my eyes never leaving his frame. He smirked at me, his open smile revealing rows of honey-colored teeth, and allowing his smelly breath to taint the hallway we stood in.


    [Sure! Pulling them up right now.


    Your abilities as a monk are pretty simple ones for now. Your unarmed strikes are far more effective than they would be otherwise, and you can strike faster than mortal monks can. You are proficient at catching projectiles intended to harm you, and you can begin to manipulate the qi of your enemies.


    Qi is an interesting thing, particularly for gods. All living creatures possess qi, it flows through them in trails that are visible to you and other monks. Monks are adept at manipulating it in various ways. For now, for you specifically, you can visualize the qi patterns of your enemies and you can strike it in ways that stun them.


    Monks of your level, level 12 for mortals, are capable of using their qi in various ways to augment themselves. You can do all of these things too, but they aren''t really necessary for you. They can shield their minds against illusions, they can heal themselves, slow their falls, and more.


    Your body is strong, far stronger than mortal monks of your level. It''s not like mortals or normal extraplanars pose a threat to you.] The system informed me, and its final sentence wasn''t spoken in the same neutral tone as its others had been. It was spoken smugly, and I caught the barely perceptible inflectional shifts in the normally monotone voice that I frequently heard.


    I decided to ignore it for now, since my enemy was still waiting for me to make my move.Prioities. Set them straight.I told myself, sighing in annoyance at this situation. I shook my head and narrowed my gaze. My enemy caught my preparations and took a defensive stance.


    "Alright Thunderfist... are you ready to go?" I asked, anger causing my voice to rumble out of my throat threateningly.


    The devil''s eyes widened slightly when he heard me mutter his name, but he didn''t back down. I began to move towards the devil, this time prepared to dodge any strikes he may hurl at me.


    <hr>


    Angelica''s first clue that something was up in her prison was the soft noise of a distant punch colliding with a faint face. She heard the soft impact but wasn''t able to fully piece together what it was.


    She found herself, by chance, close to the door that led out of the prison cell and into her mysterious prison. She couldn''t see anything beyond it, but that didn''t keep her from hoping that she''d soon be free of this mysterious and unpleasant place. Her wings ached, and she felt the strain of her muscles as she struggled to keep her wings in their somewhat comfortable place, arched low and wide rather than bunched up and close.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    She eventually sat down, annoyed by the fact that she had to sit in the odd dirt that littered her cell. This caused her to be terse and annoyed, something obvious given her next statement. "Hey Althos... if you could free me faster, I''d really appreciate it." She grumbled, hoping that her mysterious savior was close.


    She had no idea how close he was. Or that he could hear her.


    <hr>


    I closed my distance with the devil in an instant, moving to a range where I could hit him and he couldn''t hit me back with but a few steps. As I entered my ideal range, I launched my first attack a closed fist punch aimed square at the nuisance''s face. "Eat this!" I shouted, as my fist sailed through the air. He was still, studying the fist, until right before it made impact.


    My enemy was fast, and not just fast on his feet but also instinctually quick. He blocked my fist with a strike of his own, a deft swing of his elbow flashed out and made impact with my fist before my appendage could rock his face like his rocked mine. His muscular arms hid toughened bones that reduced even the impact of my blows, but they weren''t enough, even together, to truly shield him.


    The devil''s quick reflexes allowed him to lessen the impact, but he had made a foolish miscalculation: he overestimated his own strength and my fist decimated his elbow, hitting it with far greater force than he was ready for.


    My fist was gigantic and quick, especially in comparison to this human-sized devil. He was able to block my attack in the sense that he prevented it from hitting its intended target, which was his face, but he wasn''t successful in the sense that he prevented himself from being harmed.


    I heard the sickening crunch of bones breaking from the impact of my clenched fist colliding with his bare elbow, and grinned at the devil. He reeled from the force of the blow and tried to jump back so as to build some space between the two of us but I wasn''t as nice as he was and lashed out at him with a kick.


    You aren''t getting in my way!I thought, wanting to end this encounter quickly and rescue Angelica. My leg flashed out and pummeled the devil who had been in the process of trying to escape my reach by beating a hasty retreat. My kick wasn''t aimed anywhere in particular, it''s purpose was to disrupt the figure who stood between me and my goal, which it did.


    The kick caught him square in the chest, but this time I didn''t hear or even feel the familiar crunch of bones. He was instead knocked back by the kick and sent sprawling onto the floor. He toppled over, quickly becoming little more than a pile of limbs on the floor. He didn''t try to get up right away, which caused me to feel slightly suspicious.


    I kept my distance from the pile of limbs that was my opponent and waited for a second to see what he would do. Then I was surprised to get an urgent notification from the system.


    [Alert! Thunderfist is preparing to send out a mental missive. He''s going to try and message someone! If he''s allowed to do that then all of the stealthy work you''ve done to infiltrate this place will be for naught. He''ll be able to alert others to your infiltration of the dungeon. But you can stop him. As the possessor of the first level of influence over the mind domain, you can shut down attempts to telepathically communicate that are initiated by people in your field of view.] The system said, which caused me to almost shout in anger, followed by nearly instantaneously releasing a sigh of relief.


    [Would you like to do that now? If so we''ll activate your "Mind-jammer" telepathic ability, which is the power you use to shut down attempts to telepathically communicate.] The system told me, urgency clear in its voice.


    [Yes! Of course!] I responded, doing my best version of mentally "shouting" so as to add urgency to what I told it.


    [Understood! Initiating Mind-Jamming in...


    3...


    2...


    1...


    Mind-Jamming successfully initiated. Thunderfist was unable to contact or alert his superiors.] The voice revealed, and I grinned into the ceiling of the hallway for a moment, luxuriating in my apparent victory, before I released a breath I hadn''t known I was holding and then began to approach my fallen foe.


    For his part in all of this, Thunderfist mumbled something under his breath, something I couldn''t quite catch, when he was about to send a mental message to some unknown superior and found that for reasons beyond his knowledge he couldn''t.


    I could faintly hear an echo of some static-like noise invade his mind for a moment whenever he tried to "send" the message that now lingered in his mind, even though it should have been lingering in someone else''s. That was something which was new: I hadn''t been particularly good at hearing someone else''s thoughts without making a connection first, at least until now, apparently.


    And with that, I began to walk the few steps I''d need to walk to close the distance between myself and the devil. While doing so, I heard a faint complaint in the background.


    "Hey Althos... if you could free me faster, I''d really appreciate it." A voice said, and I chuckled at that.Well I guess that''s Angelica.I told myself, laughing as I approached my fallen enemy.


    Now... how can I handle my enemy in a speedy way that doesn''t kill him? I just want him out of my way while I talk to Angelica.I wondered, beginning to faintly search for a tool that''d take this guy out of commission for a while.


    <hr>


    Barely an instant after I began my trek to him it was done. And not just because I was fast, but because there was virtually no distance between him and I. I stood over him, his fallen form still and surprisingly, annoyingly, courageous even as I looked down at him with a cold gaze.


    "What should I do with you?" I asked, truly unsure of how to handle him. He was still, but I sensed a shimmering ember of defiance left in him, something that my senses alerted me would likely hint that he''d try one more attack if I wasn''t careful.


    "You are not my target... but I also can''t let you free willy-nilly." I said, considering my options. While considering my options, I mentally tapped my codex and decided to search through its pages for a spell that may aid me in ensuring Thunderfist''s continued state of non-defiance.


    Fortunately, I was able to find one pretty quickly. "Flesh-To-Stone", a standard petrification spell that also froze one''s mind, and one of several such spells lurking in my codex in the useful Alteration section of the spell-lists that made up my codex.


    "Oh, perfect! I know exactly how to deal with you for now." I said aloud, purposefully allowing him to hear me and hopefully infect him with a seed of doubt in his last few moments of consciousness. I extended a hand outward and over his fallen form, and began to gather the magical energy in my hand, calling it and coaxing it towards that specific part of me.


    "Just so you know, I don''t want to kill you. And I won''t, for now anyway. But you aren''t going free that easily. I just have something I need to do before I deal with you." I told the devil, as I felt the energy begin to pool in my hand and threaten to drip downward before it was time for it to do so.


    I willed it to mutate and twist into something new, something specific and different from the chaotic, mutable energy that otherwise made me up. I mentally spoke to the energy, calling it to twist, distort, and mutate my enemy the way it wanted to do to itself.


    "Hold still. This''ll hurt." I told him, bluffing, though I did sense the magic that flowed through me and threatened to leak out and touch him and anything else in this hallway, though there were no such things as far as I could tell anyway, here.


    And then, after a few moments had passed, I willed the energy out of my outstretched hand. The first bit of it fell from my fingertips in the form of a silver, sweatlike drop, which dripped from my middle-finger onto the guy''s back. It sailed through the air, dropping to the skin of the guard below my hand. Until that is, that it collided with his back.


    The previously still and silent warrior reacted to this, audibly moaning out in pain, even as his blue back began to transform into something of a different tone: a dark, gravel-like stone-substance. He tried to twist and turn, so as to visually represent writhing in agony, but couldn''t due to the odd substance on his back.


    "Alright..." I said, smirking at the defeated warrior, who no doubt felt a strange and heavy weight coming from where the blue skin of his back had once been, skin which was now replaced by a thick, stone-like substance.


    I moved my hand slightly and willed another drop out of it, this time taking somewhat less time than earlier before. In seconds another drop escaped my fingertips and found itself a new home: in Thunderfist''s right calf.


    And with that, a brief exchange of blows came to an end, even as a fun new game began.


    <hr>


    Moments after a series of audible, repeated, howls of pain had quickly filled this floor of the prison, and then eerily stopped, and after Angelica had long retreated away from the door leading in or out of the cell for that reason, Angelica heard a loud knock at the entrance to her cell.


    The knock was simple and rhythmic. Three solid taps, ones loud enough for her to hear no matter where in the chamber she stood. And then seconds later, a single, low-voice filled the prison chamber.


    "Angelica? It''s me... Althos. You probably know who I am, the system and all that, but I''m here to rescue you." The voice said, introducing itself to an Angelica who immediately perked up at the sound of the voice and began to walk in its direction.


    Finally! I can''t believe it...She thought, excited at the prospect of meeting her new god and savior, and who might well be both the newest god in all of existence, as well as the last of their kind.

 Chapter 101:

    The door that separated me from Angelica was a simple one. A thing made of stone that opened with but a touch. It didn''t bother resisting me, even though I detected a faint remnant of magic coming from it. I grinned at the door and had the following thought run through my mind: Good. If it had tried to resist me opening it I would have had to use force.


    I shrunk my size down several meters, so as to fit inside the tiny chamber, and then stepped beyond where the door had just been. After doing so, I laid my eyes on Angelica, able to see her for the first time.


    She was only the fourth angel I had ever seen in my life to date, after Samyaza, the odd, darkly angelic being who had been with Paimon when "I" in the grand, triune, sense had been forcibly teleported to Infernius, and my newest creation; the Arboreal Angel, Menanam.


    The creature in the cell, Angelica, resembled a young woman whose golden skin faintly radiated a gentle, golden glow. She wore a thin, red breastplate made of some sort of celestial metal that protected the parts of her form where vital organs would have been located if she was a mortal creature.


    Her legs were protected by greaves which matched her breastplate. She had voluminous red hair that framed her oval-shaped face, and which went down to the tips of her shoulders.


    After studying her for a few moments I took the initiative and began to speak, approaching her as I did so.


    "Hello. It''s nice to meet you." I said, grinning at her. She had spent the past few moments carefully looking me over and then grinned after she heard me speak for the second time.


    "It''s nice to meet you too, oh honorable one." She said, reverentially. She curtsied in front of me, cautious and respectful. She twitched a bit, her muscles straining and beginning to threaten to spasm for some reason I wasn''t able to discern at a glance.


    I heard a familiar noise, as the sound of the system providing me with another alert occurred. Its mechanical voice filled my mind and I grinned as I read the notification I had just been provided with: the entry on Emissary Angels.


    [New Species Knowledge Gained: Emissary Angels.


    Emissary Angels are potent diplomats and skilled evangelists. Their purpose is to serve godly masters in a range of ways, be it in the form of acting as the faces of their master''s organizations, or as politicians who make up the elected officials in godly governments. They are given missions by their lords and masters and move to fulfill them with a fanatic zeal.


    Emissary Angels are one of the less martially oriented kinds of angels, but in exchange for their lack of physical prowess, they are exceedingly charismatic. They are skilled charmers and communicators who possess highly developed mental and linguistic abilities, which allow them to be the frontmen, frontwomen, and frontpeople, of a range of organizations.


    Since the end of the mythic age, Emissary Angels as a species have been one of the groups of angels who have formed a relatively new order for angelkind everywhere. An order which has devoted itself to the creation of a new path forward for angels everywhere, but hasn''t yet caught on with either weaker angels or the most powerful of their kind, both of whom are waiting to see what the order''s tenet are.


    Emissary Angels that evolve generally do so at the whims of their divine masters and become other types of skilled angelic servants of the gods. Without a god to guide their evolution, angelic evolutions have been becoming rarer and rarer, but unlike with devils angelic evolutions still occur.]


    After reading through the entry myself, I willed it away and reflected on its revelations.


    So angels are forming their own order? How interesting... It might be worth attempting to learn more about this order at some point. After this trial. I told myself, curious to learn more but balancing that curiosity with a desire to move forward in completing the trial ahead. In front of me, the angel''s muscles, her wings in particular, continued to twitch erratically.


    She was trying her best to be respectful, but the low height of the chamber obviously bothered her and after examining her wings I could tell why. They were too long and too tall for her to be able to stand without at least mild discomfort.


    I could tell that she was eager to get out of here, and so I rose a single hand in her direction and considered what to say next. Where should we go? I could take her to the Dark Cathedral, or I could take her to my realm... I asked myself, debating it for just a moment.


    This is the perfect chance to show a naturally born creature my realm and see how they react. I might as well take her there rather than take her to the Dark Cathedral. Plus this way she doesn''t have to deal with devils, who she might have a distaste for at the moment. I reasoned, before beginning to speak to her again.


    "I can tell that this place is uncomfortable for you. If we leave this chamber but stay in this building then you''ll see something... you''ll see the fate of your warden. I''d rather that not happen. So instead, do you feel comfortable with me teleporting us to my realm?" I asked her, curious as to how she''d respond.


    Her eyes grew wide with excitement at what I suggested, and she opened her mouth to speak, but then almost immediately closed it. She took a second to calm herself, and then actually began to speak. "I would be very comfortable with that." She said, breathlessly. I chuckled and activated my teleportation ability, selecting both of us, and then we departed from Infernius.


    <hr>


    My power effortlessly grabbed both of us and our surroundings shifted.


    No longer were we trapped in the tiny cell, instead, an instant after my power surrounded us we were teleported to the interior of the eerie recreation of the city of Undermoon that lurked underneath the surface of my realm. And more than that, we were inside of one of the living buildings that could be found throughout the city.


    Before Angelica could react to her new surrounds, I heard a welcome voice begin to speak directly into my mind: that of the system. I was about to receive a new notification!


    [Prayer Quest Complete:


    With the successful retrieval of Angelica from within the Onyx Obelisk, the prayer quest has been completed.


    Rewards acquired:


    Angelica the emissary angel is readying herself to become your servant. Completion of this quest has reinforced your honorable liberator title, cementing it and causing those who know you by it to experience increased feelings of awe and reverence towards you.]


    That''s awesome! The quest is done... Now I can enjoy the rewards, before heading back towards the prison.I thought, excitedly experiencing the rush of a job well done. And then Angelica reacted to her changed surroundings.


    Angelica gasped as she assessed her transformed surroundings, no longer eerie interior of the cell she had been trapped in. Instead, she now stood inside a vaguely flesh-colored interior of one of the many buildings that made up my city.


    Her wings stretched out, almost reflexively, and she took a moment to relax. I watched her curiously, before taking a step back and leaning against one of the floral walls that defined the length of the house we were in. She herself found a seat and then sat down.


    The two of us were inside of a small living-room-like area, complete with stone tables and chairs made of floral material, themselves extensions of the house. The walls that defined this room were a vivid pink color, and after the two of us were still for a moment the walls themselves undulated. I chuckled at that sight, and Angelica had a tense expression on her face for just a second before she began to grin at the wall, taking all of this in stride.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    She turned to look at me and asked me a surprisingly direct question. "What is this?" She wondered, her head tilting as if to physically indicate her curiosity. Her question was vague, but it didn''t take a genius to infer what she meant.


    "This is a living house. It''s a plant." I explained simply, watching her to see her reaction. Her eyebrow rose in interest to my explanation and I audibly chuckled in response to that. I decided that that was enough of a reaction for me and opted to continue my explanation, providing her with a longer one.


    "You see, one of the subdomains I have a bit of influence over is the subdomain of plants. And of fungi. I''m actually an incredibly powerful deity of fungi, but I also have influence over plants, animals, nature, and... a handful of other things as well. When I built this realm, I largely let the system do it so that I could watch what happened. I''m quite young, and I wanted to see what the system did if given power. One of the things it created was this city, complete with several of these living houses." I informed her, grinning as I revealed a bit about myself to her.


    She looked at me with newfound respect, no doubt increasing whatever respect she may have had for me when I first entered her cell. She began to speak shortly after I finished telling her what I had thought fit to reveal so far.


    "So this place was shaped by your power, and brought into being by the system itself? Wow... That''s amazing!" She exclaimed. There was genuine amazement in her voice, and it took me a second to catch it. Hearing her react that way improved my impression of her, and I didn''t doubt that it made me smile at her.


    "It is! This place is also inhabited. Not this specific house, obviously," I said, as I quickly inspected my radar to double-check what I had just said. A quick glimpse at it reassured me that I wasn''t wrong. "But this city is inhabited. By a few creatures. Creations of mine, humanoids, other animals, some angels, and even a handful of elemental beings." I said, eagerly bragging about what I could do even this early in my life.


    Her eyes went wide at that declaration of mine, and I wondered why they did that. Fortunately, it took her just a second to speak up in response to what I had just said. "Wait, you can create all of those things?" She asked, her expression a mixture of puzzlement and awe. I didn''t hesitate with my response to her.


    "Yes, I can. And more. I have some influence over an assortment of domains. I have influence over the mind domain and the soul domain, which are... as far as I understand anyway, the main reason why I can create such a variety of lifeforms. It appears that those domains mix incredibly well with other domains when it comes to creating a range of lifeforms." I informed her, happy to have someone to chat with about my divine abilities who knew less about this than I did.


    She silently considered this. Her gaze grew distant and unfocused, undoubtedly temporarily lost in consideration of the things I had just told her. Her reaction to what I had revealed to her had been interesting, and it made me want to learn more. So I waited for her to refocus before I asked her something.


    "You seem surprised. Does this somehow contradict something you thought you knew about me, or about gods?" I asked, curious to hear her answer. She immediately shook her head as if to assure me that that wasn''t the case, even as she mentally prepared an answer to my question.


    "No, liberator, it doesn''t. I was merely surprised at the diversity of your powers. You see, I was informed by the system itself, that you were astoundingly young and to be able to do so much at such an age is just too much for me to truly comprehend." She stated, refreshingly honestly.


    I nodded at her after considering her answer and decided to aid her by showing her something: the vision that I, my mind specifically, had created showcasing the wide range of powers at my disposal. Knowledge of it and the ability to cause creatures to witness it was locked in our shared mind-space, so I looked at Angelica and quietly asked her a simple question. "Would you like to see the vision I''ve created that showcases my powers?" I asked, smirking at her.


    She looked at me with a neutral expression on her face. She was clearly assessing me, but I could tell with a glance that there was a curiosity in her and even perhaps a bit of skepticism that would easily be addressed with a simple viewing of the vision. Before she could reply to my question I decided to try to convince her to view the vision in a way I thought would work with her.


    "Viewing the vision would address any skepticism you may feel. It would assure you that serving me is the right course of action for you and that I have the sort of power that merits the service of such powerful creatures like you." I said, sincere belief in my voice adding weight to my statement.


    She listened to me, and when I was finished speaking only waited a second before responding, but not verbally. She nodded at me to signal her consent. I responded to her nod by tying our minds together and then immediately causing her to witness the vision.


    I watched as her eyes clouded over and as the power of the vision my mind-self had created began to fill her mind.


    <hr>


    The next few seconds passed in a blur, both for Angelica and for myself. I got to witness her witnessing the vision, experiencing almost as firsthand as possible the variety of powers at my disposal and reacting to them in real-time.


    I felt her heartbeat quicken as she stared blankly, an awestruck expression on her face.I wonder where in the vision is she...I thought, grinning as she occasionally gasped in shock due to whatever wonders she was witnessing at that particular moment.


    And watching her awestruck face shift slightly and subtly as she witnessed my mind perform an assortment of divine, magical, and devilish abilities was how I spent the next several minutes.


    <hr>


    It took over ten minutes before she next addressed me. I sat there and watched her the entire time, studying her expressions and the quiet ways she reacted to the vision she was witnessing. Her reactions were typically physical ones, but usually, they were not audible reactions.


    Instead, the angel reacted to the vision she was witnessing by weeping blood-red tears, by the quickening of her heartbeat, or the flutter of her wings. It was an interesting thing to witness, and it allowed me to learn more about the physiology of angels.


    When the vision faded from her mind, or at least her consciousness, she had the face of someone who had witnessed something that was equal parts spectacular and terrifying. And I could tell that she was unsure of which she ought to focus on. So I decided to help her pick.


    "I can tell that you were... touched by what you witnessed." I said a confident smirk etched on my face. She looked at me, her mind still reeling from the dazzling assortment of things she had just seen. And then she looked at me, awe, respect, and fear visible in her gaze.


    "Your powers are... truly amazing." She said, struggling for a second to find the right word to express how she felt about what she had witnessed. Her struggle was obvious to me because I could feel it in her mind, and see in her body language. I let her words linger in the air for a minute before I responded to them.


    "And they grow in diversity and magnitude nearly every day. Every day I''ve lived so far, with very few exceptions, I''ve gained new servants, allies, and worshipers. And so, since gaining new worshipers and new allies is one of the many things that give a god more power, my capabilities have grown." I bragged, my gaze filled with pride, and my voice dripping with power.


    At this point, I looked away from her and I feigned staring off in the distance. I kept my gaze firmly locked on her, but in a way that only divine beings could. I stared at her remotely and watched as she turned to look at me.


    She seemed to be thinking about something, debating it. But after a moment of silence, she opened her mouth and began to speak.


    "Althos, do you know who Paimon is?" She asked me, courageously. There was something frantic in her voice like she urgently needed to say whatever she wanted to say or she was afraid she''d lose her nerves. I chuckled at this display, but only internally. I could tell that it was a struggle for her to say what she had just asked and didn''t want her to feel mocked.


    "I do. He''s the... fraudulent overlord of the city of Bastille. A true-devil playing at being an archdevil." I told her, not revealing anything about myself but that I had a distaste for our mutual enemy. She smiled softly upon hearing me say that.


    "I am... most pleased to hear you refer to him in such terms. Would I be correct if I presume that he is an enemy of yours, as he is of me and my family?" She asked, interest beginning to become audible in her voice. I nodded at her once again.


    "Yes. He is a corruptive force that erodes and eats away at the might of devils in this layer of Infernius. Devils are some, but not all, of my servants. I would not willingly see them weakened, see them... languishing, under him. And so I oppose him, to restore true order and lawfulness throughout this layer." I said, truthfully but while withholding the full circumstances that led to my opposition to the pseudo-archdevil.


    She considered this momentarily and then began to smile at me. "So our goals align. And in fulfilling my oath to serve you, I won''t be abandoning my original duty to oppose and defeat Paimon." She said, closing her eyes and releasing a relieved sigh, one she may not have even realized she was holding in until it escaped her lungs.


    I looked at her and let the silence go uninterrupted for a moment. And then I broke it.


    "I think it''s time you tell me about who you are. I have... some questions, but first I''m going to make your first task in my service to be to tell me everything about who you are, who your brother is, and why you seek to oppose a devil content to play at being a bigger deal than he actually is. I''m ready to listen to your story." I commanded, readying myself to learn a lot.


    But before I let her speak, I decided to add just a bit to my statement so as to ensure she didn''t try to deceive me.


    "But, let me make this clear. There''s no point in attempting to deceive me. I can read minds and can copy people''s memories. If you try to lie to me, I will learn about it. And there will be consequences. Be honest with me." I said, ending my statement with a simple instruction, one I suspected she would obey after witnessing the vision of my powers.

 Chapter 102:

    Angelica sighed and grinned, somewhat grimly, at me. "Alright, you''re right. You''re just right. I owe you this much, at least." She admitted and then began to contemplate where to begin her tale. A few seconds later she settled on starting at the beginning. The very beginning. Of her life, that is.


    "I don''t know what you know about angels, so I''ll start this off by saying where we can come from. Before the godless age, we most often sprung from the needs and whims of the gods themselves who made us in great numbers, but factories also existed and exist that churn us out in a dimension... far from here." She explained, her gaze locked on mine throughout her explanation of angelic origins.


    Her voice was musical, gentle and restorative to listen too. It was something that a lesser mind might have been in danger of becoming lost in if they weren''t conscious of her abilities and talents. Nonetheless, I enjoyed hearing her speak and looked forward to the conversation we were beginning.


    "I was one of the ones who was churned out from a factory, mere decades ago." She said, her tone suggesting that this was somehow a shameful thing. I nodded at her, and my gaze stayed warmly locked on hers. After a few seconds, she smiled at me and refocused on her tale.


    "I am one of two angels who was constructed in tandem as part of what we angels consider a ''family''. I am the diplomat and my brother, who is my only sibling, is the warmonger. Klaus, an angel of war, came with me to Infernius." She told me. This much I knew already, it was a part of her prayer and one of the things I was able to hear from her before I met her.


    "Klaus and I were given two missions by our celestial sovereigns. The first mission was to galvanize Paimon''s enemies, particular something we''ve heard referred too as the ''Order of the Dark Saint''. It''s apparently a cult with some heretical beliefs about the ''Dark Saint'', the mysterious god who ruled over Infernius in the mythic age." She said, and I paused for a second to study her.


    I gazed at her, curious as to if to she was hiding something from me.Is she still ignorant as to who I am? Or is this her way of hinting that she knows my true identity?I questioned, my eyes focused on the entirety of her form for a moment. After a few seconds passed she didn''t indicate that she knew any more than she had let on. Instead, she continued to explain her missions.


    "Our second mission is to uncover the identity of a mysterious angel who has set up shop in this layer of Infernius. It seems that some odd creature, perhaps a gossip or baron angel, is building their own turf somewhere in the city of Bastille." She said, and I immediately thought of the odd angelic entity who had been with Paimon when he and I first met and clashed.


    "My brother and I, as well as others of our kind, came here on the orders of the Angelic Authority. The Angelic Authority is the governing body that lords over the dimension of our birth and has ruled over it for the past few centuries." She explained, now revealing something useful. I made a mental note to approach Samyaza about this supposed "Angelic Authority" sometime soon.


    At this point, I opted to interrupt her. I allowed my gaze to drift upward from her gentle red lips to her eyes, before I spoke.


    "I knew some of that already. I appreciate the honesty you''ve shown me so far, and will remember it. My main remaining question is if you know why it is that your former superiors seek to take down Paimon? I say ''former'' to reinforce the reality you are in. These... angelic sovereigns are no longer your masters. You serve one person. Me." I told her, directly reminding her that any old allegiances she may have had were wiped away now.


    She nodded at me, to signal and reassure me that she understood her new circumstances before she responded.


    "I don''t know every detail behind their reasoning, but I do know that my former superiors were afraid. Are afraid." She said, correcting herself. "They are afraid that Paimon is becoming... something else. Something not devilish. Something unlawful." She said, and as she spoke she shivered slightly, suggesting that this was a fate to be feared, or at least something that Angelica herself was frightened of.


    I nodded at this, having heard of Paimon''s behavior and his prejudices and recalling them as she spoke about lawfulness. "Paimon has... some deep-seated prejudices against more animalistic looking devils." I said, taking a second to consider how to formulate the rest of my statement.


    "One of my servants is a sage and she''s a rare sort of devil who has owl-like wings and features. Paimon attacked her and her tribe a very long time ago. He has a history of doing this, or things like it." I informed her, and her face shifted in a way that suggested to me that she had heard similar stories.


    "The people who ordered me and my allies to stealthily invade Infernius were afraid that Paimon would eventually evolve. Not into an arch-devil, but that corruption they had spotted taking root in his heart would forcibly transform him into a greater fear-monger. Which would be... cataclysmic for the layer and for the rest of Infernius." She informed me,


    I waited for her to expand on her cryptic statement. It didn''t take her long to realize I would need a greater explanation than that. Perhaps a quarter of a minute passed before she began to speak again, and in the meantime, there was an awkward silence that filled the room.


    "If his corrupted evolution comes to pass, then he''d be rejected by Infernius, and this layer itself would turn on him. As would his former servants. Eventually, he''d be put down, but not before tearing through countless devils and the violence would incredibly weaken this layer. In the worst-case scenario... the damage he''d do would leave this layer in a similar state to the surface of Infernius. He''d die, but this layer would be irreparably damaged. It''d be left a lifeless waste, and unlike the first layer there''s no advanced technology here worth salvaging." She said, grimly.


    I accepted this statement as true, but still my question remained unanswered. I decided to press the issue, just a bit anyway.


    "None of this answers the question of why you were instructed to prevent that from coming to pass. Why do angels care what happens in Infernius? What do they, what do you, have to lose? Nor does it inform me of why your masters believed you possessed the capabilities to do so." I said, bringing up a point that I grew more curious about the more Angelica spoke.


    After hearing me ask this she looked up at me and smiled. This was the single widest smile I had seen from her so far, one of genuine amusement and interest.


    "You''re clever. Good. That will help immeasurably." She said, beaming at me. "I am... was, not very high up in the hierarchy of the Angelic Authority. But even I know this much: my lord, the angelic authority seeks to maintain some sort of balance in the cosmos. They are a neutral organization. They feared the metaphysical fallout were such a cataclysmic event to come to pass." She explained, her voice taking on a tone to suggest that what she was telling me was a sort of sacred secret.


    I nodded at her and waited for her to continue. We were both conscious of the fact that she hadn''t answered my other question. The one that in the short run mattered more. It only took her a second to begin to speak again.


    "They didn''t believe that we would succeed. Not on our own anyway. I am certain that the intention behind sending us to Bastille was to begin to prepare for a more substantial intervention." She said, candidly. At this point I glimpsed into her mind, scanning it to see if there was any possibility she was trying to deceive me about anything she had shared so far.


    <hr>


    An angelic mind, even at a glance, was a whole different monster compared to a mortal mind. I didn''t need to sneak into it to try and detect any deception, but I did have to glance at it and what I saw was fascinating.


    The glimpse of Angelica''s mind that I saw differed from any sort of mortal mind "I" in the grand sense had either invaded or infiltrated. Where mortal minds had a large black border, hers had a dense white one. Where mortal minds had little houses that presumably symbolized their conscious minds, hers was a tiny, closed temple.


    This is fascinating, but now is not the time, and she is not the angel to experiment on and learn from regarding this.I told myself, reigning in the curiosity that flared up within me when I got to "see" her mind. But that didn''t stop me from making a mental note to find an angel I could experiment on and whose mind I could take risks with, in the name of satiating my curiosity, at a later date.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    My quick glimpse into the contents of her recent statements revealed only that she was being honest with me. That was commendable, and it suggested that she''d become a useful servant in the days to come.Good. I could see her becoming incredibly handy when it comes to dealing with humanoids.I thought, already scheming about her uses.


    <hr>


    Back in the physical world of my realm, I smiled at her and let my eyes convey that I appreciated her candor.


    "For now you''ve told me all you need to tell me. Would you like to stay here, in this house?" I asked her, looking at her curiously. I didn''t think she''d be eager to stay in a living house, which was probably how most naturally born mortals would feel about that. She shivered, but not in delight after I finished speaking, and I audibly laughed.


    "Lord... no. I wouldn''t like that." She said, and I grinned at her. "I hope you aren''t offended, I don''t mean any offense, but I would not like that at all. Do you have any normal houses I could dwell in?" She asked, a somber expression on her face.


    I looked at her for a few moments, maintaining a sort of neutral look on my face as if I were scrutinizing her, and then I spoke. "Of course I do. Pick a home, and make it yours. I''ll leave a mark on it to indicate that it is your property. I was joking... somewhat anyway, about you staying in one of the living houses." I told her and then stood up.


    "Take some time to rest. If you want to venture above ground... don''t. ''Above ground'' exists, but it''s an endless forest. This realm, as it is right now anyway, is modeled after the sorts of environments I''ve seen in a mortal world, the mortal world I was born in. I haven''t seen much yet, and so much of this place hasn''t been directly touched by me." I explained.


    "Every living thing here, even the living houses, worship me, including lots of dangerous, vicious animals and I don''t contain them or control them, I let them embrace their instincts. If you go above ground, you''d get lost or attacked. Probably both. Stay here, rest, and send me a mental message when you have had time to settle in and get used to this realm. When you do, I''ll introduce you to my other servants and worshipers." I told her. She nodded at me and got up.


    I gestured towards the door that led out of the house and watched as she walked towards it, opened it, and then went through it. Without a moment of hesitation, she walked out of sight and was gone. I spent a second listening to her walking and then willed myself out of my home realm. My powers instantly grabbed me and deposited me back in the cell she had spent an unknown amount of time in.


    <hr>


    Like Angelica, I didn''t hesitate. I walked out of the cell and up to the stone statue that laid on the floor. It was the remains of my enemy, the devil-monk, Bluemoon Thunderfist.


    The statue was of a figure in pain, his hands clutching his stomach. I studied it, recalling how Thunderfist had gotten me by surprise and hit me once with a surprisingly painful blow to my face.He wasn''t weak. It''s a shame I had to be his opponent. Against many other foes, he would have been very effective.I thought, respecting his skills enough to acknowledge him as a warrior.


    The statue in front of me raised a lot of questions, questions I knew to prioritize.After all... someone could come up here and in doing so cause all of my stealth to be undone. But how do I handle this statue... this man?I wondered, as I visually explored the statue.


    I knelt down and looked at it, examining the finer details of the effects of my magic. While looking at it and thoroughly studying it, I wondered something a bit random.Would this be art? Is something this... macabre, art?Personally, if asked I would have argued that it was art.


    I sighed and considered the tools at my disposal to handle Thunderfist.I have magic I could use for this, but I could also just use my fungal powers. It wouldn''t be a challenge for me to use my spores to seize control of this devil''s mind, which is the simplest way to do this that doesn''t involve me killing this devil.I realized.I could also gain an ally this way.I thought as if I needed another reason to my eerie fungal powers on the devil that punched me in the face.


    I took a second to ready myself, and then lifted the statue up so that it was standing on two feet and not laid flat on the ground. Then I began to deactivate my spell, just enough for his face to begin to revert to flesh, rather than stone. While that was occurring I initiated my mind-jamming power so that he couldn''t send out a message to his superiors.


    The reversion from stone to flesh was a quick process, no doubt spurred on by my will. I watched as Thunderfist''s hair reverted from stone to its natural form, and shortly thereafter that spread to his face as well. When his eyes were restored they began to frantically speed about, scanning his surroundings with a look of fear and anger in them.


    When his nose was restored I moved close to it and exhaled spores almost directly into them. His eyes narrowed as I approached, but he was helpless to resist the power of the spores once they were inside of him. His eyes closed and his mind slowed, even as the spell continued to come undone. I watched as he fell unconscious, which occurred right as his mouth was restored to its original, fleshy, form.


    "I won''t take any chances with this fellow." I said to no one in particular, as I willed myself into his mind and began the speedy process of stealing memories from it.This way, even if the spores don''t work he doesn''t remember that anything was amiss.I told myself as I hopped into the devil''s mind.


    <hr>


    When I departed from his mind, with all of the memories of my intrusion and our fight in-hand and out of his memory, a process that took less than two minutes, I set about completing the one remaining task in this cell. I did this by weaving together a simple illusion intended to fool Thunderfist.


    It was based on his memories of Angelica, and I was thankful for her stoicism because it made creating the illusion quite simple. All I did was create an illusion of her praying, and occasionally milling about, and I set it to be active until I consciously undid it. This process took less than a minute.


    "Now that all of that is done... I think I''ll do something that a prankster or thief would do." I said a sinister grin on my face. Having this dungeon under my control would be quite useful, and so I figured since I was here, I might as well take it.


    I willed myself to be incorporeal again, and then leaped up, using as much strength as I could to throw myself towards the top of this dungeon.I sailed through the dungeon''s many floors rapidly. Before my very eyes, I watched as assorted floors vanished in a blur, my form speeding through their floors and then their roofs in an instant.


    My eyes and memory were strong and quick enough for me to note the assorted prisoners I had seen in the cells I zipped by, as well as the diverse sorts of guards that appeared before me, and then vanished from my sight as I whizzed past them undetected.


    I saw all sorts on my speedy trip up the dungeon''s otherwise exhausting lengths. I saw orcs, humans, goblins, and a number of creatures I had never seen before, guarded by giants, soldierly-looking devils, and dwarves who rode on impressively looking insects with thick shells and mighty horns.They''ll all serve me, in their own way, soon enough.I thought, grinning as I began to slow down.


    It took me nearly a minute before I came to a stop. When it happened I was in a hallway that was just like all of the others I had zipped past. I sighed in annoyance and repeated what I had just done but with less force this time. Given how I fast I sailed through the air, there was no possible way I wasn''t close to the top of this annoying eyesore.


    This time I sailed more slowly through the air, but still impossibly fast. I sped through the air until I actually bounded out of the obelisk and found myself in the open air above the city of Namira. All around me, for kilometers, in fact, I could see the landscape of the city. I saw the architecture of the giants clash with the vastness of the desert and almost admired it until I remembered that it was a sign that I hadn''t properly gauged my strength.


    "Damnit!" I shouted, with no one around to hear me as I expressed my agitation. I let myself float freely above the city for just a second, before I willed myself back down, back into the onyx building that imprisoned countless creatures and kept all sorts of giants and other beings gainfully employed. It took me a second to reach it, and then again I was surrounded by the deep darkness of the dungeon.


    In the highest chamber of the dungeon, as I figured it would be, was the office where the dungeon''s heart was kept. And I reached it mere moments after I threw myself back into this odd prison.


    <hr>


    The office I found myself in was a simple place. It was a fusion of a bedroom and a workplace, with a single, thin, for giants anyway, bed situated in the heart of the room, surrounded by countless bookshelves. They were clearly decorations which helped prevent the darkness of the room''s walls from darkening the room itself and were made of bright wood.


    On one end of the room was a desk, sized for a desert giant. And floating on top of that desk was the spherical orb which was the physical manifestation of the energies which coursed through the dungeon. I studied it as I approached it, floating up to the thing while admiring its beauty.


    The heart was a solid orb, made of the same obsidian which made up the walls of this dark place. It radiated darkness in the same way as the heart of Agowraith''s tomb radiated bright light. As I drew close to the thing, a familiar notification appeared in my mind.


    [Do you wish to claim the dungeon heart of the Onyx Obelisk as your own? If you do, you gain possession of this prison, you learn its history, and you gain access to the dungeon master''s menu. And you gain control of any wild animals living in this dungeon, though in this case, not the other organic monsters who live here. Animals, including insects here, will become your familiars. This is because wild animals and insects in this dungeon were created using dungeon energy, which isn''t the case for other creatures here.]


    I grinned, and prepared to question the system, intending to learn what I could about this, before I accepted control of the prison.

 Chapter 103:

    [Hello dungeon! I am interested in taking control of this dungeon, but first I have a request.] I told the core, my mind reaching out and weaving together a rudimentary link that synced us together as I composed the message.


    I felt the core''s confusion through the mental link we now shared and grinned. I shouldn''t keep it waiting, I guess. I thought as I readied my first salvo of questions.


    [I want to take control of the dungeon, but I have reasons for hesitating. I want to do this as stealthily as possible, so I want to seize control of the dungeon in a way that doesn''t alert whoever has control of it. Is that possible?] I asked, worried that it wasn''t because it seemed like such an unusual request. The core was silent for a moment, no doubt making sense of what I had just asked it. And then it spoke.


    [If aided by you, and perhaps by the domain of trickery then it should be possible to pass control from the current owner of the prison, to you without alerting the current owner. Additionally, once you take control of the dungeon you will be granted knowledge of this place''s inhabitants and an assortment of other things. Any questions you may have would likely be answered while you are given knowledge of this place.] I was alerted by the core, much to my surprise.


    I immediately set about messaging my acquaintance, the domain of trickery.


    I reached into the eerie space in my mind in which the domains lurked. It was there where they watched my actions from, and possibly also observed the rest of the multiverse through me, a potent deity who has the ability to alert reality. In that dark space, I directed my thoughts towards a domain I had had a friendly exchange with the trickery domain.


    [Hello! Would you like to pull a... prank with me?] I asked, my voice echoing in my mind as I reached inward to contact the odd, immaterial entity I was in the process of communicating with.


    [Oh? A prank? Why... yes. Yes, I would.] The voice responded almost immediately. It was a rough, but manic voice that seemed to enjoy the thought of pranking someone. It belonged to the entity I once stood up too, the domain of trickery. I grinned at its response and began to briefly explain what I hoped to achieve.


    [I know you know where I am. It seems like you''ve been watching me for a while now. I want your help in subtly taking over this dungeon. I need your help to deceive the current owner into thinking that they still control the dungeon.] I explained, grinning all the while.


    [Is that all? That''s easy! I thought you would come to me with something more difficult than that. But... it was fun watching you infiltrate this place.] The domain told me, evidently able and willing to help. I smiled and politely listened to its remarks while composing a message to the core.


    [Hello, the trickery domain is on board with this. I will now take control of the dungeon. The rest of my questions can wait. Please, grant me control of the dungeon and collaborate with the domain so as to do so without alerting the dungeon''s former owner.] I told the core.


    A second later I felt magical energy and authority flowing out of the core and into me. The darkness that surrounded the obsidian ball close to me surged outward and flew into me, colliding with me and then settling somewhere in my form.


    [The ownership switch has been initiated. Transferring both control and knowledge of the dungeon over to you, Althos.] It informed me. I felt my mind expand greatly and almost fell to my knees for a moment while I felt both power and awareness flow into me. My radar and minimap expanded, now covering all of the few hundred floors of the dungeon.


    [Control over the dungeon has been taken from the desert-giant named Ural Overforge. He is not aware of this, and is currently out of Namira.] The system informed me, which made me smiled relievedly. Seconds later I received a new notification.


    [The History of the Onyx Obelisk:


    The Onyx Obelisk has a storied history, that begins before it was created. Long before the thing towered over and protected the ancient city of Namira, a deal was struck between two mighty tyrants. One of those tyrants was the true-devil Paimon, and the other was a desert titan sultan whose name was lost to history but not to the system. This figure was named Abad-Al-Shalltear, and he was a desert sultan who ruled over the city in the unspeakably ancient past.


    The two of them struck a deal, one that resulted in the erection of a tiny onyx obelisk, the original iteration of the monolithic Onyx Obelisk that looms over the city today. At the time, most of the facility was actually underground.


    Overtime this thing became bigger and bigger and served as a landmark with which to recognize the city. It has been centuries since a soul was sacrificed atop its massive roof, and nowadays the thing is used differently by the two factions who control it.


    The giants use it to maintain their control over the barrier that protects their city. The barrier is the reason why they can maintain a city as large as they can, and it is the principal reason behind why their drug cultivation program is so successful. The devils use the prison to store prisoners who have some value in being left alive.


    Some of their notable prisoners include a solitary desert giant noblewoman whose political acumen nearly led a successful revolt against the line of succession in the age before Mahmud''s reign, a rust hag, a tribe of ogres whose raw strength exceeds that of any non-devilish inhabitants of the layer, a few demons who were sent into the layer to serve as emissaries to Paimon but who displeased him and were imprisoned as a result, and a tribe of feral goblins all of whom possess magical blood.


    The current overseer of the prison and former owner of the dungeon core is Ural Overforge, a desert giant lieutenant whose soul is Paimon''s property. He is a loyal minion of the dark devil and relishes the power and authority he''s been given, including over the handful of devils who oversee the more exotic prisoners. He has been the overseer of the prison for centuries.]


    I read through and then willed away the notification with a smile on my face. So many new... servants. I thought, eager to meet the figures imprisoned within this place. And to do so speedily, I retreated into my mind and began to weave together a handful of custom spell-effects.


    <hr>


    In the depths of my mind, I called on the endless mystical energy that flowed through me. I willed it into action, spurring it on like a chariot rider spurred on their horses.


    I will target... every guard in this place. Each of them shall be petrified, following in the path of their colleague, Thunderfist. I told myself, smiling sinisterly as I did so. The magic in my veins listened to it and then, once it had been told what my objective was, it surged out of me.


    The magic raced out of my form, turning the air it touched once it escaped my body a sickening shade of gray. I didn''t leave the depths of my mind just yet though. I still had one more thing to do.


    I want to be done with this place soon. So I will create... numerous copies of me, to pay a visit to the assorted, interesting inhabitants of this place. This way I can make various offers to escape this place at once. I thought, and watched as a number of shadows emerged from me.


    The entities were not exact copies of me. Instead, they were stylized representations of me, shadows who had my interests at heart but took on different forms to better represent my interests. For instance, one of them was an armored warrior whose fists were clothed in thick, metal gloves, meant to represent the vision of me as a "Dark Lord" which is how I''ve been worshiped by orcs.


    The shadows spread out in the room and then melted into the floor. I stood still and began to study the things on my radar.


    They rapidly descended through the dungeon''s floors, searching for specific prisoners to interact with and make offers of freedom too. My mind and attention fractured, splitting up to follow each of the shadows I had created.


    The first copy of me to reach the place it decided to go after was my "Dark Lord" illusion, and I studied the thing as it rapidly threw itself through the dungeon''s floors.


    <hr>


    The Dark Lord version of myself first appeared in the quiet floor that contained the ogres by appearing in the center of the hallway where the guards had previously done their rounds. This eerie shadow monster had melted through the floors by rendering itself incorporeal and then falling through the floors until right before it hit the ground of the floor it intended to land in.


    The thing dropped from the floor''s ceiling onto the floor in the middle of the hallway, right in front of the prison cell that served as the entrance to where the ogres were contained according to my newly updated radar. I grinned as I watched the thing reform itself in front of the cell.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    When it crashed onto the floor of the hallway it collided with the ground and become a several meter long pool of inky darkness. It remained in that form for a few moments, before beginning to compress itself, shrinking its size considerably.


    Seconds after it compressed down to a smaller size, the thing roared as it began the process of forming a humanoid looking body. The body wasn''t visible, but I could sense the magic working to fulfill my whims, and I grinned as it set about artistically forming ornate shadow armor, and taking on a humanoid form for which to fit in the armor it was crafting itself.


    After about a minute passed, a form began to emerge from the shadow-pool. It comically struggled to pull itself out of the shadows, but when it first succeeded its attempts to grip onto something which it could use to pull itself out of the pool, it speedily began to pull itself up and out of the crater it created.


    In a matter of seconds, the figure was out of the pool of darkness and not long after that the pool itself began to seemingly evaporate, fading back into nothingness. The illusion looked around, interested in its surroundings, mostly to satisfy my own curiosity rather than its own.


    It looked around and noticed the statues of the pair of guards who had been assigned to this floor. They had been caught off-guard by the magic that had penetrated this dungeon and thus were caught in the middle of their rounds. They were giant guards, and had been working with hyenas, predatory creatures who walked on all fours. The hyenas stared cautiously at the illusion, who itself looked back at them, before turning its attention to the prison cell.


    The illusion didn''t try to open the cell, instead it just walked towards it and then through it and found itself facing the ogres who I had first heard of minutes ago, when I was first exploring this dungeon.


    [Hello. Please grant me access to the knowledge entry on ogres.] I asked the system, as the illusionary copy of myself stared at the ogres, who were not yet aware of the thing that watched them, studying them.


    The creatures who stood inside of the cell ranged in height from 3 meters to 5 meters, and there were over two dozen of them. Their bodies were as wide as they were tall, and the creatures had misshapen bodies, with lumps, bumps, rashes, and bruises everywhere.


    My illusionary self was able to see their faces, crude things that were covered in purplish scars and cuts, no doubt due to their warmongering and brutish ways. It was while both my illusion and myself were studying the ogres that my mind picked up the familiar voice of the system.


    [New Species Knowledge Gained: Ogres


    Ogres are a brutish, warmongering species. These massive warriors are highly unintelligent, but are incredibly cruel, obedient to those stronger than them, and prized as warriors, slaves, and gladiators.


    Ogres are a fierce species whose culture hinges on the strong subjugating the weak. They, like orcs, are a species of warriors, who possess surprising flexibility and whose own folkloric tales conjure images of being mighty, respected participants in empires of darkness, led by their own so-called "dark lords".


    The truth is that orcs and ogres share a history and often subjugate each other or more rarely; rely on each other in a multiverse that tends to rightfully view both species as brutal warmongers who endanger other species and civilizations in close proximity to them.


    Ogres can evolve into oni, dangerous extraplanar beings who possess an ogre''s looks and eerie mystical powers including the ability to steal and feed on souls.]


    There''s a shared history between orcs and ogres? That''s not very surprising. I suppose it''s not a bad idea to see if these fellows could get along with Ranthor and his allies... And I should go ahead and command them to move shouldn''t I? Especially if I want to send these creatures plus say... the goblins to them.I thought, before going ahead and relaying that information to Ranthor himself.


    My illusionary copy finished studying the ogres right as I commenced messaging my orcish worshiper and the head of my cult among the belligerent humanoids back in the world of my birth. Before I could send my message, the copy began to approach the ogres, who had only just noticed the strange shadow who had silently snuck into their cell. They turned as one to stare at it, their eyes various colors but each of them was filled with fury and malice.


    That only lasted until my illusion walked over to one of the ogres, the one closest to it, and punched the fellow in the face, sending the thing hurtling into the ground. It collided with the ground with a gruesome sounding thud, and then my illusion began to speak.


    "Welcome to the army of the dark lord. If you don''t want to join, you can die." The thing said, as it rose an illusionary fist to the ogres, blood dripping down its obsidian-gloved knuckles. Its voice suggested that despite its illusionary nature, the pain it could inflict on them was anythingbut fake. Not that the ogres could tell that it was an illusion anyway., since it had just dropped one of their friends with a single blow.


    <hr>


    The second shadow to reach its intended target behaved similarly to the shadowy dark lord, just falling at a more relaxed pace than its sibling.


    Its target was the rust hag, a creature whose cell was unguarded from the outside but who was trapped within a floor-wide cell that sapped her of physical might and of mystical power. The shadow was unaffected by the strange magic, due to the fact that I controlled the dungeon. Something I learned the instant the shadow appeared in front of the hag.


    This shadow was far more intelligent-seeming than the other one was and when it reached its target floor the thing didn''t collide with the floor but instead made the decision to slow down and land on the floor. To say that shocked the hag was an understatement. I could hear her gasp from where the illusion had landed and turned my vision to lay my eyes on her.


    She had been idly wandering her cell when she saw a shape in the rough silhouette of a person, but since the illusion landed out of her sight she must have been deeply confused as to who it was who had just entered her normally lonely cell.


    I saw her and studied her. She was a vile looking creature, with skin the color and texture of raisins. She stood just under two meters tall and had old, leathery features. She looked at the shadow that had infiltrated her prison and began to approach it. She was either fearless or tired of being in this prison. Either way, judging from the look in her catlike eyes as she neared my illusion, she was probably someone I could use.


    "What are you?" She asked, her voice like blood-curdling screams, but quiet and unsettling.


    [New Species Knowledge Notification: Rust Hags.


    Rust Hags are the weakest of Hag-Kind. Hags are a species of almost human-like magical creatures of malice and misanthropy.


    Rust Hags are the smallest but physically strongest of their kind. These vile creatures have razor-sharp fingers and cruelly barbed bodies that allow even the most gentle of embraces to be cruel weapons that inflict both emotional and physical despair.


    These evil women use their faint mystical powers and their cruel physical abilities to spread misery and foment hatred. They form covens with their more mystically powerful cousins and they use deception and temptation to tempt the weak into deals that only advance the cause of evil and of heartlessness.


    Rust hags have skin tones that range from rust-colored to the color of raisins and they range in height from 2 meters tall to about 6 meters tall. They have animalistic looking talons and fang-filled maws. They are capable of spreading diseases with a kiss, or with a shallow slice of their brutal claws.


    Rust hags don''t evolve naturally, but if exposed to sufficiently powerful magic, or if altered through a mutation, they can become stronger members of their species such as illusionary hags, enchantresses, or night-sisters.]


    The illusion was silent, a shadowy mass that hauntingly watched her with a featureless face and only a loosely humanoid form. When this illusion refused to speak, I decided to.


    "I am Althos. A god. And an archdevil. I am either your salvation and your new master, or this cell will be where you die, years from now, of starvation and boredom. Make your choice." I commanded, my voice coming out of the shadowy figure that stood before her. I figured that with these sorts of entities it was best to make it clear right away who was in charge, treating her not unlike I would have treated one of the orcs.


    She looked at the illusion and continued to study it for a moment before deciding to question me herself. "Why should I serve you?" She asked, directing her question towards the strange shadow in front of her, which in all honesty was a fair question.


    I considered how to answer it for just a second before responding. But the answer came easily. And before I began to speak to her, I activated my faith-based powers, weakening her ability to resist me or question me.


    "For three reasons: firstly I am a god and can give you your desires in exchange for your service. Second, I can free you from this prison, which is probably the most important and direct reason for you to serve me. And third, because I wouldn''t judge you for doing what your kind are known for: spreading misery, and hatred. In fact, I''d value you for it." I told her, all while using my faith powers on her. The familiar blue mist surrounded her, and she inhaled some of it while focusing on my illusion.


    She once again fell silent while considering my words, but I could sense that there was little hesitation in her. [Come.] I whispered into her mind, disguising my voice to closely resemble her own.


    [There are no alternatives. Submit.] I told her, half-heartedly attempting to deceive her, well aware that I was likely only speeding the inevitable. And at this point I decided to reveal some of what I was considering doing with her to her, in the hopes that it would sway her to stop playing this weak-hearted game of cat and mouse.


    "I am assembling an army in a world on the mortal plane. If you come with me, you''ll not just be free of this place, you''ll be among other dark-hearted warriors who obey me and who raid and pillage in my name. If you worship me faithfully and aid my army, I may even grant you more magic than is at your disposal." I told her.


    I''m not sure what did it but it was probably that I suggested that in serving me she may just get more magic. She pretended to be considering her choices for another moment, so as to not appear overeager, but her hammering heart gave it away. When she spoke it was to accept my offer.


    "Althos... I will join your dark army. Please free me from this place so that I may live and spread misery." She said, her voice eager for the first time since she began to speak to me.


    <hr>


    I was in the prison for another hour. I had spent the time recruiting more and more servants, and shipping them to Ranthor before I left the eerie place. I wasn''t done with it just yet, but for the time being I had done what I needed to do.


    I left the prison, a far more barren place than it had been when I first arrived in it. The only notable inhabitants left in the strange place by the time I departed from its obsidian walls were the ambitious desert-giant woman, and the demons.


    With the demons... I''d like to approach them with Raverangos so as to show them that I''m nondiscriminate. And with the noble-woman, I suspect that my overtures to her would be smoother if I were a more well-known warrior in this place, than if I were a stranger who had just seized a prison with no reputation and no known giant allies.I thought to myself, reflecting on why I had left those creatures behind, for now, as I teleported back to the khan and joined my sleeping servants.


    And with that, my days of adventuring in Namira began with a bang.

 Interlude: Reflections & Visions

    Part One: Reflections.


    Is that... me? I wondered as I stared at the creature that looked back at me with equally inquisitive body language from within the pond. I studied it carefully, examining each of its odd features.


    The thing from within the waters that looked back at me was a handsome looking being. It had a face the shape of a bulb, with nearly no features aside from the antennae that riddled its bulbous head. The more I looked at it, the closer I studied it, the more convinced I became of two things: that I was in fact what I was staring at, and also that a strange thing, most probably my creator, instilled a wealth of knowledge within me that gave me an innate command of language.


    The best example I could think of, of that second thing, was that when I looked at the pond''s reflective surface and studied the creature either trapped within it, or myself being reflected by the blue water of the pond. The more I stared, the more words I found deep within myself which I could use to describe the thing, and the more I became convinced that it and I were one and the same.


    Wasplike body. Atrophied wings. Crablike form. I had no possible way of knowing what these words meant, or were in reference too, yet they lingered in my mind the more I tried to understand myself.


    If this is me... how can I come to that conclusion? How can I test this possibility? I wondered, my brain firing off all of the cylinders so as to come to the right conclusion. I must be certain! I told myself, desiring to know the truth.


    I spent the next few seconds in an indecisive huff before I felt a surge of determination well up within me. The answer to my probably came from an unusual source. The reflection itself!


    Inspiration comes from unusual sources, and an instinct told me that only sometimes could those sources be as handsome as the source of inspiration for my first experiment. It was in looking at the entity in the water, the one I was starting to believe was merely a reflection of myself, that I realized that there was a sure-fire way to test out if the creature was my reflection or an independent being. Specifically, it was in looking at the clawed hands that the entity possessed, that I found my answer.


    I have a solution! If I strike the thing in the water, how it reacts might well prove whether it''s an independent being or just a reflection. I felt proud of myself as I realized that if it were a reflection then I''d be able to tell by attempting to strike it. I rose a clawed hand high and studied the water.


    The thing in the water did so too! "Ahh!" I roared as I aimed my clawed hand at the pond, and brought it screaming down into the water. I kept my eyes glued to the pond and watched as the thing in the water also struck, continuing to mimic my actions perfectly in sync with myself.


    I did my best to prepare myself for a painful sensation, expecting to feel the heat and crunch of my claws crashing into the pond dweller''s claws but was pleasantly surprised to feel no such thing. Instead, all that happened was that my claws splashed into the pond and caused ripples to spread out from where my claws smashed into the pond.


    "What?" I buzzed, my insectile voice escaping from my core, confused and concerned as I felt no impact. I rose my other hand and watched as the entity in the ripples rose its hand as well. Again we clashed, our claws slamming into the same point in the water. And again, no impact.


    I took a step back from the water and opted to clear my head. I took a deep breath and then considered what I had learned.


    This thing is an eerie reflection of me, possessing my appearance and skills. We operate so perfectly in sync that the only possible conclusion, barring magic, is that this thing is nothing more than my reflection. Especially when I attempt to strike the thing down, and it defends itself, yet when our claws should hit, all that happens is that my claws get wet.I thought, finding the idea that the water was somehow producing an optical reflection of myself more believable after the trials of the past few minutes.


    That must be it. But just to be sure...I began to think about a reckless experiment, one that felt as though it would truly test the idea that this was a reflection of myself. I charged at the pond! And then, right as I reached the edge of the pond''s shore, I leaped into the air and threw myself into the water. My oddly shaped body crashed into the pond and quickly began to sink into the water.


    I searched inside of the pond for my double, scanning my surroundings both visually and auditorially.Nothing... It''s true then, isn''t it? I''ve spent the past few minutes studying... myself.I realized after my careful study of the interior of the pond revealed that my double was gone. My reflection was gone.In the darkened pond-water, I accepted for the first time that I had seen my reflection, and could now visualize what I looked like.


    And that moment, for the first time since right before I sprung to true life, I heard a mechanical voice speak directly into my skull.


    [New Feat Gained: Endless, Reckless, Curiosity.


    Benefit & Flavor Text: Some creatures possess an insatiable desire for knowledge and understanding. They question what others believe to be established facts, and boldly go where others don''t if such destinations possibly possess the answers to questions they''ve asked. They are reckless and insatiable, but they also possess perfect memories, and of a strong natural understanding of the scientific method and of science.


    Method of acquisition: Unapologetically pursue knowledge even to the point of possible injury.]


    My mind...I observed, as shortly after the odd green text and the strange, emotionless voice flooded my mind. I felt my knowledge expanding, bit by bit.


    Experimentation. Hypothesis. Biology. Science. These words and more... their definitions are surging into my brain, expanding it and letting me learn about the world. I thought. excitedly.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    I felt excited to know that my knowledge was expanding and that what I did just now was a reckless, ill-thought-out and foolhardy experiment, but an attempt at experimentation nonetheless.


    But still... this was hardly replicable huh? Next time I really ought to come up with a... better experiment. One I could actually repeat, and document. And if I do it correctly, I doubt I''ll have to do something as silly as throw myself into the pond.I thought, chastising myself.


    If I am to become wise, I ought to strive to balance my reckless thirst for knowledge with my continued safety. Recklessness doesn''t have to define my approach to knowledge, even if it can result in fortuitous moments like this.I told myself, striving to make that the forefront of my future be defined more by the moments of careful knowledge-acquisition than by reckless attempts to advance my personal knowledge.


    <hr>


    Part Two: Visions


    World-changing moments aren''t often recognized right when they occur. But when they are, it''s because they are truly historic.


    The vision fell over the city of Undermoon all at once. Thousands of people, dark-elf, human, goblin, dwarf, and other kinds of creatures, witnessed it at once. As one people, the multitude of the city''s inhabitants'' were shown the eerie radiance of the mysterious usurper of Infernius, the one who was undergoing the trials to ascend to his rightful place as the ruler of Infernius, who was leading a rebellion against another usurper.


    They heard his voice, they saw two of his forms, and they witnessed his powers. They saw him create life and reanimate the dead. They saw him shake the earth, and conjure plants out of nothingness. They saw his eldritch magic weave shadow into being, create acid.


    He made promises and spoke the language of the mighty. He offered power in exchange for servitude, in exchange for their worship. And that was an offer dark elves were all too familiar with.


    It was an offer which many of them were eager to agree to, with a handful of them even recalling with pride the old days where dark elves ruled their cities at the whims of ancient demon lords, serving them and worshipping them.


    And he made an announcement to the people of the city of Undermoon. An announcement that doubled as an order for those who either were already his faithful servants or who would like to become his newest worshipers.


    Come to the ancient temple at the heart of the city, in half a day''s time. If your heart belongs to Althos, if your soul is his and his alone, you will be there.


    <hr>


    The vision, an eerie, alien thing, created by an equally eerie, alien, god deprived me of a restful night''s sleep. And then when it was over, it ended by awakening me with cruel indifference, as if the vision I had just endured had been little more than an odd dream.


    But not before he gave me a command. Not before Althos'' voice once again entered my head, blessed me with cruel utterances. He asked me to do him one service, one that in his mind would go a long way towards undoing the harm my actions had caused. He asked me to prepare a gift. Though... not in those exact words. And then he told me that I was special. That of his servants, of his worshipers, only my family had been given special commands. And that there would be a price, were they not fulfilled.


    I knew this of course. One doesn''t fail a god of tyranny, of demons and of devils, and not pay a price. But there was something... exhilarating about being given a command by a god, a secret command. A bloody command. Something that excited me, even before the vision ended. Something that lingered in my mind, as I awoke.


    <hr>


    I awoke in my bed, a simple thing made of locally mined stones and made bearable through simple magic that was cast on it nightly. The first thing I noticed was that I was sweating.


    The second thing I noticed was that I could feel the gross liquid coming off of me and coating my stony bed. I could smell it in the thin air of my private chamber, where it lingered and where it coated the air in a cloying way. I quickly threw myself off of the bed, leaving it and its sweat covered sheets behind. I walked hurriedly over to my washroom chambers, my feet taking me there at an urgent pace.


    It took me mere seconds to arrive at the washroom, where I quickly began to prepare myself for the day ahead. A day that would no doubt be... historic. And for me, and no doubt countless other dark elves, positively euphoric.


    As I gazed upon myself in the dark mirror, my mind wandered to things I enjoyed more than acting normal, more than hiding my intentions. It wandered to poisons and to the faces that people made when poisons first began to take hold. It turned to pain and to the eventual reward I sought to receive for my loyal service and for my zealous worship.


    <hr>


    Breakfast had never been so filled with meaningless prattle. Maids and "family" alike, prattling on about what they had witnessed from Althos'' dark and delicious vision as if they hadn''t all witnessed the same thing, and as if their perspectives on it differed somehow.


    Listening to them chat mindlessly, arrogantly, was exhausting. But perhaps not as exhausting as waiting for the surprise in their food to take effect.


    They ate their food stunningly slowly. Their utensils took what felt like hours to slice apart the vegetables on their plate, and longer still to deliver the envenomed items to their lips. I waited. I watched. And of course, I did my part to ensure they fell for my ruse. I too ate vegetables and occasionally mentioned an observation I had from the vision.


    I distracted myself from their worthless "observations" by day-dreaming about what I had witnessed. I daydreamed about the nightmares Althos rose from the dead, about the zombies that crawled out of the dirt and in their own way, praised and served the god of darkness.


    And when the sedative in their food, in their wine, began to take hold, I smiled for the first time since I woke up. If it accurately reflected my mood, it was no doubt a cruel and bloodthirsty smile. I watched as they passed out, my eyes flitting from one of them to the next, as they attempted to study themselves, attempted to discern who would poison them, who could poison them.


    How weak.I thought as I watched each of Drow''s siblings slump to the floor, unconscious.How... fitting.I thought as I watched the maids slump to the floor, also unconscious.


    How disappointing. I mused, when Qiloth''s face slumped forward, unconscious, into the bowl of food that contained the fruits he had been eating.Is he... truly a worthy sacrifice?I wondered as I rose from my seat.


    [Stop questioning me. I gave you your orders, Hagitha. Fulfill my commands. Prove your worth.] A voice, a low, cruel voice, whispered into my mind. Its power sent a chill down my spine. Its power surged through me, as I rose from my seat and steeled myself for what was to come.


    <hr>


    [Quest: Convert the city of Undermoon.


    Update: The following conditions have been fulfilled or are nearing completion:


    Convince the high council of Undermoon that Althos exists and is a deity. (9/9)


    Gather the support of the 6 noble houses of Undermoon. (3/6)


    Convince the dark elves of Undermoon that Althos exists and is a deity. (10,000/25,000)


    Gain the service of a witch/ward/warlock, oracle, and dark night. (2/3)


    New Objectives:


    Turn half of the city''s dark elven inhabitants into Althonians. (705/12,500)


    Gain the support of the high council, by turning them into Althonians. (2/9)]

 Interlude: Sacrifices & Demons, And The Dark Lords Army

    Part 1: Sacrifices & Demons


    Muscles are overrated. I mused as I set about binding the arms and legs of my mate, the father of my children, Qiloth Darklight.


    His thick muscles obstructed me, even and especially in his unconscious state. They boldly defied me, even as I attempted to constrain them, and for that I cursed them, unholy obscenities escaping my lips. The curses were quiet because even in the throes of my zealous annoyance, I never forgot the sort of unholy delights his muscles had once helped me feel.


    "Althos, why can''t I hurt him?" I wondered aloud, knowing that my dark master had forbidden me from inflicting pain on living creatures in the wake of our first, admittedly disastrous meeting. Not that he''ll allow me to deliberately cause pain, even now... I complained internally, Oh shit! No master, I didn''t mean to complain-


    [Silence. You may not break his bones to make them more... compact.] The same voice, the voice of my dark god, cut me off, chiding me. This time there was mild annoyance in it, a surprisingly mortal emotion for the entity to experience. Though admittedly, one that many demons feel as well.


    [Understood, master...] I grumbled, communicating over the mental line Althos had established with me mere hours ago. In response to my labor, even as I began to finally successfully get the manacles I had purchased years ago around Qiloth''s thick hands, I heard the dark lord snort in derision at me and immediately realized that he must have been willing for me to hear that.


    I huffed, masking my annoyance as exertion at the physical labor I was being asked to perform. I snapped the manacles shut, binding Qiloth''s arms together and depriving him of one of his weapons even if he managed to awaken before he was supposed to.


    I continued my labor in silence for another few moments while I got his ankles equally contained. That was much quicker than binding his arms.


    Seconds later I heard a noise from behind me, the sound of magic activating, and felt a blast of heat rush into the room.Shit... what is it now?I wondered, speedily turning around to face whatever had caused the disturbance.


    <hr>


    When I turned around I was surprised to see three diminutive fungal humanoid step out of a heat-emitting portal.


    The portal behind the creatures magically shimmered and radiated purplish light. Within it, I could see a dark landscape of dense trees covered in thick patches of fungi.What is that?I wondered, my eyes speedily assessing the portal and what laid behind it while listening to the sounds that came out of it.


    Aside from the sound of the magic which powered the portal, I also heard the faintly familiar sounds of birdsong, the cheeping noises and the sounds of wings fluttering.Does this portal lead to the world above?I questioned, only to immediately receive an answer.


    [No. This portal leads to my home, which is located in a private dimension. The... above-ground portion of it anyway. I''ve dispatched three helpers to store the gift you''ve provided for me. Three creations of mine, the little ones you see before you.] The voice in my head told me. It was Althos revealing that the strange, verdant, paradise beyond the portal was his home, the realm of a god.


    I stopped focusing on the portal and turned my attention to the creations Althos mentioned. The creatures stood only about a meter tall, but they were built like barrels, far wider than they were tall. All three of them were a bright green color, and at a glance they loosely resembled dwarves.


    All three of the creatures had a basic humanoid form complete with the appropriate limbs, two short, stubby arms, and two tiny legs. Their heads ended just above their eyes and swiftly became dense mushroom caps that were dark red, with occasional patches of white scales. It contrasted sharply with the rest of their green bodies, but it matched the colors of their eyes.


    All three of them had eyes and even had holes in their face that might have served an olfactory purpose, allowing them to detect scents. But their faces were made up solely of their eyes, their nose-holes, and their mushroom cap heads. They lacked ears, mouths, and foreheads, all features that were considered normal among humanoid races.


    The creatures approached, and their tiny footfalls produced the odd noise of plantlife slowly overtaking stone. When they were only a few meters away from where I stood they stopped and looked up at me. Their thin red eyes glowed with what might have been bloodlust, perhaps malice, or maybe their eyes were as emotionless as they appeared to be.


    Our eyes met and we regarded each other for a few moments, silently studying each other. I watched them, studying their blank faces, and allowed my senses to help paint me a picture of these creatures.


    They smelled of the world above, of trees and of fish-filled rivers, of grass and of wood. They made no noise, aside from the sounds of their slight shuffling and it was difficult for me to tell if they were breathing, or even if such a thing were necessary for them.


    Do they want me to step aside?I wondered and quickly decided to test if that was why they had stopped. I stepped away from the bound form of my mate, and the creatures paid me no more mind. They quickly walked up and grabbed Qiloth, each of them working in tandem to move the dark elf berserker from his bound position, into a position where he would slump over onto their caps.


    It took them only a moment to successfully move him so that he fell over onto their dense caps. Once he was balanced on top of them, the odd trio proceeded to silently walk back towards their odd portal.


    They didn''t stop for a second, never needing to balance my mate on their caps, and didn''t even stop when they reached the portal. Instead, they continued their silent march until they were beyond the portal, and then the portal abruptly closed, revealing the rest of the dining room that was hidden behind it, where unconscious maids quietly slept.


    Those were even more of Althos'' creations?I asked myself, before mentally replaying my master''s message in my mind.Yes, they were. How... odd.I mused, smiling at no one in particular.


    I looked around and spent a moment examining the unconscious residents of my dining room. None of them looked uncomfortable or in any particular danger, and so I gathered my wits and walked out of the dining room and began making my way to the more inhabited parts of the city.


    <hr>


    The walk to the marketplace took about half an hour from my isolated familial home. It was an uneventful trip, and I quickly found myself resting underneath a massive, several meters long, rainbow-colored tarp.


    All around me I heard the ignorant masses babble at length.


    "What''d you think of the vision?" One dark elf male asked another. There was nervousness in his voice.


    "I thought it was scary. A god like that reminds me of the days we were taught about in school. The demon days." His companion, also a male dark elf, responded. There was fear in his voice. I smiled, drinking in the words of the dark elf. I knew that somewhere in the depths of his realm, Althos was probably pleased by statements like this.


    Weaklings.I thought a cruel grin etched on my face.Althos would probably love to eat them up since they fear him.I mused, wondering what my master was up too right now, all while I sat in a soft chair and waited.


    <hr>


    The hours passed by slowly. I wasted them away by idly relaxing in my chosen dwelling, the same soft chair I had arrived at earlier when I heard men gossiping about Althos.


    I made the choice to laze the hours away, and luxuriously used my family''s influence as justification to idly watch the comings and goings of those who had to come to the marketplace.


    I was silent while I did this, at least physically. Mentally I was quite loud, and I engaged my master in conversation. I learned a lot doing this and found that now that my task was fulfilled Althos was a surprisingly lively conversationalist. At one point he even appeared before me, evidently invisible to everyone else, for the last few minutes before it was time to go to the temple, to chat since I was peppering him with questions.


    Among other things, I learned a few key facts about the nature of my overlord.


    <hr>


    "The first three habitats I made in my realm were a dense forest, an immense labyrinth of subterranean tunnels that existed underneath this forest, and a gigantic cavern that houses a... copy of this city." He revealed, surprising me.


    "Wow... why?" I asked, curious as to if he''d share his reasoning with me. He stared at me for a moment, probably considering how much to reveal to me, before he responded.


    "In death, the souls of those who worship me will come to my realm. My realm is an infinite expanse that can concurrently contain any sort of habitat or biome I wish it too. I decided to recreate what I knew and what I knew was the first of my birth, the tunnels that led to the world beneath the world, and the city of Undermoon." He told me, his voice calm and careful as he revealed secrets not known to many, if any others, to me.


    I was stunned for a few moments while I considered what he said. He grinned at me, probably proud of the fact that he knew things I didn''t know. His grin was contagious, but I worked to not grin back because if I did it''d probably annoy him.


    "Why are you telling me this?" I asked, curious as to his reasoning. His response was a fairly simple one, one that caught me off guard.


    "Consider it a reward for your obedience. And if we''re being honest, I know of no reason to keep this a secret. Knowledge ought to be known, not hoarded. This is not a secret, nor is there any cosmic rule I know of that would punish mortals who learn of what waits after death, especially now since there''s probably only one god left in existence. Or one that would punish gods for revealing this." He explained, smiling more sincerely this time.


    I was silent, thinking about what he said when he revealed more to me.


    "I''ve created more habitats than the ones I just mentioned. The place you saw in the vision was a plain I created that was loosely modeled after the grasslands that exist outside of the forest of my birth. Originally it was an isolated place that existed within my realm but was inaccessible to anyone but me. I fixed the damages caused by my powers in the wake of the vision and then connected it to the rest of the realm." He said, his voice quiet as he did so.


    His face indicated that he was lost in thought as he talked about his realm. It was like he was here with me, while his mind was elsewhere. He also wasn''t done talking. But while he spoke, I thought about something he had mentioned.


    "I also made some... weirder ones too. You probably knew about oceans, but I didn''t. Qu''Ren even has memories of these things even in the world beneath the world! I made two oceans, one above the surface and one below it, and made those part of my realm. They have trenches, coral reefs, kelp forests, and more! And that''s not all-" He said, an oblivious and almost goofy grin on his face as he told me about his world.


    At this point I interrupted him, ready to apologize if necessary, but still spoke up. "Earlier you said that if someone worships you their soul goes to your realm when they die.Iworship you. What would happen to my soul, when I die?" I asked, my voice unusually high-pitched as I asked him that.


    He chuckled and looked at me. There was a flash in his eyes, a thought he must have needed some time to unfold and contemplate. And then he began to speak.


    "I can manipulate souls Hagitha. I can transform your soul as I see fit at any point. If you serve me well, I will transform you into a demon when you die. But only if your service exceeds my expectations." He said, his voice low and eerie. He grinned at me, and there was a malicious glint in his eyes. I shivered at both his words and the gleam in his eyes, but nodded childishly, accepting his judgment, and feeling powerless to resist it.


    "Good girl..." He whispered, smiling evilly at me. There was something eerie about him, compared to the deity I met hours ago. He seemed older somehow, more confident.


    "Are you really the same creature I met so recently?" I asked, knowing the dreadful truth by the way he had responded to my question, but still wanting to confirm it, to hear it straight from the horse''s mouth, so to speak. His grin widened while he prepared to speak.


    "Yes, I am Hagitha. I''ve just spent the last few hours growing in power and knowledge. I have so many memories within me, deep in my soul. Drow''s memories... Qu''Ren''s memories... orcish memories... the memories of animals. even your memories." He said, his voice growing colder with each source of memories that he mentioned.


    "It is in fact by combining your knowledge and memories and Qu''Ren''s knowledge and memories that I came up with the idea to sacrifice Qiloth. Qu''Ren has a fascination with demons and has spent many fortunes researching them, and you have knowledge that exceeds entire collections of encyclopedias on demons stored in your brain. I can barely imagine the sort of creature we could summon by sacrificing Qiloth''s blood..." He said dreamily, and for a moment he and I were on the same wavelength. I too could only imagine the sort of monster that my mate''s blood would call forth.


    I smiled at him.He still denies it, but he is a lord of demons.I thought, his fascination with them giving me some level of comfort about the future and about his true nature.


    "In fact, there''s a part of me that wants to thank you. Well... not just you, but you and Qu''Ren alike. It is because of the two of you that I can more properly appreciate the power of demons." Althos confessed, smiling. He closed his eyes, and for a moment I wondered what he was imagining. And then I got a glimpse of it.Althos'' mind invaded my own, and his thoughts became mine for an instant.


    <hr>


    I was instantly transported from my comfortable seat to the final resting place of a grand army. Spread out before me was a flatland of infinite, bloody sand.


    Bodies littered this flatland, bodies belonging to demons and humanoids alike. The smell of guts, blood, and defecation filled my nostrils, causing even me to feel sick for a second. The gross noises of the dead filled my ears, as stomachs were emptied, as bugs zipped too and from rotting corpses, and as biological death took hold of the newly deceased.


    I studied this scene and examined the bodies that Althos was showing me. Most of the humanoid bodies belonged to humans and dwarves. The demonic bodies ran the gamut.


    I saw sentinel demons, wrath demons, nightmarish warriors, pride demons, and countless other types littering the ruined battlefield. And then Althos abruptly pulled me from the scene he had transmitted into my brain.


    <hr>


    "What... what was that?" I breathlessly asked, looking at him in an alarmed manner. He studied me for a moment, a neutral expression on his face.


    "That was one of the memories of my pet, the sentinel demon Drow told you about. What you just saw was a snapshot of one of its more... recent memories." Althos said, his face still oddly neutral.


    "I decided to explore its memories after I began studying yours. It turns out that in my godly realm I am so powerful I can even thoroughly study more than one person or thing''s memories at the same time! I''m actively relieving yours and those of other people right now in fact." He said, slowly beginning to smile.


    And then he began to slowly fade away, his body dematerializing, slowly turning to some sort of sickly dust, before my very eyes. But as he was fading away he looked at me with his eyes fully open and spoke once more.


    "Looks like it''s almost time for the big show. Run along to the temple Hagitha, you''re needed there. And believe me, you won''t want to miss what''s about to happen." He told me, as he left this place.


    <hr>


    The temple wasn''t far from the marketplace and arriving there, even amid the throngs of people who were also making their way there wasn''t difficult. It took perhaps a quarter of an hour to get there, and the whole time I was walking I was impressed at the crowds who were making their way to the city''s second heart, behind the grand marketplace.


    When I reached the temple there was already a crowd gathered around it. The temple of the city of Undermoon was built rather peculiarly, and I was one of many people who came to a stop at the edge of a pit as a consequence of its odd design.


    Undermoon''s massive temple was located inside of a gigantic pit in the city''s winding streets and alleyways. Staircases allowed visitors and clergy to descend into the temple, but no one did so at this moment. The numerous staircases that surrounded the temple were empty at the moment that I arrived, and they stayed empty even as the people of the city crowded around the temple.


    The temple''s roof was the only thing we could see from the outside. It was a flat surface a few dozen meters across made of some darkened metal, perhaps of Elysium or even some non-dark metal that was dyed that way for the sake of aesthetics.


    Not long after I arrived I noticed something odd: there was a thin blue vapor that covered the entire area around the temple. It covered the area just outside of the temple as far as I could see, and it clung very closely to the ground but it was visible. No one else, or at least no one near me, appeared to notice the vapor.


    <hr>


    Minutes after I arrived the event began without fanfare and without a dramatic announcement of some sort. Instead, the chatty crowd fell silent when a shimmering portal appeared at the far end of the temple''s roof. Whatever the portal revealed was too distant for me to see from where I stood. But when figures began to walk out of it, a massive projection appeared high in the sky above the roof''s temple, giving everyone present and even those who weren''t a view of the action.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    The projection was displaying the figures walking out of the portal. One of the figures was Althos, whose form resembled a male dark elf, but more muscular, built more like a brawler or monk than a ranger. All at once everyone who was unfamiliar with Althos gasped as they were reminded that this too was one of the forms of the tyrant lord, Althos.


    I could imagine the shock they felt suddenly hearing the mechanical voice of the system as they were paying close attention to the scene before them. It made me chuckle softly.


    Other figures with Althos included a few robed figures wearing eyeless masks who held long, cruel-looking knives in their hands, my mate Qiloth stripped of his armor, and even a pair of eyeless creatures I recognized as pain-mongers, a sort of extraplanar creatures who roamed the dimensions. The pair of eyeless things were floating orbs that each served as the core of a network of chained flails, known informally as brain-beaters, the pain-monger familiar.


    The figures walked quietly to the center of the temple''s roof, with Althos bringing up the rear of the odd party. Just in front of him floated the brain-beaters, heavy-looking things that appeared to be made of metal, which casually pulled their armaments with them as they magically floated around their master.


    And in front of both the familiars and their master walked the servants Althos had brought with them and my mate, a robed figure in front of him and one behind him. The whole party marched for a few moments. They eventually came to a stop directly on top of the center of the temple and the robed figures stopped Qiloth by brushing their blades against him.


    One of the blades was positioned directly in front of him, threatening to slice him if he attempted to dash forward, and the other was positioned directly behind him, threatening to cut him if he tried to run behind him. The two figures took positions on his left and his right respectively, cutting off any possibility of him dashing sideways to escape.


    The projected image suddenly focused on Althos'' face and he waited a few seconds before speaking.


    "Hello, people of Undermoon!" He said, his voice exploding across the city. Between the projected image and his explosive voice, he was clearly doing his best to ensure that everyone in the city had access to the show he was about to put on.


    No one spoke in response but he was responded too. All at once, thunderous applause erupted from the gathered crowd of hundreds, possibly even a few thousand people. The projected image revealed Althos'' response to the applause: a wide grin that appeared on his godly face.


    <hr>


    Moments after the applause died down, Althos began to speak again. The same grin from before remained locked on his face, his eyes reflecting the elation he was experiencing.


    "We are here today to make our presence known!" He said, his voice once again exploding across the city. He was met with silence, and he made a gesture to his companions, both of whom were facing him and watching him through their odd masks. They nodded, and as one tossed the knives in their hands into the air and skillfully caught the weapons but by the blades, not by the hilts.


    The two figures then lifted the blades up so and onto Qiloth''s shoulders. Then the dark elf berserker was forced to his knees before them, gritting his teeth. The projected image then switched to focus on Qiloth, projecting his prideful irritation and fear at the cloaked figures before him to the entire city, which would have humiliated him if he were unfocused and not scared for his life at the moment.


    And then I was suddenly whisked away from the scene before me.


    <hr>


    In an instant I went from being at the edge of the pit leading to the temple, to a strange, white, place. I was alone, but there was something heavy suddenly in my hand. I looked down at the object in my hand and found that there was a strange mask in it.


    The mask in my hand was made of metal, modeled after an infamous burrowing worm, a giant and devastating type of monster that ravaged the world beneath the world, and lacked eyeholes. It was heavy and dense, but not heavy enough for me to struggle with it, instead it was heavy enough to come with a noticeable heft.


    [It''s time for you to join the show. Come. Your people are waiting. Put on your mask and join us. I''ll tell you what to say and what to do.] Althos'' voice told me, him suddenly filling my mind with his presence and his dark voice. I smiled as I lifted the mask to my face, and when I put it on, I was shocked to feel it meld instantly with my skin, surprisingly painlessly.


    Instead of going blind, I was pleasantly surprised to be able to see through the mask, as if it weren''t on in the first place. I only had a second to adjust my expectations to this odd reality, before I was suddenly yanked from this odd place and placed safely and comfortably in front of my mate and in the presence of the crowd who had gathered to watch the sacrifice.


    <hr>


    [Repeat after me. "I am the grand necromancer! I shall oversee this and all the other blood sacrifices to our great, dark, lord!"] Althos'' voice whispered into my mind. I did as I was told, excitement rushing to my face, which I was suddenly thankful was hidden behind a mask.


    ["This dark elf has failed our dark master! The lord has told me that for him to atone he must sacrifice. He must give himself to our dark liege."] He told me, no doubt grinning internally. Again, I repeated after him.


    ["But even this failure need not be afraid of death, because Althos is merciful. Those of us who die for the sake of appeasing our mighty lord will come back from death. Not as a punishment, but as a reward!"] Althos said, his mental voice smug. I smiled and uttered what he told me to utter.


    ["Watch, as our lord demonstrates his mastery over death! As he defeats the one thing promised to us all! As he delivers even the least worthy of us into a glorious new day!"] Althos mentally shouted, his voice filling my mind with some of the dark elation he felt, a sliver of the praise and worship that was surging into him from the gathered dark elves.


    When I shouted into the crowd gathered around me, around us, what I was told to say, the other masked figures moved in unison and swung their blades into Qiloth.


    I listened, delighting in the lovely sound of sharpened metal effortlessly piercing into and sliding into flesh and the soft dripping caused by blood hitting the roof beneath our feet. One knife was thrust into the dark elf''s skull, and the other was swung into his heart, both penetrated skin and bone to get to their destinations.


    I suddenly felt my feet grow warmer as a huge, blue, magical circle appeared underneath Qiloth''s still standing body. At once two things happened. Qiloth fell. First to his knees, and then he fell face forward, his body still within the large arcane geometry.


    The second thing to happen was that the entire city of Undermoon received a notification. The mechanical voice of the system surged into my mind, powerfully summarizing what had just happened.


    [Alert!


    The grand temple of the city of Undermoon has been the site of a public, blood, sacrifice to a living god. This act of religious devotion, overseen by both the god himself and a number of his worshipers, fulfills the requirements for converting a temple and as a consequence of that has converted the temple from a temple to the faith of the ancient, deceased demon-lord Morthos, to the living faith of Althos.


    Everyone in the city is going to receive a new feat once they''ve willed away this notification.


    New Feat acquired: In The Company Of Althos


    Benefit & Flavor Text: Those who witnessed the first-ever act of ritual sacrifice to the god Althos joined him in overseeing a sacrifice. As a consequence of that, he grants them enhanced memory, enhanced ability to learn languages, and increased mental resistance.A historic moment deserves a unique reward. For your devotion to your divine master, he smiles upon you and grants you increased mental prowess.


    Method of acquisition: This is a unique feat that is only granted because this was a historic event. Join the god Althos as someone is sacrificed to him.]


    I smiled and willed away the notification. I instantly struggled to stay on my feet as my mind was rocked. My mental abilities were increasing, but it felt like I was receiving electric shocks directly to my brain, which was an odd and unpleasant feeling. I struggled but ultimately succeeded in my mission to stay on my feet.


    [Now! Use this.] Althos'' voice suddenly roared in my mind, at the same time as knowledge of a new spell filled my mind. I grinned wickedly at the sudden notification, willed it away, and rose my hand.


    I aimed it at the lazy corpse of my mate, bleeding onto the floor around us. I focused on the spell that had just entered my mental repertoire and willed it to take effect.Come on... spell, activate!I mentally shouted, an instant before magical energy left my body and radiated outward in the form of a transparent wave that collided with the close corpse.


    The magic took hold instantly. Qiloth began to move, slowly. Painfully slowly really. But then again he must have been in far more pain than I was. His corpse began to struggle to stand up, first succeeding at lifting his deceased head up off the ground and staring blankly ahead. The knives were still embedded within him, and his eyes were now milky white orbs.


    "Uhh..." He moaned, vacantly as he began to more violently struggle to stand up. His dark skin was rapidly taking on a lighter tone as the magic coursed through him.


    And then the sound of dense wings filled the air above the temple, coming from up high, above the projection even. A powerful gust of wind slammed into the temple, but not before Althos wordlessly enhanced myself and his other gathered followers with a potent spell of some sort. We all stood our ground as the wind slammed into us from above, harmlessly hammering at us in an attempt to make us kneel.


    "Look at that beauty." Althos said, in the language of the demonic homeland his head staring at the thing that was coming to the top of the temple from high above it.It sounds beautiful coming out of his mouth.I thought, about the demonic language, even as I turned to look up above us and identify whatever we had just summoned.


    At first, all I could see was a distant dot, a red-colored dot in the distance that was flying at us from incredibly high up. Before it came into view or at least came into view in a way that allowed me to identify it, it screeched at the gathered worshipers. The noise was primal, anger-filled, and joyless. And to many other people, it would have served as the warning sign of the oncoming terror and violence. But not to the people of Undermoon.


    The Althonians of Undermoon, myself included, immediately recognized the cries of a wrath demon. Many of us fearlessly looked up above the city and smiled. And as one, we rose our hands to the cavern''s sky. And magically readied ourselves to grab a communal gift, a communal offering to give to our new overlord.


    I chuckled as I heard Qiloth''s animate corpse moan pathetically once more. "I look forward to dealing with you, my dear." I said to the thing, only paying it even the slightest mind since it was right next to me.


    <hr>


    Part 2: The Dark Lord''s Army


    [Wake up your allies. I have... a gift. A violent one. You''ll like it. Wake up your friends and head to the clearing.] Althos'' voice spoke into my mind in the middle of the night. And it roused me from my sleep effortlessly. I awoke in a darkened tent, in the middle of the even darker forest.


    Althos'' command was sudden and dangerous. And promised violence. So it wasn''t unlike how Althos came into my life, abrupt and with the promise of violence. I never disliked that.


    I wordlessly exited my tent and took stock of where we were.


    <hr>


    We were not far from a natural clearing in the same forest Althos had come to life in. All of us but a single one of the archers who had stayed with us were asleep. The lone archer was fulfilling his weekly shift keeping watch, a truly unenviable task in the dark. Fortunately for me, awakening the camp was only as difficult as shouting.


    "Oy! Wake up you lot! The dark lord has got a gift for us." I shouted, intentionally using simplistic language to get even the less-witty members of the raiding party awake quickly. My tent was one of several, and within seconds of shouting, I heard muffled whispers come from the assorted tents spread throughout our camp.


    The first orcs to fully wake up and exit their tents were the brawlers, which was unsurprising. One of them came up to me, Bazur, Althos'' second oldest servant, and began to speak.


    "Althos? He''s giving us something?" The orc asked shock and concern etched on his face as he questioned me. I grinned at him, and I didn''t doubt that the look on my face was one someone less blessed than myself would call "fanatical".


    "Yes. The dark lord has a ''violent'' gift for us. Who knows what he has prepared for us to use." I told my friend, grinning madly at him. He gave me a long, worried look, and I could tell that he was curious but also afraid of whatever Althos was going to give us.


    It took less than a minute for everyone to be out of their tents. When they looked at me quizzically I smiled and spoke.


    "Come. Our dark lord has a present for us, in the clearing." I told them, and then immediately turned around and began to lead the way towards the nearby clearing.


    <hr>


    The trip to the clearing, even in the dark, wasn''t difficult. We were close by, and even in the dark my vision was able to lead us there without any difficulty. When we walked out of the bush and into the clearing what I saw before us was something truly beautiful.The gift our dark lord had prepared for us was an army. Or perhaps a horde. And even he was present among the gathered horde, in his human-looking form, accompanied by animals.


    A force faced us, turning to look at us as we departed from the trees that surrounded the clearing. This was a diverse group, made up of humans, orcs, ogres, goblins, a single, tall hag, and more. They watched us as we approached them, and I felt my facial expression ease into a relaxed smile as I approached my master and god.


    He looked back at me and smiled as warmly as I had, which helped settle the few lingering doubts I felt as I approached the odd-looking group. My allies stopped walking before I did, but I continued to approach my master, excited to see him for the first time since I left his party to aid and lead my fellow orcs. When I neared him he began to approach me himself, drawing away from the rest of the creatures he had brought with him.


    He reached me and pulled me into a tight hug, greeting me like an old friend. "Ranthor!" He said, his voice warm and filled with genuine joy at the sight of me.


    "Althos..." I said, having wondered if he had heard my prayers and my requests. When he released me a few seconds after pulling me into a powerful hug, he looked me up and down. And then he had a quizzical expression on his face.


    "Ranthor... I know you''ve been inching for a fight. I can feel it in you." He told me, nodding as he spoke. It was as if he was confirming a truth only he knew.


    "My friend, I plan to give you plenty of chances to fight. That said... there are things that need to be done." He said, his expression becoming more neutral as he considered what he had just said.


    "Though before even all of that, I hope you''ll allow me to introduce you to the rest of your army." He told me, a huge grin emerging on his face. His voice was confident and filled with mirth. And I felt my confidence soar.


    The rest of my army?I thought, shocked. And Althos turned to the gathered mass behind him. The creatures stepped forward and began to approach me.


    <hr>


    The diverse group walked forward at their own pace. I saw over a dozen humans and goblins each, over two dozen orcs, twenty seven oddly docile looking ogres, a small number of crocodile-headed humanoids, and a single raisin-skinned hag, all approached me at different paces. Not to mention a number of animals, the most notable of which were three large bears that wore barding on their sides and back, and two flaming wolves of bearlike proportions.


    The first group of people to reach me was the tiny horde of goblins. They were small things, only a meter tall each. They had a number of different complexions, but their most notable feature was that each of the twelve of them had a number of tattoos that covered their bodies in arcane formulae. They eagerly ran in my direction though they were actually running at Althos, shouting and gasping excitedly.


    I chuckled at them and Althos turned to face the eager little ones. He began to speak, not facing me but facing them, despite his words being addressed towards me.


    "These are the ''wiz-haters''. They are a tribe of goblins that, despite their name, are natural magic-users, and weirdly skilled ones at that." He explained, smiling as one of the goblins ran at him and leaped onto him. He caught the thing easily and chuckled as the thing began to hug him.


    "They, like everyone else here aside from the animals, were just freed from a prison in Infernius. I freed them. And I want them to join an army under your command." Althos told me, gently patting the goblin who had hugged him on the head, as the thing babbled at him.


    "They are adults, but they are goblins from a world far from here, where goblins don''t develop the same sort of faculties as the ones here do. Originally, I mean. Before they got stuck in Infernius." He said, clarifying what he meant.


    Moments later the second group arrived. The humans. Two dozen of them. One dozen were men and one dozen were women.


    They were dressed in armor, and each had swords at their sides. They stared at me cautiously, their hands defensively on their sword sheaths, in case they needed to draw their swords. I looked at them and readied myself to conjure my soul-bow if necessary. Althos was watching this and hissed annoyedly. And then he began to snap at them in a language I didn''t know.


    <hr>


    After snapping at them and causing them to take their hands off of their sheaths, Althos began to speak the common language of humanoids in this world again.


    "Relax. They aren''t used to seeing... a four-armed Orc. I told them to calm down and stop acting defensive. These are fighters, knights specifically, who were imprisoned in Infernius in an attempt to reclaim the soul of theirknight-commander,who... I suspect might be an infernal knight in my service. But that''s neither here nor there." Althos said, smiling.


    "When I leave you''ll be granted the linguistic ability to communicate with them." He told me. "You are the commander, probationally anyway, of this army so you need to be able to speak to your soldiers." He explained, a grin almost audible in his voice.


    And seconds after that, the two dozen orcs arrived. They each held massive weapons, be it bastard swords, war-axes or war-hammers, and massive maces. They were also heavily armored, wearing inexpertly forged but dense suits of armor.


    "I was originally worried about adding the ogres to your camp, but these orcs were there too. These are the ''widow-maker'' orcs, orcs from Infernius who were imprisoned in the prison I took over, where I got everyone else here. They are huge fans of heavy weapons. Use them wisely. In exchange for their freedom, I gained their service, their souls, and they swore to follow my commands. Which means they''re going to follow your commands." Althos explained as the things fell to their knees in front of Althos, their broad forms meek as they supplicated him.


    Some of the animals were the next things to arrive, with the first being two large snakes who had stealthy slithered through the grass of the clearing, and the large, flaming wolves arriving shortly thereafter. "I''m either giving you the animals or lending them to you. It depends on how well your first raid goes. And the wolves are not wolves. Treat them as you would treat a man, or else they will remember." Althos warned me.


    The ogres arrived next. Twenty-seven huge brutes, each of whom held boulders or assorted detritus in their hands as weapons. They were lightly armored, in crudely and obviously home-made leather armor that was designed to fit their massive forms.


    "These fellows don''t have a group name. They''re a tribe, they just never named themselves. I appeared, beat up one of them, and told them they were my servants now. I''ve checked their memories, they are fierce fighters. Use them as needed. Oh, and a few of them are female. They just aren''t a very sexually dimorphic species." The god explained to me, chuckling as he said the last two sentences.


    The scaled humanoids and the hag appeared at the same time. The crocodile-creatures walked up to me and introduced themselves.


    "Hello! We''re Sobeks. We''re a sort of... hybrid, in the words of your master. We are hunters who like to fight either with simple wooden weapons or our fists." One of them said, introducing the group to me instead of making or expecting Althos to do it.


    The hag approached me and did the same thing as soon as the Sobeks stepped away. Her name was Magda and she told me she was eager to spread pain and use magic to buff my forces. Now that put a grin on my face.


    The last animals arrived shortly after that, and aside from the armored bears, their numbers included a number of stealthy insects that silently showed themselves after getting uncomfortably close to me, especially since they had done so undetected. They were a small number of huge insects, a pair of army ants the size of small dogs, a gigantic centipede that creepily skittered across the floor, and a single massive dragonfly that revealed itself by dropping from up above me.


    "These are things that I created within my godly realm. They will obey you without hesitation." Althos revealed, smiling proudly at his creations. And finally, he explained his plan to me.


    <hr>


    "I am creating an empire and I need you Ranthor." He said simply.


    "I''m in. What do you need me to do?" I responded, not hesitating for a second. He chuckled as he looked at me and there was a look of genuine joy in his gaze.


    "First, I need you to go to Golden-Gate." He told me, after he finished chuckling. I looked at him in confusion, and he sighed and began to speak again.


    "Your forces have increased in number exponentially. I could just give you the resources to get by using my godly powers, but no one knows that you''re part of an empire yet. Going to Golden-Gate is the first step in changing that." He explained, confidence burning in his eyes.


    "I want you to go to Golden-Gate, settle the place and repair it. I''ll send you things to aid you in repairing it and improving it, and after you''ve improved it a bit, set up some rules, and trained a bit, you''re going to begin to build my empire. By going out and conquering nearby settlements." He told me, pride audible in his voice.


    Now filled with understanding, I smiled broadly at my master and nodded energetically. "Yes... Yes! That''s the sort of conquest-filled, violence-heavy plan I like to hear!" I boldly exclaimed, excitement filling me at the thought of my monstrous army going out and conquering new places in the name of the dark lord.


    "Good. I am going to be closely following your progress. When you have your first bodies, I''ll tell you what to do with them. Don''t burn them if you can help it. You''ll enjoy what happens to them a lot more than you''d enjoy seeing them burn. They''ll serve you." He said, tempting me with new servants, new monstrous additions to the army he had given me.


    "Now Ranthor... I name you the commander of my army. Go out and spread my empire. Go out and conquer in the name of your dark lord." Althos told me, his voice exploding across the forest and beyond, declaring the existence of his empire and giving me the audacious task of increasing its borders beyond a forest, a tunnel, a ghost town, or even a single city.


    "I will not fail you." I told him, filled with the confidence of a creature chosen by the new dark lord himself. I smiled and my mind filled with visions of battle, conquest, and empire-building.

 Chapter 104: Within The Mountain

    Minutes after I helped arrange the sacrifice of Qiloth in the dark elven city of Undermoon, I found myself back home. I could still feel the throes of my dark elven worshipers and shivered as I felt their fervent worship surge into me. I could feel their prayers in my mind, and I heard their melodious voices whispering praise to me, and chanting my name even in the throes of passion.


    The current edge of my world, my realm, stretched out before me. One half of what I could see was a vast, featureless plain spread out as far as the horizon, which was far indeed. It eventually melted into a shoreline for an incredibly vast salt-water ocean.


    I studied the featureless plain and the odd beach and grinned at the possibilities that flooded my mind. Mountains, hills, jungles, even volcanoes, and even islands. I could do a lot with this place. I thought, grinning. My mind raced while I considered how to best begin to develop my realm.


    After a few moments of contemplation, I arrived at a satisfactory conclusion: A mountain range that touches the clouds would look especially beautiful against my indescribably vast and deep ocean. And so I rose a single hand to the sky and willed the earth beyond my feet to ascend. And in an instant, it began to do so, eager to obey the commands of its ruler.


    I watched, quiet, as the earth of the edge of the plains rose. And then stood, awed, as it continued to rise, ascending to heights beyond even the tallest trees I had ever seen, and when the earth at the edge of the plains continued to climb it reached a point wherein it was taller than even Namira''s Onyx Obelisk, which was the tallest thing I had ever seen, and continued to climb.


    Standing in front of it meant being exposed to the deafening sounds of the earth relentlessly, obediently climbing upward. And it meant watching as the grass of the plains was sent into the air and the dense stones of the earth pushed upwards, watching the color of the unexpected mountain change from bright green to the silver of stone and earth.


    It was incredible to watch.


    <hr>


    The ground''s ascension stopped nearly half an hour after it began. The newly formed and somewhat messy mountain must have ascended close to 7,000 meters into the sky, above the lowest clouds that formed in the night''s sky of my realm.


    I moved forward and placed a hand on the mountain''s outer surface. I was still for a moment and waited for my tremor-sense ability to take hold.


    "Come on... come on..." I said, feeling rather impatient. After I was still for a few seconds I felt my radar begin to expandinto the mountain.I shuddered as the enormity of the mountain filled my mind, entire kilometers of tunnels and of stone, filled naturally with thousands of animals. For now the map my mind produced was imprecise, but that was to be expected since I was outside of the mountain.


    "Wow... this is truly something." I told myself, awestruck by the impressive mountain I had made on a whim. And that was when the mountain itself began to react to my presence, the stone near me retracting and convulsing.


    I backed away from it, shocked. And that was when the stone began to melt and shift, stone flakes falling to the ground beside the mountain like some sort of odd snow-flakes.


    Snow-flakes were one of the things I had begun to learn about through the various memories of my worshipers, alongside fierce weather like blizzards and sandstorms, things I had yet to experience myself.


    Within seconds, my mountain formed a natural cave-mouth of the silvery stone that made up the majority of the stone I could see from outside of it. The cave-mouth was more than wide enough for me and led into the darkness of the mountain''s interior.


    <hr>


    As I looked out in front of me, many thoughts crossed my mind.This would be a fun place to set up as a lair of my own, fill with creatures of my own creation, and make a personal fortress. After all, one of the finer parts of being an overlord or running an empire is building fortresses and lairs.Was one such thought. Another was of a dear friend of mine.


    It would be nice to not travel alone. I should call on my first friend, my first advisor, as I explore this place: the first mountain I have created.I thought, feeling unusually poetic as I admired the vast peak of the place before me.


    I closed my eyes and focused, calling on my closest friend; Samyaza the Orb Angel. I willed him out of the mental sanctuary he had long gotten used too in my head, and within a moment the orb angel appeared beside me, momentarily confused and dazed. The metallic orb looked at me in confusion, before I began to speak to it.


    "Samyaza, explore my mountain with me." I said to my dear friend, a gentle smile on my face. It looked at me, studying my expression for a moment. And then it nodded and responded to me.


    "Oh, Althos... Your mind remains a mystery, at best, to me. I will explore your mountain with you." It told me, its mechanical voice filled with an emotion that mixed amusement and joy.


    And with that, we began our exploration of the newest addition to my divine realm.


    <hr>


    Minutes later I was within the mouth of the mountain, the first entrance to the interior of my newly created, joined by my oldest friend and the ally who knew the most about me.


    Within it, Samyaza and I were surrounded by darkness and narrow walls of stone. Both of us examined our surroundings, I did so using my hands as well as my vision. Samyaza relied solely on its powerful sight.


    "This is a narrow tunnel. Much like the entrance to the world beneath the world you used the first time you entered it." Samyaza observed, its voice filled with caution. I chuckled and made full use of my potent senses, particularly my radar and my tremor-sense.


    My magical senses allowed me to be confident that we were safe and too close to the exit of the mountain to be bothered by the natives who were created when the mountain was created. Not that any animals native to this realm would attack me without provocation, and I hadn''t yet had the chance to create sapient lifeforms to inhabit this mountain.


    "Are you nervous Samyaza?" I asked, teasingly. The orb turned in my direction and did the orb-angel equivalent of glare at me for a moment.


    "Not nervous, Althos. Observant." It responded, sassing me. I looked at it, as we walked further and further into the tunnel, my eyes studying its metallic body for a moment. And then I chuckled and focused on leading us through the tunnel, not at all nervous thanks to the fact that this was my mountain.


    "There''s no need to focus so single-mindedly onguiding me,Samyaza. Just relax and have fun." I told the angel, with an emphasis on what it was pretending it was doing for the sake of its pride.


    "Are there any creatures here?" Samyaza asked, curiosity audible in its loosely mechanical voice. I placed a solitary hand on one of the walls closest to me and concentrated while tremor-sense charged up.


    Within a few seconds, I felt a vibration pulse out of my hand, and explore the mountain''s interior in the name of reconnaissance. And then it came back to me, delivering a mountain of information to my brain.


    I was stunned for a moment as I immediately assessed the wealth of information that I had just learned, as I immediately was granted the precise knowledge of the location of thousands of lifeforms that dwelled within or atop the mountain. I also learned of the precise geography of the mountain''s underbelly, developing an exact map of the mountain in my mind.


    And with that, I knew where I wanted to go: a location nearly an hour from here if we kept our current pace. I had no problem with that because our trip here was intended to be a fun outing for Samyaza, an opportunity for the angel to get out and "stretch" in so much as circular, metallic angels could stretch anyway.


    I smiled at my angelic friend and began to speak. "Yes, there are actually. Thousands of lifeforms inhabit this place, be they worms of... various sizes, plants, birds, animals, even fishes that swim in rivers and streams that flow through tunnels in this place." I told him, my eyes lighting up with the knowledge that surged through me.


    I knew their precise locations, their species, and even what they were doing.This is some... powerful knowledge. I remarked to myself, as I willed the knowledge to be sorted and organized, as well as to provide me with species knowledge of each of the assorted animals I had just discovered. Something about that knowledge felt mighty to me.


    For a moment my vision went entirely green as dozens of notifications surged into my mind at once.Oh, damn it!I thought, annoyed. I read through the notifications and then willed them away at once so that my vision was restored to me.


    The truth was there was something deeply comforting about the nature of the area beneath and within the mountain.I think it might be knowing the locations of everything in several kilometers in every direction, and all of the tunnels and caverns that exist here. But something about it makes me feel... in control.I mused.


    And that marked the beginning of our trek into the mountain, delving deeper and deeper while exchanging snarky comments and occasionally the rare observation about our surroundings.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    <hr>


    While en route to the mountain''s interior, Samyaza and I traded snarky remarks and made observations about the strange place that I made with little more than an outstretched limb and the power of my will.


    After about an hour of hiking into the depths of the mountain, I saw an opening in the narrow tunnels. I smiled widely when I saw it, knowing where it led. My smile was something which was noticed by Samyaza. The cheeky angel looked at me, and questioned me.


    "Althos! What do your godly eyes see?" It asked, curiosity coloring its tone. I looked at it and smiled.


    "I see an exit to this narrow tunnel. I see our destination. A place I am going to transform. Come, Samyaza, let''s lay our eyes on it together!" I said, my voice growing increasingly excited the more I spoke. I moved forward at a more speedy pace than before and was followed closely by the speedy, curious angel.


    <hr>


    In less than two minutes we emerged through the clearing into a wide, open, cavern with a ceiling that loomed high above us dozens of meters high. Unlike the narrow tunnels, this cavern was well lit by a large number of bioluminescent fungi, all of which danced when I emerged into the gigantic, open space.


    I smiled and lifted a hand, aiming it at the distant ceiling. A stream of fungal spores, spores intended to transmit my warmth and my care to the fungi that filled this cavern, shot out of my hand. The spores were a bright yellow color and the stream of them that filled the air were so numerous that the few dark spots in this deep, mountain cave were illuminated by their radiance.


    This event took a few moments, and once I had fired a number of spores I was satisfied with I looked around once more. The fungi were dancing even more energetically, and I sensed their jubilation. It surged into me and invigorated me.


    This is pleasant.I thought idly, grinning at the celebratory creatures, even as I heard Samyaza arrive behind me and watch the joyful mood of the creatures. Their dancing caused their lights to spread around erratically and thus, even if momentarily, illuminate the entirety of the chamber.


    "I am home." I said proudly, grinning to no one since Samyaza was behind me. I didn''t doubt that the angel heard my smile though.


    "And it is time for me to begin to create... my people." I said, even more proudly, as my mind raced and I began to wonder about what sorts of creatures would do well in a mountain home.


    What sort of beings would do well in a mountain? Dwarves? Terrans? Earth elementals? My fungal folks?I thought, curiosity causing my mind to immediately list the sorts of beings I knew who would thrive at each level of this enormous mountain.


    During the time I had spent building up the realm, while I was thoroughly experiencing and studying the memories of my first worshipers, I had read through hundreds of species knowledge entries. Among them, one particular species stood out to me: dwarves.Finally, a chance to create members of various species in an environment truly suited to them.I thought, a smile on my face.


    "Hey Samyaza, go around and explore to your heart''s content. I''m going to begin to set up over here. I like this place. I think I''ll claim it and make it a home." I told my advisor. The angel was silent in response to my declaration. It was most likely lost in thought, as it contemplated what I had told it.


    <hr>


    [Summarized Species Knowledge: Dwarves, Terrans, Earth Elementals, & Fungal Folks


    Dwarves are stout humanoids who dwell underground or in and around mountains. These serious people value tradition, exploration, discovery, duty, and craftsmanship. They are blacksmiths, alchemists, artisans, and warriors who were first formed underground by a deity who purposefully made them as his children.


    Terrans are powerful genies who come from the Earth-Realm, a massive plane made entirely of earth, half of which is located above ground and half of which is located underground. They are a noble, proud, species that have potent earth-shaping abilities and who control a massive empire that includes nearly the entirety of the Earth-Realm. Among their many powers is the power to grant wishes, a skill of theirs that both mortals and other extraplanars seek to abuse.


    Earth Elementals are conscious, sapient creatures who are piles of earth, rock, soil, and assorted metals that are capable of movement. They are living creatures who obey their creators in a sense like most golems do.


    Fungal Folks are the final evolution of most conventional types of fungi. These are intelligent, mobile beings who can speak humanoid languages and who lead communities of fungi that include less evolved fungi, treating those beings as equals and partners, not as children or cousins.]


    I recalled the information I knew about the assorted creatures I had decided would be the first created residents of my new home. And then I began to think of names. I worked hard to come up with a lengthy list of names so that when I set about crafting the creatures who would become my first servants here, they wouldn''t be nameless beings for a single moment.


    Jason. Rebecca. Adan. Lisabeth.Those names and several more, including some that sounded far less humanoid than those, filled my mind moments after I began to think of assorted names. My mind raced to meet my needs, a helpful effect of being in my realm where I was even more powerful than I was elsewhere.


    It took me a few minutes to feel satisfied with both the number of names I had prepared and the number of creatures I wanted to create at this moment. But when I did I immediately began to do the eldritch and powerful things I needed to do to bring the first residents of my fortress to life.


    With a blink and with a thought I activated one of my oldest yet least used powers: my reconstitution power. I felt the mystical power that allowed me to create something that was eerily close to life but lacked heart and soul, flow through me, blaze into readiness.


    I took a deep breathe and pictured the creature I wanted to create: a female dwarf. I pictured a woman with a serious, furrowed face, and an even more serious, dutiful personality. I pictured her with long, red-hair that spread out around and down her back. I pictured her clad in warm, leather-armor and then I activated my power, with the picture of her etched firmly in my mind. The way it manifested was unlike anything I had ever seen.


    In front of me, pebbles at my feet began to come together, drawn to each other as if affected by a magical magnetism. When they were drawn to each other, they collided gently and stuck together as if glued to each other. Over the course of the next few moments, hundreds of these pebbles collided with each other, until they formed an abstract statue about a meter and a quarter tall that was only vaguely humanoid in shape.


    Seconds after the statue was formed, a magical circle appeared underneath it. Normally such circles were a shade of blue, but this one was a shade of yellowish-green. The circle immediately flared to life, its arcane geometry sending mystical energy surging through the statue. The thing began to radiate a glow that very quickly became intensely bright, so much so that the entire cavern was filled with the fierce light.


    At that moment, while the light still radiated in I began to construct the soul of the dwarf, Rebecca. I envisioned her personality: she was to be a clear-headed, professional woman, who valued her god above all else. She was to view this mountain, as her home and to want to protect it. I pictured her being a simple, but intense, and devoted sort of person.


    I granted her soul the power to link minds, omnilingualism, and a copy of tremor-sense. That was when the light that had radiated from the body I made for her died down and revealed the body I had pictured in my mind.


    And a minute later I felt her soul awaken next to me. I smiled at her soul, and then sent it into the body that I had crafted for her. The soul sailed forward and then phased into the body, incorporeally going into it and taking a second to settle inside of it.


    The body was still for a moment. And then another. And one more. And then Rebecca''s eyes opened wide, and she began to breathe.


    "Hello Rebecca. It''s nice to meet you." I said, smiling at her.


    <hr>


    The dwarf in front of me was silent, but there was a smile on her face. There was joy in her large, green eyes. It took her a full minute of looking at me and then studying her surroundings before she began to speak.


    "Hello, creator. May I ask, where I am?" She politely asked, her voice soft and curious.


    I was about to answer her when I felt something alien send me a deeply emotional, mental message.


    [Mhmmm!] I heard in my voice, my mind suddenly assailed by an unfamiliar voice from a familiar place. There was an urgency there, a desire, and a heartfelt plea, that I understood even though I had no idea what "Mhmmm!" meant. My face contorted in mild confusion for a second, before I heard another mental message.


    [Ahh! Ahh. Ahh?] This second message caused more confusion. But now I knew who it was who was messaging me.The first soul.I thought, surprised that the thing was reacting to something now. It was also reacting to it quite strongly.


    [Are you reacting to Rebecca?] I questioned, sending the thing a message, while I turned my attention to my newest creation.


    "Hello, Rebecca. You''re home. Our home. You are the first humanoid I''ve ever personally created. I have created this place, this mountain, as one of my homes in this world, one that I created. I wanted to populate this place with a number of creatures, and you are the first of those creatures. You are here to help me." I told her, truthfully explaining her origins to her. She heard me and listened in awe to my explanation. And then another mental message came to me.


    [Mhmm. I... Want.] The unintelligible words were clear and loud. The actual words were soft and slow. But I understood now, thanks to the emotions I heard within each syllable of the unintelligible words. I knew what the first soul I had ever created wanted: she wanted to be a dwarf!


    [I understand. Do you want to be Rebecca''s sister?] I asked the unnamed soul, smiling at Rebecca and at the soul by this unexpected development. Rebecca, having had a chance to process what I told her spoke once more.


    "This is... my home?" She asked, a smile appearing on her serious face and causing it to light up.


    I studied her face for a moment, memorizing every artistic feature. And then I responded. "Yes, it is. Do you like it?" I asked, sincerely. She didn''t hesitate with her response.


    "I do! I really do. I can sense that this mountain is filled with ore. And that I was made to be here." She said, jubilation radiating off of her. I nodded at her, even as I received a message from the first soul.


    [Yes. I... do... want... to... be sisters.] The soul said, unsurprisingly struggling with language but expertly conveying her emotions. Internally I smiled, and reactivated my reconstitution power, envisioning a copy of Rebecca but with blonde hair.


    [Well in that case, your name is Lisabeth. I''m preparing your body now.] I told the soul, a wide grin on my face. And I took this chance to communicate with Rebecca herself.


    "Rebecca, do you want to meet your sister? I''m creating her now. I''m also creating other dwarves, and other inhabitants of this mountain, friends, family, neighbors, and other people to populate this place, this sacred site with." I told her, a wide and confident grin etched on my face.


    She beamed at me, a joyful expression on her face. "Family? A sister?" She said, her voice rising in pitch with each word.


    This was a good idea.I thought, as I began to make simultaneous use of several of my powers.It''s time I create the other early inhabitants of this mountain. Of my home.I thought, preparing to welcome a number of earth-creatures into my world, most of which I had never never made before.


    How exciting.I thought, grinning inside and out.


    "Yes. Your sister. And your family and home. You were intended as and are the oldest sister and oldest child in your family. It is on you to protect your family and your home." I told her, confidence and pride audible in my voice. She nodded at me, a fierce and protective look in her eyes.


    I think I might have done a good job with her.I mentally remarked, proudly observing the first humanoid I directly created.

 Chapter 105: An Attempt Is Made

    The diabolical dark cathedral loomed ominously behind me. And in front of me, in the distance, I could see the first of the borders that marked the unofficial ending of the territory of Paimon and the beginning of my territory.


    I stood on one of several newly constructed paths that adorned the community we were building here. The specific one I was on was one that led from the cathedral to the border gate, where a pair of guards, the odd sort of bow-wielding devils I resurrected earlier in the night, kept watch armed with dual pairs of bows.


    They vigilantly scanned the grounds beyond their speedily constructed gates, and I studied them for a moment. The pair of them were two of the four males of their species who had been resurrected earlier. Their backs were turned to me, and I had free rein in studying their forms, their posture, and their body language.


    They had casual body language like guard duty was common for them. They stood straight, though I could see that someone had provided them with chairs which was unexpectedly thoughtful of whoever it was unless it was someone like Silander who had a people-oriented personality and might do something like that out of kindness. They were relaxed and the bows at their sides and on their backs weren''t drawn which hinted that the community wasn''t in any danger.


    Satisfied with my brief study of them, I turned away from the guards and began to look for other things to observe within the precious little community I and the others had begun to build.


    Around the camp, community, town, or whatever else someone felt like calling the place, it was filled with activity of some sort or another.


    I could hear the noises of jackaloid activity off in the distance, the barks and howls of their canine forms mixed with the noise of their intense labor as they endeavored to construct their temple in a speedy manner.


    I could see relentless activity within the tiny patches of trees I had magically made when I first experimented with ecomancy. I could also see my Mi-Go celebrating something by raising its hand in the air energetically and boasting to no one about a feat of some sort.


    The smell of my fungal gardens filled the air with a pleasant scent, as the fungi that grew in the gardens used exceptional means to lure their food to themselves. No one could smell the unpleasant scent of the jackaloids, or of the newly resurrected devils because of the efforts of the fungal garden.


    When I finally gained something to do it was something violent. And it came from an unexpected source, though one whose attempts at interacting with me historically had always involved violence. Paimon.


    <hr>


    [Master! Something is happening within the city of Bastille!] An animal''s voice frantically shouted into my mind, the unexpectedness of it rattled me and caused me to freeze for a second before taking stock of the situation.


    The source of the sudden declaration was one of the animals that had once been captured by Raverangos in the earliest days of our occupation of the cathedral. A tiny yet tenacious desert fox that had been captured and then awakened days ago, making it one of the few awakened friends we had in the desert and therefore a valuable spy.


    [Hello? What is going on at Bastille?] I asked, reaching out through the connection and then sending calming energy to the tiny fox through our connection. The connection wasn''t dead, even if the fox wasn''t sending me a message, so I knew that the thing was alive and was more than likely merely watching whatever odd event was occurring.


    I hissed in annoyance and immediately took to the skies above the place my allies and I were operating out of, ascending to a point dozens of meters in the air above my allies in an instant. And at that point, I finally received another message from my familiar.


    [They have... flying objects! Flying things, five of them, these... big, round vessels that float through the air somehow have departed from the city and are heading in your direction. Please be careful master!] The fox warned me, sincere in both its warning and its call for caution. I grinned, despite the situation and spoke once more to the fox.


    [Thank you for your warning little one. I appreciate it. Now go hide, stay safe.] I told the thing, casting an invisibility spell on it through our link and then looked straight ahead. In the direction of the city of Bastille, a place I had only visited once, at the beginning of my life. And I began to both forge a custom mystical effect in my mind, a potent barrier that might protect this place, and considered how to handle my first strategetic retreat.


    In a matter of moments, the first words came to me. "Everyone! Come outside for a moment. Your presence is needed." I shouted, my voice easily carrying across the encampment that had appeared around the dark cathedral.


    <hr>


    About two minutes passed before the residents of the newest settlement in Infernius showed their faces. All things considered, that wasn''t bad at all if someone was being honest since well over 60 creatures now inhabited this place. I looked at them, all on the ground and waiting for me, and smiled. And then I informed them of the apparent reality we found ourselves in.


    "Listen everyone. It''s possible that we''ve been found." I told them simply. Their reactions to that news were fairly muted, but then again none of us had been under the impression that we were hidden since our home-base was in a public temple to a cult that wasn''t unknown throughout Infernius, situated on the same layer our oldest enemy ruled over tyrannically.


    I smiled at them and readied another statement. "I am going to send you to my plane, my dimension, to hide while I confirm whatever is going. It''s possible I and my source are wrong. If they are it''s no biggie, and if they aren''t then no one can hurt you since you won''t be here to be harmed." I explained, proud of my deductive abilities.


    And then I whisked them away, sending them to one of the towns I had built in the plain habitat that I had once practiced my powers in. It was unoccupied since I had yet to create the creatures who would inhabit it so all they had to do was rest there for a bit while I resolved whatever was about to happen here, one way or another.


    I was still for a few minutes, floating lazily in the air, before my senses and my radar began to pick up the earliest signs of an intrusion, or in this case: an invasion. Off in the distance, I spotted them, their gigantic, black vessels stealing what faint moonlight would have otherwise illuminated them but not hiding them from my vision or anyone else''s. They were flying in an impressive V-shaped formation.


    I smiled and prepared myself to witness their arrival.I''ll let them make the first move. But if it''s hostile... well they won''t like the outcome.I thought, readying myself for what I knew would be a violent altercation between myself and them. I started it off by raising my hands and covering my home with a skilled weaved barrier that would hopefully protect the place from harm, or if worse comes to worst than shield it from utter destruction.


    A thin layer of arcane energy was called into being over the camp. It began at the furthest gate leading into the area marked by my first usage of ecomantic magic, and then continued until it reached the furthest edge of my territory, the same pond that my Mi-Go had thrown itself into minutes ago. I heard its soft hum as it took hold and promised to at least take some of the damage the upcoming encounter may cause to the community and nullify said damage.


    Well that''s good.I thought, smiling as the distance between myself and the airships that were steadily making their way towards the base was shrinking every second. Though they had appeared moments ago, they were flying quite rapidly and I knew I had less than a minute left before they arrived if left to their own devices.


    Why am I waiting for them so passively?I questioned for a moment.I should go say hello. I thought, chuckling to myself. And so I studied their flight for a few moments, before willing myself to be in front of one of the odd things.


    <hr>


    In an instant, I traveled a distance that must have been hundreds of meters. I took myself from my initial starting point, within the dark cathedral''s airspace, and teleported to the open air a few meters ahead of the airships that were coming my way.


    "Whoa, he''s right there!" The captain of the airship I was closest too shouted an instant after I appeared, with genuinely impressive reaction speed. I chuckled at him and waited to see if he''d be able to get his ship to stop in time.


    Now I was close to the airships and could study them, which was the second thing I did after chuckling at the poor captain whose ship was on a collision course with me. For a moment I merely observed them. They were gigantic things, shaped like massive blocks of dark metal which were evidently the aesthetics of this layer of Infernius because I had noticed this popular trend in my travels throughout the desert.


    They floated through the air, powered by what I assumed was magic given their likely density and their remarkable speed. They had a series of darkly tinted glass windows, objects I first saw in the city of Bastille, and behind those windows stood a number of figures who were running around in a panic, caught off guard by my sudden appearance. I grinned at them and used my appraisal ability on the ships.


    [New Item Knowledge Alert: Cain''s Cannons.


    These are objects that are known as gunships. Gunships are a type of military vehicle, an aircraft, that is designed to attack targets on the ground with heavy-weapons that fire an assortment of bullets at their targets.


    Cain''s Cannons are a specific type of infernal gunships that are used most frequently by devils typically in technologically simple worlds wherein means to combat them are limited to either magic or arrows, rather than guns, cannons, and anti-air artillery.


    Originally these gunships were produced in the first layer of Infernius, were most vehicles were produced, but since the abandonment of that layer, a number of other layers have invested in facilities to build these powerful weapons and other sorts of powerful Infernian weaponry and military technology.


    Despite their name, Cain''s Cannons do not fire cannonballs. In actuality, they attack targets with side-mounted Gatling guns and with an explosive payload of hellfire bombs that influence the tactics of their skilled captains.


    Captains of these ships tend to start their assaults off by firing on targets without the means to defend themselves and drop their payloads right away before beginning strafing runs on survivors of their initial attacks. Their second tactic is to start with speedy strafing runs that target enemy leadership while their allies on the ground deal with anti-air defenses, and then wait to receive a signal before committing to a bombing run that incinerates enemy infrastructure.


    These ships are made by artistically integrating technology and magic. They are made of metals that can be harvested throughout Infernius and then powered by magic, which means that making them is simple enough provided someone has the resources to construct them.


    These ships are capable of interstellar travel, though the standard models aren''t optimized for it and thus tend to be less effective in space, not to mention practically defenseless against spaceships that are built for space. That said, alternate models exist that are optimized for travel between worlds in the mortal dimension and are built to be able to serve as effective transports for warriors, emissaries, and even spies sent on interplanetary missions.]


    I read through the notification and my eyes went wide.I should try to seize one of these ships...I thought, hoping to have a chance to study it myself or give it to creatures like dwarves who could study it. And then the ship in front of me began to screech to a halt, slowing down even as it drew nearer and nearer to me.


    It came to a stop less than five meters away from me. I looked at it, interest gleaming in my eyes. And then the thing began to talk, or more specifically figures inside of it began to talk through some sort of speaker system located on the thing.


    "Hello. You appear to be the leader of a nascent rebellion, the figure known to us as ''Althos''. We are under orders from the rightful sovereign and overlord of Bastille to either come and collect you peacefully or to incinerate your forces and drag your unconscious body back to Bastille. Would you like to surrender?" A male-sounding voice asked me, informing me as to the intention behind this unexpected visit from my foe''s forces.


    I grinned at the ship in front of me. And then I began to talk in response to what I had just heard.


    "Hello. I am indeed Althos, but you''re wrong about a lot of the other things you said. Paimon is not the rightful sovereign of Bastille. And no. I would not like to surrender. But I appreciate your politeness, and so I will make you your offer. Would you like to surrender to me?" I asked, confidently. I knew their answer would be no, but I wanted to make it clear that they had had the chance to surrender.


    I heard snickering coming my way from within the first of the ships, and I grinned.


    "No, Althos, we would not like to surrender. We are under orders not to kill you, but we''ve been told by Paimon himself that you''re sturdy. If you try to interfere with us while we destroy your base, we''ll test how sturdy you really are." I was warned by someone from within the ship right in front of me.


    I chuckled at them, confident that they would do no such thing, and begun my attack, satisfied that it was wise to do so due to their declaration of hostility towards me and my allies.


    <hr>


    I backed away from the airships and commenced my attack by taking aim at the airship in front of me and clapping my hands together. I focused on the gigantic vehicle and considered ways to tear it apart. After a second of careful consideration, I realized I ought to just tear the thing apart.


    I kept my gaze firmly locked on the gunship and separated my hands, envisioning the same thing happening to the massive enemy weapon in front of me, tearing it apart with my sheer power of will rather than any magic. I envisioned my mind tearing the utterly gigantic, titan-sized vehicle in half and I wanted this odd tactic to work. I wanted my mind to be powerful enough that even a building-sized mass of metal would be powerless before it.


    It took a second, but I soon heard the strained groaning of the metal of the ship within seconds of my odd attempt to dismantle one of them and watched satisfied as a gigantic crack appeared down the middle of the vehicle.


    Seconds later the thing fell apart, cleft perfectly in two and the two halves of the vehicle began to fall to the desert dozens of meters below us, pulled by gravity. The sound was loud, not just because it was the sound of a massive airship crashing to the ground below but because it was accompanied by the terrified screaming of the dozens of devils needed to man such a gigantic thing. When the two halves of the vehicle crashed to the surface below, the immediate silence was striking and probably traumatizing to the allies of the first vehicle.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    I looked at the rest of the vehicles, all of which had stopped when the one in the lead had stopped, and raised an eyebrow at them, challenging them to advance forward if they dared. None of them moved forward, and I grinned.


    I rose two hands, aiming both at the two gunships closest to me and fired invisible, powerful beams offlesh-to-stone,willing the spell to penetrate the metal of the ships and affect those unlucky souls trapped inside of their weapon. The beams shot forward, and I listened to the shocked gasps of the captains of the vehicles.


    They were the first to fall victim to the spell, since they hadn''t expected my method of taking them down to be that they would immediately turn to stone an instant before their peers did as well. In a matter of moments two more ships had been knocked out of commission, unmanned and even better: still floating, fully operational, and ripe for the looting.


    And then there were two.I thought, amused as I looked out at the furthest two vehicles.Oh, wait.I thought, realizing that the devils in the first airship might have survived the crash and immediately looking down at the wreckage of that airship. I aimed a single finger at each of the two halves, and fired a stream of lightning at the things, allowing the electric energy to course into the ship for a few moments, and felt a streak of sadistic enjoyment from the surprised, pained, yelps I heard as my electrical power coursed through the metal.


    I aimed my other hand at the ship and began to cast a wide-affecting version of a familiar spell:harvest souls.I shivered in dark delight as I immediately felt the souls of the devils bold enough to attack me moan in pain while being abducted from their corpses, and begin to flow ethereally into me. At this point the two ships left began to try and fly forward, clearly having recovered from their shock at what I did, and intending to take advantage of my apparent distraction.


    An admirable attempt, but not one that''ll work.I thought to myself, as I willed a third and fourth arm to emerge from my body. They took aim at the ships that had tried to shoot forward, hoping to pass me, and activated spells of their own.


    <hr>


    One of the hands cast the necromantic spell "Weight of the Dead" at one of the ships. The spell immediately struck the ship, and the ship began to tilt towards the ground, as spectral arms shot out of the ground and grabbed hold of it to prevent it from falling forward. Instead, the incredibly tall pillar of arms ensured the ship was speedily dragged to the ground below, causing it to land gently while ensuring it was grounded for as long as I willed it to be.


    The other hand''s spell caused a staggeringly powerful jet of flames to shoot out towards the remaining Cain''s Cannon. The jet of flames was a deep-violet color, and it exploded out of my newest limb and incinerated the air between myself and the airship. I grimaced from the force of the fire, feeling its heat as uncomfortable to even me, an impressive feat.


    When it struck the airship, it not only melted the thing it even caused the hellfire bombs within it to explode, immediately and utterly killing everyone on board in a fiery explosion that lasted but an instant but incredibly heated the air around me.


    I didn''t get to cast "harvest souls" on them.I complained to myself, annoyed by the sudden nature with which the ship was dealt with, even though I had a powerful feeling that the custom magical effect''s power must have been due to the sub-domain of flames liking me, and hopefully inching closer to granting me a measure of influence over it. But as I examined the situation, I realized with a smile that the fighting was over, if it could even be called that, was over.


    Now it was time for me to examine what was left-over. And so I drew the remaining ships, the ones in the air anyway, gently to the ground. And then I teleported the statues I created from within the airships, to the ground outside of them.


    <hr>


    A few moments later I was on the ground beside the airships and studiously examining the artwork my spells had created. A number of statues stood before me, and behind me, the three ships were grounded but not damaged.


    The statues in front of me were all of devils who appeared mostly human. This didn''t surprise me, because Paimon, their master, had a hatred of animalistic devils, even ones that only were marginally animalistic, and this hatred extended to ones that were greater in power than their more human-looking counterparts.


    I sighed and shook my head.Oh, Paimon... you''re just giving me gifts at this point.I thought, grinning to myself. And then I received a summarized notification, alerting me to the nature of some of the beings who perished at my several hands. While reading the notification I willed my newly created hands to cease their existence, and the new limbs faded away as quickly as they had come into being.


    [New Summarized Multi-Species Knowledge Notification: Pilot-Devil, Technologist-Devil, Torturer-Devil.


    The intermediate branch of the devilish hierarchy is extremely regimented and devils who demonstrate talent at any particular area are often promoted in ways that allow them to become very specialized in a range of areas when they reach this branch. It turns out that this particular group of servants sent by Paimon exemplifies that.


    Pilot-devils are vehicle specialists who come into being or gain upon promotion into pilot-devildom an incredible wealth of knowledge related to an incredible number of vehicles. Their purpose is to successfully use vehicles in a number of contexts and their knowledge allows them to do just that. They can be trusted with tractors, cars, planes, interstellar ships, tanks, and all sorts of other vehicles.


    Technologist-Devils are the engineers of devil kind. These devils are both skilled planners who can expertly plan how to maximally use technology to their advantage and are scientists who can help develop new technology. Ancestors of the current crop of technologist-devils were the developers of everything from the guns used by some devils, to vehicles like Cain''s Cannons.


    Torturer-Devils are what their title implies. They are the most skilled devils at extracting the truth from their enemies, as they don''t just use painful methods to extract the truth, they are more than capable of using psychology to convince hated enemies that they are their friends, their best bets at being released from their devilish captors while enduring minimal harm. That said, they infinitely prefer painful methods of arriving at various truths.


    At least one of each of these souls dwell inside of you, as a result of your mass harvest soul spell. Would you like to absorb them?]


    I grinned and informed the system that I would be happy to absorb them. I hadn''t thought for a second to try and resurrect them, they were my enemies and were servants of Paimon.I will not resurrect my enemies. I will instead steal them away, and feed on them. I will subsume their power and create creatures like them, who will serve me.I told myself, as my powers flared to life and sealed the fates of my enemies: to be obliterated, completely.


    I shivered as I felt the potent power of my ability to devour souls go to work on the souls of the comrades of the creatures who had foolishly come to my lair, intending to end my rebellion. The energies of my enemies swirled into me, and I felt my powers expand and increase to accommodate the newest sorts of creatures I could create.


    And then I turned my full attention to the statues in front of me.


    <hr>


    Let''s see if these fellows have their minds.I thought, grinning as I was able to fully focus on the two dozen statues before me.


    In turning my attention to them, all of my senses washed over the odd things. And after seconds of careful study, I detected no semblance of life from any of them. Including any ability to sense their thoughts, or draw knowledge from them. "Damn it." I sighed, knowing what I''d have to do.


    One day I''ll be able to detect the minds of people even if they are petrified.I told myself, promising myself that one day I wouldn''t need to do this, even as I readied myself.


    I stirred the spores that coursed through my body, even as I picked the first victim of many victims who''d surrender their secrets to me. I moved to the first statue and willed the transformation to begin to become undone.


    And when the devil''s mind was restored, even as her head gradually shifted from being one of stone to one of flesh, I pressed my lips against hers and channeled an unparalleled number of spores directly into her. A second later I pulled away and grinned at the devil in front of me, feeling her struggle to retain her sense of self and sense of purpose as the spores invaded her mind.


    I stole into her mind and took everything in an instant. I copied her memories, her knowledge, her thoughts and her secrets.


    And then I sent them to one of the other "me''s", the one who embodied my mind at its max potential. The one who lurked in our realm, who spent his time studying memories and playing with his toys, the people he created.


    I looked at her gently, almost sympathetically, and began to speak. "Just surrender. There''s no hope for you to prevail against the spores. They won''t kill you. And frankly, neither will I. I am just going to turn you into my ally. My friend." I said, honestly. She looked at me with a glazed look on her face but one that didn''t hide her outrage and her shame, and I almost felt bad for her.


    "More than anything else you''ve been dealt a bad hand. You were told, by a shitty boss, that I was an enemy you could defeat. I''m not." I told her, simply.


    "You came here, filled with confidence, and in an instant, lost everything. And more than that, I''ve gained a lot. For instance... I''ve gained you. I''ve gained your vehicles. I''ve gained everything you''ve ever known. And you''ve lost... so much." I told her, grinning savagely as the last part of her body was finally freed from the total effect of my spell and she began a pressing struggle to stay on her two feet.


    She struggled to focus and tried her best to glare at me even as the spores infected her. It was a challenge, and I could feel both the hate coming off of her as well as her desire to spit at me. I grinned and spoke once more. "Your mind is mine already. You just don''t know it yet. I''m going to rewrite your memories and make it so that you know that Paimon is your enemy. Which he is. He''s an enemy of all of devil-kind." I told her, truthfully and somewhat cryptically.


    She continued to resist, glaring hatefully at me. I chuckled and spoke once more. "Did he even tell you all what I was? If he didn''t, that would explain why you thought you could win." I asked. This caused a crack to develop within her, a moment of confusion and concern that was visible in her gaze. I studied it, and then smiled widely at her, my own eyes widening in realization.


    "Oh... You didn''t know, did you? I''m a god Samara." I said smugly, already knowing her name thanks to my instantaneous invasion of her mind. She looked at me with wide, terror-filled eyes when she heard what I said. After seeing my powers first hand she didn''t doubt what I told her, which rose my estimation of her a good deal.


    "Your master left out that detail, didn''t he?" I asked, again. And then I began to laugh when my mind was filled with the knowledge that Paimon had indeed left that out.


    "Paimon is such an asshole. He sends devils like you to kill me when he couldn''t do it himself TWICE! And he doesn''t even tell you what I am, or why he''s failed to kill me." I said, almost overcome by how ridiculous that was. But then I refocused on the matter at hand, my gaze returning to the first of the devils I had released from my spell.


    "If it makes you feel any better, you''ll be treated fairly by me. I won''t lie to you about the true nature of someone I send you to kill." I told her, chuckling as I felt her mind begin to succumb to the effects of the spores. I sensed her resistance ebbing away, seeping into nothingness as the spores ate away at the emotions that prevented her from simply surrendering and accepting a chance to live.


    And then I turned my attention to the others before me.


    It was while my attention was focused on the devils that a plan began to form in my mind. A plan that involved terraforming the desert, and establishing a border between Paimon''s territory and my territory. As well as building an army, a new army.This is an exciting scheme.I realized as the pieces of it began to come together in my mind.


    <hr>


    An hour passed before I dealt with all of the devils I had captured alive, including the ones in the other ship who weren''t statues. When I had secured all of their memories, turned them into my servants, and done away with those nagging memories of Paimon, I was satisfied with my work and willed the people I had sent into my realm back to me.


    They returned in various states of activity. Silander and Gallow returned with food in their mouths. Raverangos returned holding a bloody rabbit in one of his paw-like hands. Tristan and Nefarious returned mid-sentence. As did many of the senior devils I had resurrected and recruited. The younger devils, or rather; the lesser devils had been doing various tasks appropriate to their skillsets and came back in poses that reflected that.


    I smiled at them, and when they noticed that they were back, they examined their surroundings and then turned to see me. They grinned at me, and then their eyes grew wide in fear and confusion when they saw the assorted devils behind me, as well as the grounded gunships that had attacked our home. I saw their confusion and moved to address it.


    "Whoa! Don''t panic." I said, before kicking myself mentally. Saying "Don''t panic" is a surefire way to incite panic.I chided myself, annoyed that I made that mistake.


    "Believe it or not, these fellows are our friends. Now anyway. I just had to... make them friendly." I told my gathered allies, a wide grin on my face.


    "We all know that I''m good at... making friends, don''t we?" I asked the first rebels I had recruited, grinning widely at them. They smiled back at me for a moment.


    "I promise, I''ll tell you what happened. But first, I must mark our borders." I said, confidently. They looked at me in confusion but I willed myself away from them, activating my teleportation ability to whisk me into the air.


    <hr>


    Paimon is finally reacting huh? Which means that things are going to get... trickier.I mused, high in the air above the dark cathedral and my allies.


    I guess we''re in a real state of war now huh?I thought, before beginning to laugh. I took a deep breath and began to prepare a powerful ecomantic effect.


    I looked down at the ground at beneath me and realized I was very close to the cathedral.Yikes. I better move.I thought, before beginning to fly forward.I flew forward for about two minutes until I was out of sight of anyone at my base of operations, flying in the direction of the city of Bastille; the headquarters of my enemy.


    <hr>


    Althos'' rapid flight sent him sailing into the desert. He came to a stop about a quarter of the way to the capital of his long-time foe, close enough that he could see the city in the distance but not close enough that they could detect him.


    He aimed a solitary hand at the desert floor and exhaled. A powerful magical effect shot forth from the palm of his hand, one that slammed into the sands protecting the desert floor, and immediately began to change it.


    The sands were transformed, melted away in an instant and reshaped, reforged into something new. Althos'' magic was rapidly reshaping the very landscape itself!


    <hr>


    If my enemy is going to attack me actively, then I''ll prepare defenses that can detect and even repel him.I told myself in the air above the desert.


    A powerful ecomantic effect was shooting forth from my hand, a laser of magical force that was undoing the sand and desert-floor it touched, reshaping it into something far better for my defensive purposes: an ornate and tall stone wall. I watched silently, as meters of sand were done away with, in an instant. While I did this, I sent myself a message.


    [Do me a favor, would you? Build me an army. An army to man this long line of fortresses I''m building.] I asked myself, specifically the me that was in my divine realm, in the process of going through the memories I had absorbed from the enemies I had defeated and turned into my servants, or killed and absorbed.


    [An army?] The person I had messaged, my mind-self asked. I grinned and responded right away, even as I began to move, determined to transform the length of the layer into my territory as a way to show the layer that I was here and that I had real power.


    [Yes. An army. I am going to turn a section of the entire desert into a long line of heavily defended fortresses, and in order to do so effectively I need an army to man it.] I messaged myself.


    [I''ll also be creating creatures myself, specifically I plan on making all sorts of devils. It''d be great if you could make humans, dark elves, and high elves, to man the fortress. Eventually, I plan on also making vehicles like Cain''s Cannons for pilot-devils to man and make use of.] I told myself, feeling rather odd for having a conversation with myself. But I knew that was just the part of me that was influenced by mortals, and I needed to ignore that part of me.


    The other me sighed in my, our, mind. I smiled as I felt it begin to get to work. [Thank you!] I told it, happily.


    <hr>


    And so marked the beginning of a two-month period of adventuring, army-building, border planning, and miscellaneous scheming within the Infernian desert, various places within the world of my birth, my realm, and even the desert-giant city of Namira.


    During this period, countless memories were absorbed and processed, sacrifices were made, and at the end of the two-month period, I received a single notification. One that suggested that after I willed it away, I''d be even more powerful than I already was.


    [Alert:


    Your ability to copy the abilities of your worshipers has been hard at work. This was due to the enormity of worshipers you gained at once, going from a few hundred to over 11,000 over the course of a few hours, it took... a significant period of time to process the skills and abilities now at your disposal. Not to mention that your worshipers grew in number by over 3,500 over the course of the past two months which really didn''t help.


    That said: once you will this notification away, your mind will be rocked by notifications as your body adjusts to the gigantic number of skills, abilities, and more that are now at your disposal that weren''t yours to use before your vision rocked Undermoon. Take a bit to adjust to them.]


    I read the notification and dreaded what would come after I willed it away. I took a deep breath and willed the notification away.Suddenly, adense sea of green text filled my vision, and I felt an incredible diversity of powers surge into me.


    And I thought I was powerful before...I thought as I read through the multitude of notifications that filled my vision.

 Chapter 106: The Layers They Are A-Changing

    I thought I was powerful before...I mused to myself, a grin on my face, as thousands of notifications appeared and covered my vision in swirling green-text.


    Domains, sub-domains, and even... one... two... three cult-size notifications! How grand.I thought, as my eyes lit up filled with new, eldritch power.


    It took even me nearly a full two minutes to read through them and to grin at the power at my disposal before I willed them away. I only left one up, one to admire and to bask in for a moment.


    [Alert: Your cult has surpassed 500... 2,500... 12,500 worshipers!


    Your activities in the large dark-elven city of Undermoon, coupled with your activities in Infernius, have resulted in you not only obtaining the required worshipers but smashing through the numbers set in place for deities to acquire what are called "Universal Deity Abilities". These U.D.A.''s are powers that are common to every god.


    These things include powers like the ability to gain the powers of your worshipers, the power to possess those who worship you, and the ability to make race-specific dogmas.


    The reward for surpassing 500 worshipers was the ability to possess your worshipers, which you can do once a day for up to an hour.


    The reward for surpassing 2,500 worshipers was the power to create race or community-specific dogmas, a power which past deities have found immensely useful. Along with that power comes a power you''ll likely find more immediately useful: The ability to gain the lowest level of influence over a single domain and a single sub-domain of a handful of domains and sub-domains.


    The domains are war, healing, chaos, darkness, light, luck, civilization, and law. The sub-domains are liquid, leadership, fire, earth, air, shape-shifting, and corruption.


    One of the rewards for surpassing 12,500 worshipers is the ability to choose two additional domains and sub-domains from that same list. The other is that all of your divine powers automatically level up.


    In the cases of powers like your tremor-sense power and your radar, this means that they hugely expand in range and sensitivity, your appraisal and identify powers grant you more information, and all of your domain-specific abilities find their potency doubled and their cooldowns cut in half.


    Your reconstitution power can now create 2 creatures every half an hour, and now creatures that are part of the domains and sub-domains which you command at least the fifth level of influence no longer count against your limits. You can create an army of fungal creatures even outside of your realm. As for the others... well it depends on the power in question.]


    Now that is a beautiful notification.I thought to myself, as I read through it once more and then willed it away.


    I found myself standing in one of the newly built fortresses deep within the Infernian desert. Gathered around me were nervous devils, staring off in the distance as another enemy salvo approached us. I watched as the projectile drew nearer and nearer to us. I wasn''t nervous. This was a regular phenomenon I had long learned to deal with.


    The projectile itself was unsophisticated. Paimon''s forces had long stopped attacking us in sophisticated ways. They knew better than to do that by now. They had grown tired of us either stealing their technology in the wake of a failed attack, or me seizing Paimon''s minions.


    "Again huh? Why do they do it?" One of the technologist devils I had brought over to my side in the wake of the first handful of Paimon''s uninspired attempts to dismantle my rebellion muttered under her breath.


    "Because they can''t do anything else. Paimon is in a terrible situation here. He can''t win, but he also can''t stop fighting. If he does he''ll no doubt lose what support this war must have gotten him among his followers, and he''ll be even further from his goals. I don''t doubt that the devils who are actually attacking us, the ones in their catapults or whatever siege weapons they''re using are sincere, but they can''t win. They never could." I remarked, not bothering to turn to face the devil, a frequent companion of mine named Selena.


    I heard her sigh in annoyance. I chuckled."Sorry, was that one of those rhetorical questions?" I asked, feigning ignorance of speech devices.


    That always annoyed her. She knew that I wasn''t as bad at social interactions as I often pretended to be when I didn''t feel like dealing with people. She sighed and shook her head at me.


    "It''s getting closer." I said, still not looking at her. She nodded. The thing had been sailingtowards us for nearly a minute now.


    The salvo that was soaring through the air was little more than a hunk of infernian metal fused together by a speedy but unskilled devil with a fondness for welding torches. That said, it was still fast enough to zip through the air, crossing a distance of dozens of meters per second.That''s close enough I suppose.I thought idly when the projectile was high in the air and a few dozen meters away.


    I rose a hand at the thing and wordlessly cast a spell on it, a spell that was handy in fending off these lazy attacks:Weight of the Dead.It was a necromantic spell that greatly increased the gravity on whatever it was aimed at. The spell instantly collided with the object, and the hunk of metal immediately began its rapid descent.


    The thing crashed to the ground about fifteen seconds later, disturbing a ton of desert sand and sending it sailing in the direction of the fort.


    "How many is that today?" She asked, curiosity audible in her voice. I looked at her, studying her scarlet eyes.


    "Here?" I asked. This time she chuckled.


    "No, overall." She said, her voice quiet. I let silence fill the air.


    "This is the 8th salvo today." I told her, after allowing the silence to ratchet up the tension.


    "So it''s true. It''s getting worse." She said, grimly. I nodded, rather nonplussed about the whole thing.


    Because of this conflict, I had spent the vast majority of my life at war. I had only been alive for twenty-four hours when I met Paimon. I was only a few days old when I began my rebellion against him, in front of several dozen devils. Not even a day after the declaration he launched his first attack on my allies and myself.


    "That''s why I did this. That''s why I cut the layer up. Because I knew it''d come to this. I don''t know how many tens or even hundreds of thousands of devils he has at his disposal. Not to mention resources and forces that aren''t devils or devilish in origin. Imagine if this constant deluge of nonsense was happening at the Dark Cathedral? It''d be worse." I told her.


    She was silent for a moment, and my mind turned to the choices I had to make.What should I pick?


    If it were younger I''d be more worried about my choices clashing with those of the other "me''s". One of the many things I had learned over these last two months, via trial and error, was that when it came to choices I was never contradicted by myself. We may question each other, but we didn''t disagree. Whatever choiceImade was one that the other me''s would understand and agree with. Same for them. We were of, weirdly enough, one mind when it came to decision making.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    Healing and law are obvious choices. I prefer my servants alive, and I am in Infernius, trying to successfully, legally, overthrow a pseudo-dictator. But what should I get for my last domain? And all of the sub-domains are excellent choices... which makes that choice really hard.I thought to myself, grimacing at the choice I''d have to make.


    I looked out in the distance and examined the hunk of metal my enemies had hurled at me. I aimed a single hand in its direction and willed the projectile off the ground. It didn''t resist and was lifted into the air with ease.Come.I commanded, willing the thing to float speedily towards me. I watched as it came my way, obeying me and defying gravity while doing so.


    "That''s it..." I said, watching what had been fired at me, at my forces, as a weapon of war become another tool in my hands, one I planned to use against my foes.


    <hr>


    At the same time as one of me was handling another attack on our fortifications along the border between our part of the layer and Paimon''s part, I was walking through the streets of Namira. Namira too was beginning to feel the impact of my presence and I could see it in the streets.


    Camilla and Kuzco walked behind me, their eyes rapidly studying our surroundings. They were unaware of what stealthy activities I had undertaken in the city, as I had often acted while they were asleep, but nonetheless at this point, the city was beginning to undergo remote physical changes.


    "Is that... a flower beginning to bud from within those cracks?" Camilla asked, her voice soft and curious at the odd scene she was studying. Kuzco turned to look at it, and I smiled.


    "Yes it is. I''m surprised it''s taken them this long to grow." I responded, not bothering to look at thing. I could sense its life-force fighting to ensure it grew. The flower bud she was starring at was a thin thing, just barely visible if one close to the ground stared at the street studiously.


    It made sense that she could see it. She wasn''t much taller than the average jackaloid and was much closer to the ground than I was. She looked at the thing, focusing on it for a few moments.


    "Are you memorizing what it looks like? I could tell you what sort of flower it''ll be when it finishes it maturing, if you''d like." I told her, since it was unusual for her to pay so much attention to flora. She shook her head.


    "No it''s not that. It''s just... weird, to see something like that." She said, thinking for a moment mid-sentence. I chuckled internally.


    "Is it though? We''ve seen an abundance of flora growth since we arrived..." I pointed out, not wrong in my statement.


    When we had first arrived in the city of Namira the place was struggling to successfully nurture crops to maturity. I myself was in the process of unraveling why, but in one of the schemes, I was in the process of enacting to subtly influence the city I had begun a small cult here, aiding a few farmers throughout the city in exchange for their loyalty and worship. I had tentatively named them the "Order of the Golden Sickle".


    My farmers and an arboreal angel I created named Menanam had begun experimenting in the fields to discover why crops weren''t growing, while I created more than enough crops to aid the city. We still hadn''t discovered the reason why the crops weren''t growing like they should have been, but we were hopefully inching closer to discovering the truth every day.


    One of the quiet ways I had opted to influence the city, purely for fun, was to cover the place in divine energy and use it to coax plant growth and infiltration. With my enhanced radar and tremor-sense, I could easily sense the hundreds of tiny, inedible plants that had successfully wormed their way under the city and were sneakily growing underneath it.


    Underneath our feet, every second tiny plants wormed their roots deeper into the sand and fought to get closer to the surface. Every time my party went to sleep, before beginning my other activities, I released more and more divine energy to the plants that were struggling the most.


    I turned to look over at Niqi. The girtablilu looked straight ahead, uninterested in the plant growth around us and of all of the party members the one the most aware of my schemes. I grinned at the pale-skinned hybrid and spoke to it.


    "Niqi, what do you think?" I asked the thing. My familiar, and the second creature of all of my followers to evolve naturally, kept walking. It was disinterested in all of this and more interested in pursuing our latest quest.


    "Plants are plants. We''ve been seeing more and more of them every day we''ve been here." It explained, neutrally and detachedly summarizing the reality of our last two months in the city. I wasn''t surprised that Niqi''s analysis was spot-on, even if it didn''t say how it felt about that odd reality.


    "That''s true, but is that normal?" Kuzco, our resident thief asked.


    Internally I knew the answer to that question: it wasn''t, I had long snatched up and copied the memories of the majority of residents and checked them out. This city was a wasteland aside from its fields.


    And those weren''t the only memories I had devoted a considerable amount of my time to sussing through. I had absorbed and studied the memories of my followers and worshipers. All of them. Billions of hours of memories.


    <hr>


    Studying the memories of my followers was an incredibly useful past time that taught me an immeasurable amount about the multiverse.


    I learned about the nature of the world I was born in, its history, politics, and peoples. I learned about the twenty schools of magic, and their classifications, "Basic" "Intermediate" "Expert" and "Quasi-Divine".


    I learned about the nature of the universe I lived in. Its dimensions, its inhabitants, and even about some of its mysteries such as the identity of the killer of Mahmud Suti, how Raverangos came to wander about within an eerie demonic castle before wandering through a portal into Golden-Gate, and the cause of Hagitha''s eerie insanity.


    And perhaps most importantly, I learned about my own limitations. I had begun studying the countless memories I had stored within myself eagerly, throwing myself into them thinking that through them I''d learn things like the true-names of the demons and devils I had come across during my lifetime. I didn''t.


    There were only two serious limitations that my memory powers had. One of them was that within the memories I could only see what the person whose memory it was saw. My divine senses were hobbled within memories. But that wasn''t a serious limitation. The serious limitation was my other limitation.


    The other limitation, the serious boundary I couldn''t get over, was that I couldn''t learn true-names. I had countless extraplanar beings under my command. Some of them even worshiped me. But when I dove into their memories and studied them all, I''d see their true-names emblazoned in their consciousness.


    Unfortunately for me, and fortunately for them, when I tried to learn the names, they''d be obstructed from view, hidden behind a protective and eerie wall of light. The first time this happened was when I studied Raverangos'' memories, and it has happened without fail every single time I was researching the memories of an angel, devil, or demon.


    And even when I heard the true-names uttered aloud in the incredibly rare cases someone''s true name was known to someone else and used in their presence or to influence them I couldn''t hear the names either. In those cases what I heard was an incredibly loud, buzzing sound almost custom made to annoy me.


    I hated it.


    <hr>


    Back in the present, I opened my mouth to speak. I intended to address my follower''s question.


    "It''s not. But these plants haven''t fully been noticed... yet." I explained to the three of them, speaking in the language of the jackaloids for a moment. That way fewer people understood us but we didn''t abruptly stop talking in public, conspiratorially. I nodded at a single guard as we walked by him, and he nodded back at me, politely.


    "What makes you say that?" Niqi questioned, and I could hear the faintest touch of curiosity in the thing''s voice. I grinned and pointed to my head.


    "Their thoughts. I''ve been... checking in on the thoughts of over two dozen different desert giants daily, including guards. None of them have noticed the plants yet. At most a few children have mentioned them, which makes sense because children like to play in areas where the plants grow more fiercely." I explained, smiling gently at my party.


    A silence fell over the party as they digested my words. We were now just a few minutes away from the gate leading to the part of the city we had been asked to go to for our next quest.


    Camilla broke the silence. "So when do you think they''ll notice the plants?" She asked, both curious and suspicious about them.When indeed...I mused.


    "I''d say... another two weeks is the most time they have left before the plants start to grow noticeably. I can sense them you know. Some of them aren''t far from the surface now. Only the most tenacious are already visible but over the next few days it''ll start to get harder to ignore." I told my servants.


    Niqi spoke next, only needing a few seconds after I finished my statement to ask a good question. "Was this you?" It asked suddenly.


    I kept walking, nonplussed by the question and let out a hearty laugh. "Good question Niqi! Yes. Yes it was. Is." I confessed, not really caring to hide this from a loyal follower of mine.


    "The plants are harmless. They are just an attempt by me to... practice my plant-based abilities. Though, depending on how the giants react to them they may present an interesting possibility, politically." I said, suggestively. For a moment I pictured one of the few creatures left inmyprison, a desert-giant noblewoman and the tantalizing drive to gain power.


    "But that''s neither here nor there. At least not right now." I told my party, effectively kicking this can down the road. At this point, I could see the gate that we needed to get too, though the rest of my party couldn''t.


    I sped up slightly, but only barely enough to not be noticed by the rest of my companions. I was looking forward to this quest.

 Chapter 107: Demons On A Rescue Mission

    The mortal world I was born in became a lot bigger during these past two months. Or rather, it became bigger to me. This was due to my knowledge of this world greatly growing through the experiences I had acquired during this period, experiences that I hadn''t had until this era of growth and empire-plotting.


    During the time that elapsed between the sacrifice of Qiloth and the moment I received the thousands of notifications that were me being notified about upgrades to my powers, domain and sub-domain updates and more, I spent an equal amount of time in my realm and in the world of my birth.


    Currently, I was in the mortal world, and I stopped for a moment just to hear a pleasant sound. The sound of a pickaxe smashing into rock and beginning to inch closer and closer to valuable ore.I love that sound.I thought to myself, grinning.


    The area I found myself in was a new one. It was an incredibly long tunnel I had made myself using magic, tireless fungal creatures, and other assistants that connected Golden-Gate to the city of Undermoon for the sake of trading, communication, and travel.


    I frequently visited this place, and enjoyed spending time here. One thing I had learned about myself was that I was fond of underground places. I had also been spending a lot of time in my mountain lair in my realm, with Rebecca, Lisabeth, and their friends, creatures I had also made by hand.


    At the moment I was in a monstrous form. I vaguely resembled an enormous drider, a creature that had the upper body of a powerful dark-elf and the lower body of a gigantic spider.


    I was both several meters wide, and several meters tall. My spider-like lower half was made up of red carapace and the legs that propelled it forward were thick weapons in their own right. My upper-half was no longer a copy of Drow''s upper body but a wholly original upper body and face with shimmering red eyes.


    As I inched through the tunnel, walking slowly on my numerous, arachnoid legs, I reflected on the state of this world.


    <hr>


    The mortal world is... large.I thought to myself as I walked forward at my own pace.


    I had learned a great deal during these last two months. I had learned of the history of Sailos, thanks to both to my efforts to raise the dead who had inhabited Golden-Gate since before I came to life and the fact that I recovered a few of the books left behind in the wealthiest parts of the town.


    I learned of neighboring countries, nations with names like Reconqistia, and Isander. I learned of the abandoned tower located a good distance away from Golden-Gate, and in doing so of the location of Modred''s lair. The same Modred who commanded Salifinos at the start of my life.


    I learned of the next foe I may have to face or corrupt further down the road: Baron Hightower, a lord who technically oversaw the administration of the frontier community of Golden-Gate. I even learned of a vampire woman living in a distant cave, a coven of hags, and a mysterious dragon attack that had decimated the city of Avalon, the capital of the kingdom.


    I''ve gained so much mortal wisdom.I thought to myself as I continue to lazily inhabit this pleasant tunnel. A loud voice interrupted my thoughts by shouting at one of the humans who were responsible for the pleasant sounds of pickaxes on rocks earlier.


    "Hey, you! Get to work!" Shouted a voice belonging to a female human. I could see her if I looked down the tunnel behind me. I chuckled at her display of outrage. She was shouting at a human who had been distracted by my appearance and who had been starring at me.


    In fairness though, my current form was odd to humans and definitely odd to humans who hadn''t met the small number of driders and drider-variants I had worshipping me.


    One thing I had done a lot of while in the mortal world was establish assorted cults to myself. Driders and drider-variants were among my chief cultists in one particular cult.


    While first experimenting with my mutative abilities I casually created driders and their variants and formed a cult specifically to worship me as a god of mutants and mutations that I based in Undermoon. It was actually the first of several cults I had built by hand during these past two months.


    I suppose I ought to go to the surface.I thought grudgingly. It was, after all, starting to inch towards the early evening in the world above me. I willed myself out of my tunnel, out of my drider-form, and as my teleportation power surrounded me and prepared to whisk me away, I reflected on what I was about to go and do.


    Each day over the past two months I had challenged myself to go out and do new things. I had successfully done this every day so far.


    I had practiced new spells, created members of races I hadn''t yet interacted with, brewed my first potions, and even forged simple weapons properly. Today I was about to go and do something dangerous, something unusual. Today I was going to go liberate captured monsters, specifically a captured goblin tribe.


    The area I was teleporting too was an area not far from where the goblins who had been captured were being kept, just inside of a solitary cave. As I visualized the place in my mind and willed myself there, I took a deep breath and did my best to relax.


    <hr>


    My surroundings changed in the blink of an eye. I went from being inside of a dimly lit and incredibly long tunnel to being in the middle of an abandoned farm''s field as the sun dipped just below the horizon.


    My senses took a second to adjust to the change in my surroundings, and I waited as the sensory information I was receiving to take my new scenery into account. In a matter of moments, my mind sorted through the changing scenery and I was able to grasp a more accurate understanding of where I was, without relying solely on my sight.


    The ground at my feet was tilled soil, and it was soil that hadn''t been tended too in a while. I could tell just by how it felt between my toes and underneath my feet. The air carried a certain rancid scent, a scent that seemed to originate from behind me. And behind me was a single, solitary house.


    If I opened my mouth I''d have the sickly, rancid smell coat my tongue, so instead, I opted to ignore whatever grisly fate had befallen whoever dwelt within the house and move towards my target instead.


    I set out across the farmland and towards the edge of what I could see, a distance more than a few kilometers away, where I could faintly see a dimly lit cave mouth that beckoned me forth.


    While on my way there, I thought about the silly prayer that had compelled me out here in the first place. Goblins aren''t exactly pious, and an attempt by one of them to mutter a prayer requesting salvation from a gang of human rangers, some of the survivors of Salinos'' army, caught my eye.Stolen novel; please report.


    Sometimes its fun to rescue creatures.I had thought to myself at the time that I accepted the quest, mere minutes before I heard the human woman shout at the miner in the tunnel. I had come to the conclusion that "rescue missions = fun" in the wake of saving Angelica from her prison back in Namira.


    <hr>


    A few minutes of speedy walking led me nearly all the way to my destination. Once I was close enough that I could hear rough male voices shouting boisterously at each other, I stopped and readied myself for the upcoming confrontation.


    Come to me, my servants.I thought, my mind reaching out across the cosmos and entering the mind''s of my two demonic servants.It''s time you stretch your muscles. And participate in some... exercise.I told them, teasingly.


    Master... Both of them whispered, excitement audible in their mental voices.Give us a portal, a way to you, and we will eagerly devour your enemies.Raverangos told me.


    Yes... Yes, a portal!Aggathas, the wrath demon servant I gained in the wake of the events at the former temple to Morthos, excitedly told me.


    I chuckled and rose my hands in two different directions. Magic began to swirl around my hands and I examined it.


    The energy that was swirling around my hands was the magical energy that would be used in a powerful conjuration spell, and when I willed the two different magical energies out into the world they shot forth from my hand and flew away from me a good distance. And then the two motes of energy exploded into kaleidoscopic, vertical pools of magical energy.


    "Come." I told the creatures waiting beyond the portals. Both of my demonic servants stepped through the portals at the same time, crossing vast distances to arrive where I was. I took a look at Aggathas, the wrath demon and studied it.


    Aggathas was a fiendish looking creature, even for a demon. The creature''s body was more or less humanoid, loosely resembling a pale-skinned orc. The thing stood three meters tall, with incredibly broad shoulders, a thickly muscled chest, and a vulture-like, beaked face.


    Its skin wasn''t covered in feathers, but it had a set of huge wings that spread out from its shoulders. The wings were covered in black feathers, some of which were shed with every movement. Its hands and feet ended in sharp and cruel-looking talons.


    It was nearly silent, aside from the soft and occasional fluttering of its wings. And its presence filled the air with the scent of sweat.


    I wonder how it''ll fight... Presumably with those fierce-looking talons.I thought, in reference to Aggathas. I recalled the new species knowledge notification I had received when I was first given the demon after the thing had been thoroughly thrashed by the dark-elves who lived in Undermoon.


    [Species Knowledge Notification: Wrath Demon


    Wrath demons are mobile, flying demons who embody the most vicious aspects of the sin of wrath. These prideful creatures never forget slights against them, and when they fly into a rage the results are legendary.


    They are difficult demons to tame, but they recognize power and the only people who can snap them out of one of their legendary rages is someone they''ve recognized as greater in power than themselves. They use their wings to enhance their mobility and to quickly descend on those they''ve decided are their next victims.


    Wrath demons can evolve into other, violent forms of demonkind. They are intermediate demons in terms of strength and a single one of them is stronger than several moderately trained human warriors.]


    Rereading the notification brought a smile to my face. After reading it, I turned to one of my older companions, the sentinel demon named Raverangos and nodded. And then I looked straight ahead.


    "I have enemies in that cave. They are humans, human rangers. We are going in there to save their captives, a small tribe of goblins who prayed for salvation." I told my pets.


    I looked at the backs of my two pets, two ferocious-looking monsters and considered how to best have fun with this little excursion.I suppose I could let them go wild... That would be fun to watch.I thought, after a moment of quietly considering the idea.


    You know what? Sure. Raverangos has spent months doing little more than patrolling. Same for Aggathas. They deserve this.I thought, deciding to throw them a bone and be kind to them.


    "So long as you two don''t harm the goblins we''re seeking to save, you can go wild within the cave." I told them. They froze at my words and absorbed them for a second. And then the two hulking beings grinned cruelly, revealing rows of fangs in the case of Raverangos, and revealing less sharp but no less innumerable rows of blunt teeth in the cave of Aggathas. I smiled back.


    And then I began my walk towards the cave, just a few hundred meters away from me.


    <hr>


    When I was just outside of the cave my demons had had enough of my casual stroll towards the location of their next bloodbath. They stormed forward as one, in an oddly coordinated way. I chuckled at them, and they roared as if to announce to the humans who had been resting in the cave, unaware of our proximity, that they were here.


    They stampeded into the cave and just out of sight of me. The cave before me had an entrance, lit a small number of torches. Beyond that entrance, small tunnels led deeper into the cave. Aggathas and Raverangos had entered and gone in separate directions, one going to a tunnel to the left and the other going to a tunnel to the right,


    "What the fuck is that!?" One of the humans, the one closest to the pair, shouted.


    I heard an avian screech and the same human was paralyzed. I couldn''t see him, but I could hear his heart hammering in his chest, and I could hear his muscles straining to move as if commanded by his brain to do so, but unable to overcome the fear that rendered him immobile.


    "We''re under att-ahhh!" The same human said, managing to shout something out right before Aggathas'' talons penetrated his body and cruelly cut him down. I heard a soft thud as the human''s body hit the ground, bleeding, wounded, and still alive. I shook my head and proceeded into the tunnel that would lead me to where Aggathas was.


    <hr>


    This cave system houses a dozen humans. A dozen that are still alive anyway. Six of them are approaching Aggathas and six are approaching Raverangos.I thought to myself after my powers updated as I began my trek through the tunnel that would lead me to where my avian companion was busy fighting.


    I sped through the narrow thing, jogging for perhaps the third time in my life. The sounds of feet hammering into the floor was audible and actually echoed in the tunnel I was in, but it wasn''t just the sound of my feet. It was the noises I was making combined with the sounds of humans edging closer and closer to their deaths, charging from the cave''s interior into the area where my demon was waiting for them.


    <hr>


    I emerged into a wider chamber just seconds before the other humans who were approaching would. I studied the scene before me and inwardly chuckled.


    The chamber I had just jogged into was a wider and high-ceiled place. Torches adorned the wall and gave off dim light, light which revealed an abundance of stone around me, most of it plain granite.


    Not far from where I was standing, studying the scene, a human body laid messily on the floor. Blood was still gently pouring out of a number of lacerations that scarred the body. The body itself belonged to a human man, a warrior dressed in fur-armor. Behind the body, I could see the muscled back of my winged servant.


    The demon was breathing heavily, not out of exhaustion but out of desire, desire for more violence. Blood dripped down the things talons, and when I looked at the floor at its feet I noticed the trail of blood its hands had dripped. I grinned.


    Not far from where it stood, eagerly anticipating bloodshed, was another entrance to this odd chamber. And I knew that was where they would emerge from. Aggathas and I were quiet for a moment, and I appreciated the sight of the creature''s back.


    I walked over to the creature and listened to the near silence that filled the chamber. The only noises that disrupted it was the sounds of the blood that dripped from the thing''s claws hitting the floor, and the footfalls of the human''s allies approaching their deaths and the body of their friend.


    "And so they come... rushing to their deaths." I said softly, my voice quiet and low. My newest pet grinned, uncharacteristically quiet for a demon but as eager for blood as Raverangos.


    I closed my fists and listened to the increasingly loud noise of their footfalls, knowing that I had less than ten seconds until they arrived. I glanced at my companion and watched as its breathing got heavier and heavier until each breath was practically an exercise in and of itself.


    And then the first of the six that was heading our way stepped out of the tiny tunnel and into view.

 Chapter 108: Battling Inside Of A Cavern

    The soft sounds of feet stepping onto and off of stone had gradually become louder the longer Aggathas and I waited. Wehad only waited five seconds before the first of the half a dozen warriors stepped out of the tunnel that allowed him and his party to get to us.


    I chuckled and moved forward before my demonic pet could. I didn''t hesitate even as the human ranger who had captured goblins gasped in surprise at the sight of us as I closed the distance between him and I.


    I closed my fist and threw a single punch at the warrior, aimed squarely at his face, a face hidden underneath a dark mask. The punch was packed with power and intended to end any fight in a single blow.


    Behind him, I could hear his allies closing in on us, and knew even as my fist sailed through the air that my pet would be occupied with the others in a matter of moments. They were messily separated with the next fastest coming in separately from their friends, and the remaining four jogging in lockstep towards us.


    "Aggathas! Leap over me and go after this fellow''s friends." I yelled, speedily commanding my pet to assail the man''s peers. At that moment my fist penetrated the man''s masked face and skull, colliding hard with the bones of his skull, but not nearly hard enough to stop me.


    It took a second for Aggathas to obey me but obey me it did. The demon took to the air right above me and landed on the other side of me, a few meters away half a second later, so as to obstruct and challenge our enemies.


    The weak bones of the man''s skull gave easily and were obliterated by my powerful attack, my fist facing little resistance before it began sailing through the man''s head. My fist sailed through the man''s skull, smashing any resistance it faced with ease due to my power, magic, and speed.


    The man''s flesh was pierced through by my attack, and I pushed my fist through the head of my opponent. "Gross." I said quietly, in response to the array of fluids that soaked my hand.


    I retracted my fist swiftly and chuckled as the body fell forward and softly hit the ground. The man''s body was in solid condition aside from his head. "One down... five to go." I said softly.


    His head was a mess. There was a solid hole in it, caused by me ramming my fist into his face. Bone fragments and brain matter alike were beginning to seep into the floor, as was blood and other fluids from his head. The fluids mixed together into one wet and slick mess at my feet.


    And so I swiftly began a routine I had grown familiar with during my life of war. Oil-like magical energy began to drip from one set of my fingertips onto the stony floor at my feet. And from the other bright blue energy began to drip down at my feet.


    "I enjoy necromancy," I said, chuckling. "And I like that I can mix it with healing and alteration magic." I said, darkly, remembering the results of experiments I had undertaken with necromancy over the course of the last few months.


    I rose the hand from which bright blue energy was dripping first and aimed it loosely at the corpse in front of me. At that moment I heard a fierce-sounding caw from my pet as it rushed forward to engage our enemies.


    The bright blue energy flew from my outstretched hand and drifted through the air until it touched the body of my former foe. "Regenerate what he lacks," I whispered sinisterly, grinning all the while, ordering my magic to work in a specific way. The energy melted into the corpse, and before my very eyes began to take effect.


    The sounds of flesh mending itself together would normally have been audible as the magic took hold and stitched together my latest victim, but instead, the sounds of the violent motions of my pet and its prey filled the cavern with raucous noise.


    I watched the effects of my magic, studying it with a careful gaze. The hole I had caused in the man''s head began to mend itself before my very eyes, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that bone was being regrown to fix what I had broken.


    My expression was neutral as I wanted to watch necromantic energy twist and corrupt the corpse before me.


    <hr>


    Over the course of the last few months, I had rapidly grown to enjoy necromantic magic. It was a powerful, life-stealing, and at times a mind-twisting form of magic I used without fear since I was naturally adept at magic.


    I had come to appreciate the unholy magic that I could wield. Sacrifices given to me by my cult of necromancers, led by the hateful and violent spell-singer Hagitha had resulted in the sub-domain of necromancy becoming a frequent voice I could chat with and learn from. It also resulted in me becoming more and more fond of the undead I and my servants created.


    The corpse on the floor at my feet was starting to look healthier, and I grinned at it. "That''s it..." I said quietly, even as more of the humans closed in. Their footfalls grew louder, and their shouts grew more urgent.


    I frowned as they continued to stomp on the ground towards my pet.Should I intervene? Hmmm... No, for now Aggathas is enough.I thought, after listening to the demon''s gleeful sounds and the violent noises its motions created. I turned my attention back to the corpse.


    The second person entered the chamber, with a hammering heart and taut muscles. I could hear his heart hammering in his chest, even as distracted as I was. Aggathas took a step forward and screeched at him. And then the demon struck.


    "Arise." I muttered quietly, ignoring the noises of combat behind me. Its flesh was still stitching together, weaving together something almost like a normal, unscarred face. I rose my other hand and aimed at it. The oil-like energy that had been dripping onto the floor beside me, just like the blue energy had been before, suddenly began to leave my hand.


    It coalesced into a single inky sphere just outside of the skin of my hand. I nudged it forward, and watched as it lazily drifted forth, floating casually from my palm into it collided with and then seeped into the body on the floor before me.


    The orb''s darkness was slowly absorbed by the body, the process taking several seconds. When it was complete, I watched as eldritch energy began to flow through it, infusing the corpse with a dark and renanimatory energy. Assorted processes began to occur to the corpse, processes which were magical in nature and would make the thing reanimate, a process that was like a cruel and distorted parody of life.


    "Arise!" I said again, louder this time. Confidence seeped into my voice, as the dark power that infused every fiber of my being began to leak out of me.


    "ARISE!" I shouted, loud enough that the clamor of combat nearby wasn''t enough to drown it out. And at this point. I took a second to examine the healed and animated corpse as it began to shake, stir, and rise to combat its former friends at my side. It was at that moment that Aggathas dealt our enemy a killing blow, but it happened while I was engrossed in studying my newest creation. That was why I was about to look rather silly for a moment.


    I turned to my pet, and threw myself towards it, intending to aid it in finishing off its foe. "Aggathas... allow me to join you!" I roared from behind my pet, and the creature began to laugh, the sound cruel and animalistic. I was about to realize that Aggathas had already finished its opponent. Aggathas was laughing at me.


    <hr>


    I leaped to the side of my pet and landed in a tiny pool of slick, slippery blood that had dripped from my minion''s beak. My feet, clad in fur boots, weren''t affected by the slickness of the fluid that lightly coated the floor.


    My pet was now covered in dripping, splatters of blood. It dripped from the demon''s beak, coated its muscular chest, and then dripped down to the floor at its feet. I groaned when I fully realized this and complained. "Can''t you eat less messily?" I asked, annoyed. It chuckled at this, amused by it but less amused than by my earlier, needless, enthusiasm. The sound of its chuckle was avian and annoying.


    On its other side laid the corpse of the warrior whose flesh it was munching on. The warrior was clad in destroyed leather armor, and bleeding from a number of different wounds Aggathas had inflicted on it. The vulture-like demon''s feet were actually touching the corpse and blood pooled at the thing''s feet.


    In front of both of us, emerging from the tunnel, ran in the first pair of rangers. I motioned for my pet to stand aside and allow me to face them.


    [Their allies are close. Allow me to face these two.] I instructed my pet. The thing huffed in annoyance but obeyed me as I knew it would and took a few steps back.


    "You humans are... brave. Foolish. But brave." I told the pair who were now studying me. They studied my whole body, but once they had done a once-over they focused on my hand. My hand was covered in a slowly dripping mixture of blood and brain matter.


    The pair of humans in front of me was dressed in matching leather armor, black armor that hid their features from anyone who happened across them. Their faces were entirely hidden from view aside from their eyes. One pair of them was a bright, vivid shade of green. The other pair was a deep, energetic shade of blue.


    The one with green eyes calmly rose a bow and aimed it at me, before smoothly drawing an arrow, notching it, and pulling the string back so as to ready themselves for whenever they felt ready to strike. The other one, the one with blue eyes, drew their sword from its sheath and stepped forward to confront me.


    Behind the sword-wielding ranger, the bow-wielder took a few steps into the large cavern so as to allow their allies space to move past them when they arrived. I easily heard the final pair of warriors rushing towards my pet and I, from a bit aways.


    "That''s it. Come to me." I said arrogantly, my eyes lighting up with enjoyment at the thought of fighting them.


    The archer took a step to the left of their companion, so as to ensure that if they fired the arrow they had readied they wouldn''t accidentally hit their colleague. "Not bad archer," I said, thoroughly focused on the sword-wielder, but still more than capable of readying myself against an attack by a human with a bow.


    It was at this point that the final pair emerged from behind their allies. Another pair of human rangers dressed in fur armor.


    "Confront the... winged thing!" The archer whose bow was pointed at me uttered. "We... should be able to handle the conjurer." The archer muttered softly, unease seeping into their androgynous voice. Their companions studied the situation for a moment, studying me and then examining Aggathas. And then the two nodded and moved to the side of their allies so that they could focus on my pet.


    Aggathas responded in kind, raising its clawed hands and moving to my side, all while focused on them. The final fight was about to begin.


    <hr>


    I stepped forwardof my own volition, studying the ranger who dared to engage me in close combat I was more interested in him than in the archer. That ranger threw himself in my direction, his hands gripping the hilt of his sword tightly, as he lifted it up to place it between myself and himself.


    "How painfully basic," I said loudly, as I waited for him to try and slash at me. His eyes narrowed in annoyance, but he didn''t try to slash at me preemptively. He wasn''t flashy, and he studied me as openly as I studied him. He stopped his forward dash still far enough that he''d have to move forward more if he waited to strike. An odd decision, really.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    My eyes were focused on him, but he wasn''t my only foe. His companion was still, their bow still aimed in my direction. For a moment I wondered which of the two would strike first, or if they''d try to assault me in unison. And then the archer let go of the taut bowstring that was restraining the arrow they had readied. At that same time, the swordsman leaped forward, a look of joy visible in their eyes.


    Do they think they have me?I wondered, playfully as the arrow zipped towards my head. It flew forth much faster than the human ranger with a sword did, and so I suspected that what I was about to do would come as a shock to my enemies.


    When the thing was less than a meter away I reached out and delicately grabbed it out of the air with a grace that belied my size. My hand simply shot forth and grabbed the arrow, taking it by the shaft and snatching its momentum. As I did so, I simply chuckled and quietly told my enemies a single word: "Nope."


    <hr>


    Behind me, the foe I had slain earlier was now on its feet, fully reanimated, and rushed towards me. It was moaning pathetically and moved to aid me, which was so unnerving to my enemies that the swordsman froze in shock and fear.


    I heard the thing, even as I tossed the arrow I had just grabbed into the air and flipped it using my mind. I sighed in annoyance and without turning my head spoke to the ghoul I had just created.


    "Go aid the demon. Delay one of its foes." I commanded my minion, arrogantly letting my enemy know my commands.


    The ranger with a bow turned to the ghoul, adjusting their bow as well so it was aimed at the thing, and began to stretch a single, darkly gloved, hand back into the quiver they had on their back so that they could grab another arrow. I looked at them quizzically and drew my hand, the one with the arrow, back.


    "What do you think you''re doing?" I asked the archer, an instant before I lobbed the arrow back at them.


    The object in my hand rocketed forward, sailing much faster than when fired from a bow. In a matter of moments, the arrow crossed the distance between us and embedded itself deep in the archer''s breast. The archer''s eyes went wide with shook and they rose their hand to the arrow''s fletching, timidly gripping it for a moment before falling backward onto the cavern floor.


    "And now... You." I said, turning back to the swordsman and casually disregarding the swordsman''s companion. The swordsman''s eyes were glued to the still form of their friend. I watched for a moment and prepared myself to move forward until the swordsman opened his mouth and exploded at me.


    "You... monster!" The swordsman roared, incensed by the ease with which I dispatched his colleague. He again took steps towards me, and I grinned at him.


    <hr>


    Behind me, my demonic pet and the ghoul I created were actively battling their pair of foes. Their enemies were both using swords, deftly dodging my ghoul''s eerie claws, and the muscular blows of my pet. Whereas I was focused on my foe: an incensed swordsman.


    We stepped towards each other, and the moment the swordsman was close enough to lash out at me with his sword he swung it at me, his rage and adrenaline fueling him as he aimed a fierce strike at me. I chuckled and watched the sword flash towards me, crawling towards me relative to my perception.


    "This is... painfully slow." I said when the thing was finally close enough that it merited me moving out of the way. The sword was aimed at my head and so I tilted it lazily out of the path of the sword. I watched as the swordsman reacted to my move, his eyes widening in panic, and I grinned.


    "Now... what to do with you?" I questioned, grinning at my foe.


    <hr>


    Not far from where I stood, sounds of fierce, athletic combat echoed across the chamber. Aggathas''s fierce, unarmed blows, were narrowly dodged, or sometimes blocked by the swordsman the demon had decided to attack.


    The ghoul I had created mere moments ago sprung to unlife with potent, innate instincts for battle and a mighty hunger for flesh. Those things fueled its brutal approach to battle, and it surged at its chosen foe, the other swordsman who otherwise would have been free to tackle Aggathas.


    The swordsman was shaken by the sight before him, which led to him being nervous and forgetful as his enemy approached him. In fairness to the ranger, seeing someone you knew, had shed blood with, and had trusted, become an undead creature and lunge at you with an unholy, monstrous hunger, would shake many humanoids. Even I knew that.


    The ghoul leaped at the warrior, who shambled back in an attempt to outstep and flee from the undead monstrosity that had once been his friend. The transformed former human was truly monstrous to look at, and its transformation into an undead creature had caused some of its armor to be melted away, revealing bits and pieces of the radical changes the thing had undergone.


    The thing''s hands had been transformed and mutated by the dark magic I poured into its body when creating it, transforming from human hands into darkened and sore-heavy claws. The thing''s skin had done from being a healthy pallor to taking on a deathly blue hue. The human had had brown eyes in life, but his undead face had entirely black orbs within the eye sockets instead.


    The mask the ghoul had worn during the final moments of his life had been ripped away by the thing shortly after its rebirth, and now its face was revealed for all to see. The ghoul must have been handsome in its human life, for the thing''s face had sharp cheekbones, a sufficiently large nose to not look emaciated, and a strong jawline, but all of those features were warped now, predatory and threatening rather than charming and attractive.


    The thing''s teeth had been touched and warped by the magic more than any other part of its body. Once fairly standard human teeth filled its maw, but now as the thing opened wide and threw itself at its enemy with a rabid hunger visible in its gaze, row upon row of jagged fangs filled its mouth. A foul-smelling breath escaped its open mouth. An open mouth that drew nearer and nearer to the human ranger the ghoul had set its sights on.


    <hr>


    My opponent speedily tried to withdraw his blade and ready another attack but I wasn''t nice enough to allow that. I threw a single punch at my foe, carefully aimed at his sword-arm.


    My fist hammered the ranger''s arm, striking it from underneath his joint. It wasn''t a particularly hard hit,but it did its job: my opponent flinched and dropped his blade. "That''s rather unfortunate." I told him, smirking. I placed one of my feet on the sword''s hilt and with a flick of my foot''s heel sent it away from us, kicking it away and into the interior of the cavern.


    Fear and tears alike filled the ranger''s eyes, pain thrumming in his mind due to my first blow''s effects on him. I followed up on my remarks by thrashing him with a single heavy kick aimed squarely at his chest.


    The blow sent him reeling back from me and caused his eyes to roll back in his head thanks to the sudden, vicious force that rocked his body and threw it hard onto the floor. Behind me, I could hear the violent noises of my minions tearing into their enemies.


    "You know... humans, so far, seem to be weak enemies." I mused while reflecting on the humans I had met to date, disrespectfully disparaging my opponent''s entire species as I began to casually approach the damaged human. The human stumbled back in fear and fell onto his rear end as he tried to distance himself from me.


    "''Humans''? What are you then, if not human?" The fallen man asked, fear audible in his voice, even through the mask that hid his lips, nose, and other facial features from view. I looked at him and grinned calmly.


    "Me? Oh I''m the ''Lover of Lies''." I told the human, a wide grin etched eerily onto my face. That explanation puzzled the human, who kept retreating. The silence that filled the air between us was disturbed by the sounds of my pet and my creation downing their opponents. The agonized screams of the pair of rangers were eerie and added to the gruesome atmosphere of the scene. I considered turning to face my pets but decided to ignore them for now.


    I was now just a few steps away from the fallen human. "Hmm... There are so many fun things I could do with you. I suppose, for the sake of saving time, I''ll just whisk you away. For now." I said quietly, targeting the confused man in my mind, and immediately teleporting him far from here, across dimensional boundaries, and into an empty cell in my prison located in the city of Namira. He vanished from my sight.


    Part of my reason for doing that was to ensure that one victim of my rescue mission stayed alive for me to pillage their memories and raid their minds. In the rare few instances in the past, I had overseen or participated in combat missions like this I always left a victim alive. I had learned long ago that even with the first tier of influence over the mind domain I couldn''t take memories, thoughts, and knowledge from a corpse. I then turned to my minions.


    The scene before me when I turned to face my minions was a gruesome one. Both creatures were stabbing into the fallen humans, on their knees and greedily cutting up their victims. Blood and other sickly fluids poured onto the ground beneath the fallen forms of the defeated humans. I sighed and turned to walk in the direction my radar informed me the goblins, and Raverangos were waiting.


    As I left, I spoke loudly to my followers. "When you''re done here come find me! I''ll be waiting beyond this tunnel." I informed them, as I ventured into the tunnel where my fallen foes had come from.


    <hr>


    I sped through the tunnel, a narrow and dark thing, and made it through to the other side in a matter of seconds thanks to my speedy stride. Upon reaching the other side, the first thing I heard were the cries of numerous goblins, their little voices filling the cavern that expanded open before me.


    I emerged from the tunnel into another stony, wide-open space. This one was well-lit by numerous torches and was occupied by my sentinel demon Raverangos. The wide-backed demon had brought a number of corpses, corpses heavy with a range of scars, with it.


    Some such corpses were slung on its shoulders, and others were strewn haphazardly on the floor around it. The demon greeted me with a little wave, its paw-like hand stained with blood. I grinned at the thing.


    "You seem to have had a successful hunt." I remarked, walking over to one of my older companions. Raverangos nodded at me, the intelligent yet remarkedly bestial demon, quiet as I strode over to it.


    Its eyes were alight with joy, and blood and other unspeakable fluids and substances coated it, not only drenching its thick flesh with a range of substances but also drenching the room in a cloying and sickening scent. I winced in minor disgust as I approached it, but continued my approach nonetheless.


    The demon was close to the goblins, who were locked behind a single, gigantic cell on the other end of the cavern. They studied me carefully, fear in their wide eyes. I looked over at them curiously, while continuing to approach my first pet. There were around thirty-five of them, a larger number than the goblins in the tribe that made up part of my dark army but still small for goblin standards according to some knowledge I had gained over the last few months.


    The goblins were nearly naked, and what little clothing the few of them wore was wrinkled, decayed, and damaged. Many of the women were topless, a few of the men worn only thin trousers and often such trousers were not made for goblins being far too large for their frames. None of them were brave enough to make eye contact with me, someone who was at least friendly with an imposing demon, something which in their eyes hinted at my strength.


    The goblins weren''t like the goblins in my army, not just because only a few of them possessed magical auras of any sort, but because they were all a bright shade of red. The unusual goblin tribe I had saved and drafted into my army all had different pigmentations and were all capable of potent magic from birth.


    These goblins were clearly malnourished and my piercing vision could discern that their exposed bodies bore the signs of cruel treatment, possibly at the hands of their captors. I silently rose a hand in their direction and sent them a large wave of powerful healing energy, energy which surged over them and healed their wounds, and scars.


    I heard them sighed in a mixture of pleasure, relief, joy, and humor. It was an odd sound, but in its wake they visibly relaxed, losing much of the tension that had filled them before. With that, I focused on my pet.


    I reached my demonic pet a second later and began to study what he had done so far. The bodies it brought with itself were bruised, battered, and in two cases covered in inky-black tar-like energy. I instantly recognized the energy that covered the pair of bodies as the remnants of one of Raverangos'' potent powers: the attack known as the "manifestation of chaos", a burst of chaotic evil energy that scarred those who were subjected to it.


    "Nice. Good job." I said, my eyes glued to the six bodies before me. Their forms were universally lithe, covered in leather armor, and had bows, swords, or both, somewhere on their persons. After studying them I turned to look at my pet and more closely study it.


    Raverangos'' muscular form was relatively unscarred. It had a thick, well-built, and vaguely animalistic body. Most of the blood that drenched the demon''s body wasn''t its own. Some of the blood though was thick and dark, too dark to be the familiar, red, blood of mortals. It also smelled differently than the other blood did, a more meaty scent that subtly snuck into and mixed with the other, more familiar, metallic scent of human blood.


    I rose the same hand I had raised to heal the goblins, which was incidentally the same hand from which the restorative energy that had stitched together the head of the ghoul I had created earlier, and emitted a burst of healing energy that pulsed from me and into the demon closeby.


    "You did good." I told the demon, satisfied with the violence it had inflicted on my foes. I stepped beyond the demon and continued my tour of the cavern by focusing on the reason why I came here: to free the pack of goblins.


    With little left in the cavern beside unused bedding not far from the cell, I was free to tell the goblins about myself and welcome them into my fold. I walked directly to the massive cell that held them, reaching it in a matter of long steps.


    "Hello there." I said, greeting them, upon reaching the locked door that separated the cell from the rest of the cavern. The goblins approached me, their wide-eyes filled with curiosity and questions. It made sense for them to be quizzical, after all in their eyes I must have been a creature who befriended a demon, killed their enemies, healed them, and possessed vague, mystical powers.


    "I am Althos. I am a god. And I just answered your prayer." I explained, simply. They appeared to appreciate that, as though a silence filled them once they heard me say that, delight filled their eyes and I heard their heartbeats quicken.


    All at once they began to react, after a few seconds of silence while they processed their emotions and reacted to the news of their unexpected liberation. Their excited voices filled the cavern with a series of childish exclamations and questions.


    "God?"


    "We''re free?"


    "The prayer worked!"


    "Wow!"


    "We free!"


    "You''re cute." I told them, internally chuckling. And with that, I had just freed another tribe of goblins.


    The final step in their liberation was accomplished when I ripped the cell door that kept them imprisoned in the cell off its hinges with a single forceful tug. It didn''t resist my efforts to get it out of my way.

 Chapter 109: Choices Are Made

    Confidence surged into my heart and my mind. I grinned, while located in a dark corner in an abandoned neighborhood in the city of Namira. The only living creatures around me were my allies. On one side of me was Camilla, in her jackal form, and the other side of me was Kuzco in his human form and Niqi.


    This area was eerie, unlit by any source of light, and thus all four of us had to on our abilities to peer through darkness as we navigated our way out of this place. Our steps echoed here and my allies walked far slower than I did. That made sense, because they lacked the potent senses I had and because they also lacked the certainty I possessed. Their doubt poisoned their steps, and it slowed them down.


    My "mind", in so much as I, the secondary will possessed one, was somewhere else though. It was in the strange place in my grander mind where domains waited, where domains watched, and where they listened.


    My "mind" was there because I had made a choice: in the hours since I embarked on the latest quest I had undertaken in the city of Namira, I had settled on which of the 7 domains and 7 subdomains I had an opportunity to instantaneously gain influence over I would gain influence over. Knowing that put my mind at ease, and in my mind of minds, I sensed the domains and subdomains close in to hear which of them I would use this shortcut for.


    The 14 odd, metaphysical entities were curious, and were eager, in their own ways, to hear what I had picked. I refused to keep them waiting.


    [Greetings!] I greeted them, shouting into the void with my mind. I was met with silence from the things, but that didn''t deter me.


    [I have come here, to this odd and impossible place, to inform you of my choice of the rewards I have gained from my efforts to gain worshipers. I choose the domains of healing, law, and darkness.] I told the eerie presences I could sense watching me in this abstract place.


    Healing because I want to one day possess the power to resurrect things other than extraplanars. Law because I want to know how to best control my devils and exert the influence of order over my worshipers. Darkness because I am fond of the dark and because my own realm is a place of shadows, moonlight, and dark caverns. I thought, reminding myself of the simplest and most basic reasons why I was making the choices I was making.


    And now for the truly hard choices. The sub-domains. I thought as I readied my mental voice to shout once again.


    [And for the sub-domains I chose the sub-domains of corruption, shape-shifting, and earth.] I informed the gathered presences, my mental voice once again shouting into a sort of aetherial void.


    Corruption would make it easier for me to twist alignments. With it, I can bend creatures more easily to my will and make them more pliable. With shape-shifting I can empower my alteration, mutation, and even evolution abilities, as well as strengthen my abilities to alter my own form.My thoughts were speedy, and they weren''t done yet.


    And earth... the stronger my influence over the earth sub-domain the stronger I become in my subterranean territory and lairs. The more influence I have over those who dwell in my lairs and territory. Not to mention... sandmen.I thought, smiling.


    At once six separate sources of power came from a place that was both nowhere and deep within me. These odd powers embedded themselves within me. They infused me with distinct, almost physical energy, potent energy that immediately began to flow freely through me.


    I sucked in a breath and held it to avoid making inappropriate noises as power surged through me. Pleasant energy lazily flowed into each corner of my body. It made sense that I was experiencing such a surge of energy and power since I had just chosen which domains and subdomains I would immediately gain the lowest tier of influence over.


    [Alert:


    You have just gained the lowest tier of influence over the domains and sub-domains you have chosen.


    The domains and subdomains you''ve chosen were interesting. Though they grant you an array of powers, they don''t grant you a tremendous number of new creatures to create. Instead, you can now modify and mutate your existing servants in a far greater number of ways than you could before.


    Your newest powers also possess strong synergy with your older powers. You can create more earthen beings than before, while blessing them with enhanced hand-to-hand fighting abilities which is an excellent fighting style for them with their powerful bodies. You can shapeshift all sorts of beings into more monstrous forms and fill them with corruption, making them easier to make yours.


    Your decisions regarding your domains aren''t surprising but they are an interesting mix. Darkness in this context refers to both moral darkness and actual, physical darkness. It grants you power over things like shadows, lightless places, and creatures of darkness and shadows.


    Healing allows you to soothe pain, cure maladies, and even regenerate limbs. At higher tiers of influence, your healing abilities include the ability to numb people to pain, and eventually even defeat death itself by resurrecting creatures.


    Of all of the domains and sub-domains you chose, law is the most abstract, the strangest, and perhaps the most powerful. Law is the domain of order, hierarchies, and government. With it comes power over judgment, loyalty, nobility, and influence over things like family, communities, and more.]


    I read and then reread the notification.Wow...I thought, upon giving the lengthy text a reread. And that general thought didn''t fade the moment I willed the notification away, because as I adjusted my vision so that I could properly see my allies, I could see things I hadn''t been able to see before.


    <hr>


    My allies and I had been walking the entire time I was informing the domains and subdomains as to which of them I had opted to easily gain influence over. Because of that, we had crossed a not insignificant distance. I had slightly adjusted my position so that I could obviously visually inspect my servants.


    When I settled my vision cleanly on Kuzco, I could see more than I had been able to see before. The jackaloid wearing its human disguise looked like a tan rogue, dressed in a comfortable outfit. But above its head floated a considerable amount of information, more than some of which was brand new.


    [Name: Kuzco Althosfang


    Class: Rogue, Thief, Level 3


    Species: Jackaloid


    Faction: Althonian Honor Guard, previously: Jackaloid tribe


    Alignment: Lawful Neutral (Source of law: Althos)


    Personal Vice: Greed


    Status: Healthy, tired.]


    I studied the new informationavailable to me with some interest. And then I received a dual notification.


    [Triple Knowledge Notifications: Personal Vices, Sources of Law, and Status


    The new information accessible to you comes from idle abilities that you gained as a part of your influence over law and corruption.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Vices are sinful behaviors that harm the partakers in the behaviors and others as well. These include lust, greed, wrath, envy, sloth, and more. The sub-domain of corruption brings with it a few abilities, but one idle ability allows you to determine a creature''s personal vice, the one they are least able to resist, with but a glance. You can also infuse corruption into bodies of water, and food.


    Corruption renders creatures more vulnerable to your influence. More corrupt creatures fall under your sway as the lover of lies quite easily, especially when offered things related to their personal vices. You can also corrupt creatures of low-intelligence quite easily, turning them into more aggressive versions of themselves that are more likely to engage in wicked behavior.


    The more influence over corruption you gain the more easily you can corrupt good, neutral, and intelligent beings. By mixing the corruption sub-domain with other domains and sub-domains you can eventually overwrite creature''s personal vices, corrupt all but the mightiest beings with little more than a glance, and fill them with sinful desires.


    The lowest tier of influence over the domain of law brings with it an idle power that allows you to detect sources of law. Being of the lawful alignment doesn''t mean adherence to an actual body of laws, it means adherence to some code of behavior or ethics. The source of law one follows could be an actual body of laws, or it could be strict adherence to the commands of a master of some sort, including a religious master.


    As a deity with a level of influence over the domain of law, your ability to compel obedience in others via spells is stronger, as are your powers over things like hiveminds. This would be incredibly powerful if mixed with something like leadership or civilization. You can infuse items, particularly weapons, with lawful energy which strengthens them against chaotic creatures.


    If your influence over the lawful domain increases you gain access to legendary spells, feats, and more which rely on law, including things like the geas, a potent and divine skill which punishes those who refuse to obey you, inflicting pain and afflicting them with terrible conditions.


    "Status" notifications are now added to your "Identify" power. These notifications allow you to visibly learn about the health of those you detect. The main power you''ve gained through the healing domain is an idle power that increases the potency of your healing magic and anything you create that reduces pain, but don''t underestimate the potential of your ability to see statuses.]


    Nice.I thought, feeling the dual powers of corruption and law surging through me. My eyes could see more than they ever had, and I felt... devilish. After willing away the notification, I took a second to truly study my servant, the thief named Kuzco.


    <hr>


    The thief who had joined me long ago was dressed in a simple outfit. It was one which allowed the tiny creature to blend in even among the much taller giants who were the primary residents of the city of Namira. It consisted of long but loose purple pants and a comfortably large, button-up shirt.


    In the time since we began adventuring regularly, I had outfitted each member of my party with appropriate gear. In Kuzco''s case that required outfitting the party thief with clothing that had plenty of pocket-space, bags for holding loose gear, and a variety of handy tools that allowed him to break into abandoned buildings in more delicate ways than I possessed experience doing, even though I could technically do such activities.


    At the moment the thief had a satchel on his hip. The thick brown thing was heavy, and it was heavy enough that our thief was visibly the slowest member of our party. It was packed with sand, eldritch, once animated sand. I had cast a spell on it to seal it shut and ensure that no sand leaked out of the thing.


    "Do you want someone else to carry the bag?" I asked, making direct eye contact with Kuzco. The jackaloid was fast, even while burdened with the bag, but I could tell its weight was beginning to strain him. Sympathy flashed in my gaze, and he studied it for a moment. Then he nodded.


    "Toss it over here." I told him after he nodded at me. The creature leisurely tossed me the bag, and I snatched it out of the air and put it on my shoulder.It is heavy... for a mortal anyway.I thought, capable of feeling the weight of a shore''s worth of sand but thoroughly unbothered by it.


    "Thank you." Kuzco muttered, walking a bit faster now, unburdened by the remains of our fallen foes. I chuckled and we continued on our way.


    <hr>


    In a matter of minutes, we neared the gate that would lead us from this strange, abandoned part of the city. Along the way, we began to converse.


    "What''d you think of our foes?" I asked, interrupting a polite conversation between Niqi and Kuzco. Silence fell over us, while my servants reflected on my question. The foes we had faced today had been eerie, monstrous beings; fey-creatures but unlike any I had seen so far outside of Mahmud''s memories.


    "They were... unlike anything I had ever seen." Kuzco said, breaking the silence. "Were they... some sort of golem?" The jackaloid asked, a mixture of wonder and fear audible in his voice.


    "No... they were some sort... of fey-elemental." Camilla responded, her voice gruff and animalistic in her jackal form. I nodded at her, knowing full well what the eerie sand-monsters were.


    "They are sandmen. Weird monsters that are... intimately tied to Mahmud." I informed my party, somewhat cryptically. I recalled the species knowledge entry on them that I had gained while exploring the memories of the deceased Sultan of Namira, Mahmud Suti. And one fact in particular about that species.


    [Species Knowledge Notification: Sandmen


    Sandmen are fey-elementals who are born in and live in deserts. These odd beings are aggressive to everything but their own kind, fey-lords, or gods, barring some sort of magical compulsion or orders by their eerie, immensely powerful masters.


    Sandmen are simpleminded feyembodyingthe ferocity and transformative power of the desert itself. They don''t evolve into other creatures, and they are amorphous, almost slime-like beings who freely mold themselves into whatever form best suits their current needs. Typically they loosely resemble people and shape their arms into weapons.


    Their attacks are corrosive and mutative, capable of transforming limbs of those who survive them into dense piles of sand and foes killed by them can spontaneously arise as even more sandmen.


    They obey gods who have any influence over the earth subdomain and reverently worship such beings.]


    And so... Mahmud and I now have something in common.I thought, smiling.And with this... I can finally begin to take control of the city. And hurry this quest along.Impatience flashed in my eyes, just for a moment, but it was enough.


    My allies and I sped back to the gate; their desire to get home speeding them along and my impatience speeding me along. After all, I had to get back to the Onyx Obelisk.


    <hr>


    The sound of soft waves lapping the shore greeted me. As did the sound of boots crunching sand. I watched the scene before me with interest, all while gently running idle fingers through the hair of one of my dwarven creations: Lisabeth, the second dwarf I had created by hand.


    Lisabeth clung closely to me, her hands against my bare chest. She wasn''t fond of the ocean, unlike her sister, and had spent this entire trip by my side, whereas her sister had gleefully explored this new environment. Currently, Lisabeth was seated in my lap, and the two of us were inside of a manor I had built beside the ocean in my realm specifically for our familial outing.


    I stared at the rest of her family, my creations, from through a gigantic wall made of faintly tinted glass. The dwarves walked close to the ocean, but they stood just beyond the reach of the low tide.


    Rebecca, her older sister, was playfully exploring the shoreline. She was dressed in a simple swimsuit and accompanied by a pair of her younger, more muscular brothers.


    The trio of them had begun making maps and cataloging the sorts of creatures they had seen in the ocean and on the shoreline. Occasionally they''d examine something, chat amongst themselves, and then excitedly look up at me, amusement visible in their eyes.


    Lisabeth sleepily placed her head on my chest and murmured gently. "Are you sleepy?" I asked, smiling. I felt her nod. I chuckled and turned my gaze on the young dwarf.


    I couldn''t see her face, aside from her sharp nose, due to her head''s closeness to my chest. Her long blonde hair got in the way and kept me from seeing her youthful features. She had the same large green eyes that her older sister had, and her facial features consisted mostly of more joyful versions of her sister''s. She was in some ways the opposite of her sister.


    Lisabeth had a warm personality and radiated joyous, often childish energy. Or at least she did when she was fully awake and active.


    When she was sleepy she was far more infantile, and I had long discovered that the dwarf struggled to fall asleep by herself. Oftentimes her sister came and aided her, but every once in a while she refused her sister''s attempts to placate her and urged that I take her older sister''s place, even praying that I''d come to her.It was cute, in its own often distracting way.


    "Go to sleep princess." I warmly instructed her, referring to her by the nickname her own siblings had given her not long after the family had been created by my hand. She nodded again, weaker this time, and I chuckled softly.


    So... law, healing, and darkness, as well as earth, corruption, and shape-shifting huh? Wow.I thought, in response to the energies that had surged through me earlier in the evening. I felt far stronger now than I had before, but the energies that surged through me were odd and distinct. I looked forward to beginning to experiment with them.


    It would take Lisabeth perhaps five minutes to fully fall asleep. When she did I gently wrapped the girl in a soft teleportation aura, and whisked her away to the bed she had in a room in the manor, placing her in a comfortable bed and allowing myself to move without disturbing her.


    Well... I suppose I ought to go and experiment, shouldn''t I?I remarked to myself, a grin on my face.

 Chapter 110: What Was Gained.

    [Hey system, is there a domain or subdomain that would grant me influence over you?] I asked curiously, not long after putting Lisabeth to bed. I was alone, back underneath the mountain I had made in my domain two months ago.


    I was in a darkened chamber, one deep beneath the mountain. It was the closest thing to a true lair that I possessed. The chamber itself was gigantic, perhaps 80 or so meters wide and over 45 meters tall. It was an eerie, utterly lightless place and it was devoid of furniture or of any sort of thing that would comfort a mortal. I had no need for such luxuries, nor did I desire any of them.


    [Actually, there is. The domain of reality is the domain that allows for influence and control over me, over us. It, like the domain of fate, is a notoriously difficult domain to gain influence over. Not impossible though.] The system told me, something odd in its voice. Something not unlike mirth or mild amusement. I thought about the emotion audible in its voice for a few moments while considering how to respond.


    [I''ll gain influence over it. And when I do, we''ll celebrate.] I told the system, smiling all the while. It responded to me almost immediately.


    [Heh. If you do, that''d be fun.] The system remarked, a surprising and sincere emotion in its voice. My smile widened upon hearing that.


    <hr>


    Green text filled my vision. My eyes scanned the text that I had willingly called forth, as I sought to understand the new powers I had gained and the new creatures I could create, be they wholly original and from the latest domains and subdomains I had gained influence over, or due to synergies that existed the assorted domains and subdomains that were influenceable by me.


    [Multiple Divine Power Explanations:


    We''ll start off with the earth subdomain.


    Earth Control:


    This basic power over the earth at one''s feet comes from the lowest tier of influence over the Earth subdomain. This power is an idle one, like your radar power.


    With it you can shape the earth to your whims. When traveling underground this power causes the earth in your way to move out of your path of its own volition, and if you will it it will return to its original position once you''ve moved past it. That means that now you merely being underground can create tunnels, or you can merely flee underground and be virtually untraceable.


    The earth itself responds to your whims, and you can command it with but a thought. If you will it, the earth at your feet, and at your fingertips reshapes itself. At the lowest tier of influence over the earth subdomain, this only affects rocks, stone, and soil, not metal.


    When you are on the ground this power grants you an idle speed boost, increases the strength of your magic, and of your blows, but only by a tiny bit. That said this part of the power increases in strength as you gain greater levels of influence over the earth subdomain.


    Earth, stone, and even minor metal magic and spells cast or created by you are strengthened by this power. Your favored spell for dealing with enemies so far has been one of these spells: the stone-to-flesh spell. This also includes several ecomantic spells.


    Your tremor-sense power now detects creatures out to a range of several kilometers, far farther than your radar. This power requires activation because it so greatly increases your power. If you will it, it''ll activate once you''ve closed this notification.


    You can now create creatures like medusas, gargoyles, oreads, and gnomes. If you bless someone using the earth subdomain so long as they are on the ground they are faster, stronger, and have more energy.


    Darkness:


    Shadowmancer:


    The "shadowmancer" power is also an idle one. This power grants you dominion over shadows, allowing you to manipulate them and animate them. You can call someone''s shadow, seducing it away from them and in the process weakening the shadow''s source.


    Darkness Burst:


    This power is useable twice every 12 hours and using it causes a large sphere of darkness to emerge wherever it is aimed. The sphere of darkness remains for over two hours and it can be used to fuel darkness related spells, or as the focal point of a portal.


    You can also use a lesser version of this to steal someone''s vision, or even to cloud their memories in darkness. This lesser and arguably more useful version can be used without any limits or cooldowns. If used to target memories it doesn''t steal them away, it merely makes it so that people can''t remember the visual aspects of their memories. Both of these lesser versions of the power stem from your influence over minds and memories.


    Portal Creation:


    This is a synergized power. It comes from the fact that you have influence over the subdomain of teleportation. In places of darkness, you can create portals that can cross immense distances, even dimensional boundaries. These portals can be as big or as small as you want, and they can be as long-lasting as you want. This is especially potent underground.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    You can give creatures a minor mutation to grant them the ability to see in the dark. You can create creatures like black dogs, wendigos, and shadow-people. If you bless someone using the darkness domain then they are able to see in the dark temporarily provided they couldn''t before, they are faster, stronger, and quieter while shrouded in darkness.


    Healing:


    Empowered healing:


    This is an idle power that doubles the potency of any attempts by you to heal someone. Each time you gain a new tier of influence over the healing domain this power doubles in potency. So at the second tier of influence over the healing domain your healing will possess four times the power it''d otherwise possess. This is in addition to the status power you gained.


    You can also bless people who seek to heal others and increase the potency of any of their healing abilities or any medicine they prescribe to people. This stacks with other blessings.


    Law:


    Imposition of Order:


    This idle power increases the inherent authority you and those lawfully blessed by you exude. It boosts your charisma and increases the persuasive powers of any proclamations you make. Like other idle powers this power increases in potency as you gain more and more tiers of influence over the law domain.


    Law is an alignment in addition to a domain. Because of that, there are some interesting things you can do with it, particularly when it comes to creating new creatures and lifeforms.


    You can now automatically grant creatures you create a class, specifically, you can grant them the paladin, dark-knight, and monk classes the moment they are created. They''ll come into being with whatever classes you assign them, at level 1. This can change with the right domains and subdomains under your influence and the right level of influence over domains and subdomains.


    You can infuse items with lawful energy, and increase their power when used by lawful creatures or against chaotic ones. You can create golems, which are the most basic sort of lawful constructs.


    People who become lawful in alignment because of your influence or powers subconsciously regard you as their source of law and are considered your worshipers.


    Corruption:


    Corruption infusion:


    This is a corruptive power that allows you to render targets more vulnerable to choices that would corrupt them. It works by infusing items, particularly food but not just food as it works on weapons and armor as well, with tainted energy that weakens the ability of those who use the items to resist corrupt temptations. This idle power can be used as often as you want, but you do have to choose when to use it.


    Whispers of corruption:


    This power is useable twice every twelve hours. It is a targeted corruption power that when used on someone causes them to be plagued for an hour by whispers that urge them to behave in corrupt ways. If used intelligently it can thoroughly corrupt easily influenced people, but if used repeatedly even the strongest willed person can be bent towards the evil alignment.


    Corruption is not an alignment but it is an unusual subdomain. It is deeply associated with the neutral-evil alignment and has an inverse subdomain in the subdomain of purity. Its powers, especially at lower levels, are all related to urging people towards alignment shifts, which is when someone behaves so differently from how they usually behave that their alignment itself is changed.


    People corrupted by you, as in those who undergo an alignment shift because of your powers or influence, become considered your worshipers.


    Corruption at the lowest tier of influence does not grant any new creatures for you to create, but it does offer some interesting minor mutations. You can bestow minor mutations that can prevent someone from dying by overdosing on drugs, render someone immune to the negative effects of venereal diseases, and can grant someone a mighty rage that is similar to a berserker''s rage.


    Shapeshifting:


    Mutatable form:


    This idle power empowers your mutations and alteration magic that actually changes someone''s form. With it you can target willing creatures and bestow upon them positive transformative effects, like the ability to fly or to breathe underwater.


    Cursed shifting:


    This idle power allows you to target enemies and curse them. Your curse affects their forms, and currently, you can transform them in a number of ways, especially ways related to animals.


    The real potency of this subdomain doesn''t lie in the powers it grants you, it lies in the ways you can customize your worshipers. With this subdomain you can create minotaurs, werebeasts, arachnes, driders, encantados, a variety of yokai, doppelgangers, mimics, and more.


    Your mutations have also exploded in variety as well. You can transform all sorts of humanoids but humans especially into all sorts of brutal monsters, thanks to the influence you have over darkness, corruption, and animals.]


    That is... a lot. Goodness.I thought, after finally reading through the entire, lengthy notification.


    [Hey, can you activate the earth control power?] I asked the system, an instant before my head practically exploded with new information.


    I prepared a message to send to the other me, the one in my realm. He didn''t suffer from the same burden I did when it came to limits to creating creatures. And given the new things I could create, I thought he could have fun while we freed the first ambitious individual I needed to begin to complete the quest I took on months ago in order to continue becoming a true arch-devil.


    <hr>


    The desert giant general who was imprisoned within the Onyx Obelisk was sound asleep, atop a gigantic bed. Her massive form, large even by desert giant standards was soundly imprisoned within a solitary cell deep in the prison. And so it came as a shock in a number of ways when a horrendously loud noise rocked her awake, her eyes shooting open.


    The woman threw herself up, her eyes wide open and her heart beating incredibly fast as she laid in her bed. She looked around her, attempting to take in as much information as she could as quickly as she could. Her incredibly wide cell seemed normal and undisturbed, and for a moment silence filled its dimensions. But only for a moment.


    "AHH!" A distant, pained scream reached her and hearing it caused her to get to her feet and wonder what the hell was going on. Fearlessness fueled her.


    "What was that?" She wondered, quietly muttering to herself. She quickly began a walk towards the distant edge of her cell, where she hoped to discover what was behind all the noise that woke her up, and the cause of the faint, distant scream she had just heard.

 Chapter 111: Contact Is Made

    "Weird..." The general remarked when she had finally arrived at the edge of her cell. The sight before her certainly was, as she put it, weird.


    In order to enter or exit her cell, she or anyone else had to step through a door. That door was shut at all times and sealed to prevent even her prodigious strength from enabling her to escape. That very same door was currently gone, as if it had never existed.


    The general examined the door for a few moments, curiosity, caution, fearlessness, and an eerie sense of tension, all clashing in her mind. "What to do..." She wondered.


    [There''s only one choice...] A voice unlike any she had ever heard in her life, low and sinister, whispered into her mind. She froze and replayed what she had just heard in her mind.


    And what is that? She wondered, her curiosity torn equally between this supposed "one choice" and the source of the eerie voice in her head.


    [If you stay here... who knows what could happen? But if you take this opportunity to be free... the world opens up to you.] The same voice from before told her.


    So this voice knows more than what it''s telling me, doesn''t it? She realized, curiosity and an inkling of fear filling her. But it''s also right...


    This is my first shot at freedom in centuries. I... don''t have a choice. She realized, frustrated but not indecisive. Indecision had never been a weakness she suffered from. She stepped beyond where the door had once been and examined her new surroundings.


    <hr>


    As she stepped through the door her senses picked up a range of new stimuli. She smelled new things first, the thick and metallic scent of blood filling her nostrils while mixing with the ungodly scent of empty bowels, bowels emptied by death.


    Her second sense to react to new stimuli was her hearing. Her keen ears picked up a faint noise: the distant sound of claws ripping into armor, and into flesh. An even fainter sound of monstrous fangs tearing into and gorging on flesh. It was a violent cacophony of brutal noise.


    She began to walk. Not away from the noise, but towards it. She was guided by a quiet sense of dark curiosity, a curiosity that was powered and egged on by a fearlessness that was deep within her.


    She walked to the edge of the hallway that surrounded her, and placed a hand on the walls that confined her. She didn''t stop her forward march, her relentless march towards the unknown, even when her hand lightly touched wet bloodstains on the wall beside her.


    She did retract her hand and look at it while marching on, but when she saw dark red blood staining it she merely nodded in satisfied understanding and then placed her hand on the wall again. Rather than be paralyzed by fear, the formidable general was curious about the origin of the ichor that stained her hand. If the blood is here... where are the corpses that produced it...? I guess there''s only one way to find out. She mused, grimly.


    Her vision was trained on the hallway that stretched out before her. Every footstep took her deeper and deeper into the heart of the unknown, every footstep leading her closer and closer to both her ambitions and her damnation. Her dreams, her destiny, and the cause of the crimes that were cryptically revealing themselves to her.


    <hr>


    The further away from the cell she got, the more messy and chaotic the scene before her. In the area immediately beside her cell, everything was more or less orderly, even if it was desolate and forbidding. But now things were changing.


    Before blood couldn''t be seen at all. Blood could be detected via smell, and as she found out by accident had stained the obsidian walls that surrounded her, but it wasn''t plainly visible. Now, a few minutes of cautious walking away from her cell, blood was plainly visible.


    Pools of the metallic liquid were visible on the stone floor of the long hallway. She saw them more and more as she walked on. But just like before, not far from her cell, she couldn''t see any of the corpses that would have produced the blood.


    The distant sound of claws, fangs, and worse, ripping into armor and flesh grew louder with each passing step. Whatever is responsible for that awful noise is close now. She thought to herself, as she drew nearer and nearer to the savage noises that filled this part of the hallway and echoed a great deal.


    And then, after a total of about fifteen minutes of walking down an impossibly long hallway, she saw it. Them. The nightmarish things responsible for the horrifying noises that filled this hallway.


    There were three creatures in total. Two of them were on their knees, their backs to her, and even the third one wasn''t directly facing her either. The third one was something she recognized even without seeing the front of its form, which wasn''t as impressive as it might have sounded without context: the creature had a body made of sand. It was one of the monsters out of desert giant myth: a sandman.


    <hr>


    The general continued her approach. She hadn''t come this far just to stop now and so her journey wasn''t obstructed even by the sight of these creatures.


    She had easily identified one of the things as a sandman, but the other two were eerier and harder for her, a desert-dweller, to pin down. They had the basic shape of humanoids, complete with the same number of limbs as humans even though both men were clearly taller than any human, something she noticed even though they were on their knees noisily devouring something that that general imagined was rather disgusting.


    The strange creatures had ram''s horns on their heads, and they were clad in the clothing of what appeared to be a foreign farmer. The general''s considerable vision cursed her with the sight of the pair of creatures using their elongated limbs to greedily shovel something red into their maws. She grimaced in disgust as she drew nearer and nearer to them.


    Are they... enemies? Or... dare I say, liberators? She wondered, fear beginning to more concretely creep into her heart, as one of her people''s most ancient enemies numbered among the alien invaders of the prison that kept her locked away for centuries. But the general''s solitude and fear was interrupted when the same voice from before whispered in her mind again.


    [You draw... ever nearer to me. To freedom, of sorts. And to your destiny.] The voice told her, soothingly and cryptically. To... freedom? To it? She wondered, both questions equally important given her circumstances.


    [Yes... to freedom. And to your heart''s desire. To power. To leadership. To importance. Do not fear the darkness. You are close now. Do not fear... me.] The voice whispered, urging her to be brave. Tempting her by appealing to her heightened sense of self.


    <hr>


    Seconds after the voice whispered into her mind once again she drew close enough to the creatures to finally see what they were devouring. While they were over two dozen meters away from her, her powerful vision allowed her to see the fallen desert giant whose corpse provided the monstrous, vaguely giant-like beings who gluttonized themselves on it.


    She gasped when she confirmed with her own eyes what she had been dreading, her heart racing and terror surging through her. The monstrous creatures didn''t turn to her though. They didn''t react to her at all, not even the monstrous pile of sand that stood motionless beside the things stuffing themselves with the blood and flesh of some unlucky guard. They were either content where they were, or ignorant of her presence.


    An instant after she gasped the general was both further shocked and relieved, perhaps the first time she had felt relief wash over her since she awoke minutes ago, to watch a curtain of darkness fall between her and the mysterious creatures lazily eating a member of her species. The curtain of darkness fell equidistant from her and from the strange things she had happened across while trekking towards what she hoped was freedom.


    The darkness was absolute, and even a bit noise-dampening. It was a wall of pitch-black, tarlike, darkness, and the noises that came from behind it were a bit softer now, slightly more tolerable than they had been before. And it was growing. It was spreading, like some sort of contagion, drawing nearer and nearer to her.


    [Do not fear... the darkness.] The voice from earlier told her again. [Free yourself from the shackles that hold you back. Step into the darkness. Walk towards liberation.] The voice commanded, louder than ever before, but still weirdly warm and weirdly comforting.


    I could turn back now... but this is another moment wherein there''s only one choice, isn''t it? She realized, steeling herself for what she knew came next. She took a single breath and then walked forward. Darkness surrounded her.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    And unknowingly, even as she was teleported to safety, she was targeted and subsequently hit by a potent spell, one of the favorite spells of the creature who had lured her into his web: a flesh-to-stone spell.


    <hr>


    I watched the giant general contemplate her situation for a moment. And then I clapped, because the woman willingly stepped into the darkness and thus, unknowingly, into the portal I had created. It whisked her away to a place I had been to, twice in my life so far. Another dungeon under my control: the eerie tomb of Agowraith. A place that I had begun to remodel shortly before I left it.


    With but a thought I whisked myself away, to greet her. And in an instant, my surroundings changed as well. I went from being inside of the room of my khan, surrounded by my sleeping allies, to being inside of the remodeled arena where I clashed with Narcolept the Deceiver.


    The place I was now inside of was a rejuvenation chamber. A particularly massive one, which was suitable for my guest: an unusually massive desert giant. I took a second to look around, curious to see what this place now looked like. The drab arena from before was gone.


    What now surrounded me was the sort of opulence one might see in a dwelling created by and lived in by a high-elf noble. The gigantic place was no longer coated in sand, dust, and the decaying remains of ancient battles. Instead, the place was a flat chamber of incredible length and astounding height still built to accommodate the undying titan who had once corrupted this chamber.


    The floor underneath my feet wasn''t sandy anymore, instead the earthy floor beneath me was covered in milk-colored tiles that were soft on someone''s bare feet, and warm as well. The distant walls of this place were no longer the dark color they had been in the past, they were now a faint shade of white that wasn''t harsh on the eyes up close or far away.


    The chamber wasn''t bare either. Pillars all equidistance from each other sprung up from the floor and ascended to the incredibly high ceiling of the chamber. The pillars, like everything else here, were a soft shade of white which helped provide a sort of gentle lighting to the place. They were covered in ivy, incredibly long vines of the creeping plant decorating the pillars.


    The general stood in the middle of the chamber, not far from where I stood. At the moment she was, unsurprisingly, a statue with a look of uneasy curiosity masterfully etched on her face. I walked over to the statue, easily and confidently.


    This moment represented the culmination of a plan that began months ago. It represented the moment I identified the first ambitious individual I needed to recruit, the first ambitious soul I needed to steal, and the moment that set me down a path that resulted in the city of Namira becoming the latest edition to my growing empire.


    As I walked closer and closer to the general who led a failed revolt against Mahmud in the ancient past, I recalled her attempt with a grin. Mahmud''s memories had long ago become my memories, and this woman, the person who was the statue in front of me, was a significant figure in Mahmud''s life.


    <hr>


    General Ayla Syah, the scourge of the Yellow Wastes. A devil trapped in a mortal''s body. A warrior who slew an entire enemy outpost, alone. Those were some of the thoughts of the self-proclaimed "Sultry Sultan" Mahmud Suti, when it came to Ayla Syah, the woman I was now approaching.


    To him, she was a nightmare, a warrior with the power of an army, and an endless amount of ambition. The pride of a mythical dragon, with power match, in giant form. I thought, gleefully. As I drew nearer and nearer to her, I began to feel a faint flicker of hope, hope that she''d enable me to add this city to my empire.


    When I was but a few meters away from her, I transformed myself.


    I willed away the constraints and tiny dimensions of my giant form, creating something that was truly elemental in appearance. I felt myself grow vastly in size, pushing myself to reach an incredible height of over 40 meters, and a width of 25 meters, as well as envisioning my muscles transforming into stone. I want her to feel awe when she sees the thing that freed her. I thought, as my body became stony and solid.


    In a matter of seconds, my view shifted from her artistic and immobile form to an unobstructed view of the upper reaches of the massive chamber I was in. When I had stopped growing, and my view stabilized and ceased changing, I undid the magic I had used on my guest. She came too quickly, her freedom beginning at her feet and traveling upwards at a speedy pace so the whole process took a matter of seconds.


    I waited for her to recover her wits, a thankfully short process thanks to her competence, and when she had recovered her senses and was starring at my form in awe, I looked down on her.


    [Hello Ayla.] I said slowly, purposefully speaking in the same eerie and mysterious voice I had always spoken to her with, in her mind. She was, somewhat understandably, shocked. She backed up, inching away from me while trying to process what sort of incredible creature stood before her.


    <hr>


    [You demonstrated great bravery back there. In the prison.] I said to her, still speaking to her mind. She reacted quicker this time, even daring to speak.


    "Thank you..." She said, simply, curtly, even in the state of fear that gripped her heart.


    [Hehe...] I responded, chuckling into her mind. She visibly paled at this, after a second of shock at the incredibly deep voice that had just entered her mind and merely laughed in it. But after paling, she didn''t hesitate to speak.


    "I know I... owe you a debt of gratitude for your role in freeing me. And maybe even your role in protecting me from those things in the prison, but first can I learn who you are?" She asked, boldly. I allowed my stony face to smile, and I didn''t doubt that the sight was odd in its own right.


    [I am a devil of unimaginable power. And I learned of you from your ancient foe, the deceased sultan: Mahmud Suti. I freed you.] I honestly explained, revealing the source of my knowledge of her as well as the fact that her ancient rival, one of the figures responsible for keeping her imprisoned, was deceased. Not to mention informing her that her suspicion was correct, that I freed her.


    She was still while my voice resounded in her mind, but not for long. Not two seconds after my message had been conveyed to her, a smile broke out on her face. "Suti is no more... how pleasant." She said, a cruel grin sitting prettily on her lips.


    [Yes... he is gone. And in his absence, thanks in part to my influence, no one has risen to take his place.] I informed her, suggesting that I played a greater role than I actually had. All I had done was subtly prevent the giants from learning the fate that befell their leader.


    "So Namira is without a leader..." Ayla said, her voice quiet and conspiratorial. Her heartbeat quickened, and her face flushed with a seditious sort of delight.


    [He was right... you are ambitious.] I remarked, grinning even mentally. She looked up at me, her eyes locking with mine. There was some anger there, but also a sort of odd appreciation.


    "You... You aren''t wrong. But now I simply must know, what do you want? Why did you... play a role in my liberation?" She asked, her voice taking on a serious tone.


    I was silent for a moment. I let the silence in the wake of her question build and fill the air for a second before I deigned to respond.


    [I freed you because we share a goal. We both seek to conquer the city of Namira.] I told her, confidently.


    She looked at me, with an enigmatic expression on her face. I chuckled, audibly this time. [It''s odd but it''s true. I, like you seek to seize control of Namira.] I informed her. A silence filled the chamber.


    [I can feel your... skepticism, and your curiosity. Allow me to explain myself a bit better. I am a mighty devil, seeking to expand my empire. But for a devil what''s in one''s "empire" doesn''t have to be what one rules themselves and in name. I seek to convince you to give me your soul and for you to do as I say. And in exchange for that, I shall aid you and help you secure what you seek: rulership over the city of Namira.] I told her, truthfully.


    She was still, stoic, while she considered what I had told her. It was a fair reaction and one which didn''t surprise me. Neither did her next question, which came nearly a minute after she went still.


    "Let''s say I agree to this... offer you''re making. Would we conquer Namira?" She asked. It was a logical question and one which I knew the answer too.


    "That''s the thing Ayla... we wouldn''t. Instead, people would give us power." I told her, smiling with a baleful smile on my face. "There''s a threat to the city of Namira that only you can address. The resurgence of sandmen." I explained, almost chuckling. What I had just told her was so shocking that it didn''t even register on her face that I had just spoken to her rather than whispered into her mind.


    "Sandmen are back?" She asked, clearly afraid of that possibility. I laughed, the sound loud and powerful in this chamber.


    "No. But they don''t know that. Although... in truth, sandmen are back. But they aren''t your foes. I control them. And I have a few extra treats to help sweeten the deal I''m offering you." I explained ominously.


    "For the record, if you''re interested I''d like for you to take these powers on a trial run, but here''s what I''m offering you in exchange for your soul and for true rulership over the city of Namira. The first thing is obviously that you''d be named the city''s sultana. You''d be recognized by your peers as a hero who proved her worthiness. The second thing is that you''d receive the ability to command your fears: you''d be in charge of an army of sandmen." I explained.


    I saw her eyes go wide at this. I have her. Already. I thought, knowingly.


    "But that''s not all. I''m not just offering you rulership over one city. I''m offering you rulership over two. If you pledge your soul to me, I will not just ensure you are named Sultana of Namira, I will give you control over Namira as it appears in the dreams of your people, rendering you a historic sultana: an empress whose empire includes the land of dreams. Your rule will be so thorough and mighty that even in their dreams the people of this city will serve you." I told her, offering her something that I could only offer thanks to my potent magical powers.


    She froze when she heard that. She was still for a moment, her mind hard at work doing some sort of calculations, some cost-benefit analyses. I grinned.


    "I can see you running some sort of numbers in your mind. Instead of doing that, or perhaps in order to speed our negotiations along, why don''t we go on a trial run? There''s an outpost not terribly far or close to the city of Namira. It only has a few dozen guards." I revealed.


    I can show you firsthand the power at my disposal. The power I can create and command. The power that''d be backing you, not as you become a tyrant or dictator, but as you become a heroine and a beloved empress." I told her, confidently. I knew that showing her my power would make this easier for her and therefore for me.


    She studied me, her eyes examining my monstrous and earthy form. As she did so, something in her eyes changed, something became more solid and more reliable.


    On my radar, the little symbol that represented her began to vibrate and change colors. It was slow at first, barely noticeable, but then it sped up. And in an instant, the symbol went from being a bright green color to being a deep purple one. And I heard a familiar notification.


    [Quest Progress Alert:


    Ambitious Individuals Identified: 1/3.]


    Finally. I thought, grinning almost childishly to myself. And then Ayla nodded at me, ready and seemingly eager to test the claims I had made.

 Chapter 112: A Demonstration

    The woman known and feared by many in Namira as the "Scourge of the Yellow Wastes" was impressively still as she and I teleported to the outpost I had told her about. She was as still as a statue while my power washed over her once more, this time not negatively or defensively, but rather warmly and gently.


    I took this time, this moment of peace and stillness, to study the general. She stood about seventeen meters tall, an incredible height that made her taller than some of the buildings in the city she ambitiously sought to conquer and rule over. She had bronze-colored skin, a tone that I had learned during these last two months wasn''t natural to the giants who dwelled in the Infernian desert. She must have acquired her complexion fighting. I mused.


    She was dressed in silky, somewhat formal, clothing but she carried herself with the grace of a practiced warrior and hadn''t asked if she could go change so I quickly realized she meant to battle in her current outfit. I''m not the judgemental type. She can wear whatever she wishes. I thought, grinning at no one in particular. I took this chance to idly use identify on her.


    [Name: Ayla Syah


    Class: Berserker, Handy Demolisher, Level 15


    Species: Desert Giant


    Faction: The Untamed Wastes


    Alignment: Lawful Evil (Source of law: Namira)


    Personal Vice: Pride


    Status: Healthy, excited]


    Hmm... I should learn more. I thought, before requesting additional information by politely messaging my old friend, the system.


    [New Varied Knowledge Alert:


    Handy Demolisher Speciality:


    Handy Demolishers are a type of berserker who tears apart buildings with their bare hands. These brutal creatures fly into a rage that causes their strength to swell incredibly and they throw themselves into enemy fortifications intending to rip them apart brick by brick. Damage done to them is significantly reduced and their attacks against buildings do maximum damage. When they enter into a state of rage their hands glow a dark shade of red.


    The Untamed Wastes Faction:


    Desert giants from the so-called untamed wastes hail from frontier communities and they are a disconnected, often violent lot. The only time in history these warriors have been united was under the flag of Ayla Syah, an incredible general who sought to take the city of Namira from a sultan in the age before Suti came to power. Syah sought to build an empire of desert giants that united all of the giants in the desert.]


    Oh, nice.I thought, happy to have another warrior person on my side. I''d be able to make her even more potent with the power of my blessings when the time came for her fight.


    I really should exploit those more...I thought, amused by how rare it''s been to date for me to use an ability that was probably pretty fundamental to the old gods.


    While en-route to our destination I opted to go ahead and shrink myself down. I transformed myself, shrinking down to her still incredible height, and taking on the form of Quinn so that she could build familiarity with it.


    It was at that point that we arrived where we were heading: not far from a desert giant outpost situated far away from the city of Namira.


    <hr>


    It took a second for Ayla to react to the abrupt change of scenery. One moment she was safe in my fairly unoccupied and uninhabited dungeon, and the next she was standing in the desert, for the first time in centuries. I grinned and waited for her to react to the sudden change.


    She almost leaped out of her skin when she became aware of the shift. I watched her eyes go wide for a moment and heard her heart rate spike. I chuckled, audibly. "Sorry about teleporting you here without alerting you. It was just faster this way." I explained sincerely, my eyes studying her form. She was again shocked when she looked at my new form, but not as dramatically this time.


    "Wait... you could just do that without my permission?" She asked, mildly alarmed. I looked at her and nodded.


    "Yes, I can. I can teleport anyone from any place to any other place. I created the portal earlier because I knew it would be easier to get you in front of me if you came willingly." I told her, honestly. She looked at me, scowling, but then cooled her frustration after about a minute of visual, facial, frustration. I waited for her to cool off before I did what I did next.


    When Ayla''s annoyance died down, I rose a hand to the air. I called forth some of the creatures under my control and watched as the called beings responded to my magic: twenty-four fairly ordinary sandmen became visible blips on my radar, even before they physically appeared. They were conjured into being in front of Ayla and I, but they actually surged dramatically out of the sand that stood between us and the outpost in the distance.


    They produced eerie noises as they pulled themselves out of the desert as if they had been created from it. They hadn''t been. These were merely creatures created by the "me" who lived in "our" realm and could create creatures without limits. And unlike past creations to date, there was nothing out of the ordinary about these sandmen, they were effectively cannon-fodder monsters I had wanted created to help showcase my power to Ayla.


    The monsters rose several meters out of the deserts, their sandy forms producing a distinct sound of sand flowing from one place to another. Watching them rise was like watching an invisible hand scoop up a bunch of sand, pile it together, and then breathe life into the resulting heap of sand. It was a strange, arcane process, and I grinned as I watched it happen.


    The process took about half a minute from beginning to end. Once it was over the creatures idly faced the outpost and didn''t turn to face us. I looked over at Ayla and began to speak.


    "So... how do you want to do this? Do you want to participate in the battle, or do you just want to let them run rampant?" I asked her out of curiosity. I watched her turn to gaze at me attentively after I began to speak, and when I was done talking she considered my words for a second.


    "I''d rather watch them. I want to see their might, first hand. I''ve only ever fought against these things. Never with them." She said, explaining her justification. I nodded at her, understanding her point of view, and then turned to my created minions.


    "Go forth little ones. Go forth and kill the creatures manning the outpost. All but one. Let one live so that they may spread the word of your actions here." I told my sand-servants. And then I placed a hand on Ayla''s shoulder. The sandmen nodded, a subtle action, and then they began to surge forthin unison,forming two huge waves of sand, urged on towards the guards who had the terrible fortune of being stationed here.


    I grabbed Ayla''s shoulder, squeezing lightly on it to secure her, and then I took off with her at my side, freeing myself of gravity. "If you wish to see the action, we''ll see it." I told her, a smile on my face. As we lifted off of the ground we became translucent, see-through, to ensure our foes didn''t spot us as they unknowingly entering into the fight of their lives. I ignored her protests and professed annoyance.


    <hr>


    We weren''t far from the outpost, even though we were out of eyeshot of it. Ayla and I ascended quickly, reaching a max height of thirty-five meters in the air and from there we watched as a pair of waves of sand rushed towards the outpost.


    In a matter of seconds, the waves of sand battered the outpost, slamming into the sandstone wall that protected the place from intruders. This produced a loud sound which reverberated throughout the outpost, a complex structure that was overhalf a kilometer wide, with a single wall surrounding it on all sides that was over fifty meters wall, positively enormous by non-giant standards and quite tall by giant-standards.


    Both Ayla and I grinned when we heard shocked giants utter cuss-words at the thunderous noise that had rocked part of their base. And we grinned wider when we watched the two waves that rocked the outpost become one massive pile of sand, a mobile, animated, and angry pile of sand.


    Sandmen are... smarter than I thought.I mused to myself as the massive, and angry, pile of sand decided to collaborate and take down the wall that protected the desert giants, rather than try to selfishly climb over each other to sneak into the fortress.


    While the giants were arming themselves and preparing to rush towards where the source of the sound that had awoken them, the gigantic pile of sand steadily grew bigger by feeding on the sand of the desert.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    Its fists were growing especially noticeably, and after half a minute of quietly feeding on nearby sand, the thing rose a single massive fist into the air. The fist was colossal, and stood in the air, defying gravity rather ominously. Both Ayla and I looked on in interest, curious as to what would happen next. As if we didn''t understand physics. The fist hung there for a second, before being pulled by gravity towards the wall, and slamming into it.


    The weight of the sand crumpled the sandstone used to build the wall, decimating a portion of the wall by flattening it into nothingness. The sound the blow produced was deafening. The eerie monster, formed of two dozen smaller monsters, silently observed its handiwork for a second. And then the thing let out a monstrous roar and proceeded to speed through the fallen wall and into the outpost.


    <hr>


    As the thing surged through the opening it had created with its fist, the massive monster split into its original form: many, far smaller, monsters. The frighteningly large blob of sand became a sea of sand that was less tall but far wider. The sand-beings spread out quickly, pushing each other onward and outward until they completely covered an area a few dozen meters long. And then the speediest of their enemies appeared in the distance.


    The guards who guarded this outpost were clad in basic armor, nothing particularly special or strong, and those of them who rushed out to meet their odd attackers rushed forth with bows drawn and in a few cases, arrows nocked. "Sandmen..." One of them muttered, fear audible in his voice.


    "Men! Fear not these things. We are the front-line of defense against such... a horrific force." Another shouted, his voice loud and powerful. He was behind a handful of guards, but his bow was raised, aimed, and had an arrow nocked already. That guard, in particular, was roaring to go and let loose the nocked arrow he had prepared a second after he finished speaking.


    The arrow was released, producing a twang and sailed through the air for a split second before it slammed into one of the sand-monsters I had conjured. Impressively, the sandman was actually staggered by the blow, hinting at its force, but it was still only a single sandman that was slightly delayed.


    The rest of the small horde of sand-creatures still surged towards the gathered guards, like a sort of waterless and malevolent tsunami.


    <hr>


    The monsters fell on the force with a dreadful amount of cold fury. They swarmed over themselves in order to rush towards the closest guards.


    When one of them reached the guard who had run the closest towards the horde, the thing reached out and punched the bow-using giant with a single, thick fist of sand. The blow nailed the guard in the face, and he was sent reeling back, only for the sandman to grab his leg and make him trip.


    The thing then summoned tremendous force and pulled him into its monstrous and violent body with terrifying speed and ease. As it did so the guard began to scream even as he fought for his life, trying to grab something on the floor of the outpost which would make it harder for the sandman to devour him, his voice youthful and filled with a pained horror.


    <hr>


    To their credit, the other guards weren''t distracted by fear or by compassion, and instead, the massacre began with the giants behaving pragmatically andcoldly dispassionately.


    The giants backed up reasonably quickly all while using their own weapons to try and slow down sandmen that approached too closely. They shot out arrows at a commendable pace, while trying to inch away from the horde of monsters that drew ever nearer to them.Eventually, reinforcements for the giantsfinally appeared, taking what felt like an eternity to do so.


    Nearly half a minute had passed since the first giant to fire an arrow at the gathered horde had bravely done so.At this point, only the three giants who had gotten as close as possible to the sandmen had actually fallen to them, and so the majority of the thirty giants who populated this outpost before today were still alive and well.


    The reinforcements shouted encouragement and praise of their peers while speedily preparing their own weapons to aid in combating an unstoppable, sandy, tide that promised only death. Ayla and I watched this with interest.


    <hr>


    The massacre was proceeding as I had envisioned it proceeding. Giants were dying at the hands of one of their desert foes, a particularly hated sort of creature known as a sandman. Or in this case, a small horde of them. This was the sort of event that would produce a horrendous trauma in whoever survived it.


    The unstoppable, almost fluid, horde pushed and pushed through a surprising number of arrows, hungrily towards their enemies. Arrows slammed into them, one after another, and though they may have caused a sandman to stumble, none of them appeared to do any real harm to the monstrous mod that moved towards them.


    The sandmen were loud, producing eerie and inhumane noises. They grunted and growled as they crept closer and closer to the guards who valiantly stood up to them, stood up to death. The terrifying things roared in anger whenever they got stymied by a heavy arrow hammering them.


    The giant guards were loud too. They shouted encouragement towards each other. They muttered words of camaraderie, professions of brotherly love, and even sang to stave off feelings of fear that crept up on them idly, and surged whenever a friend of theirs met a gruesome end at the hands of the mob.


    In time, a number of the most aggressive and speediest sandmen were bloodstained, the rivers of sand that made up their bodies beginning to absorb vast enough quantities of blood that they became visibly recognizable to the guards.


    "Focus on the ones with blood covering them!" One guard shouted. He was ignored by his peers, and no one had the time needed to ridicule him for shouting something so obvious at them.


    <hr>


    A few minutes after the battle began, when things were beginning to wind down, I snatched up the memories of the remaining guards. This, of course, caused them to slow down for a moment. Which was enough time for the ones closest to the sandy pack of monsters to be overrun and murdered by my inhumane fey.


    I was prompted to do this both to ensure that I had an accurate understanding of the layout of this outpost and to uncover why there appeared to have been no guards stationed along the wall that my horde came in and assaulted originally. If I had done nothing, and the opportunity to learn why this was the case slipped away, I would have kicked myself.


    Over the course of the last three minutes, the battle began to speed up. This was because over half of the guards were now being little more than mangled bodies. With half of the guards gone, there was far less cover fire than before. This naturally led to the horde of sandmen being able to more speedily devour more and more of the guards, while facing less and less resistance.


    <hr>


    I waited until the last minute to intervene. And that was almost a mistake. When the number of guards present in the outpost numbered just three, I was almost too arrogant and watched as the sandmen surged forth like an ungodly blizzard of sand. In an instant, theyovertook and killed two of the three remaining warriors. They had been just centimeters away from grabbing the last fellow when I teleported him out of the outpost.


    That was when I unexpectedly received a notification.


    [Feat Gained: Strategist (1)


    Benefit: Your servants, soldiers, and worshipers are now slightly stronger and this benefit increases in potency in battles you don''t participate in.


    Method of acquisition: Aid in one battle without directly attacking any of your enemies, and oversee a battle without intentionally intervening wherein your forces win. The first condition was fulfilled in the battle for the fate of Golden-Gate, and the second condition was fulfilled just now.


    Flavor text: Godly participation in battles is an unfair advantage. It''s important that the forces of a god learn to be independent and self-sufficient. By learning to be an able-commander, as well as a scholar of battles, you can ensure your forces grow on their own.


    Note: This is a tiered feat. By repeating the conditions which caused it to be gained in the first place you can gain greater and greater versions of it which amplifies the power of the benefit.]


    Oh... that''s nice!I thought, excitedly.I wonder if this is tied to the war domain...I questioned for a second. I was suddenly grateful that I hadn''t used any blessings on the forces I had sent towards the outpost. It was while I was thinking about that, that I was suddenly struck with a sense of grand curiosity.


    [Hey, system and the respective domains... how do I gain the next tier of influence over the hand-to-hand and magic subdomain and domain, respectively? I have the first tier of influence over hand-to-hand combat, and I am halfway to gaining the first tier of influence over the magic domain.] I asked the system.


    While I was conversing with myself Ayla was studying the scene before her. She had a look of stunned awe on her face as she visually examined the wrecked remains of the outpost, covered in mobile piles of sand. Part of the reason for her shock was that a handful of the deceased guards'' corpses were rapidly transforming into sand before her very eyes. And the oldest of those sandpiles were beginning to shudder and shake as if coming to life themselves.


    <hr>


    I received an answer from the system, one that pleasantly surprised me, a few seconds after I asked it my question.


    [Hello Althos. The hand-to-hand subdomain is willing to grant you the second-tier of influence over it if you just create a creature that is a monk, as a way to reward you for earning the monk class.]


    A second later I received another message from the system. This message further cemented the reality that I was a triune being, three minds with a single, shared soul.


    [The other you, the one in your realm has just done this, creating a dark-elf and gifting it with the monk class. Congratulations! You now possess the second tier of influence over the subdomain of hand-to-hand combat. That brings with it the ability to create a handful of creatures, mutate beings to have harder skin, and for your hand-to-hand skill to increase in battle, among other things. Your blessing has also undergone a considerable increase in potency.] It told me.


    I grinned. And then I gained one more, fairly interesting message. This time about magic.


    [The magic domain''s request is also an accessible one. All it will take for you to gain the first tier of influence over magic is for you to study a potent artifact related to an advanced school of magic. The domain gave me permission to help you out, so I will remind you that abjuration is an advanced school of magic and I will say that the top of the Onyx Obelisk houses an appropriate artifact.] The system informed me, causing me to grin even wider. And it wasn''t done yet.


    [The domain of magic grants you considerable power with each tier of influence you gain over it. It''s enhanced blessing is a considerable boost to anyone who receives it, it in combination with a few other domains and subdomains grants you the ability to gift creatures with classes both at birth and post-birth and you gain significant powers through it, even at the lowest tier of influence. Not to mention the new things you can create if you gain it... It''s a lot. Remember: we reward curiosity.] The system told me, and I could hear a grin in the thing''s voice. I decided to commit that simple fact to memory.


    And with that, I turned to Ayla. "You have seen the sort of power I can wield indirectly. My direct power is considerably more mighty. I want your soul, and in exchange for it, all of your desires will be granted. What do you say? Do you accept?" I asked her, a confident, shit-eating smirk plastered on my face.


    She studied me, her eyes filled with a dazzling array of emotions. And I watched as her mouth opened, an answer to my question already clear in her eyes.

 Chapter 113: A Deal Is Struck

    What Ayla said next impressed me. It reminded me of what it was that first made me decide to build my reputation within the city. It wasn''t an immediate agreement, but rather a smart question.


    "Before I say yes, can you explicitly state what I''m agreeing too?" She asked me, interest and excitement visible in her gaze, radiating out of her eyes. I chuckled and was silent for a moment while I mentally activated one of my devilish powers: the potent ability known as the "Devilish Deal". A few seconds after activating it, I received a notification and knew instantly that Ayla had received a similar one.


    [Power Activation Alert:


    The cosmically binding power known as the "Devilish Deal" has been invoked. Until it is deactivated, the devil and god known as Althos cannot lie to the desert giant Ayla and vice-versa, though Althos can deactivate it at will if he chooses to do so. Once a deal has been struck between the two it is binding, unless a new deal is struck between the two that explicitly overrides the previous deal. Ayla has received a similar notification.]


    She smiled, and I could see the green text that her eyes focused on in her mind via the connection I had built earlier that allowed me to speak to her while she was in the Onyx Obelisk. Her notification was similar to mine, except that it informed her that I was the activator of the power at the beginning of the notification.


    <hr>


    "The terms of our deal are simple." I said to her seconds after activating my power. She was still, quiet, and in her eyes I could see impatience, curiosity, and excitement.


    "I will aid you in becoming the sultana of Namira. The first step in doing that is me providing you with an army of sandmen that you can use as you please, but will first be deployed to cement the ''threat'' we''re plotting to make the people of Namira believe is a real danger to them." I said to her, beginning to explain the plot I had built up over the course of the last few months of daily adventuring, as well as building up a cult throughout the city.


    She looked at me with interest, and I could tell I still had her. I grinned. "Over the course of the last few months I''ve built up a reputation as a dependable adventurer all over Namira. I''ve also, more subtly, built up a cult with some decent influence in the city. You will emerge as a hero, and I''ll publicly back efforts to name you the city''s leader, having been ''persuaded'' that you are a leader who can keep the city safe." I told her, confidently. She looked me intently and I could tell she had something on her mind. I shut my mouth and waited for her to speak.


    "Why are you doing this? You already possess the power to do so much, AND you have a cult in the city already. Surely there are easier ways to seize control of Namira than to back me, a feared general." She said, providing a rational assessment of both her reputation and the situation. I chuckled.


    "I could deactivate the deal and tell you a lie, but I won''t. I''m on a quest." I told her, opting to go the truthful route.


    "I am a god and a devil. You know that already. I can read your mind. What you don''t know is that I can become an arch-devil. My ability to promote devils is one sign that I am a... proto-arch-devil." I told her, before quickly demonstrating my powers. I smoothly created a soul-orb, promoted it into an imp, and then forcibly evolving the thing into a hell-hound. And then I whisked the thing away to Drow and Milene.


    [Use this hell-hound as a guardian. Hell-hounds are as smart as people, and demand to be respected, so don''t treat it as you''d treat a hound, but instead treat it as a cherished friend.] I commanded Drow, trusting that he''d find a use for it. I sensed his excitement through our connection, and mentally chuckled before refocusing.


    "In order for me to advance in power, I need to make deals with ambitious creatures and usurp cities and settlements. You are one such ambitious creature. That, and I sincerely think it''d be good to take over Namira, through a proxy." I said, trusting that the impression my powers left on her coupled with my honesty would convince her to side with me.


    She looked at me, and considered my words. I waited a second before opting to get the conversation back on track. "I doubt this is going to be an immediate thing. So before you are named Sultana of Namira I''m gonna grant you an additional boon to sweeten the deal. And just to show you how much I genuinely want your soul and your servitude, this is in addition to what we''ve already discussed." I revealed.


    "I plan to grant you an empire that extends beyond Namira. If you surrender yourself, your soul, to me, I can and will unite all desert giants in this layer to you. Not right away, but in time. You will unite your peoples. The dreams of the Untamed Wastes will be achieved through your leadership. All it takes is submission to me." I said enticingly, my voice low and melodic as I revealed my plans for her empire to her. But I still had one card to play, one condition to discuss.


    "Even now I am using my godly powers to create a copy of Namira, a dreamscape copy of the city that you''ll rule over starting tonight. You will become a double sultana, one that rules in the waking world and in the world of dreams." I told her. Internally I was relieved I had been able to say this because it meant that this was in fact within my power. And right at that moment, I received a message in an annoyed tone from an internal voice.


    <hr>


    [Of course, it''s something you can do! You''re already edging close to attaining the first tier of influence over the domain of dreams you dummy.] One of the "me''s" explained, the one who alternated between our realm and the mortal world, in an annoyed tone.


    It was true, the domain of dreams was the only new domain or sub-domain to initiate contact with me during my two months of adventuring but it annoyed me that he was so rude about it. It did make sense though, since the dream I created earlier in my life transformed so many thousands of people into my worshippers.


    [You''ve been using and abusing our realm, and you didn''t even have the decency to do it yourself! I''ll be as rude as I want if you keep insisting that I do your chores every time you need a new thing to experiment with.] The same voice exclaimed, evidently exasperated.


    [Fine, you''re right! I won''t make you do as much of my homework as I''ve been asking you to do. I promise.] I responded, now annoyed myself. I did have to stifle a mental chuckle when I heard the other me sigh in annoyance. This whole exchange only took a few moments.


    <hr>


    And finally, I was in the part of the deal I was excited to be in. The part where I discussed what I gained. I allowed the silence to build, and I put a pensive look on my face, before speaking.  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    "What I am gaining in exchange for this incredible exchange of services is, in my opinion, not all that much." I said, quite honestly. I had given her a lot already.


    "I am gaining your soul. Oh and true control of the city. You will be a proxy. You''ll be the leader of the city in name, and you''ll gain all of the fun perks that come with that, but I''ll be the true ruler of the city. Only your most close allies, and a few of my handpicked picks for your government, will know who I am. When I give you commands you''ll follow them to the letter, or you will be punished." I told her. I had no means or desire to hide this from her. It was part of enabling her to make a reasonable decision.


    She looked at me seriously and considered what I had just told her. It was clear that this wasn''t obviously a deal-breaker, because I could read her mind and though she was considering the consequences of saying yes she wasn''t determined to deny me outright.


    I let the silence build in size and impressiveness while she debated what to say.


    <hr>


    When Ayla finally opted to speak nearly a minute had passed. A minute in silence, wherein the desert giant seriously considered what to do and what to say.


    "Can you... give me an example of what sort of things you may ask me to do? Honestly, when I was younger and less patient I''d have never considered becoming a proxy ruler but centuries in a featureless cell have an impact on your pride." She confessed, possibly subconsciously moved by my constant decisions to be as honest as I could be. There was an anger in her voice, but also a quiet and humorless laugh.


    I closed my eyes and thought about it for a second. What would I have her do if she said yes? Obviously establish a temple to me, somewhere in the city but... what else? Should I say something drastic? Just to... test her limits? I thought, curious for a moment about what sort of off-the-wall thing I could tell her.


    I opened my eyes and looked at her. I studied her. I could tell that she had no illusions about me. She knew that I possessed incredible power and that I had opted to empower her for reasons she still didn''t fully understand. I could sense her confusion and a bit of skepticism that was still embedded in her heart. I should test this. I realized, amusedly. But... how? I wondered, briefly. And then a cruel grin etched itself on my face.


    "Well, first we''ll have a conversation about your dynasty. In order for you to prove your loyalty to me, I may pick your mate, the person who fathers the next in line to be Sultan of Namira." I told her. I looked at her and studied her facial reaction to what I had just told her. She was indifferent to it, not pleased but surprisingly nonplussed about the revelation I had just dropped on her. She was silent before she shrugged her shoulders.


    "That''s acceptable I suppose. You freed me, and you''re giving me what I''ve sought for my entire life. I can stomach a single unpleasant fuck and a few months of pregnancy if that''s part of the price I have to pay for my freedom and for an empire. Can you give me another few examples of what you may ask for?" She said, after a few moments of considerable contemplation.


    Surprisingly pragmatic. Not bad. I thought, pleased by her reaction. It rose my already high estimation of her a few notches higher.


    "I''ll ask you to establish a temple to me, but not right away. A few weeks after you rise to power I''ll send the city a dream, one you all see simultaneously and introduce myself to you all. After that, I''ll ''bless'' the city, and you and my allies will be publicly overwhelmed with emotion and build a temple to me." I informed her, unveiling my scheme for her to see. She nodded, accepting that as well.


    I suppose this is where I should push her to the limit huh? But it might be more fun to save that for later... I wondered, after seeing her accept a more risky condition and a fairly relaxed one.


    "I want to reestablish regular sacrifice to the gods. To the one god left. And the first sacrifice will be of someone of considerable value." I told her, giving her a second to consider who it might be, while I already had an idea of who to pick. "Ural Overforge, the overseer of the Onyx Obelisk." I told her, a wide grin on my face and my eyes alight with excitement.


    She froze for a second, shock covering her face. "Overforge... the warden of my prison." She said, a wild joy visible in her eyes as her rational mind was overtaken by that most dreadful foe of reason: hate. Her mind was suddenly filled with a violent bloodlust. And at that moment I knew I had her. She didn''t hesitate to say what she said next.


    "I know I''m making a deal where I''m at a disadvantage. But... this is the way, the one path, I have to gain what I''ve always wanted. For me to finally gain the power and respect I''ve always deserved." She muttered, her mind made up. She looked me in the eyes and spoke to me not as equals, but as someone whose ambition and pride had driven her to desperation, and who was accepting a deal that she knew would save her from the brink of despair.


    "Althos, I accept your deal. In exchange for my soul and my servitude, make me an empress whose empire extends beyond the land of the living and into the realm of dreams." She said, her voice solemn and powerful. I grinned at her, and I allowed my eyes to transform into the heterochromatic mess they were in my devilish form.


    "General Ayla Syah... in exchange for your soul and your servitude, I will make you into an empress unlike any seen by your ancestors. Into a one-of-a-kind leader. One who unites the giants of this desert into a single empire and whose empire stretches into the land of dreams." I told her, a huge grin on her face. We both received a surprising but pleasant notification at that moment.


    [New Devil''s Deal Alert:


    General Ayla Syah has sworn her soul and her servitude to Althos. In exchange for her soul and her servitude, Althos has promised to make her an empress of a desert giant empire that unites every desert giant on the second layer of Infernius, as well as an empire that is in both Infernius and the land of dreams. Both participants in the deal were fully conscious of what they were doing, and both participants agreed to this deal without any coercion.]


    I read through and then willed away the notification with a smile. And then immediately received another notification I found quite pleasant.


    [Quest Progress Alert:


    1/3 ambitious souls acquired.]


    Yes! Finally! I thought, pumped that after two months of adventuring I finally had one of the souls in my possession.


    And now, to prepare for what''s to come. I thought, already having a number of ways in mind to proceed from here.


    I smiled at Ayla, a smirk so powerful and pervasive that it was visible in my eyes, visible on my face. "And now... we begin to prepare." I told her, my eyes alight with delight at the day''s events.


    "But first... excuse me for a second. I''ll be here, but not really here." I said ominously, all while grinning at her. She rolled her eyes but didn''t interrupt me as I willed my mind out of my body and towards the first of the cultists I had gathered in my name.


    <hr>


    One of my desert giant cultists sat in his rather humble home. He was busy scrolling through pages in a heavily marked ledger when I had entered his mind. I hadn''t possessed him, I was just in his mind more actively than I always was.


    I looked over the book myself. I only looked for a moment, but thanks to Berk''s speed it was was long enough to notice something fairly pleasant. The ledger originally started off noting a consistent pattern of losses, losses which only intensified with time.


    Each page in the ledger contained the numbers related to trade on a weekly basis, and about nine weeks ago a change happened that was noticeable in the book. The numbers started to increase, rising higher and higher. It was small, but it was enough. I grinned at it, excited to notice that I had helped Berk, hence why he was so loyal to me and had been eager to form a cult dedicated to me, alongside his mother Zeynep.


    Oh good, that''ll help make this a lot easier. I thought, knowing that now there was a smaller chance with which they might seek to question me. Something I knew would be useful in persuading them to support a woman who had once led a nearly successful rebellion that almost took over the city.


    And then I whisked myself over to the next cultist in the city, hoping to learn about the likelihood that any of my cultists might try to deny my commands and thus potentially complicate the next few parts of the scheme.

 Chapter 114: A Self Check-Up

    I stared out at the desert wastes before me. It was beautiful, in an endless and expansive sort of way. And it made a perfect backdrop for a moment of introspection.


    This moment of peace and celebration, progress and victory is a good time for me to take stock of my current worshipers. I thought, wondering how the events over the last two months had changed the demographics of those who worship and serve me. And so I set about doing that.


    <hr>


    I dove into my mind and quickly made it to the mental lake I had spent a fair amount of time at. This was a place I liked to visit when I needed a break, or when I felt annoyed with the world around me. But this time I was all business. I, in my thought-form. strode over to the lake and politely greeted it.


    After a minute or so of exchanging pleasantries, I closed my eyes and opened my mouth. "I''m here today to check out the current demographics of my worshippers." I told the lake, confident and excited to see what sorts of creatures worshipped me.


    In the time since I had gotten the notification that the system was done processing my new worshipers and allocating their abilities to me, I hadn''t had time to sit down and actually sort through who all had come to my fold. I knew about many of my new powers, but not about the specifics of who worshipped me, even as far as their species went.


    I had a vague idea about the demographics of my various cults, but the system''s choice to delay informing me about shifts in the wake of the events in Undermoon had caused me to have blindspots. This was a chance to correct that.


    "Alright, give us a second... Okay, here it is." The lake responded, hesitating in the middle of its statement as it gathered the requested data from deep within my subconscious and the domains themselves. My eyes flashed as a textbox appeared in front of me, one that differed from the one I saw when I had last done something vaguely similar to this.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>Cult Or Coven Name:</td>


    <td>Description:</td>


    <td>Head Priest Or Priestess:</td>


    <td>Demographics:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>The Living Faith</td>


    <td>


    This is a general cult dedicated to you that is overseen by a council of dark-elven priestesses and a few proto-witches. They worship you as a deity of sacrifice, minds, and tyranny.


    Inhabitants of Undermoon who worship you generally and aren''t members of other cults are automatically considered members of this cult. They aren''t organized yet, because you''ve been doing other things. Can you organize these worshipers already? It''s weird that they aren''t organized.


    This cult''s central tenants revolve around sacrifice, minds, and tyranny.


    </td>


    <td>


    Htlol, a dark elven priestess who witnessed the actions of your death cult at the old temple to Morthos. She became a worshiper at that moment and was the head of the temple already so she became the head of this cult automatically.


    In the time since she converted to your worship, she has become an orderly cleric. Orderly clerics are clerics who serve deities of empires and tyranny and who seek to rigidly enforce the hierarchies of their gods.


    </td>


    <td>


    12,800 dark elves


    100 humans


    35 dwarves


    1 high-elf


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    "Don''t sass me!" I shouted at the lake, and less directly at the system itself, annoyed at the text in the box that was rightfully chiding me.


    "Fine! But seriously... organize your worshipers." The lake responded, smugly.


    I hissed in annoyance. "You aren''t wrong, but I''m at war!" I shouted, annoyed at the lack of concern for my current situation. The lake was silent, and I could imagine a number of valid responses that invalidated what I had just said and refocused on the textbox in agitated silence.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>Cult Or Coven Name:</td>


    <td>Description:</td>


    <td>Head Priest Or Priestess:</td>


    <td>Demographics:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>The Hand Of The Dark Lord</td>


    <td>


    These are Ranthor''s forces. They worship you as a lord of tyranny, warfare, and subjugation.


    This is an army and a cult. They can be considered your first crusaders. They are building an empire in your name.


    This is an especially useful cult for a number of creatures who are focused on power and strength. That includes but isn''t limited to orcs, goblins, ogres, Rust-Hags, werewolves, sharkfolks, and hobgoblins.


    </td>


    <td>


    Ranthor. Ranthor''s mind has long succumbed to your influence and it has driven him to fanaticism.


    The orc is determined to serve you as his lord and god. He doesn''t have many goals but one thing that drives him is the urge to unite all orcs under your banner.


    </td>


    <td>


    1 Rust-Hag.


    50 Goblins


    39 Orcs


    27 Ogres


    24 Humans


    8 Sobeks


    Assorted unawakened animals.


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>The Mirrored Forest</td>


    <td>


    This cult is also annoying independent and unorganized. You should probably correct that.


    This cult of the creatures are the ones who live in your realm. Specifically, the beings who live in the copy of the forest you sprang to life in.


    This cult worships you as their creator and as a lord of forests.


    </td>


    <td>


    Mother Root, one of the dryads we created shortly after creating your realm.


    Mother Root is a dryad and a druid. She is a powerful nature sorceress and she believes it''s because you personally blessed her.


    </td>


    <td>


    7 Dryads


    30 High Elves


    3 Satyrs


    3 Faun


    Assorted awakened and unawakened animals


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>Inhabitants Of The World Below</td>


    <td>


    This cult is one of very few to worship you as a lord of fungi. This is the cult of the mirrored version of the city of Undermoon.


    They worship you as a creator of life, the world they live in, coexistence and diplomacy, and as their protector thanks to the fungal folks who live in the tunnels surrounding the city.


    </td>


    <td>


    Angelica. The diplomacy angel you rescued explored the city, learned about your portfolios and took it upon herself to build an organized religion in your name.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    She is recognized by the fungal folks who surround the city as a saintess and is thus obeyed by them, which lends her credibility when she discusses being one of your servants.


    She teaches her followers to be charismatic, respectful to nature, and to use their words to resolve problems rather than their weapons.


    </td>


    <td>


    155 Humans


    45 Dwarves


    55 Dark Elves


    100 Fungal Folks


    1 Angel


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>The Order Of Whispers</td>


    <td>


    This is Hagitha''s death cult. It consists entirely of dark elves and the ghouls they''ve raised.


    This is a creepy cult. They are a secretive bunch who consist mostly but not entirely of older dark elven women who are willing to do anything to stave off death. They gleefully sacrifice other members of their race.


    Hagitha deceived the founding members of this cult into thinking that in exchange for sacrifices you might come down and bless these women to grant them eternal youth. Whether you decide to do that or not is up to you.


    Hagitha has been creatively coming up with rituals for members of this cult to follow. Some of her rituals include a weekly day of silence, a form of prayer that suggests that blood is a suitable offering to you and other strange things.


    Each of the ghouls animated by Hagitha has regained some semblance of intelligence but none of their memories.


    This cult worships you as a dread lord of necromancers, blood, undeath, and secrecy.


    </td>


    <td>


    Hagitha. Drow''s mother is the sadistic leader of this death-cult.


    The oracle and spell-singer is a charismatic speaker who knows how to play on the fears of her enemies and allies alike.


    She uses the things her cult members are afraid of to construct creative promises that her followers are likely to eat up.


    This cult is one of the few that is heavy with potential witches. It, alongside with the covens constructed by Milene and Qu''Ren are the only areas to have more than 3 proto-witches.


    </td>


    <td>


    25 Dark Elves


    12 Ghouls


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>The Order Of The Golden Sickle</td>


    <td>


    This is a cult of agriculture and greed. It is your first cult in Namira and consists of farming families throughout the city of Namira.


    These cultists worship you as a provider of wealth, stability, and of agricultural success.


    The membership of the Order Of The Golden Sickle are all farmers who were easily corrupted by greed. This brotherhood of farmers could easily be twisted into something more sinister.


    </td>


    <td>


    Menanam your arboreal angel leads this cult.


    Menanam''s primary goal is to subtly scout the city for farmers who could be convinced to join the Order.


    She uses her druidic abilities to explore the city stealthy, and carefully tests each potential recruit. As a result of this each member of the cult so far is deeply loyal to you.


    The angel has quickly and easily adapted to the nature powers she was given the moment she became a real creature. She is a druid now.


    </td>


    <td>


    1 Arboreal Angel


    11 Desert Giants


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>The Traditional Sisterhood</td>


    <td>


    Qu''Ren''s coven consists entirely of female dark-elves. This coven is an elitist order that is dedicated to preserving the status quo.


    These dark elven clerics and proto-witches are all noble or influential daughters, women, and matrons who seek to serve you in exchange for the power to secure their position at the top of a city and society that is rapidly changing.


    Only a handful of the women gathered here are young, most are in fact middle-aged dark elven women with children of their own.


    They revere you as a powerful magician and as a devil-lord of minds.


    </td>


    <td>


    Qu''ren. Qu''ren, one of your first worshipers, leads this small but elite coven of skilled, knowledgeable, and elite dark-elven nobles.


    She leads them in daily prayer and communion with the hopes that you will visit them and bestow them with true status as a witch or explicit recognition as a cleric.


    </td>


    <td>


    19 Dark Elves


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>The Order Of The New Age</td>


    <td>


    This is Milene''s progressive coven for younger leaders and ambitious movers and shakers throughout Undermoon.


    This coven is much larger than Qu''Ren''s, but in Dark Elven society there''s a reason the elites are elite. Elites are strong, and commoners are not.


    Milene''s coven consists of males and females, people of a number of classes, and they even welcome the lowest castes in society indiscriminately.


    They revere you as a shatterer of the old ways, and as a meritocratic overlord who judges people on talent and skill alone rather than discriminating against species or having a preference for a certain gender.


    </td>


    <td>


    Milene. The Dark Elven alchemist has taken to leading a coven quite easily and energetically.


    Milene holds communion daily, and one of the other yous, the mind you, sometimes responds both to Milene and other members of the coven.


    Milene has a charming personality and warm energy that enables her to disarm people and persuade them to come to a group communion. Often when they come they are so enthralled by the atmosphere and the drugs Milene uses as an alchemist to lure people to your worship that they become members.


    </td>


    <td>


    50 Dark Elves


    15 Humans


    1 Gnome


    2 Kobolds


    3 Goblins


    1 Dwarf


    1 Gnome


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>The Changed Circle</td>


    <td>


    This is an odd cult, one made up entirely of mutants.


    This order consisted of the first jackal-Kin and Driders you could make. You made them out of worshipers who had pledged themselves to you in secret while being part of families that had resisted worshiping you.


    They had willingly accepted the changes, gleefully reveling in them while fleeing their homes to live safely outside of Undermoon.


    They revere you as a lord of mutations, mutants, and flesh.


    </td>


    <td>


    Krivrivas. Krivrivas is a drider high-priest and is the son of one of the noble-families that has persisted in resisting your influence.


    He was one of the people who converted to your worship after participating in the capture of Aggathas.


    Krivrivas is intent on taking one of the driders in the cult as his bride and is preparing to pray to you for your agreement.


    </td>


    <td>


    10 Driders


    10 Jackal-Kin


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>The Cult Of The Sacred Spores</td>


    <td>


    This is the other cult that reveres you as a fungal lord. It''s also the only sex cult you have to date.


    This strange order reveres you as a lord of ecstasy, sex, spores, drugs, and masculinity.


    This cult is probably the most independent cult you have to date, but it came about as a result of its leader Rinor meeting with Milene and learning about you. Milene''s fawning description of you hung in his mind, but Rinor''s mind distorted what Milene said and concocted you as a paragon of masculinity and sexuality rather than as a meritocratic overlord.


    </td>


    <td>


    Rinor. Rinor, a male dark-elf you overheard one of the few times you visited Undermoon, leads this odd cult.


    Rinor has recruited addicts, druids, and all sorts of depraved figures to his cult. They live in the lascivious building he owns and they constantly indulge in their vices.


    Rinor''s devotion is sincere, but his vision of you is distorted and focused on two things: an understanding of you as a fungal lord, and as a devil. In his warped and lustful mind, the fusion of those two things naturally results in a vision of you he can worship.


    </td>


    <td>


    150 Dark Elves


    10 Humans


    3 Ogres


    11 Goblins


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>The Tyrant''s Temple</td>


    <td>


    This is the devilish cult dedicated to you as an archdevil.


    </td>


    <td>


    Tristan.


    Tristan the half-devil and priestess of the Order of the Dark Saint has become the head-priestess of The Tyrant''s Temple.


    She is a skilled priestess and a charismatic speaker. In the wake of the choice to cordon off half of the layer and line it with a long chain of forts, she has gained the freedom to leave the Dark Cathedral without fear.


    She has begun to reach out to assorted humanoids throughout the layer and preach the diabolical faith freely. Various humanoids have converted to the faith.


    </td>


    <td>


    The Devils Of Althos'' Rebellion


    25 Humans


    7 Harpies


    25 Jackaloids


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>The Way Of Nature</td>


    <td>


    This is the faith dedicated to you that Silander preaches and practices. It is a faith that began by erroneously overfocusing on awakening animals, though that practice has changed since.


    This faith reveres you as the lord of nature.


    </td>


    <td>


    Silander. The great-frog and your first familiar is the head-priestess of a faith dedicated to transforming animals into your worshipers.


    She works with Raverangos and other allies to capture animals, preach to them and makes a decision about whether or not to awaken them based on whether or not they would benefit Althos more as awakened creatures or as unawakened ones.


    </td>


    <td>


    Assorted awakened and unawakened animals.


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>The Cult Of Splendid Dreams</td>


    <td>


    This cult exists as a consequence of you experimenting with your dream powers to explore the dreams of the people of Undermoon and unintentionally affecting the minds of dark elves in the city''s asylum.


    This cult is located within the asylum within Undermoon and is led by its warden. They revere you as a lord of dreams, freedom, and insanity.


    </td>


    <td>


    Urgoth the Warden. Urgoth is a strange fellow in charge of an even stranger cult.


    </td>


    <td>


    45 Dark Elves


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    13 cults or covens, 13 leaders. I really should meet them and organize, shouldn''t I? I thought, before immediately getting a response from a voice I found annoying given the context. The system.


    [Yes. You should. Are you going too?] The system asked, clearly of the same mind as the lake on this issue. I sighed and knew that it was right.


    [Yes actually. Y''all are right. I am going to begin to do that right now actually.] I told it, accepting that it was right. And with that I teleported, whisking myself to the dark elven city of Undermoon.

 Chapter 115: Foyers And Magic

    I examined my surroundings with a grin on my face. A gentle breeze blew through my hair, blowing it back and cooling the temperature at the top of the Onyx Obelisk, a dungeon, and prison I had quietly controlled for over two months.


    The top of the obelisk was a gigantic, flat surface. It stretched for a massive distance, due to it having been made originally for giants. At the moment I wasn''t in my giant form, instead, I was in my devilish form. I floated just over a jet-black surface made of the same obsidian that the walls of the prison were made of.


    This place was still. There were no lifeforms up here, and the only things moving were the breeze and I. It was a nice, quiet place. And apparently this still spot was also the hiding place of a potent artifact, one that would allow me to receive an extremely potent power-up. That was why I was here. I began a concentrated search of my surroundings, eager to find what I came here for.


    <hr>


    While one of me was focused on retrieving the artifact that would boost our power immensely, another me, was elsewhere.


    I found myself standing a short distance away from a gigantic building in the city of Undermoon. This building housed one of my stranger cults, and my intense hearing coupled with the boost given to me by my new "Earth Control" ability picked up the assorted lurid noises that came from deep within it even from outside of it.


    I starred at the building owned by the bizarre cult-leader Rinor for a second more before I took my first steps towards it. It was situated at the center of an intersection within the city, and despite the building''s eerie reputation for drugs, sex, and worse, the street it was located on was a popular one.


    As I approached the building I noted the density of the crowd on the street. Dozens of dark elves and the unfortunate creatures they kept within the city, slaves, monsters, and a handful of dark extraplanars, wandered the area in front of the building. They walked to and from other buildings in the area, a large number of much smaller buildings than the one I was stepping towards, but they avoided going where I was going.


    I chuckled as I watched even a minotaur, a large cow-headed and thick-furred otherwise almost-human creature, take a look at the building and then sheepishly look away. The minotaur was a powerfully built being, one which wore armor and carried a gleaming battle-ax. But none of that mattered in the face of the reputation the building had with the people of Undermoon.


    None of this stopped me from walking closer and closer to the building. And after what felt like an eternity of walking and watching how others reacted to the building, I found myself in front of it. I was separated from its interior by one final obstacle: a simple door.


    <hr>


    A few moments of less than productive searching for the artifact led me to a simple conclusion: it was time to try magic, to find magic. Which was why I was currently speeding through my codex to find a spell that would help me identify magic with my eyes. Finding such a spell wasn''t difficult and unsurprisingly it came from the oracular school of magic.


    [Spell Type: Oracular


    Spell Name: Detect Magic


    Effect: Your vision is empowered and you are able to see strands and auras of magic. Even positive magic that only affects the caster is revealed to you in an aura of brilliant lights and mesmerizing colors that surrounds them.


    Cost: 500 magical energy per cast.]


    I chuckled at the paultry cost, and wordlessly cast the spell. I went blind for an instant, my vision vanishing while the magic synchronized with my vision and then reset my ability to see.


    Well, that was inconvenient. I thought, mildly annoyed by that. A second after my vision recovered and I began to see the faint outlines of distant magic, I rose a hand to the side of my head and evoked the same permanency magical effect that made Menanam a real person instead of just an illusion. And now to find this thing. I thought, greedily, focused on the artifact.


    <hr>


    I walked up to the door and then through the thing. "I don''t need to mind these sorts of obstacles." I told myself as I walked through the barrier that was keeping me out of the building and into a place that was technically my territory.


    Beyond the door, I was greeted by the sight of an empty foyer. It wasn''t a big or fancy one, but it was uninhabited. I looked around it for a few seconds, studying the sights that surrounded me. Some of them were odd and impressive in their own, foreign to me, sort of way.


    The thing that was the most noticeable was that at the center of the room whoever designed this place had placed a large statue as a sort of centerpiece. The statue was beautifully made, and composed of something rare in the world beneath the world: white, Carrara marble.


    The statue was a monument to lust. It was a gigantic carving depicting two elven forms, one male and one female, in the middle of vigorous lovemaking. The male was seated and an animalistic grin was etched on his face. The female was straddling him, a pleasured expression on her face. I looked at the thing, studying it for a moment, before taking a second to examine what else was in the foyer.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Another thing I noticed was a strange number of holes located in the walls of this foyer. Holes lined the walls of this place, thick, circular things perfect for exchanging written messages, dropping off a blade, or a number of other uses.


    The number of them suggested they were intentional and used for something that truly everyone in this community must have needed. Or wanted. I wonder what these holes are for... I mused, curiously and innocently.


    After that I went ahead and dove ahead into the first inhabited chamber of the building. A gigantic one where countless dark elves and an assortment of non-elven partners were having audible, and intense sex.


    <hr>


    With my vision enhanced by the ability to see magic, searching the obelisk was made far easier. This was evidenced by the fact that a cursory search of my surroundings revealed a faint red string floating in the air, not far from me that grew thicker in the direction of the other end of the flat ceiling of the obelisk. I grinned and began to follow the string, knowing that it''d lead me to where I was intending to go.


    A short float led me to the other side of the ceiling. And to the source of the strange red string that I was hoping to follow to my destination.


    The string grew thicker and thicker until it dove into the ground of the obelisk''s roof. I looked at it, and quickly inspected the area where the string dove into the ground. Nothing there stood out to me, so I quietly activated the conscious part of the earth control power, the part of it that enabled me to move earth, stone, and soil at will.


    Get out of my way. I thought, excited to be so close to the strange artifact that should grant me immense power. And then nothing happened. I could feel my face drop, as I realized that the obsidian that made up the ceiling must not have been something that the lowest tier of earth control would work on, presumably because it was considered metal.


    "Fine. Have it your way." I huffed, making my hand incorporeal and thrusting it into the floor where the red string had plunged into the ground. Unsurprisingly I almost immediately grabbed ahold of something, a shield, just beneath the stone I was on top of and pulled my hand back out of the ground.


    <hr>


    The room I just entered was a gigantic one and the minute I entered it I was almost overwhelmed. The room was filled with incredibly potent sexual desires, not just in a physical and apparent sense but also as a sort of residue that tainted the place in energy that I could detect thanks to the domains and subdomains I could exert influence over. One such subdomain was especially delighted by this place''s emotional footprint.


    [This place is... delightful.] A new voice, one I had never heard before, whispered into my mind. I knew who it was, through intuition and common-sense, but I hadn''t ever heard the voice of the subdomain of corruption before.


    [Do you think so?] I asked it, respectfully and genuinely curiously. The subdomain fell quiet while it formulated a response to my question.


    [Oh yes... there''s an incredible amount of lust in here. All sorts of people who want nothing more than to fuck and be fucked. A perfect place for me.] The voice told me, lust dripping from each word it uttered.


    At this point, I took my first real look at this place for the sake of familiarizing myself with my surroundings. It was during this time that I realized that this was probably a gigantic ballroom. A place intended for dance and not for unholy pleasures.


    The debased ballroom was packed with people, all of whom were lustfully entertaining themselves. They moaned and groaned loudly, their pleasure-filled screams resounding loudly throughout the room, its acoustics probably designed for a live concrete, but not this kind.


    I used this chance to idly examine the significant number of creatures, looking to find the one named Rinor.


    <hr>


    When my hand was out of the ground, I was able to lay my eyes on the object I had just pulled free. I was holding a shield, one that radiated mystical energy, in my hand. I grinned at the object in my hand, while thoroughly analyzing it.


    It was a shield that was roughly the same color as the floor it had been placed in. It was roughly 40 centimeters tall and wide, and it was made of carefully worked obsidian. It was a solid shield, clearly one capable of handling real blows, and there was a part of me that was tempted to take it and use it in combat. I chuckled at the image of myself as a sword and shield using type, knowing that that wasn''t me.


    After my amused reaction at that mental image, I quietly used my appraisal ability on the shield.


    [New Item Knowledge Notification: The Bunker Shield


    The Bunker Shield is an artifact that is used as the focus of a massive barrier that stretches entire kilometers in every direction.


    This ancient artifact was created as part of a deal that was struck between an ancient archdevil and the founders of Namira, in the unimaginably distant past. It uses potent soul-energy to maintain a mighty barrier that feeds plants and maintains the environment within its reaches.


    This artifact is the pinnacle of abjuration magic, and even being in its presence and examining its structure is enough for people to become more skilled abjuration magicians. It can create and maintain a barrier of immense, mythic proportions by using idle energy that is contained in nearly every living being.


    Being in the presence of this artifact is making you a stronger caster of defensive, abjuration magic. The shield radiates a distinct, powerful, and lively energy.]


    When I finished reading the notification I willed it away with a simple smile on my face. I refocused my vision on the legendary artifact in front of me and allowed my mind to reach out to the thing. It was radiating energy, almost as if it were alive somehow, so I decided to try and find out if it was. In my life, weirder things than an artifact being alive had happened so I didn''t close my mind to the possibility that I was right.


    Am I gonna be able to do this? I wondered as I tried a skill I often used on living creatures on the shield: I carefully opened my mind and began to build thin lines that could, in theory, allow the shield and I to mentally communicate. I closed my eyes, as if doing so would help me hear mental voices better, and waited to see if this would work.


    I received an answer to that question at the same time as I received a notification.

 Chapter 116: Barriers, Benefits, And Backsides (Mild NSFW Warning)

    I grinned as I read over the large notification that appeared to me, demanding my attention and revealing to me the massive rewards a lifetime of work, albeit a short lifetime, was deemed deserving of by the system and by the arcane domain of magic.


    [Domain-Centric Alert:


    The domain of magic has granted you the first tier of influence over itself. The acquisition of the first tier of influence over magic is a reward for beginning the lengthy process of gaining the sort of mastery over magic that only gods can possess. The journey to truly master magic and to become an overgod of magic is a long one and it has only ever been completed by a single deity in the past.]


    At this point, I stopped reading for a second and allowed my curiosity to flourish. One god became an overgod of magic in the past? And they still vanished? What sort of event must have happened to take out someone as powerful as an overgod of magic? At some point in the near future, once this war is resolved, I need to begin to seriously research whatever happened before me. And then I continued to read the notification.


    [Magic is one of the greater domains. These are domains that stand head and foot above other domains. Some other examples of greater domains include the domains of fate, time, physics, reality, and stars. Overgods of these domains would have been able to stand being opposed by numerous other deities unless one of their foes was also an overgod of a greater domain.


    The first tier of influence over magic grants you a few different divine powers but the one that historically was the most useful for new gods was one that allowed them to reach out and snuff out someone else''s, provided they were not gods, magical abilities for an hour. This is a power you can use twice every twelve hours.


    Another power it grants, an idle one this time, is in conjunction with the mind, knowledge, and soul domains. When you use your identify power, you can now see two new things: whether or not someone is innately magical, and the school of magic that most resonates with their soul.


    This idle power brings with it an active power. The power to grant people access to magic and spells without granting them a class. This gives them access to the ten most basic spells in the school. This can be done temporarily, or permanently depending on your whims. This power, like your other ones, can be done twice every twelve hours.


    If you grant someone who doesn''t already have it, access to the school of magic that resonates with their soul they can more naturally adapt to it and their spells are more powerful due to their inborn connection to that school of magic. This power can be greatly amplified on an individual level once you begin to gain mastery over the subdomains of the twenty magical schools.


    The domain of magic is one of the domains that grants those who can exert influence over it the ability to grant classes to people. In your case you can grant someone the classes of druid and sorcerer. You lack the needed types of followers to grant someone the spell-singer class, and the magician class as well as other magic-centered classes. But that''ll change. Eventually.


    Mutations, be they major or minor ones, now at your disposal are all related to magic. Your minor mutations can increase the magical energy of your worshipers, increase their resistance to magic, and can confer a number of magical effects upon them as permanent buffs. A nice reward for this tier of influence over the domain of magic is the ability to mutate a creature who isn''t a worshipper of yours, but only once a week.


    You can now modify living creatures with magic and transform them without spells but through raw divine power into other sorts of beings. This isn''t a power, it''s a process. Greater domains often grant little things like this, because the quests to gain influence over them tend to be slogs that take very long times to get through.


    The magic domain has five tiers of influence. Its subdomains and related domains the twenty schools of magic that exist, have ten tiers of influence before a deity becomes an overgod of theirs. The first three tiers of influence over magic have similar quests in order to ascend to the next tier of influence.


    Currently, you have some relationship with three of the schools of magic; healing, mind, and necromancy. Over the course of the next few days you will be given the quests needed to advance along the tiers of influence of the other schools of magic you have some knowledge of. Congratulations.


    New Magic Knowledge Gained: Abjuration


    Abjuration is a school of magic that revolves around defensive spells. Abjurers are advanced mages who can create barriers and seals, whose magical knowledge grants the power to protect communities and their friends. This school of magic revolves around complex barriers, mighty wards, and army-stopping seals.


    Masters of abjuration magic stop empires in their tracks, they obstruct rampaging armies, and they separate hated foes with walls of force, by creating barriers and strengthening walls.


    Spells known prior to now: 5. Wall of force, basic barrier, shield, ward, resistance against the elements.


    New spells granted: 105.


    You can now more properly create barriers, defend your borders, and more.]


    A smirk was still etched on my face after reading and willing away the lengthy notification I had just received. That was when I heard a new voice enter my mind.


    [Well well well... someone reaching out to me? What a pleasant surprise.] A warm, masculine voice said to me, mere moments after I began to weave a mental connection with the artifact that I now held.


    [So it worked... and that means that you''re a sentient artifact aren''t you?] I responded, allowing curiosity to add a certain layer of excitement to my mental voice. I visually examined the shield, curious to see if it were emitting some sort of light or another sign of activity in response to the connection I had established between it and I.


    The bunker shield was a solid thing. It wasn''t the hugest shield in the world but it was clearly the product of skilled hands and expert craftsmanship. It also wasn''t glowing or radiating any particular energy aside from the solid aura of abjuration energy that led me to it in the first place.


    [Yes I am. I''m an ancient thing, you see. Do you know a lot about magical items?] It asked, curiosity coloring its own mental voice. I grinned at the shield and responded to its question.


    [I know a fair deal. I am not an ancient being you see, but I am a creature who can make copies of the memories, the knowledge, and the secrets of others, and in doing so absorb it into myself. Because of that I have plenty of knowledge that comes from other people, including about magic items.] I told the shield. It was silent for a few moments, presumably while it considered how to respond to what it just learned.


    I continued my visual exploration of the shield as the silence filled the air between it and I. As I focused on the shield, something new happened. The air around the shield began to faintly glow a dim shade of red. A shade of red that grew more solid and vibrant each passing second Oh? That''s neat. I thought, grinning.


    I looked at the aura and focused on it for a moment. And was surprised to receive a notification.


    [Alert: What you are studying is an aura of abjuration magic. Magical auras each have distinct colors that allow you to identify them.] And then I received a message from the shield.


    [Your knowledge is second-hand... how do you it to be trustworthy?] The thing asked. For a second I was silent, physically and mentally, while I considered the question. It was a fair question.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    [The knowledge I possess is the result of thousands of years of research and scholarly analysis. It isn''t gossip, nor is it fanciful tall tales. That said, since we just met your skepticism makes sense. You are the first magic-item I''ve come across directly. I''d like to learn from you. But let me ask you, what would you like? I know being here for a long time, possibly thousands of years, must take a sort of toll on you.] I asked.


    I heard a gentle laugh, followed immediately by an appreciative sigh. And then the thing fell silent as it began to think.


    <hr>


    I was at the edge of the gigantic chamber, and it was still a vivid, deeply sensory experience to be even far away from so many bodies when those bodies were engaged in exhausting looking fucking. I began to saunter over to where the majority of the elves were, gathered in an impressive-looking crowd of fornicating individuals. My saunter was quickly interrupted by two nearly simultaneous events.


    I felt a sudden surge of power, and my eyes ceased working for a single instant. The sudden surge of power was due to the effects of the magic domain awarding me the first tier of influence over itself, something a notification I received confirmed. And when my eyes began working again I could see faint auras clinging to some of the dark elves who busied themselves pleasuring each other.


    How odd...I thought, before chalking it up to the activities of another "me", and sent a message to the duo of other me''s running around to confirm what I suspected was the case. I was greeted by silence as I continued my casual stroll towards the crowd of sexually active dark-elves, unnoticed by any of them due to their intense focus on each other.


    They are... attentive lovers if nothing else. I thought, idly. I hoped that the intense focus the numerous elves had on their sex was due to a desire to be generous and not for a more selfish reason. Their moans provided an almost musical backdrop as I walked towards the part of the chamber where most of them were massed together in a more crowded clump of bodies.


    The first dark elves to notice me were a couple who were having a go at each other, standing up. They were outside of the gigantic pile of hedonistic elves and stood alone. Coincidentally their position made them look as if they were sentries to tasked with guarding against intruders who may try to disrupt the pleasure their peers were having.


    One of them was a man, who was totally naked, and the other was a woman who was nearly nude. The only covering she had on were stockings that covered her feet and went up to her ankles. They had very similar skin-tones, and their bodies were more purplish than black.


    They were facing my direction so it wasn''t surprising that they noticed me. I smiled politely at them, not caring to interrupt their fucking. The woman was bent over, her hands on the floor and her face flushed with pleasure. The man had placed his hands on her rear and even though he had focused on me after noticing me he was still vigorously plowing her, his hips grinding into her rhythmically.


    They immediately focused on me, and in doing so caused me to focus good-naturedly on them as well. I stopped my stroll so that I could be seen as more polite and so we could size each other up.


    The man''s gaze was sharp, even as he thrust into the woman he was on top of, he kept an impressively neutral expression on his face. I studied him, knowing that he wasn''t Rinor, but still impressed by his ability to focus in this strange place with its fixation on pleasure. His eyes locked with mine and I made the choice to be still, calm, and exhibit only minute reactions to him and his partner.


    After a few seconds he must have deemed me uninteresting, or recognized that I was uninterested in him and his partner because he turned his gaze on her naked back and focused on fully savoring the curves of her body.


    In fairness to her, she had a slender back that ended with wide hips and the sort of ass that sexual beings would enjoy playing with, as evidenced by her partner''s decision to focus on her. I could understand him, even if I wasn''t a sexual being myself.


    The woman wasn''t lost in a daze either. Even though she quietly moaned and her body rocked back and forth by the force of her current partner''s member, she also studied me. Her gaze was focused on my muscles, studying them and no doubt curious about how they''d feel on top of her. After a few seconds of the elf examining me in a focused manner, she lost interest and closed her eyes to more intensely enjoy her current partner.


    I chuckled and continued on my way.


    <hr>


    The entire chamber served as a sort of cheap temple to lust. The walls themselves were made of white marble, filling the chamber with an unusual amount of light for the elves, as if they were aroused by the idea that anything with sight should be able to see them.


    The light walls contrasted sharply with the dark skin tones of the dark elves, who were the majority of the chamber''s inhabitants. Because of this someone''s vision was automatically drawn to the dozens of dark elves, with their dusky skin tones seemingly rejecting the pale light of the chamber.


    The odd scent of the chamber also grew more intense the closer one got to the senseless pile of lust-crazed and drugged elves. It was a thick stench, the smell of drugs, sweat, and all sorts of bodily fluids, mixing together in ways that made the scent difficult to pin down descriptively.


    I knew the closer I got to the smell, the more it''d linger in my memories.This scent isn''t unpleasant... it''s more that it''s... unlike anything I''ve ever smelled. I thought to myself.


    And that was when I reached the edge of the massive pile of dark elves.


    <hr>


    The center of the chamber was a place where dozens of elves were lazily enjoying themselves and each other.


    Some of the elves were partnerless and were quietly panting as they ran their hands over or into their own naked bodies. Others had partners and busied themselves with them. Some had chosen to take on several partners and arranged themselves into different, complex shapes where the edges were made up of rutting elves who panted, shouted or whispered obscenities.


    This pile of bodies was several layers thick, though the bottom layer wasn''t made of semiconscious elves who enjoyed being sat on or smothered, but rather of thick cushions designed to provide a comfortable place to sleep. That said, elven energy wasn''t unlimited and so some elves were unconscious. They were left alone, their forms disregarded by their peers.


    The elves here were covered in smelly and colorful liquids, some of which was sweat, some of which was oil, and most of which were other liquids which had a number of uses that in many cultures wouldn''t include being plastered on someone''s face, their backs, stomachs, and other body parts.


    I spent a moment tracking down the dark elf I came here in search of. My enhanced tremorsense made it a breeze to find the specific individual I was intent on finding. I had spent nothing more than a second actually unsure of his location. And after identifying him I immediately turned my gaze onto him.


    In the heartbeat I spent waiting for the tremorsense power to inform me of Rinor''s location I was noticed by some of the elves. They studied me, as best as they could, but their analyses must have accurately told them I didn''t care to stop their pleasure because none of them cared to look at me for any longer than a few seconds since I demonstrated no interest in ceasing their orgy.


    The head of one of the organic cults to devote itself to an unusual vision of my power and glory was seated at the center of this pile of distracting bodies. He wasn''t alone either. Two dark elves, one male and one female were next to him, completely helpless to his will.


    Their heads were in a difficult spot for me to see because the pair of dark elves laid down and their dexterous tongues were wrapped around his member, orally wrestling with each other to better pleasure the man they were entertaining.


    I couldn''t see them, but I could sense the lazy pleasure Rinor felt while the two elves under his sway competed with each other. His gaze wasn''t straight ahead, instead, it was on the head of the male dark elf, on whom his eyes fell somewhat lovingly. He gently ran a finger through that elf''s alabaster white hair.


    I walked up to the very edge of the pile and spoke.


    "Rinor, I am Althos." I informed the elf, hoping to be heard over the pleasured sounds of the gathered cult. My declaration to Rinor served the additional purpose of also informing the dark elves he had managed to sway into his cult that the god they worshipped was here. I was loud, intending to be heard over the wet noises and various thumping sounds I could hear in this part of the chamber.


    It took Rinor a second to react to my declaration. And when he first did, it wasn''t by speaking to me or getting his servants off of his penis so that he could greet me. It was with a glance.


    His gaze turned from the dark elf whose hair he stroked to me. And at first, his gaze was more curious than anything else. Until he recognized me.


    When he first recognized me his eyes opened wide as if he were having a delayed reaction to the news that the god he worshipped was suddenly in front of him. He was quiet, but his body wasn''t. He began to shake slightly, and I could hear the blood flow to both his member and his face as he beheld me.


    "You... I know you." He stammered, a shocked look suddenly appearing on his face. I smirked at him, confidence surging into my cheeks and my eyes.


    "Well... I don''t ''know'' you, but I recognize you." He told me, shock and excitement sneaking into his voice. I nodded at him.


    "You saw me once. Near the marketplace. I was with Qu''Ren." I told him, aware of the first time he had ever seen me. I could hear his heart hammering in his chest and it made my smirk grow wider.


    "And now I''m here. In front of you." I said simply, feeling a moment of godly pride. I began to walk towards him, stepping into the area claimed by the elves. Some of them had turned their attention away from temporary pleasures, to behold the form I had chosen to use to approach them, and I could tell that my presence was having a sobering effect on them.


    Each step I took into the pile and towards Rinor caused more and more of them to gaze at me. And the more of them that looked at me the more of them at least temporarily lost interest in their momentary and often all too fleeting physical delights.


    This is a nice feeling.I thought to myself as sensations of awe and worship began to radiate out of them and seep into my form.


    It only took me a quarter of a minute to reach Rinor and stand over him, gazing down at him with what I hoped would be interpreted as a neutral expression. Both of the elves who had busied themselves pleasuring him stopped and gazed upwards at me, their eyes unfocused but clearly awed as they took in the eerie radiance of my dark elven form.


    "It''s nice to meet you Rinor. I came here to speak to you." I revealed, an ever-widening smirk plastered on my face as he sat, speechless before me.

 Chapter 117: Abilities, Witches, And Kisses

    How should I proceed? I wondered, with a confident smile on my face, in the wake of introducing myself to one of the stranger cultists who has devoted himself to me in the wake of a series of events in the city of Undermoon. The aforementioned cultist knelt before me, having taken the submissive pose after realizing who I was.


    I stared at him for a moment, studying his suddenly submissive position. He was so haughty before. I wonder if the other meetings I''m gonna have are gonna be like this... I thought, curious about what the future would be like since many of the leaders of the cults I was going to go and meet were not individuals I had met before.


    It won''t be boring that''s for sure. I thought, causing a soft chuckle to escape my lips. And then I refocused on the matter at hand.


    Before me knelt Rinor, one of the dark elves who hadn''t met me yet became a convert to my worship. There were a lot of dark elves like him, worshipers of mine I hadn''t met face to face, but not many went on to form their own unique cults.


    Rinor''s vision of myself and the nature of my divinity was centered around sex, sexuality, and pleasure. He and the cultists who had joined his cult, the "Cult Of The Sacred Spore" were debauched individuals that reveled in the pleasures of the flesh and sought to indulge in them. This wasn''t hyperbole either, moments ago these cultists had been wallowing in a massive orgy.


    I examined my surroundings with an exploratory eye. Every dark elf in the room had their eyes glued to me, and they gazed at me with awe, and in more than a few cases, their stares also revealed obvious lust. Their naked forms revealed their arousal as readily as their gazes did. I suppose I can have fun with this. I thought, after thinking for a few seconds about the possibility of turning this cult into a tool.


    But I need to talk to some domains. I realized, with a mental smile. I turned inward to ask a few friends about how to proceed.


    <hr>


    In my mind, I retreated to that odd place where domains and subdomains lurked and laired. I wasn''t alone there, even though whenever I first appeared there I always felt alone, even if it was only momentary.


    [Corruption, deception, I need some advice!] I shouted calling out to two of the voices and sources of power that dwelt within me. Existing as a god apparently involves a lot of tenants taking up space in your mind. I realized, with a mildly annoyed mental expression. And at that moment the first of the two responded to me.


    [Why hello there, primary will. You need some help? Some... advice? That''s intriguing.] Deception, one of the powers with a rough voice, asked. I could hear the edge of excitement in its voice.


    I chuckled. And then corruption chimed in, no doubt watching what was going on with open excitement. [You need help, in this deliciously corrupt place? Oh, boy, what can I do to aid you?] It asked, its voice dripping with enthusiasm.


    [I''m glad the two of you are so excited to help me. You see I came here to meet the cults that have sprung up in my absence and to organize them. I want to organize them into things that aren''t just spreading the worship of me but actually benefit me in concrete ways. I figured this was a good chance to work with appropriate domains and work to gain influence.] I explained.


    [So trickery, what do you want me to do to be granted the first tier of influence over you? And corruption, how can I advance to the point where you grant me the second tier of influence over you?] I asked, directly stating what I wanted. Corruption was the first one to answer, presumably due to its excitement.


    [This is delicious. I''ll do this for you since you''re giving me so much fun.] The thing said, shortly before I received a handy notification.


    [New Quest Alert: Giving Into Corruption


    Objective: Either directly or indirectly lead 10,000 people into corruption. If someone was directly led into corruption that means you persuaded them to give into a vice. People who were indirectly led into corruption were individuals who were led by your worshipers to give into a vice.


    Reward: Completion of this quest, which is also a tiered quest like the quest to gain influence over the subdomain of necromancy, grants the second tier of influence over the subdomain of corruption.


    Note: The subdomain of corruption is one of the only subdomains where each tier of influence beyond the first tier asks the deity gaining the tier to select something. In corruption''s case, the subdomain will ask you to select one of the seven vices. Once you make your choice you''ll gain incredible power over that vice in particular. You will gain powers related to that specific vice, and all of your corruption powers will increase in potency.]


    Oh wow, very direct. I thought, smiling inwardly. And there''s a clear choice for first pick here. Lust. Lust doesn''t encourage lawbreaking or the destruction of knowledge, it can result in the creation of more members of my empire, and I can imagine it can be used to placate discontent. I thought, drawing on the knowledge and memories swimming through my mind, as well as my desire to build an empire and gain more knowledge. That was when the trickery domain interrupted my thoughts with its own.


    [Personally, my favorite thing you''ve done to date was when you appeared in the jackaloid tribe and converted them into your worshipers instantly by transforming their memories and making them believe they were always worshipers of you. That''s the sort of shit I live for. If you do that to another group of people, say a noble family, I''ll grant you the first tier of influence over me.] It told me.


    [I can do that.] I told it, a smile on my thought-form. And then I refocused on what was going on in the real world. And upon refocusing on the mortal world I immediately reached out and covered the ground around me in the potent blue vapor that weakened the ability of mortals and other beings to resist me.


    <hr>


    "My children... I am mildly disappointed in you." I told them, my voice neutral. I need to work on my lying. I thought, disappointed by my own lackluster attempt at deception. Nevertheless, my words caused a few of the elves to blanch, blood rushing out of their faces and flowing elsewhere. I hid my grin, even though noticing their reactions did make me want to smile.


    Before I speak again... let me find a skill that could help me pull off this deception. I thought, before executing a series of quick, invisible actions. I started off by opening up my religion menu, tapping on the section that informed me about my worshipers, and finally, I finished this sequence by tapping on an icon that mirrored the codex icon in my ordinary HUD.


    Good. Now I can find a skill that makes me more persuasive... I thought, hurriedly. What I wanted was simple: I wanted to use a skill that would aid my ability to be deceptive. That way I could convince all of the dark elves here that I was disappointed in them and that they''d work harder to do the sinful acts I was perhaps a few sentences from trying to persuade them to do.


    Mining... blacksmithing... iron fists... craft jewelry... advanced tailoring... the plague of the dead... I realized now more than ever that the number of skills at my disposal was truly phenomenal. Having tens of thousands of worshipers across dozens of species, and gaining their skills the minute they start to worship you quickly leads to you gaining a startling diversity of powers. I remarked mentally, a wry grin on my mental face. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    It took me several seconds to find the first thing that was applicable to my situation, and it wasn''t even a skill. It was a feat. I tapped it, indicating to the system that I was adding its benefits to myself, and smiled as I felt its powers wash over me.


    [Alert:


    As a god with a cult with a total number of worshipers above a certain number, you can use the powers and abilities of your worshipers. You can even use their feats. But for now, you can''t use their feats permanently. So for now, the demagogue feat you''re using will be active for an hour and then deactivated. Once you gain a million worshipers you can use any and all of the feats of your followers as long as you wish.


    New Feat Borrowed: Demagogue


    Benefit: Attempts to deceive a crowd of people into performing evil, sinful, or corrupt acts, are naturally more persuasive coming out of your lips. This feat greatly increases the likelihood that a crowd of people will be convinced to behave sinfully, violently, or in otherwise negative ways so long as you are the one making the argument.


    Method of Acquisition: Use the promise of violence against perceived enemies to earn an elected position.]


    I read over the benefit of the feat once and then once again, before willing the whole textbox away. And then I opened my mouth, with a smile at the edge of my lips.


    "I am disappointed in you because you have been selfish." I said, ending my sentence with an emphasis on the word "selfish". As I spoke I realized this would also serve as a test to see how thoroughly the dark elves here were indoctrinated and addicted to the pleasure surging through them since I was preaching a utopian vision of the world to a species generally known for cruelty and viciousness.


    "You see, you have received truly blessed teachings about me from your leader, my valued servant Rinor and you haven''t shared it with your fellow dark elves." I said, with a touch of sorrow in my voice. Upon hearing this statement some of the dark elves felt heartbroken, due to both the power of the feat and the power of my familiar vapor. I took advantage of the existing conversational momentum and kept talking.


    "I would have thought creatures who were blessed enough to hear this message of joy, would want to spread it to their peers. After all, a world of pleasure, hazy consciousness, and unity is a euphoric one, isn''t it?" I asked, feigning confusion and even a touch of sadness. Some of the dark elves muttered words of concern to their neighbors, worried that I was distraught about all of this. Their concern was cute.


    "Oh children, don''t despair. I am not distraught anymore. I know now what I must do, what I needed to do. I needed to come here and converse with you. To reveal the purpose of the teachings I imparted to Rinor directly, and to share them with you myself." I told them, confidence surging into my voice as I began to subtly change my form into something more primal and more fungal.


    "This world is filled with despair and hatred. Suffering and sorrow. But it doesn''t have to be. I want to create happiness. And I have a plan to do that." I falsely confessed, as my dark elven form began to stretch and change, becoming something taller and more alien than before, with dark green skin and eyes the color of fireflies.


    My worshipers were eating out of the palm of my hand, ready to hear my made-up plan. "I want to absorb all of the minds in the world and create one world-spanning hive-mind. This hive-mind would bring together the entire world and usher in a new age of joy, pleasure, and unity. In this world no one starves, no one suffers without their consent, and upon death people join me as fungal beings or, if they consent to it, serve the world as undead beings." I explained, as my form continued its transformation.


    I had gone from being a strange hybrid of a dark-elf and plant-being, into a more solidly fungal form. The main mass of my body was made of dark-green vines and roots, while my face was vaguely humanoid but lacked features like a mouth, nose, or hair.


    I took a second to gather divine energy within my shifting form and to push it towards my throat. I allowed my throat to absorb the power, having done this once before to prevent Paimon from attacking me. I now hoped that this would empower what I said next, and evoke powerful imagery in the minds of my servants.


    "Imagine, children, a world where the people enjoying what you spent the last few days experiencing weren''t just the people in this room. Imagine the sort of delights you could experience if everyone were free to indulge their lusts. I am promising you that joyous world. A world of true, sensual freedom." I told the sex-crazed addicts, joy and hypnotic power radiating out of my eyes and dripping from my words.


    I took a moment to make eye contact with each of the dark elves present in the chamber. Their expressions slackened when I caught their gaze in mine, and I sensed them becoming putty in my hands. That''s it. Surrender. I thought, grinning.


    "I promise you, my dear children, that you will get to experience more bliss. But I need you. I need your help to spread my message. To bring others into our delirious fold." I pretended to confess, acting as if they were truly necessary and not just people who could make my ultimate goals easier to achieve. The dark elves looked at each other, confusion and doubt in their gazes. I sighed.


    "You are important. You matter. You are among the first of my worshipers to hear the truth. You, along with the Order of Whispers are the only two organizations to hear the full truth." I told them, hoping to inflate their egos.


    "Children, I am going to give you the power to bring your friends and families into my embrace." I told them, while charging my powers with divine energy.


    "Your friends and families want to join the fold. They just don''t know yet. So I have something that will help. My spores. Take this gift from me, your lord, and use it to bring your loved ones here and into my arms." I whispered, feeling their minds give into my sinister influence and the mind-numbing power of the vapor.


    "My spores, when ingested by them, absorbed by their bodies, will expose them to the same joy you feel. They will know my kiss, and crave my touch. And yours as well. They will seek the rapturous joy you feel here, when you are in each other''s arms." I said, promising to expose the families and friends of this odd church''s membership to the lusty sensations that have driven this congregation into isolation.


    This was the moment I activated the power I had charged earlier. Underneath me, the ground began to vibrate slightly. Had they been more alert and less sex-crazed they would have reacted to the sudden vibration of the earth at their feet, but they weren''t which was probably for the best.


    I rose into the air atop a massive pillar that emerged from the ground underneath me. The pillar rose until it was about 7 meters tall, and at the base of the thing was a small growth in the shape of a basin. This basin contained spores, my spores. I jumped off the pillar''s peak and landed on the ground below after a short fall that lasted only a handful of moments.


    "Children... all it takes to bring someone to me, to your true family, is to have them ingest a single spore." I told the gathered dark elves as I gestured to the basin. They excitedly rushed towards it, curious to see what my spores looked like.


    I chuckled as they approached, and made a mental note to revisit this place in the very near future. But for now I wanted to visit someone else. A familiar face. As I readied my teleportation power, I once again transformed myself so that once more I had the appearance of a strapping young dark elf.


    "Children... remember your true mission. Bring people to this place. To me. I know you want to make me happy. I know you want to spread the joy you feel. Do it. Go forth and expose others to me. To yourselves. Become evangelists and fulfill your destiny." I told them, passionately, as one final remark before departing from this place.


    As dark elves got closer and closer, I wrapped my teleportation powers around myself and vanished, heading towards a familiar place and a familiar face: the private chamber of Qu''Ren.


    <hr>


    This time I wasn''t trying to be stealthy. I teleported into Qu''Ren''s chambers, laid eyes on the dark elf who was in the process of dressing herself and proudly announced that I was here. "Hello Qu''Ren, it''s time!" I told her, loudly and singsongy.


    She looked at me nonchalantly and questioned me. "What is it time for, Althos?" She asked, curious about what I meant. I grinned at her.


    "Qu''Ren... you''ve been a faithful servant of mine for months. It''s time I use my power to strengthen you once again. Except that this time I''m going to greatly increase your power, not just give you a taste of power. You''re going to get the real thing." I declared, pride slipping into my voice. She froze, clearly shocked by this abrupt declaration.


    "I''m going to make you a true witch of mine. The first of my witches." I told her, crossing my arms smugly and looking at her, all while radiating self-confidence. Her response was stunned silence, but it was quiet enough for me to hear her heart hammer in her chest as if to indicate shock and joy at what I had just told her.


    I closed my eyes and began to explore my HUD, so that I could do this quickly and so that we could celebrate.

 Chapter 118: Power

    One of the strangest things about godhood is that darkness isn''t blinding.I thought, idly. One of the first things I learned about mortals after committing myself to studying their memories was that they spent a lot of time in the dark.


    Heh, mortals are often metaphorically in the dark, and they are often literally in the dark as well. Because they blink so much. Sometimes, my own thoughts amused me, I realized after I made myself chuckle.


    My eyes were shut, but I could still see what surrounded me. I could still see the private chambers of Qu''Ren, the witch in charge of the proto-coven known as "The Traditional Sisterhood", as well as the beautiful dark elf herself.


    The dark elf ceased her efforts to put on clothes, which was what she had been up to when I willed myself into her room. She wore pants but was topless in front of me. She had been standing up when I arrived, but immediately after I closed my eyes she sat down on a spider-silk cushion, the very same one she had been lounging on when she and I went on a tour of the city a few months ago.


    On an aesthetic level, I appreciated her physical beauty. I was fully aware that it''d cause some people to not want to harm her due to the lust she evoked in them, those unlucky souls who were carnally minded. That weakness could be exploited, and throughout her life, Qu''Ren had exploited that weakness.


    I studied Qu''Ren while scrolling through my HUD. After a few moments of waiting for me to move or speak, she gave up and idly closed her eyes as well.


    It''s so odd that she does that. I thought, curiously. It was a strange gesture for her, one she did unconsciously. The reason why I knew that was because she wasn''t like me. Her vision relied on light, even minute amounts of it. Shutting her eyelids prevented her from using those small amounts of light to peer through darkness.


    Whenever her eyes closed she was blinded by impenetrable, to mortals anyway, darkness. The darkness of her eyelids. The reason why this was so odd to me was that due to it being something she did unconsciously it was something she wasn''t even aware she did.


    I don''t understand the brain well enough to know why or how things are done subconsciously.I thought, reminding myself that for all the knowledge I had gained, there was still a lot I didn''t know or understand.


    That was something I learned because I had enthusiastically dove into her memories. I knew my dark-elven servant. In many ways, she was an open book to me, which was more than I could say about myself.


    <hr>


    Power.That one word was constantly on Qu''Ren''s mind. It drove her. It had her whole life. I continued to study her, even as I inched closer to the part of my HUD that''d allow me to bestow upon her the power she craved.


    I recalled how vividly her soul was drawn to power and the countless small ways power had altered her life. One particular memory of Qu''Ren sprung to mind. In it, I got to see an early example of both the dark elf desiring power.


    <hr>


    When she opened her eyes all Qu''Ren could see was the gravelly floor of the wilder outskirts of Undermoon. And she felt pain. It wracked her body, causing her to have to control her breathing, otherwise her lungs would begin to burn from the blow she had just sustained.


    "One... two... three..." She thought, counting the seconds after she last breathed. They went by agonizingly slowly and each of them offered her a tempting gift: the sweet embrace of unconsciousness. But here and now, unconsciousness would be followed by death. And so, though the dark elf appreciated the thought, she''d have to decline.


    Once five seconds passed, the girl who wasn''t even twenty years old yet and therefore an overgrown fetus by the standards of her species, dared to breathe again. As precious oxygen filled her lungs, she both felt the sudden relief of breathing after holding her breath for agonizing seconds, and deep, heated pain, that once more had rein to surge through her.


    "Right now even staying conscious is painful." She observed all while trying to keep herself together.


    "Damn it Mythos." She thought, cursing her brother''s recklessness. And then she heard him begin to come to, his fallen form apparently not far from hers.


    She heard him roll around a bit, and she could hear both pain and uncharacteristic caution in the slowness of his movements, the caution he exhibited. That brought the suggestion of a sadistic smile to her face.


    And the moment the corners of her lips tugged upwards she felt pain crash into her skull, causing her to relent. Mentally, the young conjurer hissed and then pushed herself to refocus on her current unpleasant circumstances.


    "I must move." She realized, remembering the danger she was in.


    Finally, the girl began to lift her head up. Before she could move she needed to see her surroundings. She needed to see if her attacker, as quiet as it was, was moving towards her and her foolish brother.


    "Every centimeter is... agonizing." She thought, as little by little she mustered the will needed to push her head up and grant her sight of more than just the silverly gravel that made up the unpaved tunnels of Undermoon''s outer reaches. It took her nearly 10 seconds, 10 horrendous and unforgettably painful seconds, to move her head into a position where she could assess her surroundings.


    In front of her was the building she had just been punched through. It was one of the many derelict buildings that made up Undermoon''s slums. And though there was now a gaping hole in its walls, the minotaur responsible for hurling her and her brother out of the building was nowhere to be seen. At the moment.


    Qu''Ren silently cast a minor healing spell on herself. She smiled as the pain that had made her miserable over the last few moments subsided. It didn''t dissipate completely, but it lost its biting edge.


    Qu''Ren, strengthened by her spell, eagerly got to her feet. Pain wracked her form as she did so, but it couldn''t stop her with the threat of the minotaur so close.


    "Damn you Mythos!" She said, childishly cursing his name. He groaned, the sound pained. His fallen form wasn''t far from her and she turned to look at him.


    Though her sibling had regained consciousness, he hadn''t begun the process of standing up just yet. Qu''ren quietly considered whether or not to heal him, but then she picked up a flash of movement in the corner of her eye.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    She again turned, this time in the direction of the building she had just been violently evicted from while taking a step back. She rose a hand in the direction of her brother and grunted as she magically healed the worst of his wounds, sending a wave of positive energy his way. He groaned once more, but this time the sound wasn''t as pained.


    "Get up you oaf!" She said, urgently. Each passing moment allowed Qu''Ren to worriedly consider the terribleness of their relative position, and that awareness drove Qu''Ren to think.


    "What can I do here? How can I save us from this position?" She thought, frantically. Those were urgent, but ultimately rational thoughts. They were only part of the chorus she heard in her mind.


    "Damnit, damnit! Mythos is so weak!" A bitter part of her complained. Qu''Ren tried to fight that part off. But that was just one voice in a dark, unhappy, choir of petty inner voices. The loudest one of them all wasn''t easy to fight off.


    "Qu''Ren... why are you so weak?" This inner voice asked, cuttingly. It wasn''t done.


    "It''s one thing for Mythos to get hurt. He''s weak. That''s what happens to weaklings. But you... if you were stronger... if you are stronger than your brother, which you pretend you are, then why did you get hurt too?" The voice asked, not just challenging Qu''Ren to think about her weakness, but also chiding her for pretending she was stronger than her younger brother, Mythos.


    "Power. If you want to get out of this, you need power." That same voice whispered into her mind as if it were not a manifestation of self-hate and loathing, but a lover who caressed her and kept her warm.


    "Power." That word resounded in Qu''Ren''s mind. She rose a hand in the direction of the building she and her brother were investigating.


    "Power." She fixated on the word, as she saw the white-furred creature responsible for the pain she felt and for the still prone and barely conscious state of her brother. She rose a hand, unsteadily, in the direction of the creature who she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt wasn''t done with either her sibling or herself. Her hand trembled, but it rose to fulfill her desperate wishes and strained reflexes.


    "Power." She thought, so intensely that she actually mouthed the word, as she felt her heart race. The creature took a step forward, slightly lessening the distance between it and them. It was still within the building, but just a step or two away from the gaping hope the brutal attack it launched on her and her brother had created.


    The hulking man-bull had metal armor on its chest, head, and legs. Both of its hands were wrapped in metal gloves, adding weight and impact to even the weakest attacks the mighty thing could throw at Mythos and Qu''Ren. Something the two siblings knew first hand.


    "If I get out of this situation..." Qu''Ren muttered, her eyes focused on the bulky minotaur before her. "I''ll never be weak again." She said, promising herself something she had promised herself before. Twice in fact. And then the young dark-elf began to ready a spell, calling on the considerable mystical energy flowing through her even at a young age.


    White fire began to materialize in the shape of a thick ball just beyond her outstretched hand. She calmed herself, and then took careful aim at the monster in front of her. The bullish man-beast reared its bestial head back and roared. And Qu''Ren released the sphere of heat, sending it flying forward with but a thought.


    <hr>


    [Hello Althos, how may we help you today?] The religion menu asked me, in a polite tone.


    Seconds after remembering a bit about Qu''Ren''s bad day, which was also the last time she promised herself she''d "never be weak again", I reached the part of the religion menu I needed to access to make Qu''Ren a true witch. It started off with that message.


    I smiled and thought up a response. [Hello, I''m here to grant Qu''Ren the witch class. And therefore I''ll be making her the first witch to gain her powers through me.] I responded. I didn''t have to wait long to receive a response. But I also heard it.


    Qu''Ren giggled suddenly as if something were funny. And then she began to smile brightly, though she kept her eyes closed.


    [The system has confirmed that the dark elf Qu''Ren has agreed to become a witch of yours. The system has informed her that this will cost her her soul, in exchange for immense power. She agrees to the conditions imposed upon her.] The system informed me, its voice mechanical but its words significant.


    [Those conditions include receiving a brand somewhere on her body which you will be able to customize and obeying commands of yours at least once a day. As she grows in power, her service to you will increase proportionally. Witches gain great power in exchange for their servitude, and those who provide them with their power use them in a number of ways.] The voice of the system continued to speak, its tone continuing to be eerily emotionless.


    [New Patron Power Explanation: Brand


    Brands are the first reminder a witch, ward, or warlock receives that reminds them that their power is not their own. A patron''s brand is a physical mark that a patron places on their witches, warlocks, and wards that serves to perpetually remind the branded person that they have willingly given themselves over to something darker and grander than themselves in exchange for power.


    No witch, ward, or warlock, can use the power their patron gives them unless they''ve been branded by their patron. They are told this right away, and anyone who becomes a witch receives their own alert about the brand before they agree to become a witch, ward, or warlock.


    No true patron has existed in countless eons, but in the old age, patrons were fond of placing their brands on sensitive skin. The purpose of this was not to fulfill some sadistic urge or to break their servants to their wills more effectively, but for a real, pragmatic purpose.


    Brands can serve as spell sigils, and patrons can remotely cast magic through brands. Placing the brands on sensitive skin can ensure the brand will be revealed to the unwitting in moments of passion, wherein the patron can use magic on unwitting fools or hated enemies seduced by their servants.


    Brands can also be used to punish or reward the branded, as the brand serves as an arcane chain that binds them to their patrons. If the patron wills it, the brand inflicts all sorts of sensations on the branded, including but not limited to pain.]


    Oh? Now that is... interesting. I thought, after reading and then willing away that notification, a confident smirk on my face as I imagined places to put the brand.


    And that wasn''t the only explanation I received either.


    [New Power-Set Explanation: Patron.


    Patrons are those who grant power to witches, warlocks, and wards.


    Each type of higher being, gods, archdevils, demon-lords, archfey, great-old-ones, etc. was capable of creating their own distinct types of witches, warlocks, and wards. The powers their witches, warlocks, and wards gained were always tied both to the sort of higher being in question and to the sorts of powers the individual in question had at their disposal.


    Patrons have a set of powers at their disposal to make up for the fact that they cannot become warlocks, witches, or wards. Those are some of the only classes that are not available to you as a god, instead, you are the one on the other end: the provider of the powers used by witches, warlocks, and wards.


    Until you gain access to and the proper tier of influence over, the right sorts of domains and subdomains, you are limited in how many of the spellcasters you can create in a day. As of right now, you can create a total of five witches, wards, and warlocks in a day. That number will increase in time.


    The process for granting someone the witch, ward, or warlock classes is an intensive one. It''s a personal one. It shouldn''t be done lightly, because these are significant classes with real power.


    You do more than just brand someone when you grant them one of these classes. You mark them as your property, and you grant them echoes of your power. Keep that in mind moving forward.]


    And with that, I began the process of granting Qu''Ren the witch class.

 Chapter 119: The First Witch And Science (NSFW)

    Seconds after willing away the notification that explained the powers of a patron, I opened my eyes. Qu''Ren was seated in front of me, her eyes closed, an amused smile on her lips. As I looked at her and studied her smile, I felt a flicker of happiness within me. It was an odd feeling for the power-obsessed dark elf to evoke in anyone.


    "You look like you''re having fun." I told her, now also grinning. She grinned wider, keeping her eyes closed.


    "Of course I am." She said, confidently. "I am about to gain considerable power. For me, that''s the definition of a fun time." She told me, proudly. I nodded at her, aware that she wasn''t lying. She opened her eyes and looked at me. Her eyes were glued to my chest, and I smirked at her.


    "Ahem. My eyes are up here." I told her, jokingly. She looked up at me, blood rushing to her cheeks in a moment of slight embarrassment. She had a playful grin on her lips though, an expression she had practiced and mastered over the course of her centuries of life.


    She met my gaze, staring into my eyes openly. "Not many would look a god in the eyes directly." I told her, a faint admiration of her audible in my voice.


    She winked at me and responded to what I had just told her confidently. "You can''t compare me to ''many'' others." She said, proudly. I chuckled. Our eyes continued to be locked.


    A nice atmosphere filled the chamber, as we stared into each other''s eyes. Seconds later, when we began to laugh, the chamber was filled with genuine mirth.


    After we shared a few seconds of laughter, a new silence filled the space we shared. A pleasant one. A comfortable silence shared between two friends. A weird relationship, but not one I disliked. I wonder if our relationship will change once I become her patron. I thought, but just for a moment.


    Yes it will. Qu''Ren will become the first of something once lost. Like me. She''ll become the first true witch in... an unimaginably long time. She''ll be... elevated. I thought, keenly aware after a moment of introspection that her life was about to be changed forever.


    "Qu''Ren... we... you, are about to change the world." I said, abruptly. She looked at me, curiosity visible in her eyes.


    "How?" She asked, a desire to understand audible in her single-word sentence.


    I didn''t hesitate with my response. "You are about to become the first true witch the entire world and probably the universe has seen in an unknowable number of years." I told her, in awe of the idea of that.


    "You''ll be like me in a sense. Someone who is a resurrection of something once believed to be lost." I explained, allowing joy to seep into my voice. She was silent as she considered that.


    "You aren''t wrong..." She said, after analyzing what I had just told her. I grinned at her and asked her a simple question.


    "Are you ready to change the world?"


    She nodded and grinned at me.


    <hr>


    When I activated my branding power I was surprised to find that it caused a physical change in me. My hand began to heat up, and the skin on it changed color, becoming a dark red rather than the shade of charcoal it had been before.


    In front of me, Qu''Ren began to shiver, her eyes locked on my red hand. Oh boy... I thought after seeing her reaction. I placed my other hand on the side of her face gently, cupping it, and grinning at her in a way that I hope set her at ease.


    This is going to hurt, isn''t it? I thought, asking myself a rhetorical question. I knew, possibly via some weird divine intuition that the second I touched her skin with my red hand that she''d experience significant pain as my magic wormed its way into her.


    "Are you ready?" I asked her, locking eyes with the dark elf once more. She nodded.


    "I''m as ready as I''ll ever be." She said, her muscles taut as she straightened her posture and presented herself to me.


    "Alright, it''ll begin on the count of three." I told her, giving her a second to decide to keep her eyes open or to close them.


    "One... two... three." When I said the word "three" I let my instincts take over, guiding me so that I could do this correctly. I took my red-hot hand and gently moved it until I was touching the soft skin of her exposed breast.


    <hr>


    I flinched when I heard her react to my touch by hissing in pain. She squirmed against the heated bite of my power, as I felt it surge into her. My hand grew hotter still as potent power roared into being within me and promptly fled me via my hand to enter and empower her.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    Mystical energy was being spontaneously generated within me, being created from nothing like I appear to have been. That same energy immediately fled my core, energetically flowing from my chest, to my hand, and then into her.


    Qu''Ren was in pain, but she was enduring it wonderfully after the initial shock caused her to flinch. She kept her eyes open and glued to me. Her mouth was open, and her lips trembled, but I could sense that she was feeling more than just pain in this moment.


    It was true that Qu''Ren felt pain, but a flicker of excitement burned within her. When my magical power left me and found a home within her, it immediately began to empower her, reforging her body from the inside out and making her stronger. And the more energy that entered her, the less pain she felt.


    In a matter of seconds, her lips began to snake upward, in a pleasant and dazed smile. And at that moment I noticed that my hand was beginning to lose its keen glow. It wasn''t an abrupt change, but an inspection of my red-hot hand showed me that the glow was less pronounced than before.


    <hr>


    The entire process took approximately one hundred seconds. At the one hundred second mark my hand was back to the shade of charcoal it had been before, and Qu''Ren''s left breast looked different. My hand had also lost the last of its heat.


    I had focused on the dark elf''s face while she was being branded, and hadn''t watched my brand, perhaps the strangest and darkest magic I had to date, stain her body.


    Qu''Ren''s right breast was the same as the rest of her body, but her entire left breast was now covered in small, birth-mark like imperfections in the shape of tiny diamonds. I looked at them, intently and in doing so unintentionally got closer to her to more properly examine them.


    "Wow... they are actually quite pretty." I said, idly remarking on them. Qu''Ren was quiet for a moment, no doubt taking in the interest I had in her tit. She smiled at me and prepared a witty remark.


    "I''d say since I''m showing you mine you could show me yours, but since you always do I''ll just say that you could kiss them if you want... and I''m not talking about the diamonds." She remarked, grinning. I chuckled, and for a moment considered it seriously.


    Instead, I decided to tease her back, all while playing with her a bit.


    <hr>


    I drew back my face back a bit and continued to study the dark elf I had made into my first witch. And then I spoke.


    "Alright, this is new territory for both of us." I told her, truthfully. "And so... we need to conduct some experiments. In the name of science." I confidently explained, before slyly providing a false justification for what I was about to do.


    She giggled and nodded at me. "In the ''name of science'' and nothing else. This is purely academic." She said, her voice soft but confident, smooth and flirty. This time I smiled and then winked at her. And then I began to speak, doing my best to sound professional and objective.


    "First, my lovely little test-subject, we need to see if the birthmarks affect your sensitivity." I told Qu''Ren. She giggled when she heard me call her my "little test-subject", which was unsurprising.


    "And how do we do that?" She asked, speaking innocently and as if she had no clue what I was about to suggest.


    "Well, we need to compare and contrast of course. It''s a simple process. Do you trust me?" I asked her, beginning to truly enjoy myself.


    She was taken back a bit by the question, and I chuckled. She thought about it, silently, for a second before responding. "Yes. I do. I understand our relationship. I worship you, providing you with something you desire, and you grant me power. Which is what I desire. I trust that. So yes." She said, allowing a brief moment of seriousness into our moment of fun. I chuckled.


    "I''m glad you trust me Qu''Ren. And now I need you to harness that trust and obey me." I said, grinning at her and wondering how I''d feel watching her do what I was about to command her to do.


    "If you trust me, drag your fingernail across your right breast. As soon as I get comfortable and can watch you more easily. All for ''science'' of course." I told her, before using a custom magic effect to create an armless chair that I could sit on. She grinned at me, surprisingly demurely which was in and of itself cute. I sat down and nodded at her to proceed.


    She closed her eyes and then rose her hand so that it was within arm''s reach of me. And then she drew it back before nearly completely closing her fist. All of her fingers aside from her index finger formed an imperfect fist. Her index finger, a slim thing with a long nail, was the only digit that remained free. And then she began to do as she was told.


    The elf slyly drew her fingernail to her bare chest, over her right breast. Her fingernail touched her skin. And then she began to draw the thing downward, slowly and dramatically. I grinned at this display, as she lethargically moved her digit closer and closer to the soft skin of her breast.


    She purred in silky pleasure when her nail first touched the upper part of her breast and sped the thing''s trajectory a bit. I watched, amused by the display, as the elf''s lips opened wider when her cold nail reached the top of her areola.


    "Remember this feeling Qu''Ren. After all you''re gonna need to compare it to how you feel when you touch your other breast." I told her, reminding her of the "purpose" of our little game.


    She smiled at that reminder, and at the promise of more "experimentation". She then pressed onward, as slow as possible. As if afraid that I''d deny her pleasure as soon as she made contact with her nipple. Now that I think about it... that''s not a bad idea. I thought, entertaining the idle observation for a second, before disregarding it.


    By the time her nail touched her nipple, the thing was a hardened nub, sensitive to the slightest pressure and the most subtle stimulation. I watched, enraptured by the display she was putting on, which was a surprise to me. I was even tempted to go out and see how she reacted to my presence, but I held myself back.


    Well... who knew that I could enjoy these sorts of displays? There''s a sort of... artistry to this I hadn''t seen yet. I thought, genuinely surprised that the display of submission and that this game of ours could be interesting to me. This requires... further study. I told myself, and I found, to my annoyance that a small part of me was thrilled by that idea.


    And then I refocused on the scene before me. Qu''Ren and I spent the next quarter of an hour "conducting research" on her branded and non-branded chest, before beginning to uncover the nature of her new eldritch abilities.

 Chapter 120: Charms, Memories, And Emotions

    "Do you want to dress me?" Qu''Ren asked coyly. I could see goosebumps on her bare chest and arms. She had wild energy in her eyes, as a consequence of the "scientific" research she and I spent the last few minutes conducting.


    I studied her for a second before nodding and moving to grab the clothing she had set aside when I appeared and readied myself to brand her. The article of clothing in my hand was an ornate brigandine, a thing made of solidified spider-silk and liberally decorated with spider imagery. It gave off a slightly red aura, one that wasn''t nearly as solid as the Bunker Shield''s was, but a present one that strengthened its protective capabilities.


    It was a heavy thing, though light in my arms. At a glance, thanks to the assorted skills and powers I had gained from my multitude of worshipers, I could determine that the thing, even before it was touched by magic which amplified it further, strengthened the defensive capabilities of those who wore it. And not just the parts of those who equipped it that it covered, but their whole bodies.


    I studied it for a moment, admiring its craftsmanship, before getting up from my chair and walking over to Qu''Ren.


    I walked behind her and then gently got on the bed so that I could position the armor more easily. Placing it on her body was easy, as she eagerly pulled it towards herself once it was directly over her head. The thing then magically grafted itself to her form, tightening until it was practically a second skin and not a piece of armor.


    "How do I look?" She asked, smiling. I grinned at her and ignored the small voice in the back of my mind that missed the sight of her topless form.


    "You look great." I said, truthfully. The brigandine she wore wasn''t just a strong piece of armor. it was also a stylish one. It clung tightly to her body, allowing one to see the shape of her lithe form more easily, and didn''t weigh her down in the slightest despite the considerable protection it offered. But for all of that, a part of me knew I could do better.


    I should sit down and practice making some items again sometime soon. I thought, grinning internally. I could make something better than this. And adorn it with my brand. Personalize it to her. And in doing so, mark her once again. I mused, knowing that the memories I had within me, from both enchanters and blacksmiths, coupled with the advanced skills at my disposal would allow me to craft something truly epic if I wanted too.


    But that was for another time. I began to speak.


    "And now, my little witch, it''s time for us to see what you can do. And what I can do." I told her, curiosity distinctly audible in my voice.


    I studied her magical aura using my ambient ability to detect magic, thanks to the actions of one of the other me''s. She radiated a potent and swirling mix of colors. Before being branded she had radiated a strong blanket of blue light, probably for conjuration since she had lived her life as a neo-witch, a magician specializing in conjuration.


    The aura that surrounded her now was like an incomplete rainbow. It had healthy streaks of green, for healing magic, dark purple for mind magic, a shade of blue for conjuration magic, and bright yellow for illusion magic. It was a fascinating thing to focus on, and I didn''t mind staring at it. But we still had things we needed to do. Or more accurately, things I needed to do.


    Before doing anything else, I quickly made a copy of her latest memories and examined them. The ability to more rapidly experience memories is... very useful. I thought, as I instantly experienced everything Qu''Ren had experienced over the course of the last five days, the time that had passed since the last time I absorbed the contents of her mind.


    Among other things I winced in pain as I experienced the biting, burning pain of the moment she was branded and a secondhand version of the twisted pleasure she felt while submitting to my commands. I also got to read the notifications the system gave her, informing her about her powers. It was an interesting thing to experience both on my end, and then on hers. And then I came up with a good idea.


    I should have her accompany me. It would be fun to have her by my side, watch her make use of her new powers for the first time. I thought, which resulted in a smile etching itself onto my face.


    "Originally I was planning to grant more of your coven witch powers before we went galavanting on an adventure... But I think it might be best for us to take advantage of this opportunity for a real experiment." I told her, a degree of eagerness in my voice. And so we began to scheme, to plot a major move that would reshape this city''s politics in a real way.


    <hr>


    An hour later we found ourselves in a part of the city of Undermoon far from the estate Qu''Ren lived in and was one of the leaders of. In front of a grand estate, owned by another noble family. This estate was grounded, in a literal sense since it was built on the floor of the cavern that housed the city of Undermoon, and it was an estate that was no less wealthy or influential than that of Qu''Ren''s family.


    The noises of shouts, some of pain, some of anger, and others of triumph, were audible even on the other side of the wall in front of us. As were the sounds of metal striking worked spider-silk and even metal striking metal. I knew the cause: beyond the wall in our way were numerous dark elves who were training their bodies and honing their sword-arms.


    Through tremor-sense I knew that the open-area beyond the wall was where two dozen dark elves, 6 of which were female, and 18 of which were male, were training. I checked my radar to learn their names, and saw that each of the warriors had the same last-name. Huh. Neat. I was expecting... at least some of them to be mercenaries. This family has a lot of kids. By dark-elven standards anyway. I mused, idly.


    Qu''Ren was beside me, and the two of us studied the place carefully. I could sense her doing a mental check to see what new powers she possessed.


    I''ll send her some warmth. Help her relax. I thought, gingerly using this as an opportunity to test the connection we shared through the brand. I envisioned her chest growing warmer, and heard her softly sigh. And then she turned in my direction and glared.


    "Don''t do that here." She said, annoyed at me. I chuckled and closed my eyes, pretending to be remorseful.


    "Sorry, I was just trying to get you to relax." I explained, telling the truth even if my remorse was insincere. She glowered at me but bit her tongue, holding her commentary back.


    In front of us stood a large wall that barred outsiders from entering the grounds of the Blood Keeper family. The thing was dark and made of solid, worked metal. There was only one door in or out of it.


    I waited for a second so that she could regain her composure before I began to walk towards the wall that separated us from the estate''s grounds.


    She began to walk a second after she saw me do so. It took us mere moments to reach the lone door that would have kept out lesser beings. We walked until we were in front of the entryway, and then waited.


    Qu''Ren wisely followed my lead and didn''t question me just yet. I knew that the wall was manned, my enhanced tremorsense told me so from kilometers away. I also knew that the wall''s guard was approaching us, each footstep giving away his precise location, and I didn''t doubt that the guard was wary. Not many intruders came to this martially oriented family so brazenly.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    <hr>


    When the guard finally appeared he peeped at us through the door. It was a solid thing but it had a window precisely for this purpose, and the guard knew better than to open the door to anyone strong enough, or foolish enough, to come here so arrogantly. Unsurprisingly the guard didn''t react to me, especially when he noticed my companion and servant.


    "Madame Qu''Ren? Noblewoman, what do you want?" He asked, bluntly, even if he slipped in a few words acknowledging her station with the blunt demand. I chuckled, causing him to spin to glance at me. He studied me, unsure about the attitude I was showing, but quickly and logically turned to face the powerful noblewoman he knew.


    It was exceedingly dark-elf-like to ignore anyone who seemed to be a noble''s servant, and among dark-elves little screamed "servant" more than a male dark-elf who was shirtless, muscular, and accompanying a known dark-elf noblewoman.


    Qu''Ren studied him, her gaze predatory and her heart calm. And then she smiled at him. Her aura, invisible to him but brilliant to me, flared to life, the illusionary color of yellow shimmering excitedly as she silently activated a spell she gained through me. A piece of the yellow of her aura broke off from her and raced towards, and then into the guard. And then she spoke.


    "Open this door and let us through you silly guard. Who do you think you are, standing in my way?" She asked, the words harsh but her tone playful. The guard looked at her in confusion, and I sensed his mind reacting to the power of her new magic. I sensed the initial resistance he felt, and his natural desire to question her, fade away.


    "Yes... yes you''re right. If you''re here, you must have a reason to be." The guard said, confused but at himself not at her. He pushed the door open for us and then beckoned for us to come forward and through the door, post haste. We acted on his invitation, walking towards the door and then through it.


    Qu''Ren speedily advanced past the guard, not bothering to make eye contact with him. She even made a disapproving noise as she walked by him, causing him to look at me intently.


    There was a look in his eyes, a pleading to intercede on his behalf and to ask Qu''Ren to be merciful and keep this encounter to herself. I didn''t make eye contact with him. It''s fun to see him squirm. I thought, with a bit of cruelty in my mental tone. He was silent, wisely opting not to make a scene of begging Qu''Ren not to tell anyone.


    <hr>


    Once we passed through the door, the guard shut it and followed us into the thin confines of the space in the wall designed to welcome guests and more importantly to bottleneck anyone trying to invade. Then, while right behind us, he began to speak again.


    "It is my duty, and my honor," He began, quickly adding in the second part of the statement. "To accompany you during your time in our estate." He told us, demurely trying to justify why he was following us. Qu''Ren and I didn''t really react, but neither of us moved to hurt the guard either. He breathed a sigh of relief after neither of us objected to his presence.


    The area we were in was a tight space, unlit and straight. It stretched forward for a bit, before finally opening up and allowing travelers truly into the estate of the family.


    "I am Antur." The dark elf guard said, introducing himself to us. At this point I decided to speak.


    "I am," I began, causing him to haughtily begin to pretend to ignore me. He had been hoping that Qu''Ren would speak, not I. "Althos." I said, revealing my true name to the dark elf.


    He was walking behind us and I heard him nearly trip when I said my name. At this point, I received a notification, a positive alert.


    [New Feats Gained:


    Peaceful Power-Broker & The Maker Of Emperors


    Benefits: Peaceful Power-Broker is a feat that improves your persuasive abilities. It makes your arguments more effective and is an idle charisma booster.


    The Maker of Emperors is a feat that increases the charisma of those you select to be leaders. By gaining it you gain increased abilities to help boost the esteem of others in the eyes of their peers.


    Methods of Acquisition: Peaceful Power-Broker is gained by beginning the process of a transition of power. Earning this feat means that one of you, the assorted you''s, has begun the process of causing a settlement somewhere to transition power to someone. This doesn''t actually mean that that person has become a leader yet, it just means that you played a hand in persuading a government to hold an election or another form of governmental transition.


    The Maker of Emperors feat is gained when you, any of you, select someone to be an emperor and begin the process of making them one. In your case, Ayla Syah has been selected, and the government of Namira is beginning the process by which they''ll elect either her or someone else to become the city''s next Sultan. An election will be taking place in two weeks due to the urgency of the believed threat of the sandmen Ayla just repelled one wave of.]


    I chuckled and willed away the notification. How exciting, we''re gonna acquire Namira soon. I thought, grinning. Behind me, the guard was still fumbling about in shock due to my casual revelation that I was the god of over half of the dark elves who lived in the city. But after moments of the guard punishing himself, which I heard because I opted to create a quiet link that bound us, Antur began to speak again.


    "Sir Althos... why are you here?" He asked, suddenly and keenly aware that I was the superior between Qu''Ren and myself. I was silent while I considered what to say. And then I spoke, powerfully and confidently.


    "I am here to take what is mine. And to exert my law on those who defy it." I explained, honestly. At this point, I felt the spike of conflict that appeared within the guard''s mind.


    I felt him immediately want to try and stop me, because he heard me say "take", "exert", and infer that I was here to punish disobedient dark elves. I also felt his fear and the sly presence of a grain of hopelessness within his heart. I grinned, my face turned away from his field of view. Oh, how noble. The little dark elf wants to protect his masters. His family. I thought, smiling.


    I heard Qu''Ren''s muscles tighten when she heard the guard slow down. I heard her ears strain as she sought to listen to whatever Antur did next. And when the guard did stop, I saw a surge of purple energy overtake Qu''Ren''s aura, go through me, and then hammer the man''s mind. The guard was stunned, his body freezing up, as his mind was wracked by a wave of mystically charged mental energy.


    "Nice mind-blast!" I said, complimenting Qu''Ren. She was in front of me and smiled at my compliment.


    "And now... for the fun part." I said, a look of creative satisfaction on my face, as I turned to begin to experiment on Antur Blood-Bone, the weakest member of the Blood-Bone family, one of the noble-families that was resisting me and hadn''t yet submitted to my worship. I descended on the frozen form of the man, invading his mind and then immediately breaking it, opting to be rough since I''d be rewriting his memories anyway.


    <hr>


    Invading his brain, stealing his memories, and breaking him took a matter of seconds. Once it was over, and I was outside of his mind, I received a positively delightful notification. While I read the thing, I set about manipulating the memories of Antur, modifying them to include that his family secretly worshiped me, and for fun, I added that he significant, lustful and obsessive feelings for Qu''Ren.


    This''ll be fun to fill his mind with. I thought, smirking at the idea that this guard would do anything for my witch. And then I set about reading the notification before me.


    [New Quest alert: Master Manipulator


    The mind domain, the memory subdomain, and the emotion subdomain have teamed up to grant you a joint quest. You already have the first tier of influence over the mind domain, but you have yet to gain any tiers of influence over the memory subdomain or the subdomain of emotions.


    Quest Objective: Start or end 10 prolonged conflicts using your powers over the mind, and your ability to create or rewrite memories. This means that one-on-one fights don''t count, and neither do fights that have more than one person but are one-offs.


    Reward: Successful completion of this quest will grant you either further influence over critical domains and subdomains or grant you the first tier of influence over them. The domain of the mind is linked to mind magic, certain classes, and potent subdomains.


    Doing this quest will award you the lowest tier of influence over the subdomains of memories and emotions, the next tier of influence over the domain of minds and will award you progress towards the domain of dreams, subdomains of nightmares, sanity, and insanity.]


    Oh that''s nice. I thought, chuckling as I recalled how the domain of minds had made my mind-related powers stronger and granted me access to the mind-jamming power to prevent telepathy. And in reading the quest details I got even more excited. Starting or ending conflicts? That''ll be fun. I mused.

 Chapter 121: The Courtyard

    How should I do this? I have an audience after all.I thought as I stared into the open, dazed eyes of the technically but not functionally conscious dark elf.


    He moaned pitifully, his mind broken by my invasion and forceful theft of all of his memories, thoughts, and knowledge. His moan was the only other sound in the narrow space, aside from the sounds of combat training happening nearby.


    The creature in front of me was not even really a dark elf at this point, he was basically a fetus. Unless I restored his knowledge, thoughts, and memories he wouldn''t return to some shade of normalcy. He''d be stuck in his current state.It''s a good thing, for him, that this is all I''m doing. Because if I wanted too... I could leave him like this.I thought, grimly aware of the options at my disposal.


    I had already finished creating a modified copy of his memories, one wherein he and his family were my devoted soldiers, crusaders of mine within the city who proudly supported me. It was easy, really. Now it was just a matter of putting them into his mind.


    "Qu''Ren, pay attention." I said, calling to my dark elf servant. The dark elven noble had kept her gaze on me the whole time but the corners of her lips edged upwards in a stifled smile after I commanded her to watch what I was about to do. I got off the nearly fallen elf''s form, walked a bit away''s and then readied myself for what would come next: a confused guard''s reawakening.


    "This power is the power of a god of minds." I said, allowing arrogance and pride to surge into my voice. And then I infected Antur with my modified memories, flooding his mind with them and restoring just about all of the dark elf''s knowledge to him. The knowledge and memories invading his mind reawoke him and the dark elf''s eyes regained their focus in an instant.


    "What was-" The dark elf said as he took in his surroundings, his words trailing off when he noticed Qu''Ren. I heard his heart-beat begin to quicken and before my very eyes I watched blood rush to his face. And elsewhere.


    "Qu''Ren!" He shouted, at the precise moment his mind recovered enough for him to remember his most recent "memories". He cupped a hand over his mouth and blushed for a different reason now: out of embarrassment.


    <hr>


    After about a minute wherein of listening, where Qu''Ren and I entertained the falsified memories of Antur, we resumed our journey. Along the way Qu''Ren began to chat with me, in a way she hadn''t in a while.


    [That was pretty entertaining Althos, but why did he have that... "reaction" to me?] Qu''Ren asked, curiosity evident in her tone. I chuckled. The two of us were united in ignoring the idle chatter of the love-struck guard, who behind us was being unusually chatty for a dark elf.


    [Qu''Ren it''s because he has a crush on you.] I told her idly, grinning. I had decided to do that, make the guard have a crush on my witch, because it felt fun. I heard Qu''Ren make a "tch!" sound when she was alerted to what I had done.


    [Because it felt like fun.] I explained, simply. She sighed.


    [What? Oh, Althos... why?] She asked, annoyed. I had to stifle a laugh. And we reached the edge of the narrow space within the wall. The sounds of the metal striking spider-silk and metal striking metal were louder than ever. And Qu''Ren and Antur could lay their eyes on the sources of those sounds, something I had been able to do for several seconds already.


    <hr>


    The area just beyond the wall was a large courtyard. Two dozen dark elves were either overseeing training or actively training. When we walked into it, I immediately stole away Antur''s consciousness, targeting him with my own mindblast which left him standing but robbed him of the ability to perceive anything. It was one of the abilities I had gained as a consequence of my dramatic emergence into the public eye of Undermoon and the ten thousand plus worshipers I had gained.


    I''m not going to let Antur be confused.I thought, knowing that allowing him to speak freely to his family members would confuse him. He was the only person here, for now anyway, whose memories had been modified. Qu''Ren didn''t notice, which was unsurprising. She didn''t like him.


    <hr>


    I studied the dark elves who populated the courtyard. Their toned, muscular bodies, some of which were far larger than others, were protected by a number of different physical means. Not only were their muscles protecting their vital organs, but their bodies were covered in armor. And armor that was a lot more protective looking than Qu''Ren''s spider-silk armor.


    Some of them wore spider-silk armor pieces, but the majority of them wore metal armor. The metal armor they wore was unlike the armor worn by Qu''Ren and the handful of other spider-silk pieces I had seen to date: it was unadorned, lacking in any particular identifier or insignia.That''s... useful.I thought, a sly grin on my face. I could envision marking that armor with a symbol to identify it as my own.


    One of the few female dark elves present in the courtyard studied her family-members. She was one of the warriors who wore metal armor. Her eyes flinted from warrior to warrior, studying them as they sparred with each other. Her eyes were white orbs, no iris or pupil visible in them. Her eyes possessed a strange beauty, but they would have been eerie to many humans or even other members of her own kind.


    The male dark elves were universally engaged in sparring practice. They were split into pairs, nine pairs in total. They wielded an assortment of weapons, some used lengthy clubs, others held sharp axes and more still used blades of various sizes.


    I''ll go ahead and... feast on their memories.I thought, as I slyly began the process of infiltrating their minds, starting off with two of the women present in the courtyard. To speed this otherwise lengthy process I took advantage of one of the idle abilities I had gotten from the first tier of influence over the mind-domain: the ability to absorb memories from two people at once.


    <hr>


    Qu''Ren was behind me, and still. She warily watched the dark elves sparring with each other, noting their assorted physiques.


    [I don''t like the look of them. Or the smell of them. They smell of... rage. Like... berserkers.] She warned me, a whisper of anger in her voice. I smiled and was aware that she was focused on the bulkier dark-elves. Though the look in her eyes wasn''t entirely one of disdain, there was a flicker of fascination there, she was still focused hawkishly on them. Her disdain for them made sense: when she was younger a berserker minotaur nearly killed her and her brother.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    5 of them were males, but one of them was a woman, one who easily held a gigantic battleax in one hand, leisurely hoisting the thing over a single shoulder.That''s not a bad sight. I thought, marveling at the woman. Her brothers weren''t bad looking either, all of them wearing metal faulds, cuisses, and other pieces of armor to protect their lower bodies.


    I didn''t need to use any of my powers to identify what they were, their hulking frames and the gigantic weapons they held, coupled with a superficial analysis of their memories told me what a gaze at them made Qu''Ren suspect: they were berserkers.


    I suppose I should do something to set Qu''Ren at ease.I thought, as I just finished absorbing the memories of the sixth dark elf, of twenty-four total. And so I made a move. I stepped forward and began to walk towards the next group of creatures to worship me, proudly announcing my presence to them without words.


    [Stay back Qu''Ren.] I instructed my servant. At that same instant that one of the overseers, a sister, noticed me. Her eyes, an uncanny golden color, turned to stare curiously in my direction. Qu''Ren nodded, obediently deferring to my judgment. She was proud and she was fond of power, especially the act of showing off her power, but she wasn''t a fool.


    <hr>


    I crossed the large courtyard at a leisurely pace. I wasn''t joined by Antur or by Qu''Ren, though I felt Qu''Ren''s gaze on my back. Each step took me further and further into the martially oriented camp, and I liked the feeling of tension I felt as I drew closer and closer to two dozen holdouts, of over 50, in this noble house.They are all mine and they don''t even know it yet.I thought, smirking at them.


    10 sets of memories down. 14 to go.I realized as I felt more and more knowledge of theirs flow into me. And a quick scan of the memories at my disposal told me what I came here suspecting would be the case: this family was known for its tendency towards bloodshed.


    There will be blood won''t there?I thought, a smile on my face.I don''t mind that. I''ll just make sure I don''t kill them.I thought, rationalizing the violence I knew would happen, even if it was a meaningless attempt to resist worshiping me.


    Two of the elves closer to me had their hands on their weapons already. They had been sparring after all. When I didn''t stop approaching them they turned to face me, their grips on their blades tightening. It was an attempt to intimidate me, but it didn''t work. I continued my approach, unaffected by their testosterone. They''re brave.I thought, with a smile.


    "Identify yourself!" One of them, Droden Bloodcaller, demanded. He and his sibling, Quartz Bloodcaller, were practically twins. They were also arrogant and foolish.


    "I''m Althos. And you''re Droden. Oh and... you''re mine." I told Droden, revealing that the young dark elf was basically already a tool of mine.


    <hr>


    The tension in the air came to a head in an unexpected way. The dark elves who had been warily watching the god approach them, unsure of who he was or what he wanted, didn''t have time to react to his declaration before he sprung into action.


    Althos didn''t lunge at the warriors in his way. Instead, he just separated them. The ground at his feet was abruptly seized by his "Earth Control" power, and began to quake ahead of him, separating the various elves from one another due to the power of the localized tremors at their feet.


    The deity gracefully moved forward, his eyes locked on Droden. There was a certain hunger in his gaze, but Droden wasn''t able to stay on his feet, and fell on his ass. And that was when Althos lunged, when the dark elf he decided to bully was on his rear-end and couldn''t even stand.


    Althos moved faster than any of the dark elves present, even Qu''Ren had ever seen anything move. He was so fast that in leaping onto the dark-elf, his body was almost impaled on the guard''s exposed sword. It was only by rendering part of his body incorporeal that he avoided being stabbed. But that didn''t stop him, and the deity pinned the dark elf to the ground where he was seated.


    <hr>


    "Heh." I chuckled, as I grabbed the blade that should have been inside of me and cast an alteration spell on the thing.


    [Spell type: Alteration.


    Spell name: Rust


    Effects: This spell rusts the target, so long as the target is made of metal.


    Spell costs: 200 magical energy per cast, per meter of the affected target.]


    The dark elf was smiling at me, having believed that he got me until the metal on the blade began to darken. It got softer quickly, and in a matter of seconds, the part of it that I was grabbing turned to dust and crumpled in my hands. Now it was my turn to smile, as the heart of my enemy was immediately shaken by my display.


    "Oh don''t fret. Don''t be scared Droden." I told him, gently. "I''m here now. You''re mine." I said, simply. There was a slightly sadistic smile on my face, right before I moved very close to him, and when my face was centimeters from his I exhaled, my warm breath heating his face.


    Countless golden spores exploded out of my mouth and flooded the air between us. They were my mind-control spores, a favorite tool of mine that I used to make my enemies into my servants. The dark elf was surprised by my actions and gasped. That was his last mistake. When he inhaled. what he inhaled were thousands of spores, which immediately overwhelmed his mind.


    The elf began to cough uncontrollably. And then he fell unconscious. Heh... weakling.I thought as I looked at his fallen form. I studied his fallen form for a few seconds before I looked up at the other dark elves. They were scattered and fallen, and so I went on the attack.


    <hr>


    The first thing I did was transform. I shed my dark elven form, my body immediately beginning to radiate darkness and change, and took on a more monstrous appearance.


    I roared in delight, a bestial sound escaping my throat and lips, as my legs multiplied and took on a more monstrous visage. Two became four, which became eight. And they lost their hair, becoming smooth, blood-red, sharp appendages that could be used to climb, travel quickly, or stab into enemies.


    My groin widened and changed colors, becoming the same blood-red color as my legs. It became my abdomen and my cephalothorax, while it pushed my humanoid torso upwards as if it were a sort of seat for me to be positioned on top of.


    I was now a creature with the lower body of an enormous spider and the upper body of a dark elf. I removed my gaze from the dark elf I had just made mine, and up at his siblings. They were shocked and stared at me in terror and in awe. I opened my mouth and told them a simple truth. "You''re mine." And then I smiled.


    <hr>


    Althos in his drider form was a speedy force of nature. After he transformed and taunted the crowd, he immediately went on the attack.


    He speedily made his way to the next closest dark elf, Droden''s sparring partner. He towered over the elf, looking at the warrior curiously for a second, before lifting a single leg and lashing out at the warrior with it. The blow struck the elf in the chest, tearing through apart his armor and sending him sailing through the air. The elf crashed onto the ground, tumbled, and came to a stop, unconscious, after three seconds of unplanned gymnastics.


    Althos smiled, even as he cast healing magic on the unconscious form of the elf. "He''s not dead!" The god shouted, a cruel grin visible on his face.


    <hr>


    In less than three minutes the dark elves who had guarded the courtyard were all scattered and shattered. None of them were dead, but they were all unconscious, their armor was shattered, and they were strewn about the courtyard. Each of them had gotten a face full of my spores, and their memories were all safely stored within me.


    The ruined courtyard was covered in blood, bits of armor, and even shattered weapons.I''m definitely gonna try to forge something soon. I thought, with a wry smile on my face.


    "I''ll wake them up when their elders are mine." I said, to no one in particular, referencing the fallen dark elves in front of me. And with that I began a little skitter towards the manor that loomed large in front of me.


    The manor was a barrack that stood on the other side of where I had entered their complex from, and it served as the home of the dark elves who made up the Bloodcaller noble family, one of the families who hadn''t accepted my leadership. I''ll correct that today.I thought, a cruel smile on my face.


    Qu''Ren was hurriedly approaching me, working to keep up with my long legs. All 8 of them.

 Chapter 122: Schemes

    The second I left the courtyard and entered the gigantic manor in front of me, my tremor-sense updated. And it gave me a lot of very useful, detailed information. Information that brought a smile to my face. And information that changed my appraisal of her children.


    The room I entered into from outside of the manor was, unsurprisingly since it was a manor owned by a noble dark-elven family, an unlit foyer, unlit aside from faint yellow lines that seemed to pop up from out of the ground at my feet that indicated some regular usage of illusion magic. In order to enter it, I actually had to shrink myself down a bit, but not by a lot since the door into the manor was nearly large enough to accommodate my bulky drider-form anyway.


    The walls and the floor of this place were made from dark material that would have obscured any light source used anyway, but even without the residual magical aura that I could visually detect, I would have been able to see in here. My vision was superior to mortal vision, my vision saw the true nature of reality and therefore wasn''t dependent on what powered mortal vision: light.


    The foyer was silent and uninhabited. It opened up immediately after one entered it, and I studied it while I waited for Qu''Ren to arrive behind me. The dark elf had had a reasonably difficult time keeping up with me, since not only was I quick in any of my forms, but I was even faster when I sped forward on eight legs than on two.


    Illusion magic... that, coupled with what I know now about Lilith Bloodcaller, suggests that this family is much more than they appear to be. And that she alone will be worth going to great lengths to make mine. I thought, mildly amused by what I knew, thanks to my earth-based powers.


    The foyer was a large room meant to intimidate visitors to the property or impress potential recruits. It stretched on for a few dozen meters, and before forking off into two different places. A staircase led visitors upstairs, which was where the younger children of Lilith Bloodcaller, the mysterious leader of this family, slept.


    I''m grateful for this enhanced tremor-sense. I thought, with a smirk on my face, knowing that without that power I''d be navigating this place on the memories of the lesser and younger children of Lilith.


    The other exit out of the room, aside from the one behind me, was one that was located straight ahead. To reach it one just needed to walk forward for several meters and then go through it. That''s where we''re going. I mused, eager to get on with it, and head into the underground proportion of this already underground manor.


    Deeper into both the darkness and the earth. Where my powers are even greater. I told myself, chuckling at my assumption that Lilith laired, like many creatures with lairs, where she felt safest and that where she felt safest was where I was at my strongest.


    Qu''Ren finally caught up to me. I could hear her breathing a bit roughly, and grinned at her. I''ll help her a bit. I thought, before sending her some stamina through the brand that now marked her left breast.


    Her breath hitched when the wave of invigorating energy surged into her, immediately restoring her condition and replenishing her stamina. She smiled at me, in surprise and mild gratitude. I had a lot to tell her.


    "This trip just got a lot more interesting." I said, cryptically. She raised an eyebrow in curiosity but stayed silent. After a few seconds of silence, I realized that I''d need to give her more than that to pique her interest.


    "Lilith Bloodcaller isn''t who we thought she was. She''s an illusionist." I informed my servant. That drew a reaction from her, namely that her eyes widened in shock and that she began to look around frantically as if attempting to pierce through any illusions that might have posed a threat to her. Her actions made me laugh.


    "Relax. Nothing here is illusionary. I could see through it if it were. But that''s not what''s really interesting." I told her, causing her to look at me with abject interest in her gaze. Oh, right. She needs more than that. I told myself, slightly annoyed by her peculiarities.


    "Lilith Bloodcaller''s mother wasn''t another dark-elf. She was a succubus. Lilith is a half-demon. A half-succubus specifically." I told Qu''Ren. And this definitely got her attention.


    "Oh... Oh! You''re right that is interesting." She realized, a glint of excitement gleaming in her eye.


    <hr>


    While one of me was inside of a manor in the city of Undermoon, in the lair of a half-demon, I found myself in front of an old friend. The half-devil Tristan listened to me as I opened up to her about some of my frustrations.


    We were seated outside of the Dark Cathedral. Our surroundings were idyllic, with the Dark Cathedral behind us, the completed monastery of the jackaloids visible in the distance, and the mushroom garden and thin forest to our left and right respectfully.


    The air smelled fragrant, the mixing of the scents of nearby, vibrant fungi and thick trees filling it with a pleasant, wooded smell. We heard the sounds of foot traffic closeby as residents of this community continued their work.


    Tristan had been with me for half an hour and she had even been approached by a number of residents who sought to express their admiration of her. It was amusing, and a welcome intrusion since she and I were chatting because I had been growing increasingly impatient and wanted to complain.


    "This is... taking too long. Each day Paimon attacks more and more. I want to hurry up and become an even stronger... ''proto archdevil''... ''greater true devil''? Whatever I am." I told her. She looked at me and sighed.


    The one high-priestess in all of the cults devoted to me that I had directly selected now looked hugely different compared to how she looked when I first met her. She still wore her nun outfit, but now she was a three-eyed, scale-winged humanoid. When we first met she had looked human, albeit a human with heterochromatic eyes but those were only rare and not necessarily supernatural.


    "Althos, I share your frustrations. We''re safe here, now, but it was scary when they attacked and I know they''ve only gotten more aggressive since, even without you telling me." She said, her voice breathy and tired. She yawned, but then snapped to attention and looked at me, apologetically.


    "Sorry. I''ve been traveling nonstop. Between reaching out to the communities that dot the desert landscape, and heading to the frontlines to heal the few injuries we''ve sustained... it''s a lot. I don''t need much sleep, but I am still mortal. I need... some sleep." She said. I looked at her, feeling no small amount of sympathy and placed a hand on her shoulder.


    "I hope you know how much the work you''re doing here matters. I know it''s a lot, but because of you ''The Tyrant''s Temple'' is growing steadily. I recognize how much work you''re doing." I told her, cognizant of the endless amount of work she was doing to popularize the cult. She smiled at me, and there was a moment where a fanatical joy glowed in her dazzling and eerie eyes.


    "I know. In the rare moments, we get a chance to chat I can feel how grateful you are of my work. And I can feel it from the pious devils as well. They make it... abundantly clear how much they respect me. Sometimes a little bit too much." She said, sighing in exhaustion again. A different kind of exhaustion though. I chuckled and ignored the very thinly veiled complaint she made.


    A silence filled the air between us. In the absence of speech, I debated telling her something about one of the devils she was talking about. Should I tell her about Faldor? It might make her laugh... I asked myself.She needs a laugh. I realized.


    "Faldor prays a lot. Almost as much as you." I told her, a flash of mischievousness in my gaze. She looked at me, and skeptically studied my face. I could tell that she knew that there was more to that statement then I had let on.


    "Oh? What does he pray about?" She asked, her eyebrows arching to suggest that she was curious about what sort of things one of the male priest-devils, known more formally as "Pious Devils", would pray about. I grinned as I responded to her.


    "Oh, he''s the sort who uses prayer to have a conversation. Which is the way I like it. He tells me about his day, asks for things to reflect on, and he even attributes his successes to me. And he tries to persuade me to let him marry you." I told her, slipping in that last part nonchalantly.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    She began to nod in agreement with me after I told her that I liked it when my followers used prayer as an excuse to initiate a conversation. She kept nodding all the way through because Faldor''s praying habits were exactly like hers. It took her a second to react to the last part of the statement.


    "Wait, what?" She asked me, twisting in her seat to more fully face me so that I could explain, to her face, what I had just told her.


    <hr>


    Succubi. Demons of lust and the mothers of all sorts of wickedly sinful and powerful creatures. Acquiring a half-succubi isn''t as good as acquiring a full succubus, but I bet Lilith will still be quite useful. I thought, as Qu''Ren and I descended down a staircase. It was the first of three such things we''d need to navigate to reach the bottom of the manor, which was where Lilith herself was at the moment.


    Qu''Ren was quiet. She had been quiet ever since I told her the true origins of the current head of the Bloodcaller family. It was a bit surprising to be sure, but there was also a certain amount of sense such an origin made for the mysterious head of a dark-elven family. I looked over at Qu''Ren, and studied her for a moment.


    She was focused on something. Her gaze was serious and thoughtful, but not present.I could just read her mind...I thought, for a second.No, if we''re next to each other we should talk.I thought, snapping myself out of my old way of thinking. At most I could do both, but I should want for her to tell me things, not just for me to barge into her mind.I said to myself, chiding my old, uncommunicative thoughts.


    "Hey, what are you thinking about?" I asked her, my gaze locked on her face. She was roused from her thoughts and tilted her head so that she could make eye-contact with me.


    "Oh, hey. I''m just thinking about what it''ll be like to encounter her. Since she''s an illusionist and a half-succubi. That''s a potent combination." Qu''Ren told me. I nodded, in agreement with what she had just said.


    We stepped off the final step of the stairwell and were on a flat surface again. The ground at our feet wasn''t the worked stone of the interior of the manor, but naturally occurring unworked stone, dirt, and rocks. The sort that was perfect for me to manipulate, using my little influence over the earth subdomain.


    Once we wanted to leave this place we''d have to go backward and climb the same stairwell but upwards instead of downwards. Unless I use my teleportation powers.I reminded myself, fond of the freedom of movement I possessed thanks to that subdomain.


    "You don''t need to tell me that. And there''s more I haven''t told you about our strange foe." I told her, my eyes once again containing a flash of amusement.


    But before I got to tell Qu''Ren about the strange nature of the woman we were walking towards, I laid my eyes on the first illusion, and first trap Lilith had set in place to intercept intruders or guests who went beyond the places in the manor that guests were intended to go. And in seeing it realized that we were dealing with a woman who really loved her secrets.


    Off in the distance, ahead of us by a fair distance, stood an inexpertly placed and prepared illusionary wall. The thing would only fool the most physically adept people to make it here, but the real trap laid behind it. And it was a trap that was a smart one against someone like me who had a potent radar and tremor-sense combination that would render many traps ineffective.


    Behind the illusionary wall was a solitary gargoyle. The thing suspended itself in mid-air with powerful, magically silent flaps of its wings. It had its eyes trained in our direction, but not on us. We were still too far away for it to see us. It didn''t have my eagle-like vision.


    I don''t feel like dealing with this right now. I have a number of questions to ask Lilith, and I won''t let her little toys harm my little toy.I thought, referring to Qu''Ren. I rose a hand in the direction of the gargoyle and began considering what sort of spells I could use to efficiently handle the statue-like creature off in the distance.


    "Sorry for getting distracted." I told Qu''Ren while starting my assault on the distant foe. I quietly cast Weight of the deadon the thing, the invisible energy surging out of my hand.


    "None of Lilith''s children, or at least none of the ones we met outside, know about her parentage. Or about her powers as an illusionist." I told my servant, having grown confident that that was the case due to forcing myself to absorb what the children of Lilith that we had met so far knew about their mother. My spell sped forth from my hand and collided with the gargoyle. The thing crashed to the earth below and groaned in surprised pain.


    Qu''Ren continued to look at me. There was some confusion on her face, and a look of quizzical curiosity about my outstretched hand but she didn''t question me about that. She knew that I knew what I was doing. She did have a question about something else though.


    "None of them? What do they think she is?" The witch asked, her eyes focused on me.


    I tapped my foot and willedEarth Controlto activate. The ground beneath the gargoyle opened up, and the thing fell into the resulting hole. I then tapped my foot again, and closed the hole, trapping the gargoyle in it.


    "They think she''s a rogue. A damn good one, but not one with any unusual skill in magic. She must have taken great pains to hide her powers from her family. I... don''t know why though." I said, honestly. I was truly stumped. The memories I had analyzed made her appear to be a solid mother by dark-elven standards. She wasn''t like Hagitha, at least according to the memories of her children.


    "Oh well, we''ll be finding out soon." I told Qu''Ren. We had been walking forward this whole time, and we were beginning to approach the illusionary wall. Qu''Ren nodded at me, and turned to stare straight ahead. A small smile broke out on her face, as confidence flared to life in her eyes.


    "That''s cute. She placed an illusionary wall ahead of us. Though... you knew that already." Qu''Ren told me. I nodded at her, impressed that she saw through it so quickly and from a fair distance away.


    "I''m glad you could tell that I saw it." I told her, smiling while keeping my gaze locked ahead of us. Qu''Ren had one more question.


    "Was the foot-tapping thing you did to weaken the illusion?" She asked me. I audibly laughed when she finished her question.


    "It was actually to handle the true trap. There was a monster behind the illusion. I took care of it." I told her. She chuckled.


    And thus was set the pattern of our descent downward into Lilith''s inner sanctum. The other two sets of staircases had similar, easily detectable traps that posed no threat to us. Our trip was basically a nice walk deep in a dark cave.


    <hr>


    In less than half an hour we found ourselves viewing the plump backside of the head of one of the youngest noble families in Undermoon. We had invaded her manor, bypassed her traps, and the woman herself slowly turned to face us. And she wasn''t alone.


    I really need to upgrade my radar. Or my tremor-sense. Or both. I thought, having detected her final bodyguards via radar before we entered her sanctum, but not from far away. Just because the demons were flying.


    As Lilith turned to face us, she asked a simple question. "Why are a god and one of his little worshipers invading my home?" She asked, her voice filled with pride and a potent seductive pull. But it was one that I was able to easily ignore. I responded with an offer.


    "How about this, half-demon, if you answer our questions, I might answer yours?" I asked, offering what I felt was a fair deal. And revealing that I knew what she was. And if she refuses then I''ll just rip the memories out of her. Before replacing them with ones I construct. I thought, a wide grin visible on my face.


    <hr>


    The sound of Tristan''s laughter filled the air outside of the Dark Cathedral.


    "He thinks that the high-priestship of your church will be hereditary?" She asked her facial expression one of someone who was laughing profusely. "Well he''s a lot of things, but smart isn''t one of them." She told me, in response to my explanation of Faldor''s desire to marry her.


    It is kind of silly to think that religion for devils would have a hereditary hierarchy. Devils don''t die of old-age. I thought, being aware of the oddity of the devil''s odd thoughts on that.


    He was under the belief that when Tristan died, if she did, of old-age that the title of high-priestess would be passed onto someone else.So he hoped to have her birth his child and pass the title either onto himself or that child. Even though when Tristan dies her soul will just go somewhere else in Infernius. And I''ll find it and promote it to the status of pious-devil, at least. I thought, having already considered how to deal with the possibility that Tristan might die one day.


    Or I''ll just make her immortal. If she asks for it.I reminded myself. I already had a way to make someone immortal, which I had used on Camaxtl, and could use on others just as easily.


    When Tristan finished laughing, her grin didn''t dissipate or fade. Instead, it grew wider. "Althos, I have a plan I think you''ll like. One that''ll speed you through the rest of this trial." She told her, excitement radiating in her gaze. I got closer to her as if she was about to tell me a secret.


    "We''re gonna get you the souls and communities you need. All it takes is a bit of underhanded scheming, violence, and for you to play a few different roles." She said, as a prologue to a scheme she had been thinking about for a few days now, one I was vaguely aware of thanks to my abilities to copy memories, thoughts, and knowledge but was excited to hear her explain in detail, herself. Which was why I had left it alone and copied everything but it whenever I copied her mind''s contents and absorbed it.


    "It sounds like you''ve concocted a scheme. If you''re down to share, I''m so ready to hear it." I told her, excitedly. She looked at me, a bit surprised and asked a fair, albeit somewhat annoying question.


    "Do you... not know what it is?" She asked, genuinely surprised. And then she expanded on her question. "I assumed you continually copied the contents of my mind and absorbed them every few days..." She said.


    "I was just talking about it to be dramatic. I like the flair of this sort of thing. The theatricality of it all. I didn''t get to do it a lot as a child." She told me. I chuckled. And then I sighed.


    "I only knew that you were scheming something, but because I know you wanted to help I left it alone until you told me about it yourself." I told her. "But I mean, your assumption is fair. Now, please, go on." I said, smiling as I readied myself for what would hopefully be an exciting scheme that helped me finish this damn quest.

 Chapter 123: Truths

    Lilith silently contemplated how to respond to my offer. I had a feeling she was going to deny it, which didn''t bother me. I would have been surprised if she had accepted it, so I came here prepared for my first few words to her to be met with a bitter, hostile response. So I reviewed what I knew about Lilith. I did so by recalling the entry I had seen of hers in the wake of my tremor-sense power activating when I entered the manor.


    When I reviewed the information I had about Lilith, I was shown it in the format such columns take when created through the Identify power. And so it felt larger or like I had somehow learned more now, than when it was first shown to me via tremor-sense.


    [Name: Lilith Bloodcaller


    Class: Illusionist, Level 15


    Species: Half-Demon, succubus mother, dark-elf father


    Faction: Bloodcaller Family


    Alignment: Chaotic Evil


    Personal Vice: Lust


    Status: Healthy, curious


    Lilith is in fact innately magical. As a half-succubus, she has illusionary abilities and alteration abilities, and as a half-drow, she has minor mind magic at her disposal.


    Class suitability: Lilith could make for a skilled sorceress. And, if she were to worship a deity of lust, she''d make a good inquisitor. She''s too chaotic to make a good monk but she could make for a talented brawler, thanks to her succubi abilities.


    Magic suitability: Illusion.]


    This is the most detailed information I''ve gathered this way to date... and so many things related to it are things I exert only the lowest tier of influence over. I realized, after seeing all of the knowledge about her I already had at my disposal. It invoked a feeling of power in me, one that made me smile. I can''t wait to see just how much I can learn about someone using identify or tremor-sense in the future when I have even greater power. I told myself.


    I examined the sanctum more thoroughly now that there was this awkward moment of quiet while Lilith considered what to say. We stood just inside of a huge, circular chamber, but not one so big I couldn''t see the end of it.


    Qu''Ren and I stood, alert, just within this chamber''s sole entrance or exit. At what appeared to be a makeshift shrine of some sort, stood Lilith. She was facing us, and anger and curiosity burned in equal measure in her scarlet eyes.


    Lilith was surprisingly short. She stood not much over a meter tall, the average height of the humans I had seen to date. She was undisguised at the moment, and her appearance differed from the Lilith I knew of from her children''s memories. Mostly for two reasons: a particular aspect of her face, and the wings that spread out from her back.


    She shared some of the basic features I had seen in the majority of dark elves I''d met to date, the startling white hair of dark elves, and the dark complexion that many knew them by. But she had other, more unique features as well.


    Lilith had a burned face. Her face was burned in a way that split it perfectly in half. One half of her face, the right half, had the haunting beauty of many older dark elves, the smile lines of a powerful woman in a deeply matriarchal society used to getting what she wants, sharp bone structure that drew in one''s gaze, and pillowy lips that at the moment were pouted as she angrily considered my offer.


    The other half of her face was burned. From the top of her forehead, but not high enough that it affected her hairline, there was a series of horrendous burn scars that went down to the bottom of her chin. This chain of scars, burnt tissue, and reddened flesh was odd because it didn''t affect her hair, nor did it affect her neck. It was centralized entirely on one half of her face. It was clearly magical in origin. And probably old magic at that, because there was no aura coming off of it.


    Lilith wore plain, white robes, which was another odd thing about her since the fashion of Undermoon revolved pretty heavily around dark clothing with liberal usages of spider motifs. They covered her from the neck down, and she seemed comfortable in them.


    A pair of wings spread out from Lilith''s back above the robe. One of her wings was a normal and perfectly healthy-looking feathered wing of a succubus, and the other was a skeletal, atrophied thing that also appeared to have been burned somehow. The wing was burnt down to the bone, so it was like seeing a part of a skeleton of a bird, grafted onto a living creature.


    She might have had a dark elf''s face and complexion, but she definitely had a succubus''s curves. She had a healthy chest with two treasures that clung to and pushed against her robes, drawing eyes to them like a pirate to plunder. She was short, but not slim and slender like Qu''Ren. She had an equally attention-grabbing rear end that I imagined would draw many admirers to her, if she was the sort to be more active in the public eye.


    She had a calm, but frustrated look on her face as she studied us.


    The chamber was empty aside from the six of us. It also didn''t have an abundance of furniture. At the center of the floor I could see the thin blue lines weakly radiate off of the impression of a white pentagram etched onto the dark stone floor at our feet. A summoning circle. I observed, clearly a master of deduction since this illusionist had controlled demons under her thumb, demons that apparently weren''t part of her family.


    At the far end of this huge chamber rested a gigantic bed, seemingly constructed for creatures of much larger frames than Lilith herself. I quickly came to a realization, even as I snuck my way into Lilith''s mind and made a copy of all of her lived experiences, for later analysis and began a slower pace study of the memories than I had grown accustomed too.


    It''s probably for her bodyguards. Her demonic pets. I told myself, after examining the thing and then looking at the hulking bodyguards Lilith had protecting her. Her bodyguards were one of the more striking features of the chamber, aside from her herself.


    As if it were Lilith''s aspiration to be a full demon someday, probably a demon queen given her ambitious army of warriors, and the fact that her bodyguards were demons. A pair of the things protected her, and they were powerfully built.


    The two things had the basic frame of tall humanoids. They had the appropriate limbs, the right basic size, and the same basic makeup as a bipedal humanoid. But they were clearly nightmarish things.


    Their skin was the same scarlet red as freshly spilled blood, they held powerful-looking daggers in each hand, had draconic looking wings, and had the heads of large crocodiles, snout, fangs, and all. Their forms were covered in thin armor which hid much of their red skin but didn''t look particularly protective.


    I looked in their direction, and actively used identify on both demons.


    [Note: Since Identify has been used on two creatures at once, this notification will contain information on both of them. When only one thing is stated, it is true for both creatures.


    Name(s): At your current level of influence over the knowledge domain, you cannot learn an extraplanar''s true name using Identify. But you''ll have the needed level soon. And when you do, a lot of knowledge will open up to you.


    Class(es): Rogue, Assassin, Level 5.


    Species: Breeder Demon


    Faction: Bloodcaller Family


    Alignment: Chaotic Evil


    Personal Vice: Lust


    Status: Healthy, Bloodthirsty.


    These two breeder demons are not very inherently magical. They possess powers like telepathy, which most of their species do, and possess no noteworthy suitability towards any particular kind of magic. They are present in this world as summoned minions of Lilith and thus obey her commands.


    Class Suitability: None of the classes you have at your disposal, aside from maybe warlock, if you decided to take them, boost their intelligence, and then grant them a class.


    Magic suitability: Evocation]


    Breeder demons huh? That''s a kind I''ve never heard of. Are they angrier, more bestial incubi? I asked myself, after learning about them. But I knew better than to waste this moment speculating when I could get an answer.


    [Hey system, can you grant me the new species knowledge notification for "Breeder demons"?] I asked the system, the most persistent of the voices in my head. It didn''t leave me waiting.


    [New Species Knowledge Notification: Breeder Demons


    Breeder demons are a medium-tiered type of demon, alongside wrath demons and sentinel demons. Breeder demons are unusual for demons because they aren''t the result of any specific sin and instead were invented by the Heart of Darkness. Their purpose is to infect mortal worlds with demonic creatures and prepare entire planets for demonic absorption.


    These demons are obsessed with impregnating those who can be impregnated and the only other thing they love doing is destroying those who aren''t infected by demonic influence and who can''t bear children. Like most demons, they are skilled in combat and are brutal opponents, exhibiting creativity in combat that they don''t show anywhere else.


    Breeder demons can evolve into more common demons like incubi and succubi if given enough time to grow in strength and infect those free of demonic influence. Breeder demons are also commonly summoned by half-demons, especially half-succubi, as both a source of recreational entertainment and as skilled defenders. Breeder demons summoned by other demons or half-demons, obey their masters fanatically. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    Breeder demons, in their natural state, tend to be nearly mindless and driven on either by commands given to them by their controllers or, if uncontrolled they follow two basic instincts. The first instinct is an instinctual drive to infect anything they can with demonic lifeforce. The next need they feel is the need to destroy incorruptible things and people.]


    They are... surprisingly primal. I thought, after willing away the notification. They also aren''t as valuable as I had hoped they''d be. I don''t have many demons, and if I gather... rabid ones like them I''ll be putting my other minions in danger. I thought, saddened by the realization that they''d be less useful than Raverangos or Aggothas.


    Lilith opened her mouth to speak, having considered my offer. My attention immediately returned to her. And I began to think.


    <hr>


    Tristan took a breath and then began to speak.


    "So I too want us to get through this trial. We even know the details of the next trial and it won''t take long, which is great. But first, we need to get through this one. I have built a plan based on what is known about the harpies local to the desert. I even know which of the harpies in one village is most likely to give her soul to you! I''d have given you this sooner but I only finalized this plan yesterday, so I couldn''t." She said, at first excitedly and then apologetically.


    My eyes gradually grew wider the more she told me. When she was done explaining I smiled at her and responded to her elevator pitch.


    "Tristan, that''s amazing! What is the actual plan though?" I asked, curious to hear more details about it and what I''d have to do to make it a reality. She chuckled evilly when I asked her that, an unusual thing for her to do which piqued my interest.


    "Well Althos, you have to become a raider." She told me, her two scarlet eyes shimmering intently as if enjoying the thought of me being an evil raider. "The plan is simple. Right now there is a harpy village in the middle of the desert that is left alone by nearby predators and humanoids. The harpies there live a lazy life and don''t have a formalized government. They possess an annoyingly utopian and utilitarian lifestyle." She explained.


    "I have a few harpies... ''under my thrall''," Tristan began to explain. I chuckled when she said that. "Under her thrall" in this context meant that she took a few of the bird-women as lovers and was trying to act like I wasn''t aware of it. She continued on, ignoring my chuckle.


    "Who have begun to mold one of the few ambitious harpies in their community to move into a position where she can gain power. The last thing this harpy needs is for her community to come to believe in her ability to protect them. Once she proves her strength to the rest of her peers they''ll hold a public, immediate election, as is custom for them because of their poor memories, and elect her to be their queen. But no one attacks them." Tristan said, confidently. And now I chimed in.


    "So wait, the plan is for me to cause a ruckus and for her to defeat me?" I asked, sensing that this is where it was going. Tristan smiled, but she shook her head at me.


    "No Althos. Not quite, it''s a bit more than that. The plan is for you to give her an excuse to be a hero, and when she does they''ll name her the leader. They just need help giving her an excuse to be one," Tristan said, happily.


    "Once you have her soul you need to disguise yourself, and then raid the village. They might flee, or they might defend themselves, but either way, you need to kidnap a few of them. Once you have taken... 5 or so of them with you, retreat. And not long after you do, she''ll pursue you." Tristan was explaining this as if it was the simplest matter in the world.


    "What you need to do after that is simple. When she finds you, create and give her an illusion of your head. She''ll return with it, and with the harpies you kidnapped, and be hailed a hero. And then she''ll be elected her village''s leader. Which fulfills the conditions for the quest." Tristan told me. She had a proud smile on her face.


    I looked at her, proud of her for coming up with this plan. But I did have one question.


    "You did a great job Tristan. This is so easy it shouldn''t take more than a few hours." I exclaimed, genuinely proud of the work she and her harpy lovers had done to build this up over the last few months. She beamed me a brilliant smile.


    "But that''s only one soul identified, acquired, and community taken. I need two." I told her, curious as to if she took that into account. She grinned at me, this time, less proudly and more slyly.


    "Oh Althos, there''s more to the plan than that. That''s just for soul and community number 2. For community number three there is a girtablilu community that I''ve made excitable over a ruin close to where they live. In their culture becoming a dungeon-master, after one swears an oath to do so, is considered a means of becoming a formal, recognized leader. The ancestor of the last formal leader of the group is bitter that he isn''t the leader and I doubt you''ll have to work hard to get him to sell you his soul." She explained, confident and ready to answer questions.


    "The ruin isn''t hugely dangerous. I went there myself and added some traps to make it harder for unaided girtablilus, so all you have to do is go in, secure the man''s soul, and then help him through it. Once he''s at the end he''ll become the dungeon master, you''ll secure the third community, and we''ll just have to wait for Ayla to win her election." Tristan bragged, secure in her faith in her scheme.


    "With this... a significant chunk of the desert becomes controlled by us or our servants, I gain the ability to promote devils beyond imps, and we can go ahead and begin the third trial." I said, shocked that the beginning of the next phase of the war might be so close. Especially since the third trial would be the shortest trial by far. Making an alliance with another influential leader would be easy. I thought to myself with a smile on my face.


    I stood up from my seat and smiled at my priestess. "This has been... refreshing and helped me refocus. Let''s do this." I told her, feeling energy and enthusiasm surge through me. I copied all of the contents of Tristan''s mind and absorbed what little I didn''t already have, quite easily. And then I got a notification that strengthened my conviction.


    [Quest Progress Alert:


    3/3 ambitious individuals identified.]


    YES! Finally, we can go ahead and knock this out. I roared in my mind, eager to gain more devilish powers, followers, and more mortal worshipers.


    <hr>


    I have a feeling she''s gonna try to reject my offer... what should I say if she tries too? It wouldn''t make sense for her to do that, she knows what I am. She can''t possibly think she can get out of this unscathed if she doesn''t listen to me can she? If anything she should be happy I didn''t just attack her. I thought, in the span of the moments before Lilith began to speak.


    "Althos, why are you here?" She asked me, flatly. Her voice still possessed that seductive pull, and it was as easy for me to ignore as it had been when she last spoke, a few moments ago. I looked at her curiously and considered how to answer her question. I... guess I''ll just tell her the truth? I mean... this is a situation I have total control over. I already have her memories within me. I told myself. In fact, each passing moment brought me a greater degree of knowledge about Lilith.


    "I''m here for your family. And you. Half of your children, the younger ones, are outside and unconscious. I''m gonna make them my worshipers. And I''m gonna do the same thing to you." I told her, honestly. She looked to her conjured demons, and I could hear her heartbeat rocket up, as she prepared to make a mistake.


    I shot my hands up, aiming using my fingers, and immediately fired two flesh-to-stone spells at the breeder demons. The indistinct beams shot out of my fingers even as Lilith prepared to give her demonic minions an order. And now for a distraction. I thought, grinning internally as my mouth opened and a sound began to escape it.


    "Wait!" I shouted, startling her, and caused her to freeze up. My beams collided with the wings of her conjured minions while she was recovering from being startled. Trickery would be proud. I thought, smirking as I watched the unexpected attack begin to affect the demons.


    The breeder demons began to roar as their flesh turned to stone, but the process was quick, and their roars got cut off when the spell petrified their mouths. The demons fell to the ground, but the statues didn''t shatter from the impact.


    "Shit!" Lilith roared. She immediately turned back to face me and rose her hands in my direction. I chuckled as her aura flared to life, the air around her turning a bright shade of yellow. I looked at her and began to speak.


    "Are you sure you want to do this Lilith?" I asked her, my voice calm. "This doesn''t have to end in violence." I told her, my eyes taking in every centimeter of her.


    I heard her heart continue to race, but slow down a bit as she considered what to do. She was still, her hands raised in my direction as if she could stop me if she wanted too. I didn''t make another move towards her. But I did begin to speak.


    "Listen... I win. This little scenario of yours? If you do what you''re about to do next you don''t win. Don''t get me wrong, I''d understand it if me knocking some of your children unconscious upset you, but take a second and think about what you''re about to do. What do you envision happening here? Talk to me. Talk me through your gameplan." I said, my voice filled with faux-concern.


    A silence filled the chamber. Behind me, Qu''Ren stifled a chuckle. Lilith was silent, but there was a look of visible anger on her face. Understandable, really. I can''t blame her for being mad. I mean... she won''t remember this, but in the moment I think it''d be wise to offer her something to placate her. Maybe if I heal that scar. She''d be happy to be rid of that thing. I told myself.


    When the chamber was silent for nearly half a minute I began to speak once more. This time with something resembling a peace-offering. One that was based on my ever-increasing knowledge of Lilith.


    "Lilith, it''s time for you to talk to me. What can I do to heal this wound? This wound that I inflicted." I asked her while taking responsibility for my actions. Her facial expression softened a touch, though it was still furious.


    She kept her hands raised, kept them pointed at me, but she did speak. "You can start off by explaining, in detail, what you''re doing here." She demanded, her voice still touched with her rage and frustration. I chuckled.


    "Lilith I''m here because I want to conquer the city. But I didn''t want to do it in a conventional, violent sense. I''m here because I gave Qu''Ren and a group of her allies a quest to take the city for me, to make the city worship me. And in exchange, I''ll restore in them the long-lost ability to shape-shift. The ability the first elves possessed." I explained, beginning to tell Lilith the truth about my objectives here. Her eyes opened in shock.


    "I came to this estate for the express purpose of converting you all into my worshipers. I thought your whole family was warriors, rogues, rangers, and other martially skilled warriors. I had no idea you were a half-demon or an illusionist until I set off in your manor. It was a very pleasant surprise." I said, telling her the unabashed truth.


    And what I did to your family was done before I knew that. But it''s fine because no one is actually hurt. Or... no one will be hurt when I''m done. They''ll wake up stronger than before, actually. And in fact, I could heal your scars, Lilith. If you wanted me too." I told her, honestly. She reacted immediately to that. I also accentuated that statement by filling her mind with illusionary images of her children, healed, and with assorted vestigial traits resurrected within them. And images of her at her most beautiful, from before she was scarred.


    "What...? Really? You can... heal me?" She asked, shocked, as her mind was filled with foreign but appealing images depicting her and her family at their strongest. For a moment she was dumbfounded, and debating what to do. Which taught me something valuable: I was beginning to gain a grasp on how to control battlefields and fights.


    I looked at her, with a smile on my face. "Lilith, if you stop trying to fight me I can heal your scars. Honestly, I could do a lot more than that." I told her, confidently. And then a question came to mind, which I immediately asked her. "Lilith... what do you think gods are?" I asked her, curious if I was inadvertently about to learn why she ignored my offer.


    She looked at me and considered my question for a second. And then she told me something deeply telling. "Aren''t gods just powerful people? People who are, admittedly, incredibly powerful but still little more than people." She said, her voice containing a childish ignorance, but one that made a certain kind of sense in a world wherein gods were basically the stuff of the most ancient myths.


    So that''s why she was willing to take a risk... she didn''t understand, couldn''t understand really, the differences between us. I thought, suddenly understanding her a lot more.


    I guess I need to show her. I thought, not having really had a chance to do so yet.


    "Lilith... I''m more than just a powerful person. I can do things that you can''t imagine. And I''m strong enough that I can afford to end this confrontation. Would you give me a chance to demonstrate my powers?" I asked her.


    My explanations for my actions had taken the wind out of the sails of her rage, and now that she heard that she had a chance to be healed, and realized that her family wasn''t hurt in any real capacity, she took a deep breath and set her hands down. She was about to nod, when a thought entered her mind and she suddenly remembered something.


    "Can you please unfreeze my pets? It was... very difficult for me, an illusionist, to conjure them and I''d very much like them back. If you''re ''strong enough to afford to end this confrontation'', whatever that means, can I have my pets back?" She asked, exhaustion creeping into her voice. I laughed and rose my hands in the direction of the demons.


    "Sure. Sorry about that, I didn''t want us to come to blows." I told her, laughing as I undid the spell.

 Chapter 124: Towards The Next Stage

    A few minutes after I unfroze Lilith''s pets, she, Qu''Ren, and I were behaving very civilly. We were even sitting down together! We were seated in a different part of her manor, having moved out of the place to allow for our emotions to settle and to see if a change of scenery helped.


    I was responsible for this. I had requested it for a very pragmatic reason: during the time it took for us to walk to the room I finished absorbing Lilith''s extensive memories and knowledge. And even now her knowledge percolated in my brain.


    So this is the mind of a head of a noble family that I didn''t already have followers in... I thought as knowledge streamed into view, improving my awareness. My vision was flooded with textboxes revealing facts, spells, skills, and more to me. How positively delicious. I said to myself, my thoughts quiet and hidden but no doubt suggested by whatever eerie smile was likely etched onto my face.


    This is new though... Not that I''m complaining, but my mind absorption powers have never been like this before. I thought, wondering why I was undergoing this odd, and pleasant experience.


    [Hello Althos. In order to address your curiosity and slight confusion here''s an explanation: the domain and subdomains that challenged you with the "Master Manipulator" quest came together and granted you a sneak peek of what you can expect to see in the future when you absorb knowledge, memories, and thoughts.] The system explained, causing me to nod internally.


    Oh, that makes sense. I guess. I thought, grinning, hopefully, less weirdly than before.


    <hr>


    We found ourselves in one of the rooms belonging to one of her younger children. I didn''t mention it to her, but I actually knew which of the children it belonged too: one of her girls, Helena.


    The room was a drab place, but Helena had a dour personality so that was unsurprising. The room was ruthlessly spartan and the table was only there for Helena to make notes on assorted strategies and plots she was working on all over Undermoon.


    She was one of the few politically minded members of her family aside from her mother so her mind was constantly active and the table saw regular use for its intended purpose. I looked forward to restoring her and empowering her as one of my worshipers.


    Lilith looked at me, her scarlet eyes filled with curiosity and interest. She was no longer the angry woman she had been when I first met her. Qu''Ren watched her, her eyes not filled with intrigue and a curious fascination. She was the first of the three of us to speak.


    "This is a nice atmosphere. The three of us, alone, together." She said, suggestively. She winked at Lilith, and Lilith looked at her. There was no hostility in her gaze, just a mild level of curiosity. After all, she didn''t know that Qu''Ren charmed her youngest son, and my little witch hadn''t had an opportunity to do anything in the brief standoff I had with Lilith''s other children. I chuckled and then began to speak myself.


    "Look, Lilith, I am a god. And that means a lot more than just me being able to enter dreams, do some cool stuff, and even grant people powers, which I can also do." I said to her, smiling pleasantly all the while. I fell silent for a second, while I considered how to continue from here.


    "Being a god, at its simplest, means that I am a creature with the capabilities to alter reality." I told her, breaking it down to its most essential component. She looked at me with an eyebrow raised to signal her skepticism. I could already tell she was going to challenge me from that eyebrow alone. Oh goodness. Here we go. I thought as she prepared a sassy response.


    "Look, if that''s what it means then I''m a god. Or... a goddess." She said, the exhaustion from earlier becoming audible yet again in her voice. I chuckled at her. I''ll go ahead and have some fun with this. I thought as I began to prepare my first bit of proof, something even I had never done before: create a portal to a place I had never been to.


    <hr>


    I know... a lot more about The Heart of Darkness now than I used too. A small part of me realized while I focused on trying to find a relatively safe place in the nightmarish dimension which would be safe for the dark elves and I to get a glimpse of.


    What I was finding while diving into the memories and knowledge I possessed was that the entire dimension was a deadly, chaotic mess. Which I already knew. I know so much about the specific dangers of this place, but not much about how to navigate it. Not even Raverangos'' or Aggothas'' knowledge is particularly useful, the two of them more or less stayed near where they became their current selves. I grumbled while wracking my brain.


    For a second I considered creating a sort of peep-hole into the dimension, but then knowledge about types of demons including minuscule and vermin-like ones that were no less dangerous than other, bigger types flooded my consciousness. Oh damn it! I complained, managing to be both annoyed by and appreciative of Hagitha''s encyclopedic knowledge of demons.


    I''ll just show her my dimension then. That''ll have to be good enough. I told myself, mildly annoyed that showing her her birthplace within the demonic dimension wasn''t an option that was safe for her or her family''s holdings in the long run due to the possibility of a demon sneaking into the house.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    <hr>


    "No. I mean on a fundamental level. As a god, I can do forcibly do things that humans misidentify as natural phenomena." I explained a grin on my face as I did so.


    "Let me show you an example." I told her, as I prepared to activate a power of mine that I knew, in time would soon become one of my favorites.


    The darkest part of Helena''s room was a corner of it that was undecorated. It was where two sections of the dark walls of the room connected and there was no furniture to take up any space there. It was from there that my usage of one of my newer divine powers, one which allowed me to create portals linking even extradimensional spaces, manifested.


    The portal was birthed in seconds, manifesting itself as an impossibly dark hole that seemed to lure in what little light existed in this place and devour it. This is only the third time I''ve used this power. I noticed as I grinned at the thing. I gestured in the thing''s direction and urged them to look at it. They did that without fear, but nothing else.


    After turning to acknowledge the new, eerie addition to the room, their facial expressions changed. Both Lilith and Qu''Ren looked at it with trepidation. After watching them for a few seconds I shrugged and spoke once more.


    "Look, I can''t force you through that portal," I said, beginning a statement. I was lying, I could easily force them through the portal, with or without actual physical force if I wanted to.


    "But, I can tell you what lies on the other side: a secret place known only to a few mortals. An entire dimension created by my power. A place you can find on the other side of darkness." I told the two of them, purposefully making a grandiose and enigmatic statement to entice them to overcome their fear.


    They were still for a second, while I got up and walked to the portal. I listened to hear if they were behind me and on their feet. When I realized they weren''t I sighed and stepped through the portal and into the Althonian version of Undermoon. I took a few steps forward so that I wasn''t immediately in front of the portal and heard them emerge from behind me, only to look out into a city extremely like theirs and gasp when they looked in the sky and spotted the gigantic mushroom that overlooked the city.


    "It''s... real." Lilith said, in gasping, shocked breaths. I laughed softly at her reaction and nodded.


    "It''s very real. And it''s my home." I said softly, admiring my handy work, and I wasn''t alone in that.


    <hr>


    A few minutes after finishing up my conversation with Tristan, I was hard at work in another place. I had teleported here to begin making preparations for the raid. Something I thought would be more fun than it actually was. And for once I wasn''t alone in my world. Another me was hard at work as well, having a conversation with a pair of dark-elves.


    Preparing a raiding party is simple, they said. It''ll be fun, they said. They could have told me I''d have to make weapons, armor, and nets. I grumbled. I wasn''t near the other me, in our version of Undermoon. Instead, I was at the only permanent portal that linked my realm and the mortal realm.


    The tunnel was a perfect place to plop a portal into existence. It was an unmanned place, and because it synchronized perfectly with its destination: another mining tunnel. Most of my surroundings were lazy shades of dark colors, and a still, quiet tunnel. But in front of me was an experimental invention: a dwarven minecart.


    The thing was an odd invention. It functioned and even resembled a normal minecart but had no need for rails. It rolled around on its own, powered by magic, and was an incredible aid in gathering materials. This was why my human followers in the tunnels between Golden-Gate and Undermoon used it to supply me with an impressive amount of metal over the last few minutes.


    The invention was packed to the brim with assorted metals, all of which came from the tunnel that connected the city of Undermoon and the small rebuilt community of Golden-Gate. I had a handful of iron from the minecart in one of my hands and I was waiting for the right moment to use a skill on it. The right moment was approaching, but it wasn''t here quite yet.


    I wasn''t actually focused on the lump of metal in my hand. My focus was elsewhere. It was on the three similar forms in my mind.


    These things are so... big. And furry. I thought, in reference to the creatures whose bulky forms filled my mind.


    They were bovine things with the basic limb composition of humanoids. In my mind''s eye, they were naked, and I knew they''d come to life covered in thick fur and possibly leather or fur armor but I wanted the minotaurs to have real weapons and real armor when they sprang to life. And I had begun the process of making such armor and armaments.


    The floor next to me was where I deposited the weapons I had already created. I created two throwable nets designed to ensnare harpies, which were on the floor next to me, and a single bastard sword. I had also created two breastplates designed to accommodate a minotaur''s frame.


    I''ll be done with this soon. I noticed, as I only planned to create three minotaurs to accompany me on the raid. The rest of the preparatory stage would only take a few minutes. Good. I want to go ahead and get this started. I thought, a grim smile on my face as I envisioned completing this quest soon.


    <hr>


    An impossible, unprecedented affliction struck the city of Namira. Minutes ago a strange blanket of mystical pollen descended on the city and coated every corner of it, even seeping into buildings.


    This strange golden pollen seeming rained from the sky, though they were no clouds in sight and it was difficult for rain to penetrate the barrier over the city. That didn''t change reality though. The reality of the situation was that a pollen-like substance fell from the sky and coated the floor, roofs, and indoors of the city of Namira. And that same pollen fell moments before an even more noteworthy thing happened.


    The inhabitants of the city of Namira fell asleep. All of them. Every man, woman, and child was fast asleep. As were all of the animals that roamed the outskirts of the city. The city was impossibly, almost unimaginably quiet.


    If someone had been able to take a tour through it, or rather this version of it, they''d be stunned to see the gigantic streets deprived of all traffic and activity. And they''d be scared of whatever caused this because it was so quick that giants were caught off guard and outside when it happened.


    The streets of Namira were lined with giants who had been going about their business when the supernatural phenomena occurred. Some were men, some were women, and many were children. They were caught in a range of positions. Some had been working. Some had been playing. Others had been committing crimes. Or tending to their herds or crops. But now no matter their occupation, or their social status, they were all caught in the middle of a single, ambitious dream.


    They were flies, trapped in a spider''s web. Unfortunate victims caught in someone else''s rhythm, the rhythm of an incredibly ambitious woman and the god who had decided to support her. And they''d soon learn what that meant.

 Chapter 125: An Ambitious, Deceitful Dream

    So this is what it''s like to use my powers on such a massive scale... I found myself thinking, within the gigantic dream I had created for General Ayla Syah. Just a few minutes ago I had used my powers on a massive scale in two ways: the first was that I had used new divine, magical powers to cast a single spell that caused the entire city to fall asleep. The second was that I drew everyone who fell asleep in the city into this dreamscape I had created for the purpose of fulfilling my deal with Ayla.


    Everything around me was generated by me. In fact, the only things I didn''t control were the other people in the dreamscape I had created to announce my support for Ayla and to introduce myself as a deity to the people of the city.


    My mind was stretched further than ever before in this place. It was an incredibly odd feeling. Here, in this dreamscape, I was in control of the entirety of the world in ways that were only comparable to the influence I had over my own realm. I was also granted a weird sort of omnipresence that gifted me with a subconscious knowledge of who and what was where in this strange place.


    My current surroundings were perhaps the strangest part of this whole experience. I was in a wholly original place, one not generated by copying a part of the city and pasting it into this dreamscape. One I had invented out of my own free-will, and placed in the dream to inspire Ayla. I was in a saray of my own design, one that I created instantly using ecomancy and based on my knowledge of Mahmud''s memories and the history of Namira.


    Ayla was next to me, her dream-self wearing the armor of ancient, warring desert-giants. She was lost in thought, still amazed by all of this. The whole time she had been in this place, what felt like three or so minutes though time was tricky in the place we were in, the strange realm of dreams, she had been quiet. She had only muttered words since we got here, and I could tell her mind was reacting to this in stride.


    In fairness... it is a lot. Lucid dreaming can be intense the first time it happens. I thought, having gained a decent amount of knowledge of dreams during the last two months.


    The first time I did something like this I gained over ten thousand worshipers instantly. And some dark-elves gained a new class. I thought, grinning as I recalling the last time I created a dream. But this is different. I reminded myself, with a grim expression on my face.


    We''d be showing the people of Namira a number of things. And only one of them was a prerecorded scene. The majority of what we''d be saying to them would be things we''d be saying live. And at the end of this dream, I''d gift Ayla an army of sandmen to control. The same sandmen, and more, that she saw lay waste to an outpost not long ago.


    She''d be in her odd, quiet state for a few more minutes.


    <hr>


    Once five minutes, in dreamscape time anyway, had passed I placed a hand on Ayla''s back. When she turned to face me I spoke to her.


    "It''s time. Are you ready?" I asked, gently. She looked at me, and her face was a mix of emotions. Her eyes glowed as a number of feelings clashed and fought for control. Eventually, excitement won out, and when she nodded at me there was a smile on her lips and pride in her eyes. She still didn''t speak though. I nodded back at her and began to weave a complex web of spells in my mind.


    It took me thirty seconds to finish the chain of spells that''d connect me and Ayla with the rest of the city. When the web was finished I activated it immediately. It flared to life. In front of Ayla and I nothing appeared to have changed. But the rest of the city was exposed to a prerecorded and fabricated vision.


    The scene that the people of Namira got to witness was an amazing and false one. In it, Ayla and a few creatures I had designated to be her servants fought for their lives. The people of Namira saw a gigantic battlefield, where Ayla and her forces warred against a gigantic legion of sandmen.


    <hr>


    "Worm riders! On me!" Ayla shouted as she dashed towards a wave of the sandmen. The desert giants'' most hated enemies were gathered in a never-before-seen number and they were also dashing towards her.


    Ayla was on foot, a gigantic hammer in one hand and a massive blade in another. She wore the armor of a traditional desert-giant warrior. It differed from the armor of the guards who protected the city from intrusion by civilized enemies in that it was meant for mobility. Such mobility was necessary when fighting the savage monsters that dwelled in the sandy wastes of the desert.


    As she sprinted forward, fearlessly making herself a target for her hated enemies, the sands on her left and her right violently erupted as two powerful creatures surged out of them. This Ayla smiled as the fabricated massive worms exploded into the battlefield next to her. Both of the huge things had riders seated on their heads, riders who were desert giants.


    The worms moved by burrowing through the sand, their bodies comfortable under tonnes of the stuff. When they emerged from its depths they did so violently, causing massive explosions of sand to fill the air as they temporarily showed themselves. They attacked by either outright devouring the sandmen, or by spitting globules of acid at them that rapidly dissolved them.


    Their riders were skilled, also fabricated, desert giants who strapped countless spears to their backs. The riders wore suits emblazoned with the emblem of the army of the faction that once sought to take over Namira. The suits were designed to enable them to survive the heat and pressure of the sands while underneath it. And they had countless spears strapped to their backs, spears which they deftly grabbed and hurled at sandmen from vast distances away.


    When Ayla got within range of the forces of the sandmen she began to lash out at her enemies. She was a whirlwind of fury and obsidian as her weapons struck her enemies and caused them to fall before her.


    The next two minutes of the vision was a montage of scenes and moments from this entirely made-up battle. And the false narrative it created was an incredibly useful one, meant to fool the people of Namira into thinking Ayla was a heroine, a warrior who risked her life and her armies to save not only the wastes from certain destruction but in doing so also spare the lives of countless Namirians as well.


    At the end of it, Ayla single-handedly faced down a massive sandman and cut the thing in half. When the creature perished it released a crystal that Alya picked up. The crystal immediately and painfully burned her flesh, scarring her and embedding within her a new power: the ability to control sandmen. Though that part wasn''t explained in what we had shown the people of Namira.


    And it worked wonderfully.


    <hr>


    And so, it''s my turn. I thought as the vision edged towards an end. I readied myself by shedding my desert giant form and taking on one not unlike the form I used to first interact with Ayla when she first appeared before me. She looked on as my form changed, becoming a slightly more sandy variant of the form she felt was my "default" form. When I finished my transformation she smiled at me, now far smaller than myself.


    When the vision came to an end, a massive screen appeared in front of me. This screen reflected my appearance back to me for the sake of ensuring that I knew what I looked like while I spoke. It was a handy feature, but my face was an intentionally passive one in this form. Only my mouth moved, and even that only moved a bit.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    I waited for a second to build tension before I began to speak. And when I began I began to weave the biggest lie I had ever told, one that was based in the folklore of the giants themselves and was concocted to make Ayla an even bigger hero, not just a protector but a liberator. The only person in the dream-scape who knew the full truth was Ayla herself, who had collaborated with me to concoct this falsehood.


    "Good people of Namira, lend me your ears. I am an ancient desert spirit, the last and greatest of my kind, and I am here to tell you the truth regarding the ancient animosity my children, the sandmen, have had with your people." I said, beginning to harken back to the most ancient myths of the people of Namira.


    I closed my eyes as if I were being overcome with emotion before continuing to speak. Ayla wasn''t visible to the people I was addressing, and next to me she grinned as I weaved this tale.


    "A long time ago the ancient devil Paimon made a deal with lesser desert spirits, a terrible and treacherous deal that preyed on their ambition and bloodthirst. You see they were jealous of my power and my kinship with our children, the sandmen. Paimon gained their souls, and their service, in exchange for sealing me away into a shell that resembled a massive sandman. For countless eons, I was trapped in that form, in the most remote wastes this desert has to offer." I told the captive audience.


    "One of the terms and conditions of the deal Paimon made with my ancestors was that the sandmen, the children of my kind, be used as weapons against desert giants. This wasn''t the original relationship between our two peoples, but it''s been literally hundreds of thousands of years since we last had peace. That changes today." I declared, confidence surging into my earthy voice.


    "My people will no longer be hostile towards desert giants. Sandmen will no longer be the terrors that parents tell their children about to scare them into good behavior." I told the dreamscape, and that was true. I''d need some time to make it totally true, but I was already formulating a plot in my mind to secure the worship and service of the few roving groups of sandmen, and those of them that became mine wouldn''t be hostile towards the people of Namira.


    This drew a reaction from the countless desert giants who were watching the vision. Both Ayla and I heard a thunderous cheer as the people of Namira realized the incredible difficulty of what Ayla had just done: she had built peace. Ayla was still as the realization dawned on her, and as she began to see her lifelong ambitions begin to come together. Her heartbeat was impossibly fast, as the enormity of this moment washed over her.


    "To truly cement the new age of friendship between our two peoples, I am sending her a small force of sandmen that she can use against your enemies and anyone who would dare to threaten the safety of the people of Namira. They will obey her, much like how some of them obeyed Mahmud during his youth. They will help pave the way to a new age of friendship and peace between us." I said, explaining why a force of non-hostility sandmen would surge into the city soon.


    "Ayla Syah is a hero whose actions have made the desert a safer place. And it is through my power that all of us are here, together, to share this moment and to learn that simple truth. Ayla has a big heart and because of that she has agreed to be here and to speak to us herself about her hopes for the future and about the truth of her actions that caused the Suti family to slander her and turn the public against her." I said, now done with my part of this deception.


    <hr>


    The screen shifted and moved to be in front of Ayla. The bronze-skinned general smiled and began to speak without wasting a second.


    "Hello. My name is Ayla Syah and I know that many people believe they know who I am." She said, confidently introducing herself to the countless viewers whose hearts had been rocked by the false revelations of the minutes I had spent speaking.


    "I will begin by saying what about me is true. I believe the truth ought to be prioritized in moments like this. I was the leader of the army known as ''The Untamed Wastes''. We were an army made for the sake of defeating the sandmen that plagued our communities. We were never your foes, and the fact that the Suti family insisted on making me a villain is one of the greatest injustices of the recent era." Ayla said, her voice filling with faux-sadness. She was about to weave a lie almost as big as the one I had just weaved.


    "A very long time ago I came to this great city to ask for aid. When I explained what my army sought the Suti family grew incensed and labeled me an enemy, and an invader. My army clashed with the army of Namira. And we lost. I was captured and taken to a secretive prison." She said, tears filling her eyes. This was a mixture of truths and falsehoods that when weaved together created a blanket that told a story that was more dramatically interesting than logical.


    "I believe that the emperor at the time of my defeat made a deal with some enemy of mine to bring an end to our mission to make the desert a safe place. Fortunately, fate had a different idea in mind." She said, now beginning to smile slightly. She was about to explain one of the most important parts of the scheme we dreamed up together.


    "Mahmud Suti wasn''t my enemy. He was an unfortunate victim in all of this. He and I were lovers, and he freed me. And for that, he lost his life. But not before his own patron and ally, a god of all things, told me the truth about the reasons for the hostility the sandmen have shown us for so long. That god opposes Paimon, and seeks to unite and liberate the desert from Paimon''s tyranny and terror." She told the people of Namira. Another sound reverberated throughout the city, the sound of shocked gasps.


    "I believe Mahmud would want me to become the next empress of Namira. And I believe that I embody the spirit of Namira; a relentless pride, an ability to overcome opposition and even thrive in while staring it down." She confidently told her audience, growing more and more comfortable in front of the screen every second.


    "I am asking you to vote for me in less than a week when we hold our election. The city of Namira has been leaderless for too long. It''s time to get things back on track, and even unify our people now that our most dangerous foes are no longer our enemies. The time has come for progress, expansion, and unity." Ayla told the captive audience and in doing so inadvertently came up with her campaign slogan: "Progress, Expansion, and Unity".


    When we heard cheers erupt throughout the city, a thought came to mind.We''re really doing this... this is going to work.I thought both startled and amazed by what was happening in front of me.


    "Thank you for your time. You''re going to be waking up very soon. You have been a wonderful audience, and I hope to get to know you very soon." She told the city, a wide grin on her face. And then the screen vanished. I transformed again, taking on the tall desert giant form I had used when Ayla and I witnessed the sandmen destroy an outpost earlier in the day. I looked at her and smiled.


    "I think that went well. Now... do you want to go walk around for a bit? How long has been it since you last walked the streets of Namira?" I asked her, already knowing the answer.It''s been over an entire millennium. I bet she''d like to go for a walk.I thought, a grin on my face as I offered her my arm. She chuckled at me, and looked at my arm.


    "I''m not from here, but I do think it''d be wise to go see the place I''m about to become the ruler of, so sure." She said while waving her hand to indicate that she wouldn''t take my arm. I chuckled back and respected her choice, placing my arm down at my side again.


    And it was at that moment that I received a significant domain-centric alert and a title that reminded me of events from over two months ago. Reading it brought a big smile to my face.


    [Domain-centric Alert:


    The actions you undertook just now have been deemed worthy of granting you influence over the relevant domains and subdomain they involved. Congratulations on gaining the first tier of influence over the domains of dreams, falsehoods, and the subdomain of lies.


    The system is taking a second to process what all that entails and in a few moments you will receive a larger notification alerting you to the concrete rewards that those domains and subdomain provide you at their lowest tier of influence.]


    [New Title Acquired: The Lord Of Lies


    This potent title is a stronger version of a title you were previously known by, theLover of Lies. You''ve acquired this title by becoming a god with influence over lies. This title inherently makes your lies stronger and increases the potency of all of your illusionary and deceitful powers.


    It''s also what all illusionists, rogues, and other deceptive or sneaky classes know you by automatically. They''ll feel the title emblazon itself onto their souls when they meet you, or when they next see you.]

 Chapter 126: Creations

    The streets of a hazy vision of Namira stretched out before Ayla and I. She examined them wistfully, having been here a few times throughout her life, but never like this. Never as a heroine, and never so perfectly, painstakingly recreated in a dream.


    I was beside her, but my mind felt like it was elsewhere. Because I was reading a notification that alerted me to a strange yet exciting development.


    [Double Notification: New Species Knowledge Alert And Domain Centric Alert


    New Species Knowledge Alert: Great Old Ones


    Great Old Ones were an ancient species that existed during the Mythic Age. These entities were higher-beings, similar to gods, archdevils, demon lords, and more. They were worshiped by ancient, alien things like Mi-Gos, Gugs, Star-Spawn, the Great Race, Deep Ones, Secret Seekers, and other alien horrors.


    These entities possessed immense power. They could forcibly reshape flesh, induce madness with a touch, and their proximity to planets was enough to drive entire civilizations to ruin.


    They possessed power equivalent to half of the lowest tier of influence over domains and subdomains like dreams, minds, madness, stars, liquid, earth, air, fertility, and assorted other things. They were lesser in power than the Outer Gods, but their powers still brought ruin to worlds. They were commendably mighty beings.


    Learn about them. Learn of creatures like Tsathoggua, Dagon, Hastur, and Cthulhu. In time their secrets will be revealed to you. When they are, remember this moment. Harness their power. Because your power is... flexible. It is... restorative. The domains are endlessly fascinated by you. They want to see you learn the secrets of those who came before. Maybe even master them. Keep it up.


    Domain-Centric Alert:


    We''ll begin by discussing dreams.


    Dreams:


    The domain of dreams is one that grants you a number of different things. It grants you an idle skill that lets you phase into the realm of dreams whenever you wish, lets you see people''s level of exhaustion, allows you to mutate creatures in a number of ways related to sleep and dreams, and allows you to create new types of creatures known as "Leng Abominations".


    These "Leng" monsters are inhabitants of the realm of dreams who possess eerie shape-shifting powers and who shift between a satyr-like form and the forms of massive spiders. These creatures are natives to the realm of dreams, but they are among the weakest of the dreadful things found there. And they can and sometimes do escape to the waking world. But... under your leadership, who knows what they''ll do.


    There are other creatures this domain will allow you to create, but only in conjunction with domains and subdomains, you don''t yet have influence over, or you don''t have enough influence over. In time they will be revealed to you.


    The domain of dreams at its lowest tier grants you a few active powers.


    Dancing Dream:


    The first active power is the ability to lock someone in a state of slumber for 24 hours. At this tier of influence, this power can only be used on someone who was already sleeping. But magically induced sleeping counts. If activated this can only be deactivated if you will it to be undone. No magical spell, potion, or even something like true love''s kiss can undo it. It doesn''t suffer from the limitations imposed on some active powers, like a cooldown rate.


    Restorative And Restless Dreams:


    The second active power you gain is the ability to affect someone''s quality of sleep. For many, if not most mortals, sleep is when they regain their energy and when their magical energy is restored. This power allows you to amplify that, or disrupt it. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    The restorative aspect of it doubles the rate at which energy is restored if someone sleeps, and disrupting it causes them to not be able to recover at all. This power aids armies when used restoratively and causes them to destroy themselves when used against them. It can be aimed at an area, or at specific individuals. This power is compatible with the Dancing Dream power, and also with magically induced sleep.


    You have gained other ambient abilities because of this. You can now claim a portion of the realm of dreams as your own if you wish for it. This place would be your own territory. But to do that you have to venture into the realm of dreams once more so you won''t be asked about it until then. You can also create portals into the realm of dreams.


    Falsehood:


    This domain and the subdomains of lies, shapeshifting, and illusion are all strongly compatible with each other. This domain is about more than just lies, illusions, and shapeshifting though, it''s about all manner of misunderstandings and even the prevention of misunderstandings. It only grants you a few skills at the lowest tier of influence, but it does increase the stats of your followers who worship you as a god of knowledge, deception, or things of that nature.


    This domain grants you proficiency with traps of all sorts. It grants you wisdom when it comes to things like espionage, and you can bless worshipers of yours with increases to their deceptive skills, illusionary abilities, and their own trap-making, and trap-detection skills.


    False Pain:


    This is an active power that lasts for an hour once used against someone. This power affects someone''s mind and wracks them with pain. The pain comes from nowhere. It''s not real. This power can be used on anyone as a form of torture. It is one of the powers that can only be used twice every twelve hours. It will be amplified as you gain tiers of influence over domains and subdomains of torture, evil, darkness, and corruption.


    Lies:


    The subdomain of lies is an immediately active and malicious subset of the domain of falsehoods. With it you can create pseudologi, spirits that embody lies. These are powerful beings that worship you as the lord of lies, and seek to bring people either to you in worship or to suffering through the telling of and belief in lies. You can mutate your servants and grant them greater deceptive skills.


    Compulsive Lies:


    This active power afflicts those targeted by it and forces them to tell lie after lie for an hour. They cannot tell the truth once hit by the power unless placed into a powerful aura of restorative magic.


    They also can''t ignore questions and stay silent. They are forced to speak and tell lies. This power can only be used once a day.]


    This is a lot of neat, and dark powers. I thought, grinning as I read through all of it.


    I may even need a playground with which to test these powers. A place to hone them. I realized, ignoring the huge smile on my face as I thought about the things I could do, even alone.


    <hr>


    I examined the items on the floor. There was a grin on my face as I stared at them, studying them intently. Each one of them was a remarkable thing, an expertly made weapon or an artfully smithed piece of armor.


    In all, there were three gigantic weapons and three suits of armor. One trident, two bastard swords. Next to them were three nets, built to be handled and tossed with skill by minotaurs. And three suits of armor, made of iron. The suits had helms made for minotaurs, the breastplates were large enough for their bulky forms, and I had even made iron clothing for their legs. I wanted them to be safe after all.


    The trident and the swords had enchantments on them. They radiated mystical auras, strong ones at that. The air around them shimmered intensely, radiating a healthy red glow, indicative of potent evocation energies that permeated every molecule of them.


    Today was a day wherein I learned a lot about myself. I thought, making a joke about my ability to use the skills of my worshipers effectively and thankfully, instantly.


    I had gained the ability and skills needed to both craft things and enchant them because of the fact that I was a divine being. I didn''t have to learn the precise calculations, be they in terms of temperature for forging, or the mathematics of the sacred geometry normally involved with enchanting things.


    I know those things, but not because I learned them like my followers did. I learned them through absorption and through the memories of my worshipers. I remembered, recalling the ways I had gained the knowledge I used to forge the assorted items laying before me. I had all the knowledge they had, stored in my mind.


    I could only craft the things I crafted using the skills I gained from dwarven worshipers, and I was able to perform enchantments because of dark elven worshipers who had skills and experiences related to enchantment. But all of it allowed me to pull off wild schemes like the one I was mere minutes from beginning.


    And now the fun begins. I thought, grinning as three eldritch, dark-blue circles engraved themselves into the ground behind me. The three of them immediately began to radiate the bright blue energy of my immensely powerful soul abilities.


    Here we go. A grin appeared on my face, as the same process that once formed my Mi-Go began here. But this time three beings were being created. Three hulking, loyal warriors who''d help me become an even more powerful devil.

 Chapter 127: The Bovine Boys

    The tunnel I was in was now significantly more crowded than it had been just minutes ago. But that was the bad news. The good news was that it was crowded because I wasn''t alone. The three minotaurs I had created to accompany me on my raid of the harpy village were alive, conscious, and looking at me.


    The three man-beasts weren''t identical. They had different colored fur-coats, differently shaped horns, and were of variously outrageous proportions. I studied all three of them equally, beginning with Aamlo.


    Aamlo was the oldest of his kin. He was also the tallest. He had long, straight horns that I envisioned him using to pierce his foes. My foes. His fur was a bright-red color, and he had the densest body of all of his siblings. He was the archetypical minotaur or at least the one that sprang to mind when I read the species knowledge notification about his kind.


    He had a look of surprising cleverness in his gaze and his eyes were the color of rubies. His thick muscles were covered in the incredibly dense and warm fur his kind were known for. He had come to life wearing nothing, a choice I made and was now fully kitted out for a military operation. Thick iron armor covered most of his body, providing him with additional protection against injury just in case his natural armor couldn''t do the trick.


    He held an impressive-looking trident in one hand and a weighted net in the other. His face wasn''t visible due to the helm he wore, but his snout was since the thing jutted outwards and forwards from his face. There was a smile on the wicked muzzle-like facial feature, one that suggested a sense of smugness and arrogance afforded to Aamlo by his innate belief that he was special. That he was chosen by his creator, by me, to be a warrior who captures foes.


    This sense of smugness came in part from the fact that I had given him a class the moment he was born, and the system told him that that was odd. Aamlo was the second of my creations to spring to life with a class. The first was a dark elf in the mirrored version of Undermoon, who had been created with the monk class given to her.


    I chuckled at the thing and his arrogance, and he grinned at me. His body language told me he was ready to go out and complete his first mission.


    The next of the three siblings was a minotaur I named Vizin. Vizin had black fur, was of medium height relative to his siblings, and clothed himself in thick, iron armor.


    Vizin had spiraled horns, ones that shielded his head from many kinds of arrows and other weapons that lacked the power to penetrate the natural toughness of the ivory-colored bodyparts. He easily held a thick bastard sword in one hand and a net in the other. His attitude was more focused and humble than that of his sibling. His eyes were a bright blue color, a surprising eye color to see on such a creature but one I thought he was well-suited too.


    The last of the trio was a minotaur I had named Danus. This minotaur had blonde fur, causing him to be easily identifiable, and only his lower body was armored. He held a net in his left hand and a bastard sword in his right. He was the shortest of his siblings, but also the fastest.


    He was also chatty. Which he proved by asking the third question he had asked in half a minute.


    "But, creator, why are we doing this?" The minotaur asked, his voice gruff and heavy despite his age. I chuckled and looked at him. And then I answered him.


    "We''re doing this so I can become stronger. And so I can someday create more creatures, control more things, and build a vast empire of knowledge and territory." I explained to the childishly curious minotaur, smiling at someone who reminded me of myself.


    "Yes creator, I understand that but why?" The minotaur asked, seemingly repeating the question. I suppressed a sigh and prepared an answer.


    "Because I want to know more about... everything. And one route to knowledge is to gain as much power as possible, and use that power to ensure no one stands between me and the things I, or my followers research." I said, trying to break it down as much as possible. The minotaur''s mouth opened to ask another question, and I intercepted him by adding in another portion to my response.


    "I can gain knowledge by scanning the thoughts, secrets, knowledge, and memories of those I meet. This is part of why building an empire is useful for me, it allows me to meet and convert more people whose memories, thoughts, knowledge, and secrets matter so much to me." I said, explaining a bit about my memory-based powers. And with this, the minotaur seemed stumped. His mind was racing as I turned to the rest of my minions and began to speak.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    "Are you boys ready?" I asked, wanting them to be as ready to go to work as possible. Both minotaurs looked at me and nodded. They hefted their weapons into the air and the deadly objects swung until just before they would have bit into or even through their shoulders. And then the weapons came to a speedy stop, gently landing on the shoulders of both of the bovine brutes.


    I grinned at them and opened up a portal in the dark tunnel that led to a dark patch of the Infernian desert. I looked at my warriors, the two that were paying attention anyway, and nodded in the direction of the portal. I then began to walk towards it, followed not long after by two of the siblings I had just created. When the three of us stepped through the portal, without Danus, I annoyedly shouted into the portal, despite knowing that it negatively impacts how far sound was carried.


    "Danus! Come on! Catch up to us!" I shouted, purposefully choosing the way to inform him that had the highest chance of catching him off-guard and showing him the problems of talking too much. I hoped that it would give him a chance to think about his behavior.


    <hr>


    The area beyond the portal that Danus, Vizin, Aamlo, and myself stepped into was on the downward end of a sand dune. The portal deposited us a short walk from where we heading, something I knew for sure because of the latest time I had added Tristan''s knowledge to mine, earlier today.


    When all four of us were beyond the portal I closed it and looked at my creations. They looked excited and ready for battle. But not before I told them of my plan.


    "Okay, here''s the plan," I said, beginning my detailed breakdown of the battle strategy I wanted us to use.


    "Our objective is to inflict maximum terror and as little damage as possible. I want us to go in in a tight formation, show-off our armor, weapons, and strength and flee without doing any real damage. The only things we need to nab that we don''t have going in are the harpies themselves. Once we have them in hand we''ll be free to step back and carefully retreat." I explained, my eyes flashing with joy as I imagined the scenario in my head.


    "I''ll be doing two things. I''ll be casting illusionary flames all over the village to scare the villagers, and I''ll also be using some of my powers to aid you in nabbing the harpies. Harpies can and do fly and because of that, they can be tough to catch with your equipment. I have an ability that I''ll be using on two of them that will cause them to violently crash to the surface, and I have a spell I can use on others to make it nearly impossible for them to fly. It''s called The Weight of the Dead." I told them.


    "Your goal is simple: you are to look intimidating, catch the harpies when they fall, and roar loudly and visibly. I want you to focus on that above all else aside from defending myself or defending yourself." I informed my party. They looked at each other and nodded, a mischevious glint in their eyes. And then they nodded at me, ready to enact my machinations. And as one we made our move.


    <hr>


    We swiftly traveled to the top of the sand dune, and then to the bottom of its other side. The moments when we stood at the top of the sand dune we could see the village in the distance.


    It was a ramshackle collection of houses that appeared weirdly human in make, and undeserving of belonging in this vile desert. How strange... I thought the moment I noticed how strangely alike the buildings looked to the ones that humans lived in in the town of Golden-Gate.


    I wanted to stop and look at them from a distance but then I chewed myself out. Don''t get distracted. We''ll have plenty of time to gawk at the buildings once we''re in charge of this place. I realized, with a grin on my face. All that separated us from our target was a walk that looked to be a few minutes long. When my soldiers realized that, grins broke out across their snouts.


    <hr>


    It was while I was on my way there that I realized something.


    Are they inside? They must be. I suddenly realized, after noticing that both my radar and my tremorsense refused to cooperate with me. Neither power alerted me to the presence of any harpies in the area, which was a good sign because it meant that they were waiting inside of some of the buildings instead of a place to that happened to be harder to finder.


    Under these conditions catching a few harpies would be very easy. I chuckled as I thought about some ways to capture the creatures I had come here to take away from this place.


    <hr>


    Our attack began when we were close enough to make out the state of disrepair that the small community was in. By the time I was close enough to feel comfortable setting the town on fire, I could see what some of was going on in the supposedly utopian and utilitarian place. We were close enough that the gate into the town wasn''t just a far off monument, but instead a thing we could make out in the distance and that we''d soon be close enough to read.


    The hamlet ahead of us was a strange place even if, according to Tristan and her mates anyway, it was also a happy one. This was because it was also in almost comical disrepair.


    The streets were long gone, buried deep below the sands. The dilapidated houses that lined a particularly small envisionment of a town-square were visible to me at the moment and each of them had boarded up windows that prevented someone from peering into them. It was a foreboding sight.


    I wonder what this place''s deal is. I questioned, even as I rose my hands into the air in two different directions and began to load up my magic.


    At this point, we were about to pass through the gate into the community. And my magic was ready to go, thin blue sparks of illusionary flames, a mid-level illusion spell that created false fire, wafting off of my fingertips, foreshadowing the sorts of illusionary horrors we were about to unleash on this unsuspecting, unusual tiny town.

 Chapter 128: The Raid

    I was still and we kept moving until we passed the gate. Once we made it past the rotted thing was when I felt ready to strike. But not before I adopted a new form.


    I kept my height the same, but I gave myself the form of an imposing minotaur. I clad myself in silver fur, scarred it a bit to give myself the appearance of an experienced warrior, and like Danus clad my legs in iron armor but kept my upper body unencumbered by metal armor. I gave myself the distinct horns of a stag and thickened my muscles. My hands were still unoccupied by any sort of weapon, which was how I preferred it.


    The second we stepped past the thin gate which was one of the few hints that this was a settlement at all, I spoke to my creations. "Ready yourselves my children." I told them, as I took careful aim with my illusionary flames, my hands adjusting themselves slightly so that my spell would produce the maximum noise as it rocketed towards the houses I was aiming at.


    I heard my creations shuffle slightly as they more firmly planted their feet in the ground, and their muscles tighten as their grips on their weapons tightened. It brought a smile to my face. I released two bursts of illusionary flames, and the second I did an explosive sound roared out of my hands. Two large blue orbs of fake fire exploded out of my hands and rocketed towards two nearby houses.


    One of the houses was on my left and it was made of wood. The blue orb I sent towards it wasn''t aimed very high, it was aimed close to the door for the sake of inflicting maximum terror by making the harpies think they''d have to escape through an alternative exit. The other house I aimed at was to my right, and this time I did aim high. My fake fireball rocketed towards the house''s roof, colliding with it with tremendous force causing the whole house to shake.


    I grinned as I heard harpies awaken from their slumber, and immediately begin to investigate the cause of the commotions that awoke them. And not just harpies within the two houses that I had just targeted, but harpies everywhere.


    <hr>


    [Spell type: Illusion


    Spell Name: Illusionary Fire


    Effect: This spell is intended for intimidation or for striking fear into the hearts of those who witness it and are clueless. The spell produces the illusion of blue flames, blue flames that are perfectly harmless but are loud and fast. This spell works by mimicking actual fire, and by being loud and fast and relying on fear and instinctual aversion to flames.


    Spell cost: 400 magical energy per cast.]


    [New Species Knowledge Notification: Harpy


    Harpies are an all-female species of avian humanoids. They resemble female humans with wings instead of hands. They have a tendency towards neutral-evil in alignment and commonly behave sinfully. The most common sins they engage in are lustful behavior, wrathful conduct, and laziness.


    Harpies are the result of an ancient mutation and curse inflicted upon the human women of a long-lost kingdom in a world with every little magic. The first harpies were arrogant women who tortured the holy animals of a god of birds and air. The god, angered by their hubris, took his revenge by turning them into hideous fusions of women and birds.


    Communities built by them are nonexistent. They are scavengers and squatters who settle in communities made by other people, especially if they can also steal food from the original inhabitants of whatever places they take over.


    They are much stronger than they look, and they are fast fliers with sharp claws. They can evolve into much stronger monsters, like flying sirens or even medusas if they possess poisonous mutations or somehow gained access to potent alteration magic.]


    <hr>


    The fate of the first harpy to leave her home happened so fast that it was almost pitiful. The door leading into and out of the house to my left flew open, and a purple-plumed, plump in more ways than one, woman shot out of the house. I grinned at her as she managed to get out of the house and wasted no time aiming one of my newest powers at her. The next few events happened almost instantly.


    She looked at my creations in confusion, even as one of them turned his gaze on her. His scarlet eyes stared at her green ones, and I heard his heartbeat quicken. And as other things happened to the brutal warrior. Oh? How curious. I thought, chuckling, as parts of him hardened at the sight of her.


    With the first harpy in view, I carefully aimed my false-pain power and activated it with a thought. I watched as the confusion on her face immediately contorted and turned into something else, something far worse than confusion. She winced for a second, and then cried out, the sound foul and painful, as she fell to her knees and her eyes glazed over. She was now enduring an hour of sourceless, harmless, but agonizing pain.


    I tapped the minotaur who gazed at her on the back and urged him to go retrieve her. He huffed and set about accomplishing his mission, ran over to the house and ungraciously placed his net around her before lifting her up.


    [Now roar and charge into the house.] I commanded him, urging my bullheaded and white-furred Danus to spread fear. He obeyed me, heeding his natural desire to be obedient to his creator, and bellowed aggressively before throwing himself into the house.


    "Good." I muttered, happy to see my commands obeyed. And it was at that moment that other harpies began to exit their homes, spurred on by both the agonized cries of one of their friends as well as the scary sound of one of my minotaurs bellowing an animalistic roar.


    <hr>


    The harpy community was made up of thirteen houses. The basic composition of the village was that there were two long lines of houses. These lines contained six houses each and they faced each other. The final house was located at the end of these lines of houses. That house was the biggest of all thirteen. Each house contained several different harpies and was in obvious disrepair.


    Five separate doors opened at once, and I chuckled as a number of harpies peeked their heads out of their houses. A number of them gasped when they saw the warriors who had apparently set the houses at the edge of their community on fire.


    Two of the harpies screeched indignantly, the sounds that escaped their houses sounding like it belonged to a bird of prey and not a humanoid. They were foolish, but brave harpies and a quick usage of identify told me something unsurprising. Their vice was wrath. They dashed out of their houses and then took to the skies so that they could approach us at maximum speed. Oh boy. I thought, as I focused my attention on them.


    One of them had green feathers and thick wings. She was otherwise slim, and she was considerably faster than her compatriot was. Her compatriot had blue feathers and was of a medium build due to her visible abs.


    I stepped in front of the other minotaurs and waited for the first harpy to be within striking distance. She and I locked eyes, and I smiled. She frowned, anger befouling her oval-shaped face and infecting her purple eyes with rage.


    <hr>


    The harpy crossed a not inconsiderable distance within a matter of seconds, and when she was less than twelve meters away from me she took notice of my height and my closeness to the ground. She took aim at my neck and lowered herself to a dangerously low elevation.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    The bird-creature spun around in mid-air so that the sharp talons on her feet were facing and flying towards me. She had made a mistake by attacking me, but I could admit and admire her bravery. That said, her feet had sharp talons and I watched them warily. I was grateful that her legs were stick-thin and that my hands were large enough that I could catch both legs in a single grip.


    I grinned at her and when the sharp natural weapons drew dangerously close, just centimeters away from the tip of my nose, I grabbed her by her feet. A single hand of mine shot forth at a speed that couldn''t be processed by the minds of most mortals, and I completely shut down her attempt to attack me.


    My sudden movement caught her off guard and the explosive force I possessed immediately shut off her movement, taking the bird-person from a speed of several meters a second to an instant stop.


    It took the harpy a second for her mind to catch up with her body and realize that she was caught, and during that time I studied her closely. She was a small thing, between the size of the average dwarf, so about a meter tall, and the size of the average human, roughly one and a half meters tall.


    Her petite frame was well-suited to her kind''s muscular flight that relied on them being tiny things with lightweight bones. She had a small, youthful-looking face with big eyes and pencil-like lips that were a glossy shade of pink. She had high cheekbones that pushed her face upwards and minimized the size of her forehead.


    She wore the overlarge clothes of a human that were not properly tailored to either her unique body-shape or her diminutive size. Her shirt was baggy, making her look unkempt and lackadaisical. The pants she wore were large and puffy things, and the bottoms of both legs were awkwardly cut through by her talons.


    She had a narrow waist and a small behind that I could see because of the strange way she tried to attack me instead of trying something smarter like a drive-by attack that leveraged her speed and kept her safe at the same time.


    It was at this point that she realized that she had been stopped. She looked at me and focused, her eyes narrowing to thin slits in her rage. She opened her mouth to screech at me, but I immediately hit her with a mind-blast, a psionic power that stunned those hit by it, cutting off the sound before it could escape her lips. Her face slackened and her tongue lolled out of her open mouth.


    "You tried and that matters. But that''s not enough. Not against me." I told her, as I copied her memories into myself, storing them for inspection at a less distracting time. "And now you can rest. As a statue." I said, stoically, before aiming one of my favorite spells at her face: flesh-to-stone. I used the hand that wasn''t holding her by her legs to fire a single beam of the petrification energy into the back of her head.


    She looked shocked for a second, her mind recovering for an instant, as the hair and feathers on her head suddenly turned to stone before the spell affected the rest of her head, rendering her unconscious. I teleported her body as the suddenly unconscious thing was turning to stone to my lair, for safe-keeping until it was time to give Ariel, the harpy we were here to aid, the harpies we had taken. And a smile broke out on my face.


    I heard the annoying cries of the one harpy who was close enough to me to do something: the other wrathful one who had taken off an instant after her friend I had just defeated. She was moderately fast, but the village was a few hundred meters across and the distances between people were surprisingly vast so there were still a few moments before she reached me. I gestured for Vizin, the black-furred minotaur to handle her and my thoughts were immediately interrupted and shattered by the reactions of the other, more distant harpies.


    <hr>


    The other harpies, the ones who had watched while their friends flew at me, had watched this entire process, and a few of them screeched out in sorrow and anger at the way I had utterly humiliated and possibly killed one of their own flock.


    A few of them tried to dash out at me and I stopped them by lifting a hand to the sky and using my magical skills to cut the village in half with a single, thick and tall wall of illusionary fire. The harpies who had watched this were all on the other end of the wall, and I effectively ensured that that stayed the case by dramatically doing what I did next.


    I reached within myself and mentally opened up my codex. It took me an instant to find the perfect spell for what I wanted to do. I can be a master of controlling the battlefield. All it takes is me using my magic intelligently. Like this. I thought as I cast the spell. And in doing so, for the first time, I cast an abjuration spell instead of using an effect to achieve my defensive goals.


    Before I cast my spell I dramatically shot my hands up towards the sky as if calling down some massive force. I did it partially so they knew that I was responsible for this, after all they were bird-brains, I did need to telegraph everything, and so they were caught off guard and watching me rather than just sprinting in my direction.


    [Spell type: Abjuration


    Spell name: The Sphere Of Shielding


    Effect: This spell creates a sphere of abjuration magic that keeps those within it trapped within it and keeps those out of it, out. This sphere''s maximum range is 200 meters in every direction, but its size can be modified as the caster wishes.


    Cast: 20 magical energy per meter.]


    A sphere of milky white energy emerged from within me and it radiated outward in every direction. I pushed the sphere using my mind and when it touched someone or something in its current, unsolidified state, as it touched Vizin and the harpy who was diving at him, nothing happened to either of them.


    The sphere was pushed and pushed in every direction for several moments. I pushed it until it was just beyond the houses in this row. That was when I willed the sphere to solidify. The sphere than became a solid, white wall of energy that separated any more harpies from approaching us.


    I chuckled and knew that the raid was effectively over. I did two things at this point.


    "Hey! Go get the harpies in that house." I shouted, ordering Aamlo, the oldest of the minotaurs, to invade one of the houses I had set fire too. No harpies had emerged from within it, and I knew they were there so it was weird that they had stayed still. And then I teleported myself out of the sphere and walked over to the harpies who were left.


    As I left the sphere I heard Danus emerge from the house he had charged into. I turned to examine him and grinned at what I saw through the barrier. His net was packed with three harpies, all of whom were in various states of disarray. He himself had a few talon-marks on him, indicating that the harpies fought back, but he looked no worse for wear and had a confident smirk on his snout.


    <hr>


    I turned my attention back to the harpies in front of me. There were a number of them, but they were paralyzed with fear, their bodies trembling before me. They had seen what I could do with my magic and even the bitter rage they felt in their hearts wasn''t enough to compel them to attack me. Good. I thought, but not before I did something to ensure no surprises were about to occur.


    [Spell type: Alteration


    Spell name: Mass Paralysis


    Effect: This spell affects as many nearby creatures as the caster wants it to affect. It paralyzes the people affected by it, terrifying them and preventing them from fighting back. If the caster wishes it can also shut down their minds, but that makes the spell more expensive.


    Spell cost: 750 magical energy per unamplified target per cast. 1,000 magical energy per amplified target per cast]


    I opted to cast the spell in an unamplified way because I wanted the harpies to remember what I was about to say, to focus on and memorize every word. My spell shot out of me in the form of a perfect sphere, much like the barrier had. It spread out in a 360-degree spread and hit all of the harpies who stared at me in a mixture of rage and fear. The harpies immediately succumbed to my spell and they fell limply to their knees.


    Their eyes were wide open and stared at me, shooting daggers my way. I chuckled at them, audibly and loudly so they heard me. I posed dramatically, placing my powerful arms at my side and glaring down at them with the same scarlet eyes as my furred children. And then I began to speak.


    "Memorize my face. Memorize my features. Know me and know despair. I and my children shall feast on your kind harpies. We shall invade and like locusts we shall destroy everything you''ve ever built. When we appear on the horizon I hope you make peace with each other and hold your sisters in your arms. Because we will take you." I said, deepening my voice, and making baleful eye contact with each of the dozen or so harpies before me.


    "I am Duulo Silvermane and I am the author of your destruction. I embody sorrow and suffering. And I aspire to do nothing more than to inspire those things in you, in your last days." I told them, hatefully.


    This is fun. I thought, enjoying myself.


    "Remember me. Remember my children. We are your doom. We will take your sisters, in small groups, and feast on them. And there is nothing you can do to stop us." I said to them, before beginning to laugh scornfully. And then I targeted my children, the various harpies they captured, and myself, and teleported all of us away just to show the harpies that if we wanted too they couldn''t even see us coming.


    I wonder how they''ll react, knowing that we''ve taken a number of them with us. I thought, as my children, our prisoners, and I were warped elsewhere.

 Chapter 129: Three Harpies

    "Ariel, you are needed. Wake up." A feminine voice said, softly but firmly. There was no response from the aforementioned Ariel. She kept sleeping, soundly and restfully unconscious.


    Silence fell over the room for a few seconds. The speaker was normally the patient sort, not the type to rush things. But today she was unusually excitable, and as a consequence of that there was an urgency to her she was not normally known for. When the room was silent for nearly a minute the speaker sighed and tried again.


    "Ariel, it''s time. You are just... a few hours away from achieving your goals!" The same voice, louder this time, spoke. The speaker was obviously annoyed now, at having to repeat herself. But she was trying to maintain her composure.


    Another period of silence passed by. And this time it went on for a minute. The speaker began to panic a little bit.


    "Ariel, come on, wake up!" She said, and this time both panic and annoyance entered her voice in uneven amounts. The voice of the harpy was a shrill one, and it grew more shrill with each attempt at rousing the woman that Tristan, the high priestess of the harpy''s religion, had informed the harpy was to be a sort of "chosen one", who saved the village from the terrible enemy that just attacked it.


    The speaker was a harpy. She was tall for her kind, standing close to 1.7 meters tall. Her feathers were a scarlet red, and she was one of the few harpies in the run-down town to possess clothes that fit the measurements of her body. She wore a thin cloak as an awkward shirt, and linen trousers around her thick, hawklike legs.


    This time the silence that fell over the room lasted two minutes. It was a frustrating silence and one that felt loud.


    The speaker had entered this place excitedly, but her excitement was morphing into anxiety in real-time. How will he feel if she keeps him waiting?She thought, somewhat frantically. The "he" she was thinking about was Althos, the god reverentially worshiped by a small number of humanoids throughout the desert who believed in the importance of order and stability, which included the speaker.


    The speaker''s anxiety-riddled train of thought about her god being impatient was more due to her projecting her own short-attention-span, and her lack of patience onto the god she worshiped than any actual theological basis. And the fact that she''d soon be meeting Althos further spurred this on, adding fuel to the fire of her mind, so-to-speak.


    The harpy was joined by another agent and worshiper of Althos, a smaller and quieter harpy named Saffron. Saffron was patient all the time, even now. Rather than focus on Ariel, the sleeping harpy, Saffron was merely watching the speaker, a harpy named Jasmine, stare judgementally at Ariel.


    Saffron had dark skin and white feathers and was the size of the average harpy.Saffron was naked, and part of the reason why Jasmine was so focused on Ariel was so that she didn''t have to look at Saffron''s nude body.


    After Jasmine began to mutter something under her breath, the quiet harpy glared in annoyance at her compatriot and moved to awaken Ariel.The harpy was quite effective and quite quiet when she was moved to action. She walked over to the bed where the sleeping harpy was restfully unconscious and began to run her wings over the sleeping harpy''s body, using her feathers to gently tickle the sleeping woman.


    It took about half a minute of this activity to wake up the one who was sleeping. When close to thirty seconds had passed, Ariel began to rouse herself from sleep. The first thing she did, with her eyes still closed, was bat away the wing that was tickling her. And then the young woman yawned and opened her pitch-black eyes. And she was shocked to see the two figures in her bedroom. Especially since one of them was naked.


    "What are you doing?" She asked, annoyed and shocked to see Saffron''s nude body standing over her. And the harpy merely smiled at her, evilly. The next person who spoke wasn''t Ariel, and it wasn''t Saffron either. It was Jasmine, relief audible in her voice.


    "Oh finally! Ariel, it''s happening. Althos'' plan!" The tall harpy told her companion, excitement and relief alike washing over her face.


    This piece of news shocked Ariel, who reacted to it by speedily getting up and out of bed. The harpy''s shock and excitement was audible in her voice when she as rushed around her room and asked her advisors about what came next.


    "So, wait what happens next?" She asked, excitedly as she prepared to get dressed. She was a harpy of unremarkable height but her feathers were a fascinating color: the transparent and nearly colorless color of the finest diamonds. She went over to the ruined and long rotted wardrobe that she kept what few outfits she possessed in, and grabbed a shirt made of breathable fabric that would allow her to stay cool in the desert air.


    Saffron spoke this time, answering Ariel''s question. "Now we pray. We pray to Althos. To the prince of power. I will teach you how it is done." She said, her voice quiet.


    Saffron had just invoked one of the few entirely powerless titles, ironic given the title itself, that some Althonians used when referencing their god. It was a title first invoked by Tristan during one of her sermons, in a moment of improvisation, which happened to resonate with those in attendance. And then she began preparations for a ritual taught to her by her teacher, the beautiful high-priestess Tristan.


    Saffron turned away from the bed and approached the door that led out of the house Ariel lived in. The door had been open, but Saffron''s first action of consequence after awakening Ariel was to go ahead and close it. The quiet woman spoke once again shortly after shutting the door.


    "What I am about to teach you is a special prayer, a ritual of sorts," Saffron told her allies. "The ritual we are about to do is a ritual and prayer that the High Diabolist herself taught me. A ritual that if done correctly brings you to the attention of the prince himself." Saffron uttered, a surprising fanaticism and zeal audible in her quiet and usually dispassionate voice.


    "The first rule of this particular ritual to our prince is to invite him into your heart. And first, that means we must close ourselves off from distractions. Including literally shutting out the outside." She told her two companions, sternly. At this point she fell to her knees and clasped her hands together. She was quiet, and she allowed her mind to turn to distractions for one last second.


    For a moment Saffron thought of the "High Diabolist", the formal title given to Tristan by the Tyrant''s Temple, and smiled. And then she focused not on her lover, but on the master they shared: Althos. Saffron fell silent and fully cleared her mind of distractions. She gave her mind over fully to her master, dispelling away even the tiniest hints of thoughts about other, lesser things.


    Prince please, come to me. Come save my people, so that together we may serve you and see your will made manifest. I invite you to come into me. To come into my heart. To use me as you wish so that we lowly harpies may join your divine sphere. The naked harpy thought once she felt that she was in the right headspace to begin to call upon her master. Her master was the same figure who once saved and transformed the life of his High Diabolist and who Saffron hoped and believe would rescue her people from the terror before them, now that Ariel was awake and ready to serve.


    At this point, without turning around she said one final thing to her companions. "Once the prince has been invited into your heart, pray." She told them.


    "Admit your weakness, admit your insignificance, and pray for the power to make your wishes a reality, so long as your wishes align with his machinations. If they don''t, and they might not then pray for the wisdom to see his designs and his schemes and for the humility to willingly align your actions to further his goals." Saffron told her companions. After telling her companions that, the harpy began her own prayers in full, no longer obligated to speak to her companions.


    At that moment her companions heard a voice in their minds. It was a powerful, domineering voice that commanded them to do as Saffron had instructed. The two of them felt a fear grip their hearts when they heard it, when the voice left their minds they immediately obeyed it. In seconds they fell to their knees on either side of Saffron, and began to mentally mutter their own prayers.


    <hr>


    I had watched everything the three harpies had done with fascination. I hadn''t even done it remotely, I was actually right there from when they awoke Ariel, to when the other harpies fell their knees in fearful prayer. I was, of course, incorporeal, invisible, and just out of reach of them.


    All three of them were lovely, and all three of them intrigued me in different ways but there was one truly special figure among the three of them. Saffron, the naked harpy, had led them, taught them a non-magical ritual I had designed to know when my followers were desperate and she herself was the picture of devotion.


    She is truly something.I thought, a smile on my face.I want to reward her.I thought as I heard her words flow from her brain and into me. She was the picture of a perfect, idealized vision of a future devil: a demure, wicked, and mild-mannered person capable of extreme violence. Even the words of her prayer were perfect for an adherent of the Tyrant''s Temple.


    <hr>


    Prince, I am insignificant. My needs, my wants, my heart, are all insignificant.


    You, oh Lord, are mighty. You, oh Lord, are wise. You, oh Lord, are the perfect architect. You, oh Lord, are the ideal tyrant.


    I accept my place at the lowest rung of your mighty hierarchy, of your perfect order. I eagerly await the day wherein I begin that eternal climb to be closer to you, to be higher in the hierarchy and to be where you know that I belong.


    Oh Lord, please hear my plea. Please make your will known to me so that I may move in the way you intend for me to move. Please, if it fits your grand design, come to me and whisper in my ear so that I may move those you have placed me alongside in ways that allow us to be well-maintained cogs in the machine of your divine dominion.


    Please, oh Master, whisper to me so that I may speak to others. Allow me to be your voice among us, allow me to be the hand that guides actions in accordance with your schemes. I invite you into myself so that your will may make itself clear to me.


    I know not what you know, but I know that my heart and my body are yours if you wish for either or both of them. Merely guide me towards the path that enriches you.


    Oh Master, tell me what pleases you so that I may shape and mold myself more in that than in myself. I seek to be closer to your ideal in every way, and to obey your tenants above all else. Use me to shape the world in your image and use my body as you see fit.


    <hr>


    That is a lovely prayer. Truly, a wonderful admission of weakness, acknowledgment of the superiority of others, and an understanding of order. I thought, listening to it. The perfection of it, from a devilish point of view, was astounding. It sent chills down my spine. It was a prayer that was similar in quality to Tristan''s own prayers, especially after her father was resurrected. And at that moment, before my next thought even occurred to me, I almost instinctually entered their minds and grabbed copies of their memories.


    I... suppose I can reward such devotion. Just to encourage it, and ensure that it continues.I thought, a sly grin on her face.And with a personality this humble, quiet, and fanatical, I think she''d make a good inquisitor.I realized, my smile widening as I mulled over the possibility of empowering this slavish harpy.


    And I simply must reward Tristan later. Because more than anything else this is all her.I acknowledged, keenly aware of how much effort the high priestess put into all of the humanoids who had converted to the cult as of late. With a grin on my face, I mentally spoke to Saffron.


    Silently, I once again made my form physical and visible. And then I sent Saffron a message. [The prince has answered your call, my child. But be still, be silent, and be humble as you acknowledge my presence.] I said to the nude harpy on the floor before me.


    I heard her heartbeat quicken, as her eyes opened. She gazed upon my form, not my minotaur one, but my devilish one. It was the same form as when I was first brought to Infernius, with the same bizarre, heterochromatic eyes. I smiled at her, and placed one of my thick hands on her cheek. Her face was soft, small, and warm, and I felt her blood rush to where I was touching her, as if attempting to draw closer to me. I spoke to her mentally, keeping the others in the dark for a few more moments.


    [You are truly a special servant. You possess a soul that has nobly taken the teachings of the High Diabolist to heart to the extent that I am going to reward you and the High Diabolist herself. For you I have a special treat: You are going to become an inquisitor of the Tyrant''s Temple, a powerful investigator and an enforcer of the temple''s ways.] I told her.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    She was so thoroughly wrapped by Tristian, so wrapped around her finger, that my announcement of this caused tears to fall down her cheeks. The tears were joyful things, filled with happiness and resplendent excitement.She''s cute. I thought, surprisingly grateful to have someone so enthralled to Tristan and to myself present among the harpies.


    [Your gifts will come when I give everyone here their rewards for their service. In a moment your allies will be made devilish offers. You will not. That is fine, your powers are a gift I am freely giving you, which I know you will use in my name. Do not fret.] I told her, knowing that in a second the two other women with her, ones with hearts driven in my direction but not as fanatical as hers was. She accepted my statement without comment, and a quick look in her eyes assured me she accepted my remarks. I began to speak again.


    [So for now, watch, listen, and when I am done dispatching the three of you to fulfill my will go out and be my blade; the weapon that destroys disorder.] I instructed her. She nodded zealously at me. I took a hand off of her cheek, and she placed one of hers where mine had just been.


    I took a step back, moving in the direction of the open door and increasing the space between myself and them. And I studied the other two.


    <hr>


    My gaze first fell upon Jasmine. Jasmine was the tallest of the harpies here. She was a lively sort, as well. I could tell that from watching how she worked to awaken Ariel. It had amused me greatly.


    She was also devout. And her devotion was both internal, as in she practiced it internally with her thoughts, and external, as in she shared with others and let it affect and transform her behavior.


    Her mind was filled with real devotion to me. Her thoughts were of how she could serve the tyrant of tyrants.It was fascinating to watch her mind with fear about how I''d react if I were kept waiting. And funny. I thought, chuckling.


    I examined her prayer with a curious eye, fascinated by someone whose devotion to me wasn''t as thorough and pure as Saffron''s, and was a mixture of admiration and fear.


    <hr>


    Oh Prince of Power, please harken to us your lowly servants.We are weak and in need of your mighty, frightening power to guide us towards the next destination you have marked for us.


    Prince of Power, we lowly beings submit ourselves to your awful magnificence and to your bloody schemes. We offer ourselves freely to your dreadful radiance, and we ask for your aid in this moment of all too common weakness. We freely and eagerly invite you into ourselves to exact your divine will.


    Oh, potent Provider and Prince of Power, please use our eyes to guide you to your enemies. We offer ourselves, our souls, and our futures to you in the hopes that you shall judge that our enemies are your enemies and show them your wrath.


    Prince of the Universe, Prince of Power, and Prince of Mine, please look upon us, your devoted minions and see fit to free our less aware, less gifted sisters, cousins, friends, and neighbors, from the hands of those who''d blaspheme against you by resisting your dread-designs for Infernius and for our mortal bodies.


    Prince of Power, if this enslavement is part of your dread design please offer some sort of comfort to the enslaved. Please provide them with dark pleasures and with excesses that may corrode and eventually do away with their resistances to your tyrannical impositions on them and whatever cruel uses for their bodies you have in mind.


    <hr>


    Her prayer was also a potent one. It was one that was designed to appeal to a tyrant, one meant to inflate the ego of the archetypical tyrant. In it she supplicated for the freedom of her peers and she acknowledged the reality that I am a lord of darkness who may well have planed this out.Clever woman. I thought, appreciative of her realism about what Tristan taught her.


    Ariel was the last of the servants I studied. My gaze fell upon her colorless feathers and I read over the contents of her prayer. She wasn''t afraid, she was ambitious. She was bold. She was proud. It was intriguing in its own way.


    <hr>


    Prince of Power, I must thank you. I must thank you for the gifts you have provided me. Be it the High Diabolist and her servants, including Jasmine and Saffron, or the gift you are even now giving me by allowing me to cement my name among my sisters, you are a divine being possessing a vast graciousness.


    Prince, before your servants came and awoke within me this drive for power that always slept in my soul I was lost. I was lazy. I was weak even! But your servants, and no doubt you yourself, saw within me what others couldn''t see, what I couldn''t see. The potential for greatness. And they worked to awaken said greatness within me.


    But what they couldn''t have known, what they might not even know now is that I hunger for it. I am gluttonous for it. I lust for it. I thirst for power, for recognition, and I know the answer.


    I am proud. I am bold. I am unapologetic. What I am not, is dumb. Oh, Prince, I know you are the tyrant''s tyrant. I know you are the provider of power. The deal-maker and the smasher of the past. I humble myself before you, and I invite you into me, in the hopes that you bestow upon me even greater power.


    Prince of Power, Prince of my Heart and Soul, please use me and change me. Enter me as I am now, a powerless fool flitting about slightly higher than other, even more, powerless fools and change me. Change me so that I may ascend and become a powerful tool you use to remake this place in ways that fit your whims. Provide me with the power I need to escape from the old me and never again be that wretched, content child.


    <hr>


    Like her, the prayer was proud, hungry, and distinct.I thought, with a smile on my face.


    In her prayerful pose, she seemed meek and small. Her hands were clasped together piously, and she seemed content where she was. Her prayer told another story though.


    Her prayer told me she was the sort who possessed an inextinguishable ambition, a potent drive for more that permeated her every action. In moments like this, to those with less keen vision, she may have looked content, but I knew she wasn''t. I could feel it in her. And that delighted me. I needed that. It was what would make all of this work worth it in the end.


    And speaking of the end... I thought as I readied myself to begin to push this dramatic production to an end.


    <hr>


    At last, I opened my mouth to speak.


    "My servants, adherents of the Tyrant''s Temple, open your eyes and greet your devilish-master." I instructed them, my voice spreading out from my lungs powerfully.


    <hr>


    The two other harpies opened their eyes and looked down at my feet. The things were uncouth cloven hooves, unsurprisingly. And then their eyes trailed upwards, exploring my muscular form with both shock and abject interest in what I looked like.


    When their eyes met mine, they froze. I looked at them, expectantly. Unsurprisingly only Saffron did as she told immediately after receiving my instructions. For a brief moment I looked at her and gently smiled, but then I turned back to them, still on their knees on the floor. "Rise." I commanded, once more. This time they obeyed me.


    Both of the other harpies, normally much more prideful creatures, were brought low by my presence. Their thoughts, clear to me by the expressions on their faces, revealed that they found it difficult to speak in my presence. I grinned at them, but unlike when I grinned at Saffron my smile this time was predatory, cruel and probing.


    "Children, you have called me forth. Shall you not speak to me?" I asked, my voice filled with godly power and arrogance. This was one of the first times I was appearing in front of worshipers, and someone who was being converted to one of the faiths devoted to me and had been "called" by them. I wanted it to leave an impression.


    After half a minute of silence, Ariel was the first harpy to speak after Saffron had greeted me.


    "Hello... Prince. We have called you here in accordance with what we know of your plot. Earlier today we were attacked by minotaurs and unable to defend ourselves. They... kidnapped several of us." She explained, reminding me of the fun I had just had when I executed a raid on this very village, the same raid she was referencing.Should I tell them...?I wondered, for a moment. And then Ariel continued speaking.


    "We know not if that was the exact form of your plot and we dare not ask, all we wish for is to submit ourselves before you and give whatever you ask of us so that we may advance your schemes." The harpy explained. I chuckled.


    "I shall do you a rare and undeserved service my little ones. I shall tell you of some of the details of the schemes you are involved in. Forces beyond your control and beyond your ken have seen fit to make your home a battlefield wherein you are able to advance the dark powers of your master. I shall aid you in liberating your neighbors, for a price." I cryptically told them, content to keep them in the dark at the moment. They looked at me, curiosity, excitement, and fear mixing together in their gazes.


    I activated myDevilish Dealpower, targeting both of them individually, and waited for the familiar notifications to arrive informing them and myself that I was about to make devilish deals with them.


    <hr>


    "You know that I cannot lie to you. You have read the notifications. All three of you have important, and different, roles to play in my quest to establish order in the desert. And the time has come for you to learn of and accept your roles, and gain the powers that will aid you in my, and indeed in our quest, to see order restored to the desert. And of course... the payment to be made in exchange for those powers." I explained, not lying to them.


    They nodded at me, feeling the potency of my words through the state of the deal we were slowly making. I grinned.


    "I will begin by discussing what you will gain. Jasmine, you will gain the role of leading people in worship of me. I know you are scared now, I know you feel... overwhelmed right now, and that''s okay. I will have the High Diabolist herself meet with you and help you after this. But that is your role. The powers you will gain are those of a cleric in my service, which is the very same path the High Diabolist herself walked down to arrive where she is now." I told Jasmine, whose eyes went wide at my words, even though I was merely reminding her of that truth, not teaching her it.


    "The price you shall pay is that of your soul. What that means on a functional level is that when you die your soul becomes mine to use as I see fit. But since you worshiped me already that just means you have a more direct pathway to me upon death than many others will." I explained, simply. Jasmine gasped excitedly when she realized that, and I grinned internally at her.She''s mine. I was worried, at first, but she''s mine.I realized.


    I turned to look at Saffron and then began to speak, opting to leave the key player for the end.


    "Saffron, my sweet child... I can feel the quiet devotion that permeates your soul. I can feel the ways that the High Diabolist touched you." I told her, playfully. My last sentence had a double meaning since Saffron and Tristan had spent many hours together in a variety of contexts. They had communed together under bedsheets, in the sandy wastes, and even in the sky. And their communion involved a lot more than just uttered prayer, though shouted calls to their god weren''t uncommon.


    "Saffron, your role shall be that of an inquisitor. You shall become an investigator, protector, and executioner in service to the prince of power. Your powers shall be used to advance my goals in this community and others throughout the desert, and you shall become a trusted agent of mine here and elsewhere." I told her. She smiled at me, her gaze filled with awe.


    "You too shall pay a price. The price I am demanding is your soul. But I know of your devotion to me. I know you would happily give it to me, even if I didn''t ask for it." I told her, truthfully. She nodded vigorously at me, and I chuckled. And at last, my gaze fell to the newest member of the flock: Ariel.The moment of truth.I thought, a soft grin on my face as I thought that.


    "Ariel... Ariel, you are a unique fit for my church and for my service." I said to her, my mind contemplating how to secure her aid and also give her a reward that would make her a useful tool among my forces.


    What can I give her? What tool would fill her with the mighty power to realistically defeat the massive threat posed by the minotaurs?I thought, my mind running a kilometer a minute while I considered what sort of award would be good for a harpy.


    Power... how can I empower a harpy? Beyond just blessing her of course.I wondered. The other two received classes as part of their "Devilish Deals". What class at my disposal works well for harpies? Should I... make her a monk? Should I limit myself to giving her just one class? She is the one who wishes to lead, after all. Maybe I could even make her a witch? I thought, before finally realizing that that was the answer. My lips twitched upward in a smile and I began to speak again.


    "Ariel, you are an ambitious, driven servant of mine. Your friends think quite highly of you and so do the people of this village. Not only are you already quite powerful, but you also yearn for more power. You yearn to be a leader. And you shall be one. That is your destiny, as I have decided. And to aid you in proving your worthiness to lead this village, I shall bestow upon you two potent gifts: you shall become both a monk and a witch." I told the ambitious harpy.


    Her eyes went wide, and I chuckled as I watched her eyes change and display the green-text lined text-boxes which alerted her to the power and potency of both of the classes she was about to become.


    "I am a thoughtful Prince and I know you crave not just power itself but also recognition. This is why the first of your duties after you free your friends, shall be to lead this place and to work to transform it into a place fitting my dark, dreadful designs." I told her. I felt her heartbeat quicken as she looked through the same sort of notification Qu''Ren received not long ago.


    "I am not offering to free your friends myself. I am offering the three of you the means with which to go about and rescue them yourself. The power you couldn''t obtain unaided that will let you carve a new path forward for them and for this community." I explained, talking to all three of them now.


    "And in exchange, you shall give me your souls. You shall educate your people in my ways, you shall lead them because they will recognize you as leaders and freely elect you to be their stewards, and you shall serve me by guiding them how I tell you. Are these terms acceptable to the three of you?" I asked, knowing the answer.


    When the three of them nodded at me, a smile broke out on my face.It''s coming. The moment I get another "Quest Progress Alert" notification is almost here. I thought as I felt a notification window appear in front of two of them. And a second later I received the exciting notification I had been waiting for.


    [Quest Progress Alert:


    Ambitious souls acquired: 2/3]


    Yes! I thought, overjoyed as I targeted all three of the harpies and awarded them the assorted things I had promised them.


    <hr>


    A few minutes after they accepted the deals offered to them and I had finished the process of awarding both Saffron and Jasmine with their new classes, I sent them outside with a simple order: to inform their allies that the two of them and Ariel would go and save their kidnapped comrades. And Ariel and I were left alone.


    The young harpy gazed at me uncertainly. I looked back at her, confidence radiating out of my mismatched eyes. "Are you ready to pay a small price for a lot of power?" I asked her, softly and curiously.


    Her eyes were locked on mine. Her lips were trembling. I could tell she was nervous. I smiled softly at her. She began to speak.


    "Yes... I know this may hurt, but it is the price for power. You yourself teach that power rarely comes freely and that power that is freely given is very often not all it''s cracked up to be. I know this will hurt, but please Prince, provide me with the power I seek. Invest pain in me at this moment, so that I may provide pain to others in the future." She told me, trying to put on a brave face and quoting some of Tristan''s teachings to me.


    I grinned and began to approach her, as my brand power took hold within my hand. I felt the heat flow into it, and I felt her fear increase as I drew closer but the brave harpy didn''t stop me or try to slow me down. She did her best to accept the pain she was about to feel.

 Chapter 130: Discovering An Exploit

    A few minutes after her companions left her house, Ariel left her house as well. She walked out the door to join her companions a changed, and significantly more powerful person than she had been when she awoke not many minutes ago. Though many of the changes were internal, one important one wasn''t. It was very external and very physical.


    A series of new marks were visible and in a prominent place: her neck. They were tiny, diamond-shaped "birthmarks". And Ariel intended to show them off to her fellow harpies, but not right now. The woman that just left the house was a woman on a mission. And not seconds after she left, I did too. After all, I had my own important role to play in the final steps of this deception for which I''d be rewarded with the successful and peaceful acquisition of an entire community.


    I willed myself out of the house and towards a part of the desert not far from the village I had just raided. And thanks to the liberal usage of my teleportation abilities, I was joined by the figures who mattered within seconds of arriving.


    <hr>


    Setting the stage for the finale of the conquest of the harpies wasn''t a challenge.


    The first thing I did was teleport the harpies we had captured to myself. Not the minotaurs, I didn''t need them for this.


    I opted to instead send one of the loyal bulls to Tristan, Aamlo was chosen for this honor since he was a dark night sworn to me, and I wanted to reward Tristan.


    I sent the other two to Qu''Ren. I told her to select which of the two she liked best, and that he''d be hers. I was very specific about it.


    Get to know them both Qu''Ren. They are my creations, minotaurs I directly created for a mission and that mission is now done. I don''t want to just get rid of them, so I am instead giving them to critical leaders. There''s actually three, but I sent the oldest of them to Tristan. One of them will work as your bodyguard, and the other will be sent to another leader. I told her, in a mental message. She was appreciative of the gift and promised to take good care of the bulls.


    With the two most direct parts of the finale of our dramatic encounters set up in advance, all that was left was for me to do some research and wait for the players to arrive.


    <hr>


    How do I want to do this? I know one way for me to do so would be for me to just swap out their memories of the whole thing, but that''s not challenging, nor is it fun. I thought to myself, on the same sandy dune I had been before.


    I could just create illusions of the heads of the minotaurs and make them real... I told myself but found that to be still pretty boring and definitely not challenging.


    As it often happens, my third idea was the one I liked the best. What if I do what I did with Menanam and create illusionary minotaurs before bringing them to life? And just make them weak enough that the harpies fight them and win? I thought in the stillness and emptiness of the desert. That idea brought a smile to face and it felt perfect for what I hoped to do: create a challenging, and memorable fight for the harpies to practice their new powers and adjust to their new realities.


    That''s perfect. And it''s not even hard. I thought, with a wide grin on my face. I set about it immediately, knowing that I''d have very little time to do it.


    <hr>


    The first thing I needed was the base illusions themselves. Four magic circles flared to life underneath me and the minotaurs I had created before, as well as the minotaur disguise I had created to use myself, were rapidly formed within them.


    This is... noticeably faster than before. I noticed with a surprised and pleasant expression on my face. It''s perfect. And almost certainly the influence of the domain of magic. I realized, having quickly deduced that rather obvious fact.


    I studied the minotaurs, carefully examining them before determining that they would be able to adequately perform their duties. I chuckled when I actually thought about what their duties entail. These things are created to die. I thought, keenly aware of that. They are things I made exclusively to give my servants something to kill. I told myself.


    Almost unconsciously, I found myself grinning at that. I wasn''t entirely comfortable with it, but a small part of me heard and even enjoyed the whispers of some of the domains and subdomains that I had recently gained influence over.


    This is your power...


    These creatures exist at all because of you. It is your right to decide when they die.


    Embrace this power. Use it to power up your own servants.


    You can render them immune to pain you know. Make it so they aren''t suffering... And then use them for all sorts of purposes.


    I ignored many of those voices, but I didn''t entirely ignore one of them. One of them had an interesting suggestion. All sorts of purposes huh? That is quite interesting. Maybe I could use these things for sacrifices. To summon demons... to create undead. I asked myself, knowing that I needed to test something.


    Hagitha would have a field day if what I''m thinking works... Heck, I''d have a field day if this worked... I thought, grinning about the possibility of being able to gain a shortcut to summon powerful demons and to being able to gain serious influence over the sub-domain of necromancy.


    But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. This combination, just like the combinations of things I do when I create lifeforms the more formal, divine-power way, creates real life-forms with existant bodies and souls. If the point is the sacrifice and reanimation of things than this ought to work. I figured, having to suppress an increasing amount of excitement.


    But this isn''t the time! I realized, suddenly painfully aware that the whole reason for all of this was very quickly approaching. I gritted my teeth and began the process by which souls were created. The only trait I gave them of any real importance was that I removed their sense of pain so they wouldn''t suffer needlessly.


    <hr>


    The harpies arrived on the scene not long after the minotaurs came to life. They flew over the dune we were located in, where I was happily invisible and incorporeal and almost missed us altogether. In fact, what gave away our position was the reality of the orders I had given my simple minions.


    I had specifically instructed them to roar at the harpies when the bird-women flew overhead. The thing that gave away our position, or rather their position, was, in fact, the explosive roar.


    The harpies swiftly turned around and flew at my minions. I grimaced as I heard them swiftly draw closer and closer to me and the minotaurs, something they did even faster than I anticipated them doing, empowered by the mighty enhancements they had just received.


    This is gonna be a mess, isn''t it? I asked myself, now smiling as I imagined how much this would cause the faith of the various harpies to skyrocket. If they thought of me as a prince of power before then they''ll really love me after this now that they get to experience their power explode so much that they can fight minotaurs and win.


    <hr>


    The resulting combat began with the harpies immediately addressing the only advantage the minotaurs had in comparison to them: numbers. This was possible due to the enhanced instincts of monks, and the fact that harpies are extremely fast creatures.


    Ariel took aim at the minotaur closest to her, which happened to be Danus. She focused on him, or rather his illusionary double, and hurled herself like a diamond-colored arrow straight at the bovine boy. And she did what one of the harpies, the one I turned to stone in the encounter I had with her not even an hour ago, did.


    She aimed herself at her chosen target and when she was about 10 meters away from it, she flipped herself over in mid-air so that her talons were stretched out and aimed at its head.


    <hr>


    She collided with the rock-hard beast and hit it with the force of a cannonball due to her incredible speed. The illusion-given-life was powerfully built but nowhere near strong enough to contend with the force, speed, and physique of the tiny and swift harpy empowered by the monk class''s increases to her strength.


    The minotaur was thrown back by the force of the collision and fell to the ground, but not with the harpy who had slammed it in the first place. The harpy''s talons embedded themselves, quite painfully, in the minotaur and she was initially connected to it when it first flew back but the harpy''s new strength gave her the power to force her talons deep into the thing''s skull. She executed the bovine beast by using her talons to crack its skull and penetrated the brute''s brain.


    Ariel swiftly yanked her talons from the minotaur''s skull and leaped off of the thing before it hit the ground even once. She pushed herself into the air using the force of her legs and took stock of the situation. Her attack had taken precisely three seconds.


    She noted that her friends were still unconscious, and saw that one of the harpies who was taken had been turned to stone. And then she aimed at another of the three minotaurs that remained. Now the minotaurs were ready, gripping their weapons and glaring at Ariel, but since they were ready for Ariel they weren''t ready for the other harpies.


    <hr>


    The battle went about as well as could have been expected. The minotaurs didn''t really have a chance to put up a fight, as the copies of myself as a minotaur and Vizin were taken out instantly by the arrival of Saffron and Jasmine. As the last minotaur, the copy of Aamlo, fell I deactivated my stone-to-flesh spell. And then I watched as the harpy I defeated with my own two hands regained her consciousness.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    And at the same time, I aimed a wave of healing spells at the number of unconscious harpies that until that point had been unconscious behind the minotaurs. I watched as their eyes fluttered open at once, a smile on my face. And that is that. I told myself, aware that this was the moment of my victory.


    I suppose I can do something nice for them... I thought, looking out at the harpies. I hit them with a wave of blessings, targeting each of them with a number of positive powerups, even though they''d be temporary. Their faces lit up as they felt my blessings pour over them, a clear and obvious sign of my approval. And then I sent the team a single mental message.


    [Congratulations on defeating the enemy before you. Now that the immediate calamity is over, go and call for an election as soon as you get home. I have no doubt that you, Ariel, will win. When you do take a few days and then call for me. Call me to come and introduce myself to the rest of the harpies.] I told them, sending all of them the same message so they knew where I stood. I had one more task to do before I left this place.


    I made a copy of Saffron''s most recent memories and began to analyze it. The precise memory and notification I was looking for immediately showed itself to me since it was one of her most recent memories.


    [Alert: The Minotaur named Vizin has died. You''ve gained experience. Congratulations!]


    So it''s true. That means that I do need to check to see if this counts for the necromancy subdomain and for the corruption subdomain. I thought, delighted to have confirmed that I possessed at least one truly ludicrous way to alter reality and potentially one way to shortcut some of the routes to gaining influence that were entirely oriented around repetition.


    With a thought, I whisked myself away and to the side of Hagitha, the head of the Order of Whispers, my first and currently only death-cult.


    <hr>


    An instant after I wrapped myself in my teleportation power and wished myself out of Infernius I found myself in an extravagant bedchamber. I appeared in a comfortable seat and found myself facing the bed of Hagitha, the head of a powerful noble family in the Dark Elven city of Undermoon.


    The chamber I was in wasn''t extravagant because of its size. It was actually smaller than Drow''s bedchamber or Qu''Ren''s, matching perhaps Helena''s in size. It was extravagant because it was furnished with all sorts of wealthy baubles, including the same sort of diamonds that were part of the symbol that adorned the bodies of both of my witches.


    I could see a small container that was filled with rubies on a nearby nightstand. That same nightstand was where a cup was placed that wasn''t filled with water, but rather it was filled with the blood of a minor demon.


    The bed she was sleeping on was made from the bones of the nearby lizardmen tribe. Its sheets were made from silk produced by demonic spiders. It was the single gaudiest place I had seen to date.


    She had been dozing off, with her back to me, when I appeared but I immediately and abruptly startled her by appearing and then speaking within seconds of my sudden appearance in her needlessly luxurious bedchamber.


    "You need to come with me. I need your help confirming something that might be and probably is a game-changer." I told her, my voice alone surprising her and snapping her out of her state of exhaustion through sheer shock. By the time I finished speaking she was glaring at me, shock causing her heart to hammer in her chest.


    "Oh damn it Althos!" She said, shocked and unexpectedly annoyed by my totally unannounced appearance. I actually chuckled at her. She glared at me, her eyes filled with an uncharacteristic sense of danger.


    "Trust me, given how much you love sacrifices you''re gonna want to be here with me when I try this." I told her, hinting at bloodiness to come. When I mentioned the word "sacrifices" the look in her eyes changed. The anger didn''t vanish, but it did dissipate a bit and I could tell that I had caught her interest. She got up and spoke.


    "I take it you know where our sacrifices happen?" She asked, referring to her favorite room in her whole estate. I grinned at her, excitement no doubt visible in my gaze, and nodded. "Excellent. Let''s head there now." She told me, grinning savagely at me. I excitedly teleported both of us to that grim chamber, using her memories to figure out where it was since I had never actually been in this room before.


    <hr>


    In the span of a single heartbeat, we found ourselves even deeper underground than we had been before. We went from being surrounded by gaudy excesses to being in a large, circular chamber surrounded by the living dead.


    Our teleportation was slight but the air we suddenly displaced wasn''t. Our companions in this chamber immediately noticed our sudden appearance because they felt the air we pushed away from ourselves. And the ghouls turned to face us, their gray faces filled with curiosity until the moment they realized who we were. When they noticed our identities they were visibly excited and moaned in our direction, the sounds eager and obsequious.


    I grinned at them, enjoying the company of the strange monsters a lot more than other living beings tended too. The rest of the chamber was odd, even without the ghouls. We were in a familial grave, a sort of mausoleum. All around us, the walls were lined with the dead ancestors Hagitha, Drow, and the other members of the Banethal family.


    The giant chamber was centered around a gigantic blood-red circle etched onto the gray surface of the dirt floor at our feet. The red circle emanated hateful, negative energy that harmed living beings who lingered here for too long. This energy was why this place was loved by the ghouls who lived here and served as the new caretakers of the strange area.


    The ghouls slowly shuffled in our direction, and I turned to Hagitha to explain why I had brought her here.


    "So Hagitha, I owe you an explanation." I told her, a statement to which she almost violently agreed. I sighed at her, annoyed by the little ways she acted up but setting that aside for now.


    "Did you know that I can create life?" I asked rhetorically, somewhat casually revealing one of my lesser-known, to dark-elves anyway, powers. She was silenced by that, as she tried to wrap her mind around the implications of it. When she fell silent I laughed, not having expected her to be silenced by what I felt wasn''t a very surprising thing to reveal.


    "Well, I guess in your case you do learn something new every day." I told her, chuckling through my words. She was still processing my words, trying to understand my actions.


    "Wait... if you can create life, why is my cult, one of the ones you helped run in the beginning, dedicated to sacrificing people and the undead? Is it... some sort of equivalent exchange thing where you can only create life if one of your cults has sacrificed someone to you recently? A life for a life?" She asked, which was an impressive question. I still dismissed it immediately.


    "No it''s not. That''s a... neat idea though." I admitted, committing that to memory for future cult ideas.


    "No, I want to master undeath. And the subdomain of necromancy," I told her, using words that I knew she knew the meaning of thanks to my mastery of her memories. "Is a lover of repetition. It has given me a quest to gain influence over it by creating cults like yours as well as sacrificing and then raising an appropriate number of living beings as undead beings." I revealed, telling her more about the nature of my relationship with domains and subdomains than any other humanoid worshiper of mine currently knew.


    Her face blanched as I told her that. It is a heck of a bomb to drop on someone. I realized, smiling at her even more shocked expression.


    "I can create life in two ways. I can create illusions, make them real using immensely powerful alteration magic, and then invest them with souls that I can create, or I can do something more formal. I can create a soul first, and then a body of assorted, but not every kind of creature yet, creatures and hurl the souls into the bodies. I can even create extraplanars by roughly shaping the soul into the creature I seek to create, though that one is harder to do." I told her, making her quite possibly the only humanoid in all of existence to possess this knowledge.


    "So that''s how gods did it..." She said, almost wanting to sit down as she learned two methods to create life.


    "I''ll tell you the truth though. I didn''t know something kind of ridiculous about this sort of power until today. You see, I have created life with an illusion as the base before today, but today an illusion based creature died and it granted its killer experience. That means that they are fully real creatures. I want us to see if one of these creatures can be sacrificed, raised, and counted as one of the 100 creatures I need to see sacrificed and raised. If it does... then I can gain influence over the first tier of influence over the subdomain of necromancy." I told her, excitedly.


    I want this to count. I thought, surprised by just how badly I wanted to be able to gain influence over the subdomain. Hagitha considered me and then nodded at me. "Let''s do this." She said, and for a second the silly little dark-elf dared to believe I''d use her to strike the killing blow.


    I wasted no time quashing that hope, by contacting another dark-elf, one of the "whisperers", a member of Hagitha''s cult, and explaining the situation to her. When I finished my explanation I asked her if she''d like to come and aid us, and she happily agreed. I immediately teleported her to us.


    <hr>


    Less than five minutes later our settings had changed slightly. We were joined by one more dark-elf, one of my whisperers. She held a thin onyx dagger in her hand, holding the thing steadily, with a dark glare in her eyes.


    She was facing a single creation of mine and staring it down. The thing was a simple creation, an orc who had bright yellow skin and was created the same basic way I created Menanam and the minotaurs that had been killed earlier. The whisperer was about as loud as was suggested by the name of the cult she was a member of, and she patiently waited for my command.


    She had only been standing here for a few seconds, and before I gave her the order to execute the orc I had created I wanted to be sure that Hagitha had all the time she needed to be annoyed. When a few seconds more seconds passed I looked over at Raven and nodded.


    She nodded back and executed the orc in front of her with an efficient stroke of her blade, sliting the thing''s throat in an instant. We were all silent while the whisperer waited for the familiar notification to alert her that she had killed the orc. All it took was a few seconds before the woman''s eyes flashed with the all too familiar textbox. She excitedly nodded at us, indicating that she had gotten the experience for the kill.


    At this point, I looked at Hagitha and grinned. And now the final test. I realized, an excited smile on my face.


    "Alright Hagitha, this is where you come in. Go ahead and raise this bad-boy." I told her, feeling a wave of excitement wash over me. She bit her lip and rose a hand in the direction of the monster.


    I watched, keenly aware that this was the second time in my life that I had ever seen true necromancy be performed. A sphere of inky, hungry darkness came out of her hand and shot towards the corpse of the orc. Like before the sphere seeped into the corpse and I watched, grateful to my magical vision, as the dark energies began to vivisect and crisscross the body, touching vital organs and sending ghoulish sparks of unlife into them.


    In a matter of seconds lines of unlife energy had etched themselves onto the entirety of the corpse. And then the thing began a mockery of a dance as it shook and trembled. It''s really working... It''s actually working. I thought, rendered nearly speechless by the sight of it, and the dark happiness that I felt at that moment.


    And even before the newly animated orcish ghoul uttered its first moan, I received an alert that I had suspected I would receive if I ventured down this path, but hadn''t dared hope I would receive because I didn''t want to get crushed.


    [Quest Update Alert:


    Undead Created: 13/100]


    What a day... I thought to myself before I began to laugh, the sound almost maniacal.


    "Hagitha... it works." I told her, between peals of laughter. And at that she began to laugh too, delight appearing openly and boldly on her face.


    We laughed together, truly and completely united for the first time. When she pieced it together, even Raven, the lowly initiate of The Order Of Whispers, began to laugh as well.

 Chapter 131: Adjustments

    While my true mind and my secondary will were handling the Trial of Dark Usurpation Qu''Ren, Lilith, and I were locked in a battle of the wills.


    The three of us were deep inside of the Mirrored City. We were in an empty building, sitting down and staring away from each other. The atmosphere was noticeably tense. This is what I get for trying to negotiate. I grumbled mentally.


    For the last few minutes, I had been trying to get Lilith to see sense. There''s no way this ends the way she likes. But it could end better than what she wants, if she''d just let it. I thought, annoyed. I was trying to broker a deal with her, where she leads her family in my worship and retains her memories, and even gains other awards, but she was determined to shut me down.


    Each of us felt as if we had said our piece. But eventually, I spoke once more ready and eager to break the silence.


    "You possess this incorrigible pride Lilith." I told her, almost amused by it. She turned and looked at me, heated anger in her gaze. I chuckled at her, not bothered by her anger.


    "You demand too much Althos." She said, her eyes blazing with heat and with a wounded sense of self. I shook my head and readied myself to state my disagreement, but Qu''Ren pipped up moments after Lilith shared her thoughts with us.


    "What is he demanding? He''s offering to empower you." She stated, accurately. Lilith turned her scarlet gaze upon my witch, her eyes filled with wrathful energy.


    "''What is he demanding?'' You ask, like you don''t already know, witch." Lilith mocked, scorn audible in her voice.


    "I am not asking for much. I am asking for your service and worship. I am not planning to change anything. I''m even offering to heal you. I know you Lilith. I am offering you a gift." I explained, telling her the truth from my perspective.


    "You won''t even lose anything at all. Your children will have their memories modified, but I am taking nothing from them. I am just adding things. New memories. A new loyality." I told her, exasperated with her stubbornness.


    I had spent the last few minutes trying to bargain with the dark elf. I was trying to get her to take a deal to service me in exchange for some service I provided her. I was, in essence, trying to replicate the circumstances under which I gained control of the Jackaloids.


    Lilith turned and looked at me. Her stare was cold, hostile, and almost rabid. "You are a manipulator. You take memories and do... things to them. How can I know that you''ll keep your word?" She asked me, her tone as accusatory as her words. I had to work to suppress my urge to roll my eyes at her.


    "I am telling you, I have a power that FORCES me to tell the truth. I won''t use it until you let me. Just let me and you''ll see what I mean." I told her, repeating something I had repeated before.


    She glared at me. I had explained this, my devilish deal power, to her twice before. Both times while I was trying to explain the full context behind my visit to her home, and my intentions with her family. And both times she didn''t believe me. At this point I was exhausted with her and this game. I''ll just see if she jumps if I offer her a gift. I thought, ready to be done with this.


    "Lilith." I began, speaking authoritatively.


    "I have an offer for you. I will cure your scars and the only thing I ask is that you consent to me using my devilish deal power on us." I told her, keenly aware that I could easily just do what I wanted and force her to obey me. If she says no to this then I may just do this forcibly. I thought, tired of this back and forth.


    Lilith''s eyes opened wide as she considered my offer. I looked at her, my face neutral, and my eyes locked on hers.


    She opened her mouth to speak and then shut it. And then she finally spoke once more, a grin spreading across her face as she spoke.


    At this point I struck her with a skill, silently. I opted to test out one of my new powers, the Whispers of Corruption power, subtly entering her mind and beginning a whisper campaign that urged her to give into her dark lusts. Lusts she felt even as she looked, angerly, at Qu''Ren and myself.


    "... Fine." She told me, curtly, biting her lip while doing so, failing to hide her sudden, potent and unexplainable carnal urges. I chuckled at her audacity, and recalled the memory of the day she got the burns in the first place.


    <hr>


    Lilith looked off in the distance. She could see the skyline of the eerie and insectoid city of Abraxinas, one of several cities located throughout the dismal dimension known as the Heart of Darkness, the birthplace of demons and other terrors.


    For a second she hoped that she''d get to see the city up-close once more, even as she watched gigantic wasps float lazily from one part of the city to another. But she knew that was a longshot, and so she snapped her attention back to the matter at hand.


    Lilith stood on the edge of a massive shoreline. On one side, the shore-side, there was a gigantic beach. Behind her stood her fellow humanoids, other dark-elves and assorted creatures from the world beneath the world. On the other side was a chaotic ocean. The ocean teemed with eerie wildlife, all sorts of deranged flora and fauna that she had seen do all sorts of wicked deeds during the last few weeks. But she wasn''t focused on them. She was focused on something else.


    The nightmare she was worried about was something flying towards her, hurling itself through the air. It was an enormous reptilian thing, with wings the size of a small home. Each flap of its wings rocked the beach with tremendous gales, and the thing was approaching fast.


    The dragon opened its mouth and Lilith sighed. "Well this is going to be difficult." She said, lifting her hands into the air and willing magic from her brain and her heart into her two palms. She prepared herself for the fight of her life.


    The half-succubus had no idea this would be the battle that left her scarred and resulted in her fleeing the place of her birth. Nor did she know that it would lead her to Undermoon, or to Althos.


    <hr>


    "Alright. It''s done." I told her, as my energy washed over her. Restorative energy was flowing out of me and into her. Before my very eyes, and before the very eyes of Qu''Ren, Lilith''s facial scars had almost completely vanished. And they continued to dissipate with each passing instant our eyes were laid on them. My "It''s done" remark was simply informing her that the process of healing them, insofar as it involved casting magic on her was done.


    Lilith smiled at me, her face quickly becoming symmetrical and even more beautiful than before. I sighed and repeated an oft-repeated question. "Will you let me use my devilish deal power now?" I asked, half-expecting her to say "no" out of spite. But I was thankfully and pleasantly surprised when she nodded at me.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    I turned to her and activated my power.


    "Lilith. I am Althos. I am a god and I am a true-devil in the process of becoming an arch-devil." I told her, letting her see for herself that the power of the devilish deal was real.


    "I would like to make a deal with you. But first let me explain why I am here. I am here, fulfilling a quest for a thing called a ''Domain''. ''Domains'' are parts of the system that helps govern and run reality and they give gods and a handful of other beings our incredible powers. ''Domains'' award gods and other beings powers based off of how much ''influence'' we have over them." I told the half-demon, explaining both truthfully and to the best of my abilities my understanding of the nature of domains.


    "The ''domain'' I am here on behalf of is the domain of trickery. I possess powers over memories and have used that to bring people to heel, which it quite enjoys. I was asked to come to a noble family and use my powers to make them worship me. As a reward for amusing it, it would me that it would grant me a ''tier of influence'' over it. When I last did this I took someone from the village and gave them what they wanted in exchange for their cooperation with my actions and their presence as proxy leaders in my absence. I want to do that here." I told her.


    "I don''t want to take anything from you. I have in fact already given you something. I have not only told you the truth, unnecessarily, but also not taken any memories from you. Or modified them." I told her, my power reminding us both that I could not lie.


    "If it were up to me, you''d stay the day-to-day leader of your family, and your master and the ultimate master of your house would be me. I know that in the past demon-lords lorded over dark-elven houses. I wish for an arrangement like that between you and I. I provide you with power, and you worship me and execute my will among the people of Undermoon." I told her, sincerely explaining what I desired.


    [This is an interesting development... it''s not quite what I planned, but I can see that you took what I said to heart about enjoying the last time you did this. Hmm... what to do, what to do... I suppose, between this and the exploit that one of you found not long ago I can allow this to count for the purpose of fulfilling my mini-quest.] The domain told me, all of a sudden. I grinned mentally at it and its playfulness.


    "I possess the power to do this forcibly. That I am not doing so is both an act of mercy, and a sign that I am interested in earning your, as in you personally, loyalty, worship, and service. I have provided my worshipers with all they need. I have given them food, influence, knowledge, classes, and more. To serve me is to secure your future and the future of your children, provided you obey me." I told her.


    At this point, I watched her undergo a struggle, mentally. I watched her muscles tense up and her face, newly healed, contort as her pride clashed with the rest of her. I chuckled, and opted to try one more tactic.


    "I am a provider of all sorts of things Lilith. Not just needs, but also wants. My servants obey me not just because its wise, but because doing so allows them to indulge their lusts. To serve me is to experience pleasures old and new alike. But you''ll only find out what I can truly offer if you take my hand. And if you give me what is mine: you, yourself." I told her, aware that at this point she was only delaying the inevitable by trying to say no to what she wanted.


    I had healed her. I had shown her my power. I knew she was mine. She was silent, but that didn''t mean that she wasn''t mine. All I had to do was wait.


    All in all, I had to wait for about ten minutes before she ceased her dramatic parody of an inner struggle. She accepted the deal to serve me and to give me her soul, and the only other thing I had to do was ensure that she felt new pleasures, and got to enjoy herself without risks to her health.


    <hr>


    [Domain Centric Alert:


    The domain of Trickery and the subdomain of Necromancy have seen fit to award you for the completion of the tasks you''ve completed on their behalves, despite the... exploit you found and exploited. Trickery was quite fond of that, and because of that, it decided not to mind that the trick you pulled on Lilith isn''t quite what it asked you to do.


    Necromancy is opting to modify its future quests in lieu of what has transpired tonight. Future quests won''t be so... numbers-oriented.


    What follows is a list of what you''ve gained.


    Necromancy:


    This is a magical subdomain, and as such, it covers more than just itself. The subdomain of necromancy controls necromantic magic and the undead and the divine powers, the mutations it grants, and the creatures it allows you to create are all related to that.


    Unlife Energy Manipulation:


    This is an idle divine power that allows you to manipulate unlife energy, the dreadful animating power that powers non-spirit undead. Things like vampires, ghouls, zombies, and other far more terrifying creatures are animated by unlife energy, which is now manipulable by you. This power also renders uncontrolled and unintelligent undead, universally lesser undead beings like skeletons and zombies, pacifistic towards you and those you mark.


    You can also attack living creatures by using unlife energy through firing it at living creatures, or by willing such energy into the blows you strike. Living creatures hit by unlife energy grow sick after being hit and die once enough time has passed. Creatures that die from wounds that contain unlife energy automatically rise as undead under your control in a matter of minutes after their passing.


    Awaken undead:


    This divine power allows you to awaken unintelligent undead. Unintelligent undead created by you are automatically awoken, including undead created by cults in your name and in your service, and undead that have been created in your name and service in the past. Awoken undead revere and worship you, and seek to either fulfill wishes you are known to want or to increase the overall number of undead in existence and especially the undead who revere and worship you.


    This power stems from the intersection of the mind domain and the necromancy subdomain.


    Sinister Shadows:


    This is a synergistic power that brings your shadow to life. Your shadow is now a sentient entity, a wraith, that guards and protects you. This power stems from the conjunction of the subdomains of darkness and necromancy. The wraith that protects you is a passive entity until you are attacked, at which point it will ask for permission to lash out against your attackers. As you gain more influence over either subdomain the wraith becomes smarter and more powerful.


    Create Intermediate Undead:


    This power is somewhat deceptively named. It doesn''t just allow for the creation of intermediate undead, it allows for total control over them. Intermediate undead are entities like ghosts, vampires, wrights, and mummies. You will be asked if you wish to create these creatures when you kill something that could otherwise become one of them.


    The subdomain of necromancy grants you mutations that infuse your servants with unlife energy, which grants them power over the undead, the ability to heal such creatures, and allows you to both boost and mutate your undead worshipers. You can also boost the resistance of your worshipers against the cold and disease.


    The lowest tier of influence over the subdomain allows you to create undead like zombies, ghouls, and skeletons. Undead created in this manner are pure undead beings, beings born of unlife, not of death.


    Trickery:


    The domain of trickery is a potent one. With it you can bestow your followers with the rogue class, and you can create creatures like bake-danuki, kitsune, leprechauns, rust and dark hags, and assorted other creatures of deception due to your mind-powers, and your lie, shape-shifting, corruption, and falsehood powers.


    Your mutations grant your followers enhanced stealth, enhanced deceptive prowess, and the ability to see through deception more clearly.


    Forgery:


    This is a synergistic power. It comes from your influence over law, lies, falsehoods, magic, and trickery. It automatically fools methods that attempt to identify you and is an enhanced version of the thing that happened to you when your secondary will reached the city of Namira.


    Pheromone Secretion:


    This power is a synergistic one that comes from your influence over corruption, lies, nature, fungi, and trickery. It''s useable twice every twelve hours and when used it causes every creature in 10 meters who could be attracted to you, as a masculine figure, to become charmed by you.]

 Chapter 132: An Encounter

    The morning had come. Well, not in Undermoon. Or in Infernius for that matter. But for the surface of the mortal world, the sun was up and out, the minute I got, looked through, and willed away, the notification that alerted me to the reality that I had become a god of necromancy and trickery.


    It was an odd feeling. And that wasn''t even getting into how it literally felt to be able to exert influence over necromantic magic. And as Hagitha went to her room to go to bed, I found myself alone and was introspective for a second.


    I have known necromancy for so long... I was days old when I first heard that eerie voice in my head. It was so odd, so... random, at the time. And now I can do this. I thought, before reaching out with my mind and touching the mind of one of the ghouls close to me. To prove a point to myself.


    The ghoul was a simple creature. It was a dark-elf, but one with an atrophied mind and an atrophied body. Its once beautiful features were gone now, unlife energy had warped and molded them into something feral, predatory, and rabid. I looked at the thing and smiled. And then our minds touched.


    <hr>


    I didn''t know what to expect when I touched the mind of the ghoul. Even though the ghoul in front of me was once a dark elf, ghouls were not known, even by the system, for their intelligence. At least not most of the time.


    [Species Knowledge Notification: Ghouls


    Ghouls are the most powerful of the bottom tier of undead beings. This bottom tier includes skeletons, zombies, lesser undead animals, and ghouls.


    The majority of ghouls have one driving motivation: the urge to consume. They are driven by this potent desire, a desire so strong that it overwhelms their minds and prevents them from thinking of other things unless awakened.


    Ghouls have the potential to be incredibly powerful beings. These undead creatures don''t need to breathe, sleep, and technically they don''t need to eat either, they just want too. They are smart enough to use weapons of their own volition but only rarely do so, though that changes if they are given skills related to weapon-usage that make them more proficient at it.


    The truth about ghouls is that they are overwhelmed by the sparks of unlife that animate them. The sparks that animate the average ghouls are flawed, crude things that are not as potent as the sparks of unlife at your disposal.


    A handful of worlds exist wherein ghouls are not the crude, simple things mortals in this world believe them to be. In these worlds ghouls thrive, or in some cases thrived, because they became protected by gods and other powerful beings who helped them cope with their hunger. This allowed them a chance to develop, and a chance to become something more.


    One of the most real dangers posed by ghouls is that they spread by disease. A ghoul''s bite has a real chance of infecting anyone unlucky enough to survive it with a sickness that turns them into ghouls. Ill-prepared communities can and have been destroyed by the arrivals of singular ghouls with stealthy abilities or uncommon luck.


    Ghouls blessed by deities of disease can become horrendously powerful champions of death and pestilence. You can infect those you touch with this disease yourself since you have ghouls who worship you, in an unintelligent and vicious way but it still counts.


    Ghouls, like most undead, cannot evolve. Though awakened ghouls can become so wise they are basically a different species.]


    Because of that notification, I connected myself to the mind of the ghoul with both curiosity and trepidation. And what I first heard was something raw. Something carnivorous. And in its own way, something overwhelming.


    [I... HUNGER.] The thing thought. The voice in its mind, simply sung this unholy refrain over and over again. I listened to it for nearly a minute. I chuckled at it. I looked the ghoul in the face, locked eyes with it even.


    Its eyes were hollow holes in its head, but as I touched its mind I peered into them. At first, the things stayed tiny black holes in its head, colorless orbs that were as animate as precious gemstones but a lot less valuable. Perfectly still, almost serene things. Especially when you knew the violence that a ghoul was capable of. But after I kept starring at them for a second, something changed.


    I was still for a few seconds and I kept watching the orbs. And then there was a flicker of movement. A sudden spark of something, something spry and that didn''t belong there, in a still sea of void-like darkness. I chuckled. How... curious. I thought, before reentering its mind for a second, to see if something else had changed.


    [I HUNGER. I... Hunger.] The voice in its mind told me. The first repetition of its favorite verse in some deadly song that repeated itself in its mind was strong and unyieldly. But that second one wasn''t. It was slow. It was quiet. It was less certain. This must be the effect of it being awakened. Slowly but surely. I thought, remembering one of my powers. And so the third time I hoped into its mind I spoke.


    [Hello little one.] I said, greeting the thing with kindness and warmth. The thing''s head snapped in my direction, and its eyes stared back at me. I saw the same strange sprightly energy from before making itself clear to me once more. There was no hostility. Instead, I was met with endless patience. And cold curiosity. I chuckled at the energy and was assured that I had seen what I thought I had. Truly curious. I thought, amused by the situation. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    But not what I''m here for. Not today. I thought, aware that I''d likely come back soon and begin to explore this more thoroughly.


    No. I need to focus. I need to gather my power and defeat Paimon. That''s got to be my priority. I thought to myself. I wrapped myself in my teleportation power, and whisked myself away to a place not far from the harpy village. And as I was teleporting myself to that place my thoughts focused keenly on the face of my foe.


    <hr>


    Teleportation was a powerful ability to have at my disposal. It granted me nearly perfect freedom of movement and the ability to escape all sorts of sticky situations. And it also gave me the ability to enter such situations. That was what happened when I activated it this time.


    I pulled myself across the universe, instantly traveling from a strange mausoleum-like place to the depths of the Infernian desert. And I also teleported myself from a calm, enemy-free place into a place that wasn''t calm or free of any foes.


    Of all the places to find me... I complained when I was fully in the desert, able to see the foe that no doubt went to great lengths to find out where I was going to go in the desert.


    <hr>


    Humans have plenty of weirdly specific expressions. That''s something I quickly learned while picking up the memories of my handful of human worshipers, and the less rare other humans I''ve come across. One of their expressions, perhaps one of the more useful ones, is about devils. Well, technically it''s about "the devil", a sort of mythical, archetype humans use to broadly discuss diabolical things.


    "Speak of the devil and he doth appear". That was the expression. I learned of it a few days ago, while experiencing the memories of one of the knights who is now a member of the army I¡¯m assembling in the world of the mortals. At the time I stored it away, thinking it was little more than a fanciful and pithy expression humans used to express both shock and amusement at the subject of their idle gossiping appearing before them at an inopportune time.


    And despite my skepticism of it at the time I heard it, it was perfectly applicable to me right now, in the depths of the desert. Where I stood face to face with my one persistent enemy.


    <hr>


    The first thing I saw in the depths of the desert was a familiar face. But it wasn''t a familiar face I was in any rush to be reunited with.


    The figure before me was a powerful devil. He stood around four meters tall, and had withered red skin. He was a truly ancient being and his appearance suggested that. He looked just like how I remembered him, aside from the fact that since I had last seen him he had grown a small beard. A tiny, messy thing of silver hair that added scruffiness to the falsely kind-looking face that had opposed me throughout my life.


    Paimon was standing before me, having somehow either happened to be here at the same time as I was arriving by coincidence, which wasn''t likely at all, or somehow having known that I''d be here.


    The devil wore artfully crafted robes that to my magically sensitive eyes radiated an almost nauseating rainbow of colors. A quick glance at it confirmed that every sort of magic I had encountered and was cognizant of was present and accounted for in every stitch and seam of the clothing that adorned the elderly devil''s body.


    His wizen face was far too confident for my liking. His cat-like eyes stared at me and studied me in much the same way that I observed and studied my foes. And I didn''t doubt that the devil staring at me regarded my chances of a victory against him to be slim to none. I locked eyes with him and tried something I hadn''t done during either of our last encounters: I reached out to his mind using my limitless magical energy and mind skills.


    He broke out in a grin when he realized what I was doing. And I didn''t when the system responded to me alerting me to the ineffectiveness of my attempt.


    [Alert:


    Paimon''s own mental powers and defenses have successfully defended him against your attempt to tie your minds together.]


    I hissed, both mentally and physically. And then I tried something else, something that I knew to suspect wouldn''t work either. I mentally lunged at my enemy, forcefully aiming a mental blast at him in an attempt to render him vulnerable to my attacks. The devil let out an audible chuckle while easily taking the blow and deciding to stay still in front of me as if to proudly project that I couldn''t hurt him.


    "Enough Althos. I know we are enemies, but must you be so savage to me?" He asked, a glimmer of what he no doubt felt was wit and an attempt at humor coloring the delivery of his rhetoric.


    "Paimon... Must I remind you that you were the one who attempted to claim me as a prize, not once but twice? You even interrupted an attempt at vengeance on an old and hated foe by of one of my servants. And that''s not to mention the countless attacks on my servants and I." I told the devil, remembering very distinctly how he viewed me as a prize of sorts when we first met and then tried to defeat me and my servants while we cleared a dungeon in another part of the desert.


    He chuckled, a dry and raspy sound escaping his throat before he began to cough. "Is... that... what... you and your rebels think?" He asked, between coughs, referencing the devils who had agreed to serve me.


    "Althos... do you not wish to know the plans I have? For you? And for everything else?" The megalomaniacal devil asked. I glared at him and responded as proudly as he had to me.


    "If I want to know your secrets, you should know that you can''t hide them from me." I hissed, venom and pride mixing in my words. I threw myself at him mentally, intending to steal into his mind and make his memories my own, a talent I hadn''t begun to master the last time he and I had met.


    And for my unsubtle efforts I was thoroughly and immediately rebuffed. His mind was like a steel wall, and I was like a warrior with anger problems and delusions of grandeur who had been immediately knocked down a peg by the workmanship of whoever built the wall when I hurled myself at said wall. Paimon began to laugh, audibly and imperiously.


    "Althos... we will have time to fight. For now, I recommend you listen to your elders and set aside your pride. I wish to converse with you. That is the lawful thing to do." He told me. He practically spat that word, "lawful", out of his mouth. He said it with the tone of an unrepentant criminal caught by a clever law-enforcer, not of a clever tyrant who wielded the law like a surgical scalpel.


    "You? Lawful?" I asked, scornfully. And this angered him.


    "Silence, rebel." He said, once again spitting out another word. Rebel. He delivered it with venom. I grinned at him, appreciative of the fact that I had gotten under his skin, and watched him through my own narrow, anger-filled eyes as I worked to stomach my disgust for the man while he and I stared at each other.

 Chapter 133: Arrogance And Ignorance

    During a brief, tense moment in my interaction with the one entity, I would consider a persistent and possibly dangerous enemy, Paimon, I starred at him and used Identify. The power took hold immediately, and unlike my mind-affecting powers it wasn''t blocked by whatever means of defense the dreadful devil had that rendered my other powers ineffective.


    [Name: Paimon Mooncaller


    Class: dark night, Level 30


    Species: True Devil


    Faction: Self


    Alignment: Neutral Evil


    Personal Vice: Pride


    Status: Healthy, arrogant


    Innate Magical Ability: Paimon is the strongest creature you''ve met face to face so far. He is deeply innately magical.


    Class Suitability: Paimon is already the class he''s the most suited too: he''s a self-sworn dark night. That grants him incredible physical and mystical might.


    Magic Suitability: He is equally suited to both conjuration magic and evocation magic. And he''s capable of using those schools of magic in conjunction. Throughout his life he used that to horrible, sometimes genocidal ends.]


    I breathed a relieved sigh, causing a look of confusion to appear on the face of my foe. The power, Identify as usual came in clutch and let me know a lot of things about Paimon that I hadn''t known, not to mention the comforting fact that it worked at all was relief-inducing on its own. Good, this means that this asshole''s defenses against mind-powers don''t neutralize all of my powers. I realized, which caused a grin to suddenly appear on my face. Paimon saw this, and glared at me.


    "Little godling, why are you so happy?" He asked anger and fear audible in his voice, as well as confusion due to the look of happiness that graced my face. I locked eyes with him and widened my grin.


    "Well, Paimon, you aren''t immune to everything I can do." I informed him. And suddenly that look of fear that grew more prominent as he wondered what I meant. But that fear was quickly supplanted by an attempt at calmness.


    "Oh? Well it matters not." He said, attempting to sound regal and authoritative. I chuckled.


    "Listen, you fool," He said, a hint of anger entering his tone. I gritted my teeth but bit my tongue. I will not let my emotions control me. I told myself, refusing to lose control.


    "I am not here today to attack you." The devil proclaimed, his voice infused with self-confidence. "I am here to talk to you. To learn more about your paultry rebellion." He said, haughtily referring to the rebellion I was leading as if it were insignificant. I laughed and looked at him, my eyes radiating smugness.


    I chuckled. "Why do you expect that I''d tell you anything about it? Do you think that I am a monologuing cliche who''d unveil my grand scheme to you?" I asked, invoking images of the villains from fables and myths of the humanoids who inhabited the mortal worlds. He was a bit shocked as his attempt to parley was rebuked. His eyes narrowed to thin, enraged slits.


    "You and I are foes Paimon. You have spent months attacking me." I told him, realistically and honestly conveying the situation as I saw it to him. He sighed and glared at me.


    "You and your minions are in open rebellion against me." He said, which in fairness was a true point even if it lacked critical context. I looked at him and shook my head.


    "We are in open rebellion for a number of reasons which we feel are justified. You are not lawful. You hate and practice open bigotry, sometimes illegally, against animalistic, even only loosely so, devils." I told him, adding context which he conveniently left out when pointing out our rebellion.


    "In both of our previous encounters you sought to claim me as property. And you have since sent minions after me to secure me and dismantle what I''ve put together." I told him, further explaining my perspective. He chuckled at that, like it was an inside joke shared between two friends.


    "You know what Paimon? I... don''t get you." I said, opting as I often did, to be honest. This frankness caught Paimon off guard, whose face shifted to a more neutral expression as he processed my statement. He was still and silent for a few heartbeats, as he thought about what I said. After a few moments of silence, he spoke in response to my off-putting proclamation.


    "What do you mean? What does it mean to ''get someone''?" He asked, genuinely ignorant of the expression.


    "It means to understand someone. I don''t understand your motives." I explained, looking my scarlet-eyed foe in the eyes. He sighed and thought about my response.


    "I am a collector. A collector of many things. Of power. Of sin. Of artifacts. And soon I will be the one collector who possesses the ultimate prize: a god." He told me, mixing lies and arrogance into a potent and toxic verbal construction. I rolled my eyes at him.


    "I know that you''re lying. I am the Lord of Lies." I informed him, referring to one of my titles. He frowned at me, anger flashing in his scarlet eyes, breathing unholy and unradiant life into them.


    "I can sense that the person before me is incomparable to the person you were when I last encountered you face to face." He told me, being surprisingly candid in doing so. I grinned at that.


    "You don''t have the slightest idea." I told him, aware that my strength was real. I felt my power radiate out of me every second, and I felt the immense, unimaginably thick network of magic that composed my being, keenly aware of it in moments like this.


    "Though... if you''re strength increases each time we encounter each other as it appears to... I suppose I have no choice but to claim you now." He informed me, a cruel grin on his face as he informed me of this.


    I chuckled at him. "I wouldn''t recommend you try that." I told him, grinning right back. I heard the tightening of his muscles as he subtly prepared to attack me. And internally I laughed, as I began to ask myself a simple question.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    I wonder which of my abilities work on him? I suppose I''ll find out. I realized, as the devil''s magical aura flared to life and an object began to materialize in his hand.


    Not if I can help it. I thought, glaring at him. I began to prepare a potent ability I hadn''t had a chance to use yet.


    "Do I strike you as the sort of person nice enough to let you do as you wish?" I asked, as I took a shot in the dark and lashed out at the devil with one of the abilities granted to me by the domain of magic.


    <hr>


    Mentally, I reached out and focused on Paimon, metaphysically targeting him and surrounding him with my magical aura. Physically I grinned. Eat this. I thought as I activated what was currently my greatest offensive ability: the ability to snuff out magical power.


    I felt an invisible ray of black energy fly out of myself and skewer Paimon. I could see the ray, due to my vision, but it appeared that he couldn''t. The ray penetrated Paimon''s chest, and I watched something not dissimilar to what I had seen when I watched unlife energy create a ghoul hours ago happen.


    Black energy, but not unlife energy, crisscrossed Paimon and vivisected his body. It was some other form of dark and unpleasant energy, one hitherto unknown to me. But he was oblivious to this, apparently not even able to feel its effects on his form. It took the span of a few heartbeats, or rather a few of his heartbeats for his entire body to be covered in the dark lines.


    Only a second or two had passed since I had spoken ominously to him. But to him this stillness, this calmness was proof that I had been filling the air with useless noise and not foreshadowing the sort of attack he was unable to see. So he spoke. "You speak well little godling. But its all purposeless. It''s as if you''re acting solely to ward off silence." He said, arrogantly. But then my ability began to take hold.


    At this point, the object that had begun to appear in Paimon''s hand had become more identifiable. The thing was ethereal, but it was very noticeable since his hand was curled around it. It appeared to be a sort of cane or walking stick.


    Paimon had been grinning as it came into being in his hand, but I watched that grin begin to turn into a look of shock and fear, as the ethereal cane began to dissipate in his hand.


    And now... what to do with you? I shouldn''t kill you just yet... that would make this little more than an assassination, even if it was one in self-defense. And that would more than likely cause my campaign objective to change... Gah, for now, I''ll take a different route. Instead, I guess I should inconvenience him. I thought, wishing I could more easily opt to take the "kill him" route. And then the system itself chimed in.


    [Hello Althos, this is a system administrator. Killing Paimon now and under these circumstances would fail the campaign and lock you out of the ability to gain further devil powers. The current route you are on of completing the trials of dark sainthood is the correct path. That said... if you deposit him somewhere far from here, to humble and strike fear into him your actions would result in you getting a bonus reward at the end of this trial.] The system told me, to try and keep me on the "correct path". I sighed mentally and closed the notification. Fine. I thought, annoyed.


    His eyes were focused on the object in his hand, and so he wasn''t looking at me. I rose a hand and pointed it at him like it were a sword or a bow, and then spoke.


    "I am a god Paimon. Did you think that collecting me would be that simple? That it would be as easy as you informing me that that''s what you were going to do?" I asked, tauntingly. He looked up, locked eyes with me, and opened his mouth to roar and spit some infernal obscenities at me, but I didn''t give him a chance.


    The instant between our gazes locking and sound escaping his throat I hit him with a single targeted, forced teleportation. And then, while chuckling, I teleported myself to where I had sent him.


    <hr>


    We found ourselves no longer atop desert sands under a moonlit sky. Instead, we found ourselves in a different, deeper place. The place we were in was a lightless, remote tunnel. And it wasn''t in Infernius.


    Paimon was looking around in confusion, fear, and anger when I warped into the tunnel as well. I went unnoticed by him because his back was turned to me, in the instant that I closed off one end of the tunnel, the end behind me, through a quick usage of my Earth Control power. Which caused an explosion of noise to echo and rumble around us.


    He heard the monstrously loud sound of a wall of stone surging up and shutting off a route of escape. He turned and made eye contact with me. I grinned at him. He didn''t grin back.


    "Welcome to my world, Paimon." I said arrogantly. It wasn''t true that I had brought him to my world, but I didn''t mind the deception. Not to him. His eyes opened wide in alarm as he tried to assess what I meant.


    He and I were in a remote part of the subterranean wilderness around the city of Undermoon. I knew of this eerie tunnel because of the memories of a dark elven ranger who worshipped me, and it came to mind as a safe place to deposit Paimon and teach him a lesson in humility.


    Paimon suddenly roared and aimed a hand in my direction, as if expecting something to happen. I watched as the dramatic gesture resulted in little more than the devil looking silly. He looked at his hand quizzically, and I grinned at him before taunting the man.


    "It''s comforting for me to know that whatever defenses you have against my mental-abilities are not due to your intellect." I said, mocking the devil. He looked at me, anger in his gaze but also a look of expectation like he expected me to explain what I had done to him. I looked back at him, my own gaze calm and in control. After a few seconds of silence, I broke the atmosphere in the tunnel by speaking.


    "What? Don''t tell me you expect me to explain what happened to you. What I did to you. Or do you really believe I''m that dumb?" I asked, annoyed at his expectations. The look in his eyes changed, the anger overwhelming the small flake of expectation. I grinned, as I again activated Earth Control and began to draw this encounter to a close.


    Paimon was again prevented from howling blasphemous curses, what I didn''t doubt he would have done as he opened his mouth, by another usage of my powers. This time the tunnel walls that surrounded him suddenly closed in on him like some sort of dark-colored and heavy sludge. They snaked around him and wrapped him in an earthen embrace, pulling him into a newly formed wall.


    "Heh." I chuckled as I watched my foe be rendered not only powerless but also deprived of his freedom. Not only was his body bound, but he was taught to keep his mouth shut by loose dirt that slipped onto him and threatened to slip into his open mouth. Wow he''s even been silenced. I thought, with a smile on my face.


    At the moment he was just suspended in the newly formed wall, but I wanted to do more. So I decided to ask the system a question.


    [Hey, system, can you inform me of something? Do devils need to breathe?] I asked, curiosity compelling me to be sure before I did what I wanted to do.


    [Hello Althos, no they don''t. And just so you know, this won''t hold Paimon forever. He too has teleportation powers, but they are costly. Not only will he have to wait the hour he needs to wait before his magical powers are useable again, but he''ll also have to wait while he builds up the required amount of magical energy to be able to teleport.] The system told me, bringing a big smile to my face. I walked over to Paimon, empowered by this new knowledge and locked eyes with him.


    "I know this won''t hold or kill you. But I''m sure it''ll enrage you and even teach you that you need to acknowledge the reality of my power. And what I''m about to do? Well... Honestly, it''ll just enrage you." I told my foe as I activated Earth Control once more, just to draw the entirety of Paimon''s body into the wall I had just created.


    The earth of the wall that suspended him began to slowly pull his face, the only part of him out of it, into it, and I watched it do so. While my gaze was on him he glared at me with a rage unlike any I had ever seen or felt. I quietly wrapped myself in my teleportation aura and vanished, going back to Infernius to resume my quest.


    <hr>


    In the span of the moments, it took me to teleport from the World Beneath the World to Infernius, I sent my more important devilish minions a mental message.


    [I just had an encounter with Paimon. I defeated him, but I didn''t kill him. The system is insisting that we do this ''the right way''. But this gives us a chance to recruit more devils.] I told my council, aware of the unprecedented opportunity before us while Paimon was indisposed.


    I heard excited and shocked mental murmurs and gasps as my supporters reacted to what I had just told them.

 Chapter 134: Locating The Girtablilu Village

    So I can defeat Paimon... at least in one on one combat.I realized, in the wake of our encounter. I again found myself in the Infernian desert. I wasn''t flying this time. Instead I was walking on the sandy surface that covered the vast majority of the layer.


    Only a few moments had passed since I had temporarily trapped Paimon in a tunnel beneath the surface of the mortal world of my birth. I was trudging through the desert so as to better think my thoughts before I hurtled towards the village of the Girtablilus, where I hoped to secure the last ambitious soul and secure the final community I needed to secure to gain even more devilish powers.


    They are so loud... I thought, grimacing as several voices immediately shared their thoughts with me. All sorts of devils evidently felt the need to inform me of their thoughts about the fact that I had temporarily defeated Paimon.


    Even though I was annoyed, I couldn''t be that annoyed with them. It is kind of extraordinary... I thought, chuckling. My dreaded enemy... one of the greatest terrors left alive in Infernius in the wake of the end of the Mythic Age, too surprised to be able to counterattack once I took away his magic. I told myself, chuckling.


    And then I winced as more voices sprung into my mind. More idle chatterboxes, pleasant voices but ones whose statements were generic and congratulatory. My advisors, the ones who mattered anyway, hadn''t yet spoken. They had tactically kept their mouths shut. Waiting. But that doesn''t mean I couldn''t say something. That I couldn''t ask something.


    [Salifinos, Tristan, Nefarious, Agowraith, Malefactor, Casis. I need your opinion on something.] I told them.Opinion?I thought, chiding myself I knew their opinions already. Weird word choice.I admitted. I heard a funny sort of mental silence from them, the devils I most trusted, as they wanted for me to expand on my thoughts and share what precisely I needed their thoughts on.


    [I think it''s time for us to think about government building. Right now the vast majority of us are combat-oriented. That''s an important part of leading a successful rebellion, but it''s not the only part. I need you all to think about what ways we could expand our forces and begin to plan a... transition government for when Paimon is overthrown.] I told them.


    When Paimon is overthrown...For the first time, that thought felt realistic. It felt attainable. The feeling that realization provoked elated me. I had to work to control the smile on my face. As I strolled through the desert, closer and closer to the spot where Tristan had once seen the girtablilu village I was heading towards Tristan''s own voice snuck into my mind.


    [Agreed Althos. Do you know what sorts of figures you already want in this transition government? Even if you don''t have names ready offhand, can you think of specific government positions you want to be filled?] Tristan asked, her voice diplomatically entering my mind. I tilted my head as I contemplated that question.


    What sort of figures would I need in a transition government?I wondered as I began to climb a sand dune that rose slowly into the air. I began to slowly construct a sort of draft of the message I''d send Tristan.


    [Well I suppose we need to think about what goals a transition government would have. One of those goals would be to be recognized by the leadership of at least some of the other layers. We''d need to ensure that the surface of the planet is actually as lifeless as we think. And it''d be good for us to be recognized and accepted by our oceanic neighbors.] I told one of Tristan, one of my older companions and more trusted friends while alluding to the layer closest to us and to the world''s surface.


    And for a second, I thought about my understanding of the geography of this dimension. Something I had gradually gained more of over time, thanks to my memory-absorption powers.


    <hr>


    The layers of Infernius. The first of which was the surface of the world. An eerie, supposedly lifeless place. A place I only knew of through Infernian folklore. A place most people only knew of through Infernian folklore. Supposedly this place was filled with constructs, machines, and technology, meant to guard the world against demonic invasion.


    The second layer of Infernius was this layer. An infernal, seemingly infinite desert, occasionally interrupted by eerie cities of magic and high-rise buildings inhabited by great and powerful beings, and tiny villages and communities made up of the rare few humanoids ignored by devils or by giants. A place I explored regularly and controlled about a quarter of.


    The third layer was an oceanic place. The bulk of the layer was situated beneath the surface of the water, and the only non-devilish inhabitants within the layer were creatures who could breathe water. This layer was only known to me second-hand, by the memories of other creatures and even then I had very few memories of the place itself. The main thing I had that alerted me to this place were memories of basic knowledge of this place. It was, by and large, a mystery to me.


    <hr>


    This place is vast, mysterious, and dangerous.I thought as I reached the top of the sand dune I had been climbing. Spread out before me was a huge and sandy flatland. I guess I should speed up my travel.I realized, right before I leaped into the air and began to fly through the warm desert sky.I''m gonna go ahead and arrive at the next village soon.I told myself, wanting to go ahead and get on with the next quest I''d need to complete as the final part of the trial of Dark Usurpation.


    In the air, I felt warm desert air collide gently with my skin. Grains of sand idly blown by relaxing breezes blew upward and into my face, annoying me slightly. While flying through the air I continued to contemplate what sort of figures I''d need in a capable transition government. And I continued to chat, not just with Tristan but with all of my inner council.


    [We''re gonna need a number of high ranking officials in order to remove all of Paimon''s influence from Bastille and throughout the rest of the layer. We''re gonna need a chief of state to establish a relationship with the inhabitants of the surface if any exist, and the inhabitants of the third later. That''s a big one because we''re gonna need those allies while we free the layer from lingering remnants of Paimon''s corruption.] I explained, sharing my perspectives with my followers.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    [We''re also gonna need to establish open and public relationships with the communities throughout the desert. So we''ll need traveling diplomats to go around the layer, invested with the power to make deals on behalf of Bastille.] I shared with my servants.


    [And of course, we''re gonna need military forces, a real hierarchy at that. For three specific areas, I can think of at least. For the border between the first layer and this layer just in case, we''re wrong about its supposed lifelessness, for Bastille, and for the string of fortresses we''ve built. Not to mention law enforcement, but it seems that under Paimon law-enforcement and the military are separate.] I informed my informal council, relying on memories I had harvested from the raiding parties Paimon sent after me at the beginning of the war.


    Over our mental connection, I heard them mutter their quiet, inner thoughts. It was amusing really, but not helpful. So, I chose to focus on the flight that separated me from another community filled with souls to gather and corrupt.


    <hr>


    Less than a minute after I took off into the air and began the low-altitude flight that would see me the rest of the way to my destination I could peer into the distance and see a quaint village. I was flying quite rapidly and rather than land and attempt to engage with the brutal warriors known as the girtablilu, I quickly checked my knowledge notification about them.


    What flashed before my eyes when I did the mental sequence to pull up the textbox made me grit my teeth in concern. The new information I had gained since my knowledge level increase only reinforced what I suspected about the low odds of them being welcoming and receptive to outsiders.


    [New Species Knowledge Gained: Girtablilu


    Girtablilu''s are one of the higher-tier evolutions of creatures like scorpions and dire-scorpions. They are a fusion of humanoid and scorpion, with a powerful upper body of a human or human-like creature, unless they''ve been mutated whereupon they may have a different sort of humanoid upper-half and the lower body of a gigantic and powerful scorpion.


    About a quarter of girtablilus are feral creatures whose humanoid upper-bodies are unintelligent and not in control of the rest of the body. These sorts of girtablilus are powerful monsters who tend to be creatures who were born as weaker life-forms who spent a good portion of their lives defeating innumerable powerful enemies to get where they are now, painfully evolving from lower forms to a much stronger, far more bestial form.


    The other three-quarters of girtablilus, usually ones whose parents are girtablilus, tend to live in isolation from other kinds of creatures and are known to violently attack the rare strangers who approach them openly. They form isolated, yet sophisticated civilizations in jungles, deserts, and towering mountains. These creatures have complex social structures and are easily capable of forming the most powerful civilizations in the isolated and dangerous territories they seem to prefer if left undisturbed for long enough.


    The civilizations of these creatures are strength-based and rather peculiarly revolve around settling around and protecting ancient ruins. The precise reason for this odd instinct of girtablilus is unknown though it''s suspected by the rare scholars who study these beings that this is either a pragmatic choice to deter potential enemies or the result of some ancient instinct that the girtablilus appear to obey unconsciously.


    Girtablilus sometimes possess an odd vestigial ability: the ability to read seemingly extinct, ancient languages, which may be a part of why they so fiercely guard ancient ruins.


    Both distinct types of girtablilus are cunning, dangerous foes just in different ways. Stealthy or disciplined girtablilus tend to come from the more civilized stock of the species, and powerful but wild martial warriors tend to come from the more animalistic type of girtablilu.


    Both types of girtablilu are skilled poison users and display awe-inspiring mastery of their bodies. And both types are capable of producing the rare example of their kinds capable of using magic, with the bestial type producing girtablilus who are naturally adept at manipulating nature and conjuring illusions. On the other hand divine and arcane magic are typically used by girtablilus with civilized minds and hearts.


    Only the strongest of girtablilus are capable of monstrous evolution. The rare few who evolve become quasi-mythical monsters who are the scorpion-equivalent to therianthropes, humanoids capable of shapeshifting into powerful beasts. Girtablilus who evolve lose their monstrous forms and instead become capable of fooling men, or scorpions at will.]


    Their whole thing is that they are xenophobic warriors. They are not like the inhabitants of Namira who accept at least some non-desert-giants.I thought while thinking of the rare few humans I had met in the city that was becoming more mine with each passing hour.


    With but a wish I made myself go invisible and rendered myself incorporeal once again. This way I could fly into or through the village undetected, while I try and detect the "him" Tristan told me about, a girtablilu who stood out in Tristan''s mind.


    "He''s a bitter girtablilu because his ancestor was the last leader of the community and he isn''t the leader now."She told me.


    A quick scan of her memories makes him stand out too. He''s almost four meters tall, and he has a purple carapace.I recalled as I investigated the memories Tristan had of the village I was now just outside of.


    I took a deep breath as I entered the village and began to check both my radar and my immediate surroundings to find the Girtablilu I had been offered as a potential target for the quest.


    "I''m gonna find this fellow, snag his soul, and help him clear this dungeon real quick." I told myself, determined to see this adventure through from start to finish in a matter of hours like I had the last adventure. It was at precisely that moment, nearly a quarter of a day after the adventures in the harpy village, that I received a trio of new notifications.


    [Quest Progress Alert:


    1/3 communities usurped.]


    [New Feat Gained: Stealthy usurper


    Benefit: You are more stealthy and less noticeable even in conversation unless you want to be observed. Your followers are now more skilled at executing critical military operations that cripple enemy infrastructure and leave enemies weaker overall.


    Method of Acquisition: Gain control of a community through underhanded means such as by with deals with enemies that cause them to become allies.]


    [New menu type unlocked:Community management system


    This new type of menu allows you to more efficiently coordinate how your servants lead communities devoted to you or secretly in your thrall. This menu is perfect for cities and communities that have been deceived into becoming yours through careful deals with those at the top of the cities or communities.


    You can give basic commands to the people who make up communities under your control, and they will be tempted to obey them. The commands come in the form of instincts and urge the people are tempted to give into it. As you gain control over the proper domains and subdomains this menu''s capabilities will increase. This is a good menu for the gods of empires and law. This menu only allows control to be exerted over towns completely in your service, for now anyway.]


    Now that is is an exciting development.I thought, grinning hugely as I willed the notification out of sight for now and focused on my search for the girtablilu.I simply must play with this further, later on.I thought, hoping to have that chance very soon.

 Chapter 135: Experimentation

    I found myself creeping around the interior of the village of the girtablilu, having just reached the area where most of them lived. It was a surprisingly lively place with a population over three times that of the harpy village.


    I stood invisibly and incorporeally in what likely served as the village square and took in my surroundings. All around me I could see girtablilus, the same sort of creatures as the monster that Camatxl, Niqi and I fought when I was in the process of making him into one of my worshippers and acquiring his soul. And incidentally, what Niqi eventually evolved into when it gained enough experience and power while we adventured in Namira.


    I stood in a plaza of sorts. All around me I could see tents, not dissimilar to the ones used by Jackaloids, rather than houses. And though they were spread out unevenly across a distance of a few kilometers the number of them around me and the square was definitely higher than it was elsewhere in the encampment that made up their community.


    Male, female, and other girtablilus walked around me in great numbers. I watched them, studying their forms, locomotion, and speaking habits.


    Some of them were seated at tables made of the same material as their tents. Their tents were beige things made of what appeared to be leather. Out of curiosity I used Appraisal on a nearby tent and chuckled at what knowledge was sent into my brain.


    [New Item Knowledge Alert: Skin-Tent


    These are items made by girtablilus for their housing needs. These tents are made from the skins of dead girtablilus and skin left over by the enemies of the massive and ferocious hunters. Girtablilus who aren''t feral rest and sleep in tents, typically in ones they themselves make.]


    That''s pretty hardcore. I thought, amusedly. And it fit with the sort of things that girtablilus talked about.


    "And so, I found the last of their pesky archers... And I bashed his brains in!" A male girtablilu told his companions, finishing his recollection of a recent encounter he and some fellow guards had had with some desert giants.


    This splendidly violent tale was met with applause and delighted laughter by the others who sat with him. He was violently pat on the back by some of his peers, and they all rose waterskins filled with some sort of local alcohol to their lips.


    The small gaggle of girtablilus was seated at one of several tables that surrounded a thick bonfire. This bonfire was situated behind a strange effigy of a particularly imposing member of their species, a powerfully built male with two stingers instead of one that appeared to be made of dried fat. I looked at it and once again made use of Appraisal to examine it.


    [New Item Knowledge Alert: Effigy of Twin-Tails


    Twin-Tails was the nickname given to Ewain Wind-Walker, a druid and the last leader of the community of girtablilus that settled the area around a dungeon that went missing after Ewain''s death, centuries ago, and reappeared a few months ago. In honor of him, and in celebration of the reappearance of the dungeon this effigy was constructed from the fat of things killed by his descendent Aoine Wind-Walker.]


    So I''m looking for Aoine Wind-Walker... I thought, now having more to go off of than I did from Tristan''s less than a considerable amount of time spent near the village, talking to Girtablilus. That knowledge brought a thin smile to my face.


    And so the hunt begins. I thought, suddenly able to use my Tremor-Sense power to its maximum capability.


    <hr>


    Finding my target once I had a name wasn''t a challenge in the slightest. The village was a few kilometers wide, and its people were spread out unevenly, but my improved Tremor-Sense in the wake of me gaining the first tier of influence over the subdomain of earth was easily capable of alerting me to the locations and identities of every single girtablilu villager.


    While I''m doing this I might as well do something else productive. I told myself, chuckling. I quickly snagged copies of the memories of the assorted girtablilus, men, women, and children alike who happened to be close by, while I mentally scanned my mini-map to find my quarry. There are a lot of girtablilus here... I noticed, as I quickly studied the mini-map in my HUD.


    While doing this, I also recalled some of the species knowledge notifications I had read through while still with Hagitha and Raven in the central lair of the Order of Whispers.


    [New Species Knowledge Gained: Vampires


    Vampires are a potent form of undead that are unique among the intermediate undead in that they pass for the living. They are the least of the undead that is capable of living among the living without magical aid. They also possess their wits and are genuinely capable of walking among the living without drawing suspicion so long as they avoid the sun. The sun doesn''t kill them outright but it weakens the spark of unlife that enables these corpses to avoid suspicion.


    Vampires are walking corpses that never rot or decay. Instead, they thirst. Vampires thirst for blood and actually need to feed on the blood of the living or the very recently deceased at least once a month otherwise they will turn into feral monstrosities and assail the living.


    Vampire spawn are feral, servile creatures who survived a vampire''s attack and weren''t or haven''t been turned into vampires themselves. The process for you, a god, to create a vampire, out of a living being or recently deceased corpse is for you to infuse a bite or kiss with unlife energy and then either bite or kiss the person or corpse you intend to turn into a vampire. For a vampire, it involves sharing one''s own blood with the person or recently deceased corpse they want to turn into a vampire.


    Vampires are lawful evil. They tend to obey the commands of older vampires and both cannot and wouldn''t want to disobey the vampire who created them. Vampires also possess potent mental powers that blossom as they grow older. These powers aid vampires in securing blood to continue to keep their wits about them. Not to mention that the spark of unlife within them enhances their strength and speed.


    Vampires can be killed by decapitating them and then exposing their heads to the rays of the sun. This means that in some subterranean places these creatures are virtually unkillable. Though decapitating them does render them powerless so long as the head and body are separated so they aren''t as unstoppable as they may seem at a glance underground.]


    Hmmm... This might be a fun one to use. I thought, scheming about a clever way to draw Aoine to me. But first I need to do some research. I realize, as my scheming mind began to weave together a way to ensure Aoine gave me his soul without any resistance.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Now I just need to know who this Aoine''s friends are... I schemed, smiling as I did so. I had no idea just how close I was to one, but that''d change very soon since the next thing I did was begin to scan the memories I had just made copies of.


    <hr>


    The first victim of Althos'' schemes to acquire another ambitious soul was blissfully unaware of the fate he''d soon suffer as he continued to regale his friends with colorful tales of violence. The same girtablilu who had told the stories of


    "And so the ogre stepped to me and the thick-headed bastard had the nerve to tell me ''Me big, you small, you pay own damn fee.'' And the brute lumbered close to try and intimidate me." Lugh told them, his eyes lit up with excitement. He was vividly remembering the day he and another group of wayward youths waylaid a single ogre with a huge iron bat.


    He was the center of attention. And that was the way he liked it. The other girtablilus all crowded around him, eager to hear him tell of another way that he laid low his enemies.


    "And this ogre was big. He was several meters tall, with hands the sizes of cactuses. He glowered at me, scowling and attempting to intimidate me. And so... I reacted. I calmly retracted my stinger... and drove it into the fellow''s eye!" He told them, finishing his declaration by swinging his thick, bulbous stinger into the air.


    Lugh had a flair for the dramatic and he had cleverly decided to whisper part of the story, to draw in the audience, and then he explosively finished it with a quiet shout. His audience ate it up, laughing in delight and giving him another round of applause and cheers.


    Althos'' experience with the skills he was using to assess memories had given him the ability to more quickly scan and experience memories. It was when Lugh was telling his friends of the size of the ogre that Althos learned the fact that sealed Lugh''s fate: Lugh and Aoine were friends. And at various points throughout their lives, the two men had been more than friends. Which made Lugh a prime target for Althos'' wicked plot.


    Because of that the god quickly and quietly did what he did next: he approached the loud-mouthed girtablilu, while still invisible and incorporeal and stuck him with a ray of unlife energy. The deity''s actions while he had done it were simple. He had raised a finger and aimed it at the back of the man-scorpion.


    A thin ray of wicked energy, invisible to all but Althos, escaped his fingertip and flew through the air towards the man-scorpion until it struck him. The girtablilu himself was ignorant anything had happened because Althos was a schemer and made the ray sicken Lugh rather than kill or harm him outright. But Lugh very quickly felt the beginning of Althos'' caress.


    Seconds after the ray struck him, in the midst of the applause the crowd was giving him, Lugh began to feel his stomach twist into knots. How odd... He thought as he felt a sudden and almost undeniable urge to retch. He was barely able to suppress it, but the girtablilu wasn''t dumb. He immediately excused himself, saying he needed to answer nature''s call and began to leave the area.


    Each step he took made him feel worse and drew him closer and closer to the scheming god who sought to use him as a pawn in a grander, fouler scheme.


    <hr>


    Althos followed the man-scorpion for several minutes. The two of them walked through the village and reached an area not far from it in a matter of minutes. This place was outside of the village and out of the view of the village and therefore a perfect place for the two to meet face to face.


    When the man-scorpion was sure he was far from the view of his companions, neighbors, and friends, he fell to his knees and waited to vomit. The sickness was a virulent, aggressive one and the girtablilu was in mind-rending pain and discomfort when Althos approached him.


    He was still bent over when Althos removed the sickness that had sent Lugh here, using a simple healing spell. The magic was easy to use and perfect for things like this, but still noticeable. This alerted Lugh to the nearby presence of something odd and off which put him on guard.


    The deity, in his devilish form, towered over the cowed girtablilu and studied him for a few moments.


    In terms of height, Lugh was an average member of his species. He stood a few meters tall, had a humanoid upper-body resembling that of a bronzed and fit human, and had the lower body, tail and all, of a significantly powerful, bright green dire-scorpion. Lugh himself was classless, as were nearly all of the girtablilus in the village.


    The girtablilu stayed low, and close to the ground. That was odd... I felt magic just now. He thought, his keen senses causing the hairs on his arms to stand up in caution. He was now on edge and careful.


    <hr>


    I watched the girtablilu with curiosity. How odd... I thought, wondering why he stayed low to the ground and in a defensive position. He seemed cautious, scared even. He''s smart. He could be more useful than I originally anticipated. I realized, chuckling. And now to begin to reveal myself. I told myself, as I shifted into a more elemental form than I often used when approaching mortals.


    I ceased to control a physical body and stripped myself to a completely immaterial form. The "me" that was now close to Lugh was a being composed completely of darkness, but I wasn''t done crafting a handy new form just yet.


    This is my first attempt to take control of a place since I gained influence over necromancy and undeath. I''m gonna have fun and be dramatic. Plus there are undead in ruins so it makes sense for me to take on a necromantic form for this. I said to myself, providing a flimsy rationale when in actuality I just wanted to experiment with my undead powers.


    <hr>


    What would be a dramatic way to begin experimenting with my new abilities? What form would be appropriate for me to begin in? I wondered. I wanted to have fun as I began to create my own undead beings, and I liked the idea of doing so in a form that made it feel thematic.


    The form I was in right now was that of a mannequin made of darkness. I resembled a featureless humanoid frame made entirely of inky darkness and with limbs made of tendrils of unlife energy. It felt close to what I wanted, but not quite there yet. I need something more than this... This is too darkness-centric. I thought. What if I give myself some skeletal limbs? Like hands and arms that just look like bones? I wondered, before experimenting with it.


    In an instant, my hands and arms changed. They went from being made of unlife energy to being skeletal, bony things like someone ripped the flesh off of a human and exposed the bones underneath. Oh? I like the look of that. I realized as I looked at the contrast between my new, opal white bony arms, and the rest of my featureless, jet-black body.


    I smiled as I revealed myself to the man-scorpion currently keeping his head down. I regained my corporeality with a sudden and soft popping sound as the air around me was pushed outward by my sudden physicality, and the girtablilu looked up to investigate that noise. He saw my terrifying form standing just above him and gasped, before trying to scurry backward and away from me.


    "Nope!" I said softly, as I reached down and grabbed his head in my bony, clawed hands. My voice was raspy, eerie, and seemed to emanate from somewhere else, not from my terrifying form. The sound of it frightened him more, causing his heart to begin to pound violently in his chest.


    "Your heart is beating so fast..." I told him, happiness and hunger audible in my voice because I was working hard to make myself sound that way, sound predatory and carnivorous. His eyes widened in fear at me, and I began to laugh.


    "Are you afraid?" I asked, after having gone to all that trouble to look the part of someone who ought to induce fear. I felt a bit proud of my handiwork, especially since Lugh was a truly skilled warrior and not someone who scared easily. The girtablilu looked me in the face, studying the strange void that was my head, with a look of both determination and fear etched onto his face.


    "It''s okay. You won''t feel fear for much longer." I told him cryptically. I began to pull him closer to me, doing it slowly for fun and for dramatic effect.


    If he had been in my shoes he absolutely would have done it the way I was doing it. It''d make for a better story that way.


    I watched him struggle and try to root his feet in the sand beneath us, so he wouldn''t be dragged closer and closer to me, and to his fate, but it was fruitless. Not only was the sand not supportive of his endeavors, it wasn''t solid enough for him to be able to use it against the strength I had in my bony arms.


    "Come Lugh. You will help me conquer this village." I told him, revealing my purpose but not my method. His eyes went wide with alarm once I told him that, and he redoubled his efforts to escape my grip but it was a battle he was losing.


    It didn''t take long for him to run out of energy, even with the help of an adrenaline rush spurred on by fear and by his hammering heart.

 Chapter 136: Rebirth

    After a few minutes of vigorously fighting my touch and verbally lashing out against me in the violent sounding language of the girtablilu, Lugh went limp. His heart was still beating in his chest, his eyes were still open, and he still moved, but he had given up.


    The fact that I had been quietly infusing him with unlife energy probably helped, but I like to imagine that the violent warrior had simply given up out of sheer-terror rather than that he''d continue to fight me if he could. I looked at the man-scorpion in my grip and chuckled. I didn''t doubt that that was an odd sight to the girtablilu, who wasn''t used to fighting anything stranger than the occasional sandman.


    In his view, his life was slipping away and the thing that was killing him was an almost elemental humanoid who was made up of darkness and bones. It''s almost pitiable. But it''ll make a good story. I thought before I received a notification that reminded me that it was time for me to finalize the choice I made earlier today.


    [Alert:


    Lugh has been sufficiently weakened. Would you like to kill him and absorb his life, or would you rather turn him into something new, something undead?


    Lugh can be turned into a ghost, a vampire, a zombie, a skeleton, a ghoul, a mummy, or a wright. What would you like him to become? Whatever you chose, he''ll become one of your undead and come to unlife as an awakened being.


    Note: if you choose nothing he simply dies. His soul is automatically absorbed if he perishes this way.]


    And so... I have a choice to make. But it''s not really a choice. There''s only one option if I wish to attain my overall objective. I told myself, after reading through the options they had given me. And so I make my choice. I mused as I composed a message for the system.


    [Please transform Lugh into a vampire.] I informed the system and watched as Lugh''s eyes closed. I shivered as I felt a powerful spark of unlife energy surge from somewhere inside of me, and into the girtablilu warrior who had tried to resist me, hoping to save his people from my devilish schemes.


    <hr>


    The sight in the desert was a terrifying one. A horrific being with the powers of both a god and the weakest imaginable arch-devil was holding onto the head of a much weaker being. The terrifying, undead-looking, god-thing was idly contemplating how to accomplish its own goals, while the thing whose head was being held in the god''s grip was panicking as he felt unlife-energy flooding into his brain and the rest of his body.


    The god-thing was morbidly curious about how long it''d take for its prisoner to die and come back to life as a vampire. The girtablilu who was being violently and forcibly converted into a vampire was scared as he felt his mind begin to... change.


    Althos, in quite possibly his most outlandish outfit yet, was happy to watch, and even happier to hear, what was going on with the creature he gripped in his hands. He watched as dark energy surged into the monster man''s human and monster halves. The energy that invaded Lugh''s body was alien, hostile, and invasive.


    The first few minutes of this process was slow and internal. Althos found watching this to be a bit boring, aside from when the god-thing looked at places where Lugh''s blood surged so close to the surface of his body that his veins ran hot and thick. Those places were the first ones where Lugh changed physically. In those places, Lugh''s red-veins turned a tar-like black. That''s neat. Althos thought as he looked at the veins.


    <hr>


    This is an unfortunately involved process. I told myself after a few minutes passed. The girtablilu whose face was gripped in my hands had long gone limp and was only just now beginning to undergo meaningful physical changes. Several minutes after I told the system that he was going to become a vampire.


    The changes were subtle, but with keen vision like mine, they were noticeable. One of the rather cliched ones was that Lugh grew thin but appreciable fangs. I had to move him around a bit, adjusting my grip on his face to be able to notice the fangs, but when I did I chuckled.


    So some of the common understanding, the mortal understanding, of vampires is correct huh? I mused, amusedly. Before I knew it, I was lost in thought.


    <hr>


    In the minds of mortals, particularly humans and orcs, vampires are one of the more feared undead. These walking monstrosities are capable of hiding their undeath, while possessing the brutal hunger of say a ghoul, and even more magical and supernatural abilities than ghouls, zombies, or ghosts.


    Followers of mine like Ranthor and the human knights he has some command over are terrified of being preyed upon by a vampire. It seems these things and their quasi-iconic fangs are symbols of fear and evoke terror. That too could be useful, if I felt like making several of these things.


    <hr>


    The other physical changes that the monster underwent were more subtle.


    Lugh''s cheekbones rose in his face, causing his face to look slimmer and younger, and in the eyes of some, no doubt more attractive. His arms grew thicker, as his strength was increased. His muscular chest grew wider, and his skin paled before my very eyes.


    One of the stranger changes, one specific to his species, that his body underwent was that his bulbous stinger, once filled to the point of dripping with a deadly green ichor, now seemed to grow heavier. The tall also thickened, and the green liquid that filled it curdled and turned a sickly shade of yellow. How... curious. I thought as I looked at it. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    And then the reborn Lugh opened his eyes. And with an unseen smile, since my face was a featureless void, I released his face from my grip. Unbeknownst to me at the time, since Lugh was the first person I had converted into intermediate undeath, the creature was just beginning its transition.


    <hr>


    The once green-eyed girtablilu had died in my grip. His heart never stopped beating, and his brain was never crushed or otherwise disabled, but the being that looked at me with wide, jet-black eyes, wasn''t the same being whose head I had held in my hands moments ago.


    The thing before me looked at me with wide, fawning eyes, like we had just woken up in bed next to each other. I smiled at him, and began to speak to the newborn.


    "Hello Lugh. I''m glad to see that you''re refreshed." I told him, grinning at the formerly-living girtablilu. He grinned back, but there was something off about the smile. Something... dead about it. Something mechanical and inauthentic about it. It made me chuckle.


    "Can you speak?" I asked him, speaking in the harsh, violent language of the Girtablilu. The thing, somewhere between the living and dead as it continued its unholy transition from life to undeath, looked at me in confusion. I laughed, and the thing looked at me in confusion for a second before it too began to laugh, the sound harsh and brutal. And then I received a notification.


    <hr>


    [Alert:


    Vampires are a highly customizable sort of undead creature. Your newest vampire creation is incomplete because you haven''t begun to customize it. It is a generic, weak vampire that posses very few supernatural abilities, and at the moment can do little more than commit violence.


    Different types of vampires have different types of powers. Some of these are more monstrous, like the Nosferatu vampires, and thus have more strength and are capable of brutality to attain blood. Others are more mystical like the Bruja vampire, and use mystical powers to ensorcell prey and lure them close using spells and rituals.


    Currently, you can choose between the most common types of vampires for your spawn. Those are the Nosferatu vampires, the Bruja vampires, and the Sidhe vampires.


    Nosferatu vampires are creatures of strength and speed. In exchange, they give up their mortal appearances and look hideous, bestial, and bloody. These creatures gain strength as they increase in power.


    Bruja vampires are mystical beings. Unlife has given them magical power or has increased their innate magical abilities and they use them devastatingly. As they gain more experience and power their spellcasting abilities increase, including their abilities to create illusion and manipulate minds.


    Sidhes are artistic vampires, social ones who specialize in being attractive and in using non-violent means to ensnare their prey. Their words contain power and can seduce their victims. As they gain power they become more charismatic and lean towards nonviolence as individuals, aside from to defend themselves which they do with terrifying brutality.


    Which would you like Lugh to become?]


    <hr>


    I chuckled at the options before me. It''s nice to only have one option in instances like this. I thought, as I read through the details of each choice I currently possessed. I selected the "Sidhe Vampires" and the second I did, Lugh''s body began to radiate sinister darkness until a thick cloud of black, smoke-like energy surrounded him.


    The smoke-like energy shrouded Lugh in an air of mystery and allure, as well as filled the air with a musky scent and a lusty atmosphere. It surrounded him for a few seconds began fading away and melting into the desert-air. And then the vampire opened his mouth, revealing his grim fangs.


    "Your name is... Althos." He told me, smiling after he pronounced the alien word. I smirked at him, curious about how it learned it.


    "You are correct, but how did you know?" I asked, intrigued by Lugh''s sudden knowledge. The girtablilu with curiously void-like eyes titled his head at me and spoke as if what he was about to say was the most obvious thing in the world.


    "The system told me. It informed me that you created me. In a sense anyway. I still remember my old life but I feel... coldly towards it. I know you are my creator. And that you freed me." The vampire told me. Its voice was different now. I listened to it and repeated what the thing told me in my head so I could begin to understand the ways its voice had changed.


    The voice was colder than when the braggadocious creature had been a living being. Only certain words had the same dramatic emphasis the warrior had regularly seasoned his speech with, rather than every other sentence. But something stood out to me, something that made me look at my creation with interest. "You said something just now. That I ''freed'' you. What do you feel I ''freed'' you from?" I asked, my eyes flashing with interest at the thing.


    He didn''t waste any time with his answer. Instead of hesitating he looked at me and responded bluntly. "I don''t feel... constrained by the mores that once held power over me. I feel free to pursue my desires. And yours." The vampire told me, a smirk on his full lips. His onyx eyes seemed to glow, somewhat mysteriously under the light of the false moon that hovered omnipresently over the desert.


    "That''s what I like to hear. And I do believe that pursuing my goals would make you happy." I instructed the vampire, whose eyes lit up with curiosity at my statement.


    "Lugh, I''ve told you I want to conquer your village. That is true, but the way I worded it was so much more violent then the sort of conquest I''m thinking of engaging in. I want Aoine to become the next leader of your home." I informed the vampire. He stopped, standing perfectly still for a second, and then burst into laughter.


    "You want him to take over the village? Oh man, he''d love you for that." Lugh told me, his voice surprisingly pleasant to hear after his transformation. It had lowered in pitch and became more confident, becoming thoroughly enriched by the process of transforming into a vampire.


    I grinned at him and shared some of my thoughts with the undead man-scorpion. "I don''t care if he loves me for it. But you see he might come to love you for it. Because I want you to introduce him to me. It''s one of the reasons why I made you into a vampire." I told my newest creation.


    He looked at me, a bit surprised, to have learned that. "Is that really why? Or even part of it? I would have helped you without becoming a vampire if you just wanted his dreams to come true." The warrior told me. I chuckled.


    "Oh, I don''t want it for free. I want Aoine to pay for the village. With his soul. Which is a hefty price. Though... I think he''d pay it. If what he gets is the village in exchange for it anyway... That said, none of that is your concern. Your concern is simple, my little vampire. Your concern is getting him to me. For now... that is your purview. And that alone." I told my creation, eager to lure Aoine into my clutches and get my hands on the last soul I needed.


    My creation looked at me, studied me for a moment, and then began to slink away, his footsteps leading him towards the village. But as he crept towards his home he bowed his head in respect, and probably in fear. "As you wish master." He said, respect, admiration, and subservience mixing together in his voice.

 Chapter 137: Approval

    An opportunity like this has never presented itself before and fortune favors the bold. I reminded myself, as I stared at my advisors and began to think of a way to pitch my idea to them. We found ourselves deep inside of one of the forts that served as an unofficial border marking where my half or so of the layer began and Paimon''s half or so ended.


    At the moment Paimon was still trapped underground, and the city of Bastille was still temporarily free of his presence. And so this presented a hitherto unseen opportunity: for us to move to liberate devils who sought to live in a truly devilish society and not under the bigoted whims of a creature who fed on fear more than evil or law. I looked at my advisors and took a deep breath. And then I began to speak.


    "I have a crazy idea. And I want your help with it." I told the devils I had gathered. They looked at me, some with respect, some with intrigue, and all with a bit of amused curiosity and I found myself chuckling at how diverse the gathered group was. It wasn''t even all devils! Raverangos, Angelica, Gallow, and Tristan were all here as well.


    We were seated at a gigantic, round lump of metal that served as an unsophisticated table. I was seated at one end of it, and Agowraith was seated at the other end. She was one of the people whose gaze at me was filled with amused curiosity, but she leaned forward conspiratorially once I alluded to the wild plot I felt the need to enact.


    "Paimon is out of Bastille, forcibly so. This is a moment where we must be bold. I would like to go to the city and offer its inhabitants a chance to flee and be welcomed into our territory." I told the assorted characters who had joined me over the last few months. As I finished speaking a sort of shocked silence flee over the rest of the room.


    "You''re right, it is a crazy idea." Agowraith said, her soft voice carrying a lot of weight among the rest of her peers. She was a historic figure among the members of the Order of the Dark Saint after all. But she wasn''t done speaking.


    "But as a god and as a... proto arch-devil, your kind, or kinds in your case, are prone to crazy ideas." She said, and before my very eyes I could see the gears of her mind turning. It was an amusing sight, in its own way. There was a part of her that was contemplating my idea. And then she began to grin.


    "If Paimon can''t defeat you... I doubt anything in Bastille, especially while he''s gone, can do you any real harm. But before I back this scheme of yours, please tell me you''ve thought of any actual plan. Possibly using my memories or something." She asked, her tone practically beginning me for some confirmation that I had an actual plan. I chuckled.


    "Yes, actually." I told her, a response which caused the chamber we were in to be filled with the sounds of heads turning my way. How cute. I thought, feeling comforted by the shock of their reactions to me.


    "Salifinos is a native of the city. As is Malefactor. As ancient as both of them are, exploring their memories, along with Angelica''s more recent ones," I said, nodding to my diplomatic angel, whose brother was very possibly trapped somewhere in the city. "Have given me... insights into the city''s traps and defenses. I know what to expect." I informed my audience, my advisors, truthfully. And then I felt my knowledge of Bastille fill my mind.


    <hr>


    The city of Bastille is an ancient place. One that is older than any of the mortal worlds. Tens of billions of years old. It is a place of sacred and profane tunnels, avenues, and boulevards that spell out ancient and unutterable words.


    Even its most modern-looking buildings are unimaginably ancient. Filled with secrets that could topple entire galactic empires, and unmake worlds. The details of schemes that have instantly wiped out the lives of the peoples of entire countries stored in computers and in paper scrolls alike. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Bastille''s defenses are myriad, modern and magical, diabolic and technological. But they are not effective against true-devils, creatures of immense magical and physical powers who possess the power to damn entire villages in an hour. And they''d be less effective once the city knows that Paimon is gone. Just revealing that truth will cause a panic and embolden dissidents.


    <hr>


    The room had fallen silent while I was lost in thought. When I refocused I looked around for a second and noticed that everyone was starring at me. I cleared my throat and immediately dove into my heart so that I could make use of my faith domain powers to make my allies more susceptible to my influence. Thin blue vapor sprung into being beneath us, and immediately seeped into everyone present, bypassing and disregarding any and all of their resistances and immunities to mind-affecting abilities.


    And then I closed my eyes and began to speak.


    "My minions... Is it not my sacred duty to restore order to Infernius?" I told them, my voice filled with dramatic and regal energy and authority. And then I began to lean into the beliefs of my minions.


    "It is my duty, my destiny even, to liberate not only Bastille but all of Infernius from the clutches of chaos, neutrality, and if we aren''t careful, possibly even goodness. I am not only the rightful ruler of this entire dimension, I am also its guardian. The guardian of all law-abiding devils. Of all who seek power and who are smart enough to detest disorder or neutrality." I said, channeling the potent pride of godhood, of creatures who inspire worship and awe.


    "Bastille languishes under the illusion that it''s ruled by a true tyrant as it ought to be. In truth, the entity who rules over our siblings lacks the intelligence and the political acumen to be a tyrant. He''s a brat, playing at tyranny." I said, insulting the monster who even now was likely roaring in humiliation and dreaming of baring his fangs at me while buried in a tunnel kilometers away from sun or moonlight. My minions reacted favorably to that, grinning at me in wicked delight.


    "My advisors," I began, feeling compelled to say one final thing. "We are not just seeking to defeat Paimon. Don''t limit yourselves and think in such a limited way. We are seeking to build an empire, one that spans dimensions. We are seeking the reunification of our people and the restoration of order and purpose, dimensionally." I told them, my voice booming across the chamber. My voice''s power washed over them, inspiring them.


    Salifinos looked at me, his eyes starring into mine, and spoke simply. "We don''t know how long you have. Are you ready to go, right now?" The imp asked, his eyes alight with a sort of quasi-divine purpose and enthusiasm. I looked at him and nodded, my eyebrows rising confidently. He chuckled at me.


    "I can''t say that I disapprove of this sort of bold action, but this is very much something you could have done without our approval. After all... tyrants don''t ask for approval, they merely act." Malefactor, the Krieg-Devil, told me, curious as to my rationale about asking for their insights and even approaching them with my plan at all. I nodded in understanding of his curiosity.


    "Being a tyrant, or at least a successful one, is not something someone does on one''s own." I told the devil while preparing a mental message to another me. One that would spur him into action.


    "I want to rule over more than singular, isolated cities friends. I want the wisdom that can only come from dominating a dimensional empire and doing it well. Doing things well, especially something this... ambitious is not something anyone can do alone." I informed my inner circle, a grin on my face.


    "Not even gods could be so successfully ambitious alone. I am a devil, filled with pride and arrogance, but I lack the foolishness that has doomed and even corrupted our foe." I told them, my eyes gleaming with the power of promises unfulfilled, of dreams unattained, and of heights yet unreached.


    <hr>


    The message that spurred me into action was a funny one. One composed by the secondary will. It was a simple thing, but also one that revealed a lot.


    [Paimon was brought low by your hand. You shattered his pride and took him out of commission for a bit. It''s time we seize on that. Our advisors are in agreement with your plan. If you''re gonna execute it, do it now.] The message told me.


    And so I sprung into action, my eyes widening even as I took off to the skies above the desert-wastes and looked in the direction of the distant, gleaming infernal metropolis.

 Chapter 138: Infernal Invasion

    This feels nostalgic. I thought as I zoomed through the air. Dozens of meters below me, the desert''s many dunes and flatlands vanished as I pushed myself towards a distant destination: the ancient city of Bastille.


    A long time ago I fled from the city of Bastille, flying on batlike wings of darkness. At that time I was weak. Now I am not. And so, I draw ever nearer to the first true city I ever dwelt in. And as I do, a vague sense of excitement fills me.


    I know who I am. I know what I am. Or at least some of the things that I am. And soon, so will they.


    <hr>


    After a few minutes of flying, I saw the modern metropolis in the distance. It sparkled and gleamed off alluringly, and the closer I got to it the more I felt a prideful, ambitious part of me begin to stir. I will conquer this place someday. Maybe even someday soon. I thought, grinning as I did so. And then in mid-air, as I sped towards the city, I began to change. I began to shift.


    "If I am to tackle this city... I must do it fast, hard, and decisively." I told myself, less than a few kilometers away from the place. "Now... what kind of form would best allow me to establish myself as a new kind of archdevil?" I asked, before allowing my brain to cycle through all of the powers and domains at my disposal. It didn''t take me long to come up with an appropriate form.


    <hr>


    A grand barrier surrounded the city of Bastille. It was a gigantic thing, encircling the entire city. An incredibly primitive thing, nevertheless it was incredibly good at keeping things out. I could see it, something I couldn''t do before, thanks to my potent vision.


    It enshrouded the city in an opulent, purple veil of protective magic. And those who had set up that barrier had no doubt been proud of it. A part of me wondered how they''d feel when I snuck past it, which I was about to do.


    My body shifted and transformed in mid-air, as I drew closer and closer to the strange arcane barrier that stood ready to deny me entrance to the city I hoped to enter. My form changed from that of the strange skeletal-elemental being I had made myself look like while dealing with Lugh, and it became something equally elemental but in another direction.


    I''m sure the people who were located on the outskirts of the city of Bastille were or would be confused when they saw a gigantic mushroom monster lunging at their city from the sky, but I didn''t doubt they''d be even more surprised when I did what I did next.


    <hr>


    The city of Bastille was an incredibly wide city. It measured over ten thousand kilometers wide, filled with sprawling neighborhoods, multiple business districts, and all sorts of housing areas in and out of the main areas of the city.


    The people of the city were long used to the place being shrouded in a nearly see-through but shimmering purple barrier that protected the city from outside attack and also served to keep anyone from leaving. This was why the first sign of Althos'' invasion, at least to people in the inner portions of the city, and was met with grand applause and an excited uproar from the devil''s, city-wide who were able to notice it.


    A lot happened in the seconds before the young god took down the barrier. Firstly, from a distance, Althos peered at the city''s strange barrier with disdain. He haughtily studied it and scowled at the thing. You won''t stand in my way. He thought to himself, even as his body was continuing to undergo a series of changes.


    The deity was often an accidentally creative sort. And what he did next exemplified that. The deity didn''t look for a simple way to undo the magic temporarily, he decided to undo it on a fundamental level. While his monstrous body floated through the skies and towards the city he aimed at the barrier and unleashed the same ability which stripped Paimon of his mystical powers.


    A ray of dark, divine energy exploded out of the deity''s form, his annoyance at the barrier making his power''s manifestation more erratic and noticeable than when he unleashed it against Paimon. The ray of dark, potent power exploded and surged forth like a dark lightning bolt until it struck the barrier.


    People inside the barrier saw the dark energy zigzag towards them until it crashed against the barrier. They watched their barrier sparkle and heard it crack. And then as dramatically as it once came to life, it began to glow, revealing itself boldly to those who looked at it.


    And then the vanished, abruptly and powerful. The symbol of their "protection" and one of the most potent obstacles to freedom for the people of Bastille. Gone, possibly temporarily, in an instant. And that was the moment when Althos, in a powerful new form, appeared in the distance. He was still aerial, but when he noticed the barrier was gone he chuckled and teleported to the roof of a nearby building, arriving for the second time in his life in the city of Bastille.


    <hr>


    His new form was a strange one. Althos was currently an arboreal, fungal, monstrosity that was far wider than he was tall.


    He was a powerfully built, five meters wide, and three meters tall, thing made up in equal parts of blooming flowers, creeping vines, and disgusting looking, open fungal pits filled with spores he could fire at anyone who dared to try and stop him from what he was going to do. The closest thing someone could say he resembled was an alien lovechild of a bipedal crocodile and a diseased mushroom.


    His face was truly alien and terrifying. The thing had no eyes or nose but it did have a snout. The snout jutted forward from the rest of the nightmarish face and had rows of teethlike growths made up of rose-prickles that were tightly connected by vines, roots, and other fibers that made them look like brutal fangs.


    His arms lacked any sort of skin like the rest of him did and was instead a tightly bound mass of vines, dense fungal plating, and thick tree-roots. His chest was similarly constructed but it was covered more liberally in beige colored fungal plating. His legs and feet were similarly built but his feet did end in blade-like roots that penetrated the ground of wherever he found himself, spreading infernal plant-life into wherever he walked.


    His form was surrounded by an aura of spores so thick that the air around him had a hazy golden and purple sheen to it. Seconds after he entered the city''s most distant outskirts he rose his arms into the air and roared, the sound filling the city with the eerie sound of a distant wolf''s howl mixed with the sound of a breeze flowing through a dense forest.


    And then the same version of himself responsible for getting his council on board with this plan winked into being next to him and pointed a finger at the sky above the city. The two wills barely acknowledged each other as the more humanoid looking Althos began to create a powerful projection in the skies above the city. A projection of his humanoid true-devil form.


    <hr>


    I watched as one of the other "me''s" winked into being next to me. He had opted to take on our true-devil form, that of a powerfully built, winged, black and white being. And then he immediately began to project something into the skies above the city. In an instant, a mirror image of our true-devil form was suddenly looking down on the city. And then the thing began to speak.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    "People of Bastille, allow me to introduce myself." The thing said, speaking calmly and regally.


    And then a dramatic sound filled the city air: that of alarms. The blaring alarms started off at the heart of the city, kilometers away from where we were but multiplied every instant until they were coming from the very building I and another me found ourselves on top of. None of this stopped or challenged the projection.


    "I am Althos. I am the Fungal Lord, and the Second Dark Saint." The projection explained, politely introducing itself, ourselves, to the devils who lived in this city. At the end of its statement, the thing did a polite little nod, as if introducing itself to a woman of class and social stature.


    "I will not mince words, my friends. I am here to liberate you from Paimon." The gigantic floating face and voice told the people it was addressing. And at this point, Paimon''s military was loosely beginning to rally itself, off in the incredible distance.


    "Paimon is not a devil anymore. Not internally anyway. He seeks to become a fear-monger and would decimate the city if that''s what it took. He is not a true tyrant, he is a monster who seeks death and destruction." The talking head passionately told anyone who could hear it. And then the projection shifted, showing the face of Angelica, who immediately began to repeat what she told the secondary will when she was first liberated from the Onyx Obelisk.


    While the more humanoid-looking me pursued its own plans, which I approved of and trusted it to be able to do, I decided to go and do something else. Something a bit more direct, that would help disrupt the city and prevent its military from rallying effectively and thus challenging myself or anyone who tried to flee the city. Let''s be a distraction. I thought as I formed a plan in my mind to be a terrifying nuisance.


    I studied my surroundings for a bit, looking in the direction where my radar informed me that devils were located. My eyes settled on the dimly lit interior of a building a far distance away. And then in the blink of an eye, I was there, inside of the building.


    <hr>


    This space is... small. I thought, aware that it was useful for me that it was small, even if it was annoying. As I examined the place I found myself in, I was thankful for Salifinos'' memories and my study of them. The imp''s memories told me what this place was, and provided me with the vocabulary needed for me to make sense of what I was seeing.


    I found myself inside a simple, sleek office filled with cubicles and the devils who worked within them. Numerous devils turned to investigate the sound that always came whenever I teleported, and they were universally at least vaguely humanoid-looking, but with extra features like a third arm, wings, or a tail. The devils that were turning in my direction were sharply dressed, in what Salifinos thought of as "Business Casual" clothing.


    The devils wore simple suits in the cases of the men and professional dresses in the cases of the women. The genderless devils wore whichever of the two options better suited their particular body-types. Though they had individual differences, a quick check of my tremor-sense confirmed something about them to me: they were all members of the same type of devil.


    I was on the far end of the office, away from the door which led out of this particular workspace, but that only remained true for a second longer. An instant later, with my back to a thin and darkly tinted window, I willed myself forward and towards the only exit out of this place, a door leading to a stairwell as well as an elevator, so as to prevent anyone from escaping.


    When I was done teleporting most of the two dozen devils in the room were looking at where I had been, not where I willed myself too and so I had a second to more thoroughly study my surroundings before they panicked and either defended themselves or tried to flee.


    The first thing I did when I was on the other side of the office and away from defensive stares and confused gazes was begin to coat the air in spores. I did this with a thought. Now is the time for me to mix necromancy, illusion, and spores... I thought as I rose a hand in the direction of the office workers closest to me, and generated an open fungal mouth, the sort of appendage I used to spray spores at creatures, on the palm of my hand.


    In an instant I weaved a nasty spell effect into the spores nestled in the hand-mouth I was pointing at the closest office workers who sat to my life and were the first to react to the sound my second teleportation made. I mixed together the basic properties of zombie-creation, false imagery, impermanence, healing and spores into something new... I thought, proud of myself as I felt the spores within me change and mutate. They instantly become aggressive little things, filled with a desire to transform their victims, but didn''t so permanently and instead wore off with time.


    This''ll be a neat little trick... I told myself, mixing together ideas from the domain of trickery in with my magic. After all, all I want is a distraction. And this''ll be a horrifying one. I said to myself, chuckling while I did so.


    As I did this some of the office workers were turning to investigate my disappearance and the same sound they heard me make when I appeared in their place of on the other end of the hall which had just come from behind them. I chuckled, quickly made copies of their memories, and watched as the first of them inhaled a stream of spores. The devil immediately collapsed and began to convulse, as the spores I had just created took hold within her nose and mouth. And soon she was joined on the floor by her neighbors, who began to foam and froth at the mouth.


    <hr>


    This is going to be fun. I thought, watching curiously as my fungal children began to aggressively seize hold of the first of their newest victims and temporary hosts.


    The first thing they did was implant themselves in their hosts. They attached themselves aggressively to the insides of the mouths, the insides of the noses, and the insides of the throats of their victims. And once there they immediately began to grow, their masses heading deeper into the heads of those infected by them. This process took seconds, as I had empowered the spores with magic which made them stronger and harder to overcome, especially if they were inside of someone.


    The next thing was that the mycelium of the fungi that had infected my victims searched inside of them and eventually reached their brains. The fibers immediately penetrated the brains of the victims and overtook them, effectively possessing the infected bodies and hijacking them to be my servants.


    In this case, this wasn''t a permanent process. The spores themselves would rot away in a few hours'' time, but it''d be enough. The brains of the victims would be left changed by my absence, by the absence of my spores, and would eventually wear down their resistance and any hate they may feel towards me after my spores no longer controlled them.


    The final step of the process, in the short run anyway, was that the bodies would effectively regain some limited form of consciousness, but in my service. The fungi infecting the bodies would reinvigorate them and clumsily take them over. And they''d be filled with an urge to overtake nearby uninfected people, to spread the spores that had snuck into their bodies but not taken hold anywhere so to spread the eerie, disease-like, mechanism that made them my servants.


    In seconds the overtaken devils began to clamber in rather uncoordinated ways to their feet, and they began to emit unsetting groans as they turned to face their comrades who hadn''t yet fallen. It didn''t take long for them to be on their feet, staring at their coworkers in a way that resembled hunger.


    Attack. I told them, commanding the spores that had taken control of the first five of my temporary servants. And then the devils dashed forward, running and stumbling towards their fellows at a frenzied pace.


    <hr>


    Most of the twenty-four devils hadn''t turned to face Althos'' repositioned form when their companions succumbed to the spore-spray he basically spat at them from his hand-mouth. But when their companions noisily collapsed, they did turn to see what was going on behind them. They turned in time to see Althos stand and point his snout in the direction of those who had fallen to his vile spores and were shocked to see the assorted fallen forms of their coworkers.


    The shock of it was what proved to be their downfalls. None of them reacted in time to try anything to escape their attackers, because the scene was so shocking. They could see the faces of their colleagues, as tendrils of fungal matter spread out from inside of their mouths, ears, and noses, and covered portions of their faces.


    The eyes of their fallen comrades were wide open in fear, as were their mouths, but no sounds escaped them. The only audible noises were the sounds of their convulsing forms colliding with the ground they were on top of and the sounds of sickening of the vile liquids escaping their bodies in the form of foam oozing onto the ground beneath them.


    A few seconds passed, and then the spore-zombies began to clumsily climb to their feet, while blindly staring in the direction of their coworkers. When all five of the zombies were on their feet, they received an order from their master. An order they eagerly obeyed, dashing unsteadily towards the devils they had worked alongside for centuries, hoping to spread the strange spores that now controlled them.

 Chapter 139: Towards Violence

    Sometimes my creations surprise me. I mused as I watched the scene unfolding before me. It was a lot less violent than I thought it would have been.


    The zombies were unorganized and uncoordinated, but they were fast and they had an unstoppable enthusiasm in their movement. They had quickly reached their closest colleagues and knocked them down in a matter of heartbeats. What happened next depended on the devils involved, but the first time it happened the devil who had been made my minion was the first of the devils to strike, and her victim was a male coworker not far from her.


    She knocked him to the floor, mounted him, and kissed him lightly, spores traveling from her open mouth into his, and quickly latching themselves to the roof of his mouth. The spores fed on the moisture located there and began to take him over in a matter of moments. Meanwhile, the zombie quickly withdrew from him and jumped to her feet, her eyes spinning quickly as she located used some other sense, perhaps a lesser radar to hone in on her next victim.


    At this point the bureaucrats who worked in the office and hadn''t been infected had begun to retreat, fleeing away from her and looking at me in terror. But so too had her unusual, monstrous allies begun to move. They dashed after their former friends, their minds overwhelmed by alien instincts and filled with a simple desire: to spread the spores that lingered inside of them.


    I wonder how many of them will fall when they retreat back far enough... I thought, as I idly watched the bizarre scene before me. I hadn''t been at the other end of the office long, but I was there long enough that my spores infected the air where I had lingered, and the office only had one exit. The zombies who were comrades of my first victim were pushing their victims towards the window where I first appeared. If I could grin, I had no doubt I would have been at this moment.


    <hr>


    When the devils who had retained their individual wills were pushed all the way to the edge of the office, a total of seven panicked devils who were breathing hard from fear and exertion immediately collapsed and began convulsing, the moment they entered where my massive form had once stood. Fools. I thought, chuckling as I watched them.


    That moment was the moment the devils who had kept their wills gave up. Even before that, eight of the nineteen devils who weren''t originally transformed had fallen and joined my servants as spore-monsters, so when seven of the remaining eleven fell it would have taken seconds for the rest to join them. The four devils merely resigned themselves to their fate, and calmly began to breathe deeply right over their fallen friends. Their transformation didn''t take long at all.


    While some of them were still being overtaken by my parasitic spores I began to do something akin to a clap, applauding the fun show I had just witnessed. And then I began to speak to the zombies I had created.


    "Children... you have done well. But we must make haste. There is much to do." I said, my voice booming across the office, being heard and understood by all of the eerie, shambling monstrosities I had created.


    <hr>


    The projection that was displayed above the city continued to speak. It recounted Angelica''s words while displaying her angelic face to all of the people of the city. And when it was done, I allowed there to be a moment of silence. For the sake of dramatic timing.


    The city had begun to react to the impossible goings-on that were happening in the skies above them. First the dissolution of the barrier, and then the sudden and abrupt projection of my devilish form, followed shortly by the projection of Angelica''s face.


    The military of the city, thousands of devils of the lesser, intermediate, and even the greater tiers of the devilish hierarchy was attempting to rally and begin a thorough search of the city for the strange entity responsible for all of this. And they weren''t the only things out and about.


    The streets were filled with non-militaristic devils who had listened to Angelica''s speech. Her words could be heard clearly throughout the city, even underground, but the best audio quality was accessible only by those who were outside and who looked to the skies above the city. And even though they were devils, those who looked at Angelica and heard her speak had to work to not be affected by her beauty.


    Her words had moved the hearts of many of the people of the city. And she spoke so magnificently, thanks in part to the illusion and mind magic I had infused the projection with, that those of the devils who had harbored a secret distaste for Paimon were filled with rage and felt as though he had betrayed their kind. Which he had, so that feeling made a lot of sense.


    I could vaguely feel the emotions they radiated since the emotions weren''t aimed at me but rather they were aimed at Paimon. The few feelings I felt directed towards me were a sort of curiosity and a small inkling of happiness.


    Not bad. I thought, and when I readied myself to speak I hoped to increase that inkling many of the city''s inhabitants felt towards the idea of me, as a powerful enemy of Paimon. The projected image of me reappeared over the city.


    "Wicked people of Bastille, lend me your ears and open your hearts. I am here to free you from Paimon and guide you onto the proper path for all devils: one wherein you are governed by a true tyrant." The projected version of me, with a head as big as my ego, told the inhabitants of the city.


    "I am asking you, if you are a foe of Paimon, to flee this city." The projection said, its voice loud, clear, and powerful.


    "This city is filled with Paimon''s enemies, and those enemies are a diverse bunch but the most potent are devils whose heart drives them towards diabolism, the perfect blending of wickedness and tradition." The image above the city declared, attempting to invoke sentiments of nationalism in the people it was speaking too.


    "If you are a truly diabolic being, one whose heart is perfectly balanced between lawfulness and evilness, flee this city. Flee this place and head towards the line of forts and walls that extends as far as the eye can see." The projection told the inhabitants of Paimon''s home.


    "I am going to claim this city, and I will make it into a beautiful capital of diabolism one day, but for now this place houses a dangerous enemy who threatens all devils." The projection told the people of the city with a confident voice and a seemingly heavy heart.


    "I am destined to become the overlord of this place, of all nine layers, and I am strong enough to protect you from the wraith of Paimon. It is my duty and my honor to do so, to safeguard your souls from the unfettered, untempered, almost demonic maliciousness of our shared enemy. Please, heed my words, and flee this place. Come to me, join my people, in our half of the layer. No barriers will stop your exodus. You will be protected, by your true overlord." The image declared, arrogantly promising safety to those who seek to flee to the desert.


    And that was when people in the streets began to react to the bold declarations of the projection.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    <hr>


    Taking over the entire building didn''t take half as long as I would have thought. Each floor fell quicker than the last, and by the time I had reached the bottom of the building I had a veritable army of spore-zombies, well over two-hundred bodies strong, eagerly following my commands. When we poured out onto the street beside the building it took nearly an entire minute for the eager minions I had gathered to flood the street.


    Row after row of creatures, all of which were once bureaucratic devils and were now something else, were gathered on the dimly lit street beside the building. I stood in the middle of them, and they pushed and shoved each other to draw closer to me. They were like domesticated dogs, drawing happiness from being close to an attentive and loving master.


    "Children... now is our time! We will dash forward into the city, and we will feast on the devils who have betrayed us, who have betrayed our kind. And we shall ignore those fleeing the city. We shall only feast on the soldiers and their chaotic collaborators who seek to keep our kind, us devils, trapped here." I told my servants, causing some of them to react in fury at this injustice. Angered spore zombies roared, filling the air with the scent of mushrooms and rot.


    "Our enemies are the soldiers who seek to keep this glorified prison running. While our brethren are subjected to the fickle whims of Paimon, we must be strong and seek to break the chains that bind them to this place. Now let us move, let us charge forward and free our kin!" I shouted, before lifting a single fungal arm in the direction of the city.


    And then we charged, taking off as one enormous mass of fungal growths and terrifying parasites. At the same time that we formed a tidal wave of fungal fury, Tremor-Sense informed me that a squadron of enemy soldiers was moving in our general direction. Oh this will be fun. I thought as I urged us on even faster now that I was armed with that knowledge.


    <hr>


    When we drew close enough that I could see the enemies approaching us we were meeting them on a relatively thin street. They were inside two vehicles, two things called called "Humvees" according to Salifinos'' light knowledge of the military composition of Paimon''s military. They speed down the street right beside each other, forming a single red-wall of metal, speed, and weight, each of which contained four devils who were searching for enemies or devils fleeing the city.


    They were sleek, red-painted vehicles, that were quickly approaching us. The things were square, squat vehicles that were designed to accommodate a small number of human-sized devils. They advanced forward on rubber-tiered wheels made of some sort of alloy that was designed to be cheaply produced even in the resource-lite desert we found ourselves in. The devils driving them, pilot devils, had excellent eyesight but they hadn''t yet identified the strange swarm of creatures they knew were approaching them and who they were also approaching.


    "Friends! Ready yourselves! Our enemies draw near!" I shouted to my servants, exciting and enraging them which urged them on faster. The vehicles drew nearer still to the vanguard of the swarm I had created, and before the collision would happen I acted by raising my other fungal form up and towards my bravest, most zealous minions. I quietly cast a spell, calling into being a thin but strong sheet of magical force meant to destroy any foes brave enough to drive their vehicle into my forces.


    The thin sheet appeared in front of the vanguard, wide enough to encompass the whole street since there were enough spore-zombies for that to be necessary. And the closest of the devilish "Humvees" sped forward, breaking away from the other vehicle once the devils within it realized that we were a living force, a force of enemies to crush and bring to heel.


    How curious... I thought, emotionally but not physically grinning as I prepared myself for what was coming.


    <hr>


    [Spell Type: Abjuration


    Spell Name: Curtain of force


    Spell Effect: This spell conjures a long and thin sheet of force that is by its very nature difficult to lay one''s eyes on. This curtain is effectively made of iron for the purpose of determining its hardness. It serves anyone who casts it as a protective, one-way wall through which attacks can be fired and which will protect those behind it from those in front of it.


    Spell Costs: 100 magical energy per meter per minute.]


    <hr>


    The devilishly driven "Humvee" drew closer and closer, until it was rather forcibly stopped. It was stopped because it was a very stoppable force that met a wall of ethereal, magical iron.


    The crash was fascinating to watch because I could see the rage and ambition hidden within the eyes of the distant pilot devil. He had been determined to weaken my forces and believed that starting things off by driving his vehicle into the fungal mass would be enough to soften us up for his allies and the rest of the military.


    The driven devil had driven his comrades to their doom, a fact that didn''t escape me. The vehicle had slammed into the wall of force and the resulting crash was both horrendous and fascinating to watch. The instant the four-wheeled thing made contact with the wall it was brought to a sudden, screeching stop and its back wheels were lifted into the air itself.


    I watched as the devils within the vehicle were launched forward from their seats, sailing through the windshield of the vehicle if they were seated up front, or brutally slammed into the seats in front of them if they were seated in the backseats. The damages inflicted on the devils was savage and to a mortal would have no doubt been unpleasant to see, but to me, it was amusing since I''d be able to heal them and bring them back from the brink easily.


    I''m not going to let them die from this. I thought, aware of the fact that I could heal them, even the ones who flew out of the "humvee" and who shattered bones when they were launched hard at the wall of force that greeted them and destroyed their vehicle. My zombies were unphased by their attack and merely launched themselves forward at their fallen forms, unsympathetic of their plights and the pain they were in. Good. I told myself, not being inclined to feel sympathy towards my enemies.


    The metal that made up the vehicle was horrendously damaged by the crash, with the entire front of the thing compressing in on itself like a sort of accordion being played by an expert, and thus drawing the devils within the vehicle closer to their possessed neighbors. The sound the thing produced was explosive and deafening even dozens of meters away from it like I was.


    I threw myself forward, pushing and scattering the freakish monsters I had created out of the way so that I could approach the fallen devils more easily. As I did I willed more magical energy into my hands than usual, figuring that their weak forms would require some intensive aid to be brought back from death''s door. Weaklings. I thought, almost grinning, not that I could in my current form.


    It was at that moment that I felt a powerful presence step into the outermost reaches of my Tremor-sense power, as far from me as it could be while being picked up by my abilities. Almost without thinking I used Identify on it and chuckled at the entry that appeared before me.


    [Name: Gugrog Hammersmith


    Class: Berserker, Disciplined Duelist, Level 25


    Species: Krieg-Devil


    Faction: Paimon''s order


    Alignment: Lawful Evil


    Personal Vice: Wrath


    Status: Healthy, enraged


    Innate Magical Ability: Gugrog possesses incredibly little magical power. On the other hand, he possesses considerable physical power and strength. Because such a weakness as a devil with little magic requires something to balance it out.


    Class Suitability: Gugrog is the perfect class for himself: berserker. He''s a powerfully built warrior and possesses an incredible rage. His particular specialty allows him to transform his otherwise unfocused rage into something that allows him to hone in on a single opponent and positively devastate that single person.


    Magic Suitability: The school of magic that most suits Gugrog is the school of restoration. This school allows him to heal himself and is useful even for those who have little magical energy.]


    So this Gugrog fellow is approaching me huh? He''s still a bit far away... I could do something from a distance... Nah. I could have some fun fighting a berserker. I thought as I drew closer and closer to the devils who had tried to run down my minions using their vehicle.


    It''s been a while since I had a good hand-to-hand fight. I told myself, grinning at the prospect of fighting an enemy with my fungal and floral fists.

 Chapter 140: Pain, Blood, And A Discovery

    At some point, I grew tired of walking towards my enemies and decided to teleport to them. One instant I am shambling towards my foes, my floral roots planting themselves in all sorts of spots throughout the street I was strolling through, and the next I am suddenly standing over their fallen, convulsing forms.


    The devils were on their backs, all four of them in fact, and they were in the process of becoming pained spore-zombies. I knew with a glance that if I didn''t act these odd devils would die, not long after their transformation into my minions was complete. I studied them, examining the nature of their injuries.


    They had broken bones, which in a handful of cases were jutting out of their bodies. They had literally cut through flesh and were poking outward as if seeking moonlight. The broken bones were completely broken, not fractured or splintered but torn apart and gruesomely on display. I could feel the pain the devils were in, even as unconscious as they appeared to be.


    I released a soft sound of my own, an annoyed one since I knew that the spore-zombies that were about to come into being would be weak.It''s a good thing I got here when I did.I realized, as I immediately began to expel potent, restorative energy out of my palms and towards the fallen devils.


    Their skin began to gently glow, and the damage itself began to become undone before me. My hands radiated with potent restorative energies, and the energy seeped from me into their forms but not before lighting up the air between us.Ugh, you stupid bastards. I thought, frustrated by the fact that I was doing this instead of readying myself for my foe, Gugrog, who drew ever nearer.


    According to myTremor-Sensepower, my fierce foe was slowly approaching me, along with four other devils. I didn''t doubt my ability to defend myself and defeat the things, but I wanted to fight them seriously and without distractions. So, as I was wont to do I began to scheme about how to ensure that we got to fight in a fun manner, and where they didn''t get to destroy the uncoordinated distraction I had prepared for the city.


    Healing the devils whose vehicle had crashed into my thin curtain of force from earlier took just a few seconds. Once it was done I turned around and began to teleport off into the distance. I simply and repetitively teleported as far as I could see.


    Before I made it very far I ran into another humvee. It was slowly approaching my horde, and I chuckled at it as it began to get closer to my minions. Instead of dealing with the thing, I cast a single, simple spell.


    [Spell Type: Conjuration


    Spell Name: Banishing Cage


    Spell Effect: This spell creates a cage of force and binding magic that traps the targets in an inescapable space. If the target is moving they continue moving, but they are immediately whisked away to demi-plane where they are trapped for as long as the caster feels like maintaining the spell.


    Spell cost: 1,000 magical energy per minute spell is maintained.]


    The spell''s energy immediately manifested itself as a ray of silver energy at the end of my fingertip. It shot forth and ensnared the moving vehicle, lighting up the air around the thing before vanishing, taking the vehicle with it. I chuckled gently at the sight of it and moved to continue my journey forward.


    I was intending to appear before my foe and take us away, temporarily, while he and I clashed. It didn''t take me long to reach him.


    <hr>


    A fair distance away from where the fungal-floral form of Althos had just healed the newly created spore-zombies, a small party of creatures was wandering the same dimly lit street as the army of highly affectionate mindless beings. They had no idea that he was approaching, nor that he was aware of them.


    They weren''t aware of him, only that somewhere in the city there was a god causing mischief. They were one of many squads of soldiers dispatched to try and locate and eliminate the source of the eerie magic visible in the skies above the city.


    They were a small group, just five devils, but there was an air about them. They radiated confidence, professionalism, and discipline.


    Four of them were intermediate-tier soldier devils, elite members of a species of devil whose entire existence revolved around combat and warfare. The four of them were wearing the uniforms of Bastille, standard-issue red bulletproof vests adorned with insignia from Bastille, and combat-adaptable pants that protected their legs from all sorts of injuries.


    They had identical faces, as though they were mass-produced, and they moved in lockstep. They had knives at their sides, and guns in their hands.


    The weapons they held tightly in their hands were rifles. They were thick things, carried in both arms by their wielders. They were made of infernal metal, a metal mined on this very layer. Each of the rifles was of the same make and model, and each was mystically tied to their wielders so that no other person may use them.


    They had long barrels, ornately designed things intended to and effective at increasing the accuracy of the few bullets the warriors had fired over the course of their lives.


    One of them, Gugrog, was not a lowly soldier devil. He was a hulking thing, one of the incredibly rare "Krieg-Devils", potent monstrosities that were the militaristic equivalent of a Vizier-devil, the strongest devils that weren''t arch-devils or true-devils.


    Gugrog was even larger than Althos was, standing an astounding 8 and a half meters tall. His arms were as thick as dwarves were tall, and his legs were comparable to the entire masses of bulls.


    He wore golden armor that stood out and drew attention to himself, which suited the berserker just fine. He tightly held a war hammer made of celestial gold in two, gloved hands. The war hammer was huge as well, with the actual head of the thing being an entire meter thick.


    Althos appeared before him right as the devil was blinking and immediately struck with a single potent usage of his teleportation powers, grabbing ahold of his shoulders for just a moment. The devil was instantly transported far away, moving from the interior of the city to an empty part of the desert not far from where Mahmud''s corpse laid rotting, in the span of the moments it took the devil to finish blinking. Althos also marked the devil''s mind so as to locate him in a second when the devil''s allies were brutally dispatched.


    And then Althos turned his attention to the four soldier devils, who were momentarily shocked that their sudden foe not only looked how he looked but also that he was able to effectively remove their leader from battle so easily. Althos'' head turned to face them, and he sprung into violent action.


    <hr>


    The scene around me was one of shocked fright. Four devils, some sort of warrior devils, looked at me and radiated fear and surprise. In fairness to them, I had just taken out the devilish equivalent of a general in an instant, before anyone here even knew I was nearby. So it made some sense for them to be afraid.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    I lunged through the air, throwing myself and all of my floral weight, at the closest devil to me. I reached out one of my hands towards the neck of the warrior and at first, I grinned, internally anyway. My hand made contact with the warrior''s throat, vines quickly wrapping themselves around his Adam''s apple and other parts of the sensitive area. But he wasn''t a bad warrior.


    The devil''s hand flew to the knife at his side, and in a flash, he brought it to my hand made of vines. The knife was a handy thing, made of infernal obsidian, and had a cruelly sharp point perfect for stabbing.


    He slashed at me, trying to free himself from my cruel grip, but the effort was ineffectual at best. His quick stabs couldn''t penetrate or even truly damage my vine-formed fingers. I grimaced in annoyance at his effort and pride. I infused my floral appendage with unlife energy, something which caused my vines to darken and radiate darkness and proceeded to squeezed his neck, my prodigious strength demonstrating itself with my vines crushing his neck in an instant.


    I''ll go ahead and steal his soul.I told myself, as I quickly castHarvest Soulon him as his body became a corpse in my hand. And then I let him go, his body slumping to the ground as his life faded from him.This''ll cause him to come to life as an undead creature and help me out. I thought to myself, eager to see the synergy between my idle powers.


    And it''s time to take out the rest of the trash.I thought, as I speedily mutated my vine-appendages, covering them in razor-sharp prickles that would rend the rare bits of exposed flesh of my enemies. I turned my attention over to my other enemies, who had hopped away from me and were attempting to aim their guns at me.One down, three to go.I told myself, with a smirk on my mental face.


    <hr>


    Nearly a minute later I felt the power of four infernal souls stirring within me, in a part of me similar to what mortals would think of as their stomachs. Two of the corpses were already beginning to shake as they were infused with idle unlife energy, and they began to exude a stench of brimstone as their bodies were strengthened by my power. And now for the real fight.I thought, before teleporting myself to the location of my foe.


    <hr>


    I found myself in the depths of the desert, sand underneath me, and my foe in front of me, a distance of a dozen meters separating us. I grinned at the devil who was dashing speedily at me and had been dashing through the desert in an attempt to locate a settlement to ravage in rage before noticing me and adjusting himself slightly so as to tackle me when I popped into view.


    "Gugrog." I said, my voice coming across as pained, due to the nature of my snout. The devil''s eyes stared at me, rage and bloodlust filling them.I''ll enjoy this. I thought as I prepared myself to deal with the devil''s first blow. Each millisecond that passed allowed him to draw nearer and nearer to me. When the thing was within striking range he swung his massive hammer at me, lifting the thing up and hoping to strike me with a downward smash.


    When the weapon was close enough for me to feel the air pressure and wind the force of his attack generated, I ducked down and the blow swung harmlessly overhead. The devil roared in frustration, and I dashed in close enough that I could counterstrike since my enemy had massive reach.


    And now for the first blow.I said to myself, in my head. I was very close to the dashing devil and his imposing form hadn''t stopped moving just yet, though he was now advancing unsteadily rather than aggressively, being pulled forward by his own momentum. In an attempt to take advantage of his confusion and frustration, I hopped up to get close enough to his head to strike and aimed at his chin.


    I shot out my fist, aimed squarely at the underside of the devil''s head. My floral fist collided hard with his unarmored chin, in the form of a carefully aimed and intensely powerful uppercut that was empowered by speed, muscle, and aiming.Think like a monk.I told myself, as my fist''s force lifted the devil off the ground.


    "Grah!" The devil hissed, the force of my blow rattling his head. He was now off the ground, unwillingly and by only a few centimeters, but as he was forced upward he refocused and his eyes shot downward to keep him locked on me. Not bad. I thought, admiring his focus.


    Gugrog roared, the sound savage and offputting, no doubt honing in his rage and threw himself downwards so that he could return to the ground. But I wouldn''t let him do what he wanted. I surged forward and planted a leg of mine where he would have been if he had moved faster, so as to keep his unsteady and unable to do as he pleased.


    "You think that''ll stop me!? You bug!" He roared, anger infusing his voice with power and he landed onto my plant-form leg, his full-weight severing the limb from my body in an explosion of fury. The limb was forcibly severed from my body, in a messy explosion of saplike blood. I felt a storm of pain wrack my consciousness, incomparable to anything I had ever experienced before.


    For the first time in my life, I felt a serious amount of pain surge through me, so much so that for a second my vision went black and I let out a pain-filled howl of my own. As that happened I also received a notification. Two of them actually.


    <hr>


    Althos''s head reared back as pain assaulted him, and he began to radiate a sound that was so loud that at close range it brought the devil he was facing to its knees. Althos'' howling preventing the devil from seizing this moment to get revenge on the god for defeating his master, and in turn, made the devil far angrier.


    The noise that exploded out of the deity was a pain-filled screech. It was a shrill sound, one that rang out across the desert. The deity''s snout was opened wide, and the sound he was emitting was so loud they produced a visible, wave-like effect that surrounded and in a sense protected him because it made it difficult to attack him.


    The devil''s attention and rage were focused on the deity. This caused him to be oblivious to the strange, saplike fluid that was Althos'' blood. The god''s blood soaked the ground around Gugrog and was seeping into the sand.


    And at that moment, Althos'' more focused consciousness was receiving a pair of notifications.


    <hr>


    [Damage report:


    Gugrog the Krieg-Devil''s rage-filled stomp inflicted considerable damage to your floral form. One limb has been severed from your body. You have lost a quarter of your health.


    Your regenerative abilities have kicked in for the first time. Your pain has caused you to emit a pain-filled screech, which due to your physical and magical capabilities has transformed into something like a banshee''s wail that immobilizes nearby foes.]


    [Alert:


    As a deity of both undeath, through the subdomain of necromancy, and healing, you possess heightened regenerative powers. Your powers allow you to sustain even greater damage than this with little negative repercussions, aside from the pain you feel at the time of the blow. Even now you are regenerating.


    The nature of the blow you received caused you to bleed. As a god, your blood causes forced evolutions and mutations to mortals and extraplanars who consume it, or otherwise absorb it. Creatures who can''t evolve, such as ones who possess no evolutionary forms, instead undergo even stranger transformations than a simple evolution.


    The circumstances of how the blood is shed affect the transformation too. The blood you shed willingly mutates and shreds the minds of the creatures who consume it, turning them into loyal thralls or increasing their loyalty to you. Any blood you lose in battle can be consumed by creatures without them losing their sense of selves.]


    <hr>


    When I willed away the notifications I had gotten, I refocused. A terrible pain still wracked my brain, but I could push it aside for a moment.


    "You!" I hissed, the word practically spat out of my snout in equal parts rage and disgust. The devil, on his knees, as he tried to recover enough to stand up, grinned at me.


    I lunged at him, leaping on one foot, and slammed him in the face with a single heavy fist. The force of my heavy blow hurled him to the ground. He was thrown back and he landed face-first into a ton of sand that was covered in my blood. I immediately moved to prevent him from absorbing my blood, reaching towards his fallen form with my other hand.


    I better not let him consume any of my blood. I thought, my mind still a bit hazy from the pain I felt. Unfortunately, I was too late. Before my eyes, Gugrog''s mouth opened and some of the bloodsoaked sand found its way into his maw. He actually swallowed some of it unconsciously, just a few grains, but it was enough.


    The war-devil''s body immediately began to glow, his form radiating an eerie and infernal light.


    "Damn it!" I shouted, angered and determined to put an end to the thing''s life before he could finish evolving. I lunged at the thing, ready to reach out and wring its neck.

 Chapter 141: Dispatching A Foe

    [Sinister Shadows Alert:


    Apologies for the delay, your foe''s attack temporarily resulted in you almost blacking out due to massive damage. Your foe is effectively unconscious and is no longer a danger to you. Your shadow power won''t activate, until you are next attacked.]


    Damn it...I hissed, mentally. My protective shadow power didn''t activate in time for me to be able to use it. My enemy laid on the floor in front of me, helpless as he underwent a conscious evolution.


    [Remain on standby. This fight isn''t over yet.] I told the system, ordering it to be ready to lash out at my foe, who had only managed to land a single blow on me, even though it was a powerful and devastating one.


    [And next time, don''t wait! Activate automatically the second an enemy launches an attack at me, don''t just activate when I''m hit!] I snapped, annoyed that a power that was meant to be defensive was so useless.


    [Aplogies for that. TheSinister Shadowspower will trigger automatically the next time you enter combat, without asking for permission to strike. This is a new power, and it''s one of the rare ones that automatically creates a new, perpetual entity. Its rules are a bit tricker than the rules for other powers.] The system told me, attempting to justify the absence of the power from the calamitous and painful battle I had just been in.


    I sighed in annoyance at the system and continued to move towards my foe, ready for a fight but hoping to be able to one-sidedly slaughter the enemy before me.


    <hr>


    The scene in the depths of the Infernian desert was a dire one. A monster made of plants and fungi was awkwardly hurling itself at a strange, fallen body that was radiating a piercing, unholy light. Both of the creatures were powerful beings, and though one was far stronger than the other he had made a single mistake that allowed for their fight to go sideways.


    The plant monster was moving awkwardly due to a horrendous injury which he had just sustained and was already beginning to recover from. He had a single fully-formed and mobile leg. Just one. His other leg, or what was left of it, was on the floor not far from his current location. The remains of the leg were not flesh and bone but were instead a dense series of interlocked roots that ended in the stabbing point of a knife made of hard, floral roots.


    The fallen body the monster was throwing itself at was that of a Krieg-Devil, generals and potent duelists in Infernius. Or rather, it had been that of a Krieg-Devil. The creature was currently undergoing an impossible, unseen in eons, transformation.


    The transformation the creature was undergoing wasn''t as mundane as that of an intermediate devil transitioned into another sort of intermediate devil. It was instead that of a greater devil transforming into a true-devil, the top tier of devil-kind.


    As the god that the devil was clashing with reached the only semi-conscious form of the devil, Gugrog''s body began to change. He wasn''t just glowing anymore. The strange, irradiant outline that Althos could see was morphing before his very eyes.


    Gugrog''s shape was shrinking. The enormously, dangerously tall thing was losing both height and width before Althos'' very eyes. The once positively gigantic devil was rapidly losing height, and his once almost legendary width was reduced incredibly as well.


    Watching this intrigued Althos, who was aware that more than ending existed to this encounter, including ones where he captured the devil his blood was transforming.


    <hr>


    This is a weird situation.I realized, keenly aware that this wasn''t a great situation to be in, but also that this was an odd and possibly historic one.


    If what my comrades, worshipers, and servants tell me is true... Then this is the first time a devil became a true-devil in millennia. I thought, keenly aware of the status of Krieg-devils as the ultimate military devils, who were so powerful that not even Vizier-devils could be said to be superior to them.


    Two ends of the hierarchy, just along different tracks. I mused. But not for long. I knew what I needed to do, even if it wasn''t the funniest thing or perhaps the most immediately rewarding.


    I know what I ought to do. To prevent any further mishaps. I told myself, as I moved until I was right above the head of the devil, and I rose a hand in the air so as to maximize the speed and force of the blow I was about to launch at my enemy.


    With my fist in the air, I willed the shape of my hand to take advantage of its malleable nature. I envisioned my fist becoming a naturalistic, organic spear. And then I waited as the transformation took hold.


    I felt the countless tangles of vines, fungal plating, and bits and pieces of bark that made up my arm begin to rearrange themselves, pulling together and then twisting apart as necessary to unmake my fist and reshape it into a powerful spear. The feeling the motions made me feel was an uncomfortable one, but not a painful one.


    In seconds my hand was unmade, and in its place was a thin but sharp, spear. I grinned at the devil I was aiming at and lunged downwards, my spear aimed at where I suspected my foe''s eyes would be.I may not have been able to prevent the damned thing from evolving, but I''ll prevent it from getting back up.I said to myself, annoyed that this had progressed the way it had.


    My spear stabbed downward, cutting through the air with ease and easily penetrating the face of the newly-made true-devil before the thing could truly awaken. I felt the point of my own body swiftly penetrate flesh, bone, and then something soft, something squishy.Ugh. Gross.I thought, grimacing internally at the sensations I felt.


    I pulled back my arm-spear with a forceful tug and felt the thing retract back from the hole it had just created. As I did so, I heard a small, gasping breath escape the lungs of my foe and if I could at that moment I would have gritted my teeth in annoyance. I figured you''d still live, you damn fool.I thought, as I swiftly lifted my spear-arm back into the air.


    While my spear was in the air, I glared down at the semi-conscious but unresponsive devil beneath me and I quickly stole into his mind and copied his memories.I''m not about to let this opportunity slip me by. I told myself, grabbing the ancient, millennia-spanning memories, thoughts, knowledge, and secrets, this devil had collected during his incredibly long life.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    Another blow must be struck.I realized, and as soon as my spear was held high, I aimed it slightly to the left of the soon-to-be corpse and stabbed down again. And again my spear penetrated flesh, bones, and brain. As my spear-point was thrusting deeper and deeper into Gogrug, I castHarvest Soul on the true-devil. And while this happened I received a pleasant notification.


    [Alert: Gugrog the general has perished. You''ve gained experience. And for killing the thing with a weapon, however organic and eerie, you''ve inched closer to unlocking the following classes: Paladin, dark night, Berserker, and Fighter.]


    Good.I thought, eager that the devil was done away with before it could lash out at me with its newfound powers. I felt a wave of happiness spring up from within me as I realized I had just done away with one of the strongest foes I''d have to face when I eventually came here again, with a full army backing me.


    Seconds later I felt an immense surge of power, rage, and hopelessness flood into me as I collected the newly released soul of Infernius'' youngest and least powerful true-devil. While I relished the feeling of the soul within me, I felt my leg complete its regeneration, granting me my full, shambling, movement once more.


    I shivered as I felt the power surge into me, and prepared my aura of teleportation so that I could return to the city of Infernius. As I did so, my mind turned to the potency of my blood, and I began to imagine the sorts of wonders and horrors I could create with it. And almost as a reward for enduring the ordeal I had just gone through, I received a pleasant notification.


    <hr>


    [New Quest Alert: The Tyrant Of Transformation


    Two subdomains have collaborated to provide you with a quest, ¨¤ la the "Master Manipulator" quest you have. The subdomains of mutation and blood are collaborating to afford you access to their lowest tier of influence.


    Quest Objective: Have your cult entitled "The Changed Circle'' successfully convince five creatures to drink of your blood and become evolved, mutated beings devoted to you. Existing members of the cult don''t count towards this, though other worshipers of yours do count.


    Reward: Successful completion of this quest will award you the first tier of influence over the subdomains of mutation and of blood.


    The subdomain of mutation is also the subdomain that grants power over evolution, and templates. The subdomain of blood grants you power over your own blood and that of other people. At its lowest tier of influence it also allows you to animate puddles of blood and create oozes under your control, so long as they are made of blood.]


    <hr>


    I suppose I ought to contact Krivrivas and inform him to amplify the activity of the Changed Circle...I realized, after reading the notification, eagerly accepting the quest. I immediately reached out to my worshiper, using the religion menu, and sent him a message.


    [Krivrivas, your lord will come to visit you soon. Ready your followers to receive me in the cavernous home I''ve given you.] I said to the drider, who was located in another world.


    At that moment, I reached through our connection to see what he was up too and for a brief moment, I was able to glimpse the plump and, in his eyes, succulent backside of one of the female driders I had transformed during the two-month period leading up to the present. Krivrivas'' hands were out and he was massaging the behind of the drider he was seducing, both her arachnid anatomy and that of her dark-elven half.


    His fingers were dripping the unorthodox massaging oil he was using on his paramour, the blood of insects that the cult regularly feed on to survive in the space I had given them to colonize and populate. The scent of the blood, and of the sweat of both him and the woman he sought to marry, mixed together and filled the chamber with an unusual scent. She let out a pleased moan in response to his massage and seemed to be enjoying herself as much as he was.


    I hissed and pulled my vision back from his eyes. He immediately sent me a message, aware of my actions, as soon as I was done seeing through his eyes.


    [Deepest apologies, my lord. I was in the midst of providing my lover with some much needed... aftercare, after our latest romp. I will prepare the others for your visit! And formally ask you for permission to cement our relationship in your eyes.] The former dark-elf told me, the last part of the thought referring to the drider he was on top of. His mental voice sounded both chipper and tired. It was as if he had just finished a rather vigorous workout, which in a sense I suppose he had.


    And after that I whisked myself back to the city, recalling myself to where I knew my horde of spore-zombies to be.


    <hr>


    I returned to a vastly different scene than the one I had left. When I left I had been in the middle of a street surrounded by corpses of soldier-devils, and when I returned that same street was occupied by my swarm of spore-zombies. And off in the distance, I could see a welcome sight: the sight of dozens of devils, of assorted types, fleeing the city and dashing towards my servants.


    At first, I was a bit nervous, but I immediately checked the dozens of devils using Identifyso that I could be sure the devils dashing towards me were at least foes of Paimon if not allies of mine. It didn''t take me long to be sure that they were.


    And that was how I began the sole period of my time in Bastille that was relatively calm and joyful. My spore-zombies dashed towards their brethren who sought to flee the cruel rulership of their ineffectual tyrant leader. I shouted out one more command to my creations.


    "Remember children! Do not assault those who are fleeing the city!" I shouted, commanding my followers to be pacifistic towards the devils dashing towards us. I projected my voice loud enough for the devils coming towards us to hear and chuckled as I saw them, a healthy distance away, breathe a sigh of relief.


    When the two groups did meet, my obedient creations would let them by with no problem. I''d command the refugees fleeing Bastille to dash forward and to keep dashing until they reached a line of fort kilometers away from this city. They obeyed me and would receive a cautious but optimistic welcome when they reached the border that marked where Paimon''s territory ended and mine began.


    <hr>


    When my primary will had gone from being outside of the Girtablilu village, to the council-meeting place deep in the heart of one of our forts, I took his place. I, the mind-form of Althos, had been waiting outside of the Girtablilu village so that we could become even greater devils for about an hour, while my other-selves caused mischief in Bastille. While I was here, waiting for Lugh, I felt a number of faint, emotional echoes. Echoes of the feelings the other me''s felt about things that happened to them.


    I felt the power of gaining new devil worshipers, worshipers located within the vibrant city of Bastille. I felt an echo of the pain that plagued my primary-will. I felt the joy and rush of power that came with the absorption of the memories, thoughts, secrets, and knowledge, and then later the very soul, of the latest creatures within Infernius to become a true-devil. And lastly, I felt the immense joy both of my other manifestations felt when they witnessed devils openly fleeing the city of Bastille, rushing towards them and out of Paimon''s ineffectual grasp.


    The total amount of time I had to sit idly by while my two other-selves ran around and invaded an enemy city, was about an hour. It was at that point, an hour after my primary self was one of the two who invaded Bastille, that Lugh reappeared in the distance. And he wasn''t alone. I chuckled as they approached me, and I knew that we weren''t far from gaining control over another community.


    Aoine was the sort to wear his heart on his sleeve and he had a look in his eyes, a look of driven ambition and incredible pride. A look I could exploit. A look I would exploit.

 Chapter 142: Setting The Stage

    I stood in the precise place my primary will had transformed Lugh into a loyal, Sidhe vampire. And I watched, a smile on my devilish face, as Lugh and his friend and occasional lover Aoine approached me, Lugh''s eyes filled with admiration for me, and Aoine''s eyes filled with intrigue at whatever my vampiric minion had told him.


    Unlike my other-self, I was in my devilish form. While waiting I had filled Lugh''s mind with knowledge and awareness of my devilish form, so that Aoine may approach me in a form I was more comfortable in, and so that I may not frighten him away with a glance.


    I studied the two creatures who were approaching me with mild interest, focusing on Aoine more than Lugh who I had already previously studied to a keen extent. Aoine was a girtablilu, like Lugh. He wasn''t much taller than Lugh, though he was slimmer and more youthful-looking.


    The girtablilu had silver hair, bronze skin, and a carapace the color of blood. He had a spear attached to his chest via a strap that tied the two together until Aoine felt the need to put his hands on his weapon, whether it be for comfort or for combat.


    His scorpion-lower half had eyes, unlike Lugh''s, and had fierce, perpetually snapping pedipalps. Both halves were equally powerful and skilled in battle, though in very different ways.


    The scorpion-man walked right up to me and regarded me quite coolly while I studied him. His eyes were the color of liquid gold, and he had smile-lines on his face from a lifetime of attempted, false joy.


    After a few moments of silence, I broke the atmosphere of quiet tension that had filled the space between us by speaking first.


    "Hello, Aoine." I said, revealing that I knew the creature''s name. I didn''t doubt that my servant, Lugh, had revealed this but it was a good thing to confirm right away. The bronze-skinned girtablilu looked at me and smiled gently, a surprisingly genuine smile that easily reached his eyes.


    "Hello, Althos. It is nice to meet you." The girtablilu greeted me, his voice confident and powerful. There was a palpable sense of pride radiating out of his eyes, and internally I chuckled at it. Precisely what I need. I thought as I acknowledged the pride in those eyes.


    "It''s nice to meet you as well. We share a goal you know. Something that unites us." I told him, my eyes gleaming with pride of my own. He looked at me with interest and mirth and responded to my words in a casual, slightly curious tone.


    "Oh? Do you wish to share what that is?" The girtablilu asked me, his voice husky and containing a quiet excitement. I could sense that he had some inkling of what he was about to hear. I laughed, audibly this time, and responded with a conspiratorial amount of excitement myself.


    "My goal is for you to take over your village. I possess not only knowledge but power as well. Powers that I intend to use to aid you in your conquest of your village. For a price, of course." I informed the thing, aware that he''d likely ask for a demonstration of my power. He listened to me with some interest, and when I was finished he looked up at me and opened his mouth to speak.


    "Do you care to show me an example of your power?" The young man asked, his eyes alight with dark fascination and intrigue. I grinned at him and began to consider what would be the most suitable power to convince him of the varied powers at my disposal.


    After a few moments of introspection, I opted to instead seek the system''s aid.


    [Hello system, may I have some assistance?] I asked the thing, well-aware that it''d be able to aid me in convincing the figure before me not only of my power, but that my aid would be worth the price he''d pay.


    <hr>


    [Hello Althos, how may we help you today?]


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    [Hmm... Do you think your ability to create life would work? You have the power to create Girtablilus you know.]


    [That''s a fair point... If this person is as driven as you say they are and are as power-hungry as you think they are, why not offer them a class? If it''s as you say it is, then that''ll be the most potent way to get him to recognize your power since you will directly be offering him free power.]


    [That''s a good question! Just so you know, normally classes are offered to people when they behave in certain ways. Classes were designed as rewards for certain kinds of behavior. The simplest reason why gods can reward others with classes is that they are the architects of reality.]


    [Many of the seemingly random rules that the multiverse follows are rules that were determined by ancient gods. Even the system itself, and the entity you''ve dubbed M.A. were and are creations of ancient gods. Among many other things, the gods designed classes, hence why gods can award their followers with them once they gain access to certain domains and subdomains.]


    [Yes actually! Once you reach a high enough tier of influence over greater domains like reality and magic you can design new-classes and schools of magic by hand. Among other things. In some universes, universes where magic doesn''t exist or where the inhabitants don''t live with the system you can cause magic to come into being, and you can spread the system into these places.]


    [New Species Knowledge Notification: Gods


    Gods are among the oldest creatures in existence. Or... they were, anyway. And now, with your reappearance, they manage to be among both the oldest and youngest creatures in existence, since they went extinct for an incredibly long time.


    Gods are among the beings known informally as "Higher Beings". This is a classification meant to designate creatures capable of manipulating souls and includes a surprisingly high number of beings like angel kings, archon-queens, archdevils, demon lords, and other creatures of immense soul-warping power.


    Ancient gods designed the vast majority of the dimensions and created things like domains, subdomains, the system, classes, and many schools of magic to govern reality. Gods created new creatures by hand, and they dwelt both in their own dimensions, dimensions which may yet still exist in ancient, forgotten places throughout the multiverse, and in the dimensions inhabited by mortals and other creatures.


    Gods were creatures of creation, destruction, and power. They were, and thus you are, capable of both shaping and unmaking reality and the most powerful of your kind were among the exceptionally rare beings who can cross from one universe to another.


    Godly social structures were fascinating things. Godly community building was a challenge for even the strongest gods, creatures powerful enough to unmake entire universes.


    In the mythic age, some gods created communities known as pantheons and created and enforced rules that even their evil members tended to follow so as to grow in power together. These gods were ambitious, but they were also subtle and so they aided their followers in pursuing mutual goals, as opposed to going out and adventuring themselves as you do.


    Other gods, fairly rare ones, weren''t worshipped but they did go out and establish communities populated by creatures of their own creation who served them.


    Gods like you, the active sort, were the rarest sort, and they tended to exist in their own isolated universes rather than existing in universes with multiple gods where they''d be expected to follow rules they might not have agreed too. Those of them that were more powerful tended to create, govern, and adventure in their own universes instead of locating ones abandoned by their original creators.


    Gods don''t have evolutions. When they become powerful enough they become transcendental beings. For now, information on transcendental beings is locked. Once you get strong enough you''ll receive notifications and alerts about those sorts of beings.]


    <hr>


    "So you want an example of my power, do you? Well... I suppose I can give you a free sample. As a treat." I informed the girtablilu before me. I grinned at him, my eyes glowing with mischief. And then I used one of my favorite and most handy powers on the ambitious man-scorpion: Identify.

 Chapter 143: The Art Of The Deal

    [Name: Aoine Wind-Walker


    Class: N/A


    Species: Girtablilu


    Faction: Self


    Alignment: Lawful Evil


    Personal Vice: Pride


    Status: Healthy, curious


    Innate Magical Ability: Aoine possesses decent innate magical ability. He could be a decent druid if given access to the class but is currently classless.


    Class Suitability: Aoine has a similar magical disposition as his ancestor, Ewain, he just lacks the discipline that Ewain had.


    Magic Suitability: Evocation is the magic that most suits Aoine''s soul. Awakening it within him would increase his magical energy and provide him with immediate access to the school''s most simple spells.]


    Druid huh? That''s a neat class. I thought, after reading through the status window that my power conjured before me. My grin from earlier hadn''t faded, and I ran through my mental menus so that I could grant the man-scorpion standing before me access to his first class.


    <hr>


    Aoine stood and waited in the awkward silence of the deserted part of the desert. He looked at the strange devil in front of him. The devil had his feet planted in the sand and was standing still, but his eyes had a distant glaze to them. It was as if the devil''s mind was elsewhere.


    The devil had an aura of eerieness, of alienness. The creature was clearly something... else. Something otherworldly. Something more than any devil the girtablilu had ever seen. He was like an odd dream brought to life in how bizarre he was.


    The air around the devil was still. It was so still in fact that it almost made the devil look like a sort of statue in a transparent container as if meant to be preserved against the elements and to be admired from a distance.


    Aoine had been studying the devil, his eyes fixated on the thing when he suddenly received a notification.


    [Alert:


    The fungal lord, Althos, has seen fit to gift you a class. The class he has granted you is that of a druid.


    Druids are spell slingers whose magical capabilities pertain directly to nature magic. Druids can shapeshift, they can heal, they can use evocation magic and other forms of magic, and their specialties tend to relate directly to how they used their magic from the point in which they received their magic till when they got stronger enough to receive their specialty unless they earned their specialty directly.


    Althos'' power infuses you and increases your potency as a druid. And his affiliation with every aspect of nature aside from fire and water infuse and empower many of your spells and abilities.


    Will you accept Althos'' gift?]


    The girtablilu was surprised and very pleasantly so. He read, then reread the notification before beginning a conversation with the system.


    <hr>


    "''The fungal lord''. That''s how the system identified you." Aoine told me after his eyes flashed and revealed that he was receiving a notification from the system. He said it as if it were a secret of some sort, one that he and I shared and kept from others. His tone was almost extortive as if he were about to demand I pay a price or risk him sharing this information with others.


    He grinned at me as he felt his power increasing and as he unconsciously learned the various spells and abilities granted to him by the acquisition of the druid class. I chuckled at him, now focused on him once more and no longer distracted by the process I had to undergo to be able to grant him the class.


    "So that''s what it called me? I feel as though calling me ''The fungal lord'' really undersells my power." I said, a bit teasingly. I wasn''t really disappointed with the system''s choice but I did feel a bit underwhelmed by it. That reaction intrigued the girtablilu and he looked at me in curiosity, as if expecting me to expand on my statement.


    I looked at him blankly, pretending not to recognize the curiosity in his stare. We were both quiet for a few moments, engaging in a sort of act as we waited for the other to make the next move. Eventually, he took the bait and began to question me.


    "What else can you do?" He asked, his eyebrows nocked upwards. His question and curiosity colored his facial expression.


    "I can do this." I responded, confidently. I moved a hand to my side and pointed it downward. I activated my favorite pair of powers, spontaneously creating a dire scorpion that came into being on the ground underneath my hand and infusing it with a divinely-crafted soul.


    The dire-scorpion body that was created by me was a massive one, over twice the size of Niqi''s dire-scorpion form. It had a bright green exoskeleton and a thick stinger filled with a paralytic venom. The thing idly looked around, twisting its body in all directions so as to gain an understanding of the world it was created in.


    "I can create life. I can bestow classes upon those who seek them and who are willing to serve. And where I walk, change follows." I told the girtablilu, whose eyes were locked on the gigantic scorpion I had created. Even Lugh, my vampiric servant, found himself transfixed by the sight of the thing that stood next to me. His eyes were locked onto it, astounded by the fact that I had just created life so casually.


    "I am here to aid you. I am here to grant you power and to help you achieve your destiny. But such help is not free, nor is it cheap. Good help never is. Aoine, you stand at a crossroads. Will you listen to what I have to say?" I asked, my face becoming a mask of neutrality.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    The girtablilu gulped and nodded in my general direction. Silently I activated one of my most handy powers, theDevilish deal power I had gained two months ago. And his eyes once again flashed, filling with the green text boxes that filled the eyes of other beings whenever the system worked its magic with them. As it did I sent a message to an old friend.


    <hr>


    [Hey M.A., I have a question.]


    [Hello Althos, what would you like to know?]


    [Could you survive in a physical body? Or is it necessary for you to be a... disembodied thing?]


    [Hmm... I don''t know. I would like to try physically existing if it''s possible for me to.]


    [Hmm... Do you think I could create one that would suit you? What if I tried to create a normal, soulless being, and then you tried to fit yourself into it?]


    [That might work. I mean I doubt it, but soulless beings coming into existence naturally are extremely rare so I haven''t exactly had a chance to see what would happen if I tried to enter a living one. Whenever I entered corpses I couldn''t get their bodily functions to restart.]


    [I''ll try to build you one sometime soon. That way we can see if you can actually exist in a physical sense.]


    [I''d like that. Thank you Althos.]


    <hr>


    Once Aoine had finished reading the notification and willed it away I began to speak.


    "I am Althos. I am a god, and a devil. I can offer you the power to fulfill your desires, to become the ruler of this village as your ancestor once was." I said, under the effects of the Devilish Dealand thus unable to lie to the person I was speaking too. Aoine considered what I said for a moment, before beginning to grin relaxedly at me.


    "I would like to help you become the ruler of this place but my help isn''t free. I have two conditions in exchange for providing you with my help. The first is that you pledge your soul to me. And the second is that you obey my commands, not just in the next life but in this life. I would give you commands like instructing you to build a shrine to me as a nature god and lead your people in worshipping me as a god of nature." I told the Girtablilu.


    He mulled over what I had just told him for a few moments. And then he began to ask me questions.


    "Before I inform you as to my decision about your offer, may I ask you some questions?" He asked, aware that I couldn''t lie to him. I nodded politely, curious as to what he had in mind.


    "What are you? I know you''ve said that you''re a god and a devil, and I know that''s true, but is that all there is to it? I mean... I didn''t even know that gods were real." The man-scorpion wondered, before falling silent so as to allow me to answer. I chuckled and then began to respond.


    "I am... something new. As far as I know. Something that is both god and devil. And... other things. Possibly." I informed the man-scorpion, honestly revealing my own ignorance. And then I added something more to my statement.


    "And gods are real. Clearly. But for a while, we were gone. And now... I''m here." I informed the monster in front of me, leaving much unspoken. The girtablilu paused as he considered my words. And then he asked another question.


    "Why do you want me to be the leader of my village? Why not just rule over it yourself?" He asked, genuinely and understandably curious about this.


    "I am embarking on a campaign right now. A series of interrelated quests designed to lead me to the completion of one truly monumental objective. Acquiring the souls of ambitious people, and aiding them in gaining control of their communities is a key component of that. I have acquired two ambitious souls and taken over one community." I informed him before pausing to feign taking a breath.


    "I need three ambitious souls and three communities. I have a harpy''s soul, a desert giants soul, and I want yours. The harpy has already taken over her village, the giant is in the process of taking over her city, and we will be able to take over your village within a matter of hours. Assuming you make the smart choice, of course." I told the figures standing before me.


    The girtablilu smiled when he heard me indirectly call him "ambitious". He liked that word. He seemed to find it pleasant to hear. But when a few seconds later his pleasant expression morphed into one of trepidation.


    "What if I reject whatever deal you seek to make with me?" He asked, fear audible in his voice. I laughed audibly at that. And then I considered what I''d do.


    Nearly half a minute passed before I felt content and that I had an honest awareness of what I''d do in the difficult for me to conceive situation wherein the person I was dealing with rejected me and my offer.


    "I would let you go. I would wipe your memory, but I would let you go. And then I''d use Lugh to find me someone else to deal with. But it would be a setback, that''s for sure." I informed the girtablilu sincerely. He glanced at me, alarmed at the prospect of having his memory wiped, but also relieved that I wouldn''t kill him.


    "Why wouldn''t you just kill me?" The thing asked, curiosity audible in his voice. I looked at him and locked eyes with him.


    "Because there''s no reason for me to. You aren''t my enemy, you haven''t wronged me in any particular way. You doing nothing more than setting me back a few hours is not enough of a reason for me to see you dead. I do kill, willingly, but not for that. Not for something so petty." I informed the girtablilu. I said so calmly and evenhandedly.


    He considered that and then nodded at me. As if in agreement. Personally, I''m pretty sure it was an idle motion and not a deliberate choice by the glaze in his eyes as he did it.


    "I would like for you to join me. To serve me. You will get what you desire, the love and respect of your people, their recognition that you are worthy of being their leader. And in exchange all you''d have to do is serve me. The prince and provider of power." I told him, stretching out a hand in front of me and towards him. Holding it out for him to take.


    "It is the destiny of all who have power to serve me," I told the man-scorpion, conveying a belief a part of me sincerely held. "I will become something never seen before. And I will lift up those who join me. So now I must ask... will you join me?" I asked, shaking my hand as to reinforce that it was outstretched towards Aoine.


    Aoine was silent as he considered his options. And because of that silence filled the air between the two of us. My dire-scorpion was now curiously exploring its surroundings, walking around and touching piles of sand with its pincers. That was the only noise that filled the desert air.


    Aoine opened his mouth to speak, but no noise escaped it. And then he shut it as if reconsidering what he had been about to say. And then he opened it again.


    "Can you actually help me? I mean... the easiest route would be for me to go into ruins that aren''t far from the village and successfully become their dungeon master." The man-scorpion told me. He sound cautious as he told me that.


    Without skipping a beat I nodded at him and told him the truth. "Yes I can. Together we''d get you through the dungeon and help you reach your destiny. But alone... alone I don''t know if you succeed. You are being offered certainty." I informed him, my voice sure and calm.


    "In that case... Althos, I accept your offer. Please lend me your aid, aid you promised me, and help me step towards my destiny. And towards my inheritance." The girtablilu told me, his voice steady yet joyful.


    [Quest Update Alert:


    3/3 ambitious souls acquired.]


    Yes. Finally.I told myself, smiling as the girtablilu stepped to me and placed his hand in mine. Aoine and I grinned at each other for a moment, both happy about the very recent developments in our lives.


    "Well, welcome to the fold Aoine. Why don''t you go and declare your intentions to your people so that we may proceed with you becoming the leader of your community?" I asked my newfound ally, while revealing that I wasn''t ignorant of his people''s customs and traditions.


    His eyes opened wide as he learned of the tip of my knowledge of his species. I heard his heart-beat quicker for a moment due to his surprise. But then he relaxed and nodded.


    "Yes. Let''s do that." He responded, chuckling at me. And so the three of us, Lugh, Aoine, and myself began our quick trek back to the village he and his people lived in, so that we may proceed forward towards the next part of our lives.

 Chapter 144: The Mysteries Of The Parthenon

    Not long after Lugh, Aoine, and I left the nameless spot in the desert where Aoine and I met, and where another version of myself transformed Lugh into a vampire, I found myself back in the village. And like last time I was invisible once more, standing undetected while my two followers advanced Aoine''s scheme.


    Aoine stood in front of the effigy of his ancestor. An idle hand was on the thing, on its artfully crafted and chiseled chest. He gazed at the crowd that was gathering in front of him, numerous girtablilus who had come forth to hear his proclamation and were now shuffling about while he waited for more to gather.


    The girtablilu was comfortably still, and so was his companion. Lugh stood beside him, the vampiric girtablilu standing by and providing his friend with moral support and an additional pair of eyes watching over him. Neither of them knew that at least this aspect of Lugh''s companionship was completely unnecessary due to my presence, but I knew both of them found each other''s company soothing so I accepted their reliance on each other.


    <hr>


    After a few minutes went by, more girtablilus arrived in front of and around the effigy. Aoine looked in my direction and then smiled, appearing to the other girtablilus to smile at empty air off in the distance. I chuckled, right as Aoine began to turn around so that he could speak.


    "My people! Lend me your ears." He declared. His people looked at him, intimidated and impressed by his voice.


    "I am invoking one of our most ancient customs." He said to the crowd, as he began to pace in front of the effigy.


    "I am going to bring honor to Ewain, and to the rest of my family. I am going to conquer the remains of the Parthenon, the most ancient and last remaining alien temple left in the area." He informed them, his eyes flashing with pride and with a dash of hope.


    He watched as the members of the crowd gasped. They had suspected that this was why he had called for them to gather before him, but him telling them that that truly was why they had come together made them feel a number of things.


    Many of them felt pride. They revealed this to my girtablilu by audibly beginning to cheer once they had gotten over their shock that they were right and weren''t just wishfully thinking.


    Some of them felt sorrow. It was a curious thing for them to feel. I wonder why that is...I thought to myself, as I felt their heart-beats quicken and watched tears quietly stream down their cheeks. A quick assessment of their thoughts revealed the source of their emotions: fear.


    And it was a curiously caused fear, one that came from the sincere belief that going to the "Parthenon" would certainly cause Aoine to die. I suppose I''ll just have to prove them wrong, won''t I? I mused, laughing despite the fact that I recognized the reality of their feelings.


    But I was also curious about why they felt this way. After all, Tristan had told me this place wasn''t dangerous and that some of the traps I''d be facing within it were things she herself was responsible for.


    What was strangest though was that this wasn''t a conscious thing for them, the fear was something they recognized but not its cause. An investigation of their memories made it clear that this was an instinctual fear, a sort of hesitation and loathing of this place which helped explain why so few Girtablilu attempted to conquer it each year.


    The majority of girtablilus before Aoine and Lugh felt one thing. Curiosity. Curiosity about the man-scorpion''s odds of success. Curiosity about the dangers lurking within the ruined temple, and curiosity about the future of their community. Their thoughts were a fascinating mixture of questions. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    "The remains of the Parthenon await me. And Lugh. Together we shall go into the strange and cryptic tombs, crypts, and more that await us." The arrogant man-scorpion said to the gathered villagers. Lugh looked at his friend and grinned, his own teeth showing. Newly developed vampiric fangs and all.


    "Together we shall conquer the place. And when we do, our village''s safety will be guaranteed. And we will ensure a new future for all of us." Lugh told the crowd while looking at his friend in the face. There was a look of joy, certainty, and destiny in Lugh''s face. His words were spoken without hesitation.


    I grinned at the display, before beginning a trek towards the entrance to the ruins. I went to a place that both Lugh and Aoine had memories around and just outside of. While trekking there I sent a quick message to my followers, informing them to meet me at our shared destination.


    <hr>


    The trip to the ruins took me less than a minute. I didn''t even teleport to the place. I just launched myself off of the ground and sailed there, swiftly gliding on the winds on wings of darkness until I laid my eyes on my destination. When my destination''s grand pillars greeted me I aimed at the ground and began a careful descent that lasted until I had landed stably on the desert floor.


    I found myself in a portion of the sandy wastes I had yet to explore, and I stood in front of the entrance to a set of outdoor ruins. I visually explored this place while waiting for my followers to appear, trailing behind me.


    The particular patch of sandy wastes I was in was dominated by the sight of a massive open-air square of some sort. It was long abandoned and time had been cruel to it.


    I wonder what sort of history can be found in this place. What sort of secrets lie hidden in this place''s walls... I wondered, comfortable in my momentary solitude.


    I looked straight ahead and carefully studied the sight in front of me. I stood outside of a gigantic square of some sort, a square defined and lined by countless yellow pillars that climbed into the air.


    These yellow pillars were made of some strange stone, stone that had long ago lost its natural color. Some of it had even begun to turn to dust, as evidenced by imperfections I could see thanks to my powerful vision.


    Time had begun to cut down the pillars and had allowed sand to breeze into the air, where the sand quickly settled and covered up the remnants of this once great dungeon entrance. I can at least make this area a bit... clearer, while I wait. I told myself, grinning. I began to mentally race through my evocation spells, looking for the perfect tool with which to clean this place.


    <hr>


    Finally. I thought, after not finding anything that wouldn''t inflict even more devastation on this place and eventually just coming up with my own solution. My solution? I just needed to create my own mystical effect, one which would unleash original, gentle magic that wouldn''t damage this place. Which I had done quite easily.


    I walked into the square, walking through an opening that existed in the space between two of the degraded pillars and arriving at the heart of the square. While walking towards it I studied what laid underneath my feet, what corse objects warmed my feet with every step.


    Sand was underneath me. It was everywhere, dirtying everything, and preventing anyone from getting a good look at what lay underneath it, what sort of strange and forgotten treasures it secreted away was an appealing lure to me.


    When I reached the heart of the square, an area exactly in the middle of it, I lifted my hands and pushed them outward in different directions. And then I willed the magical effect I had created out of my hands.


    A gentle breeze expelled out of my palms. It was a gentle breeze, but it was strong enough. It blew outward and created a tsunami of sand in its wake, collecting, pushing, and blowing the sand away from where it had remained for thousands of years, undisturbed, unchallenged by little more than a breeze or gust every once in a while.


    I watched as entire portions of the square''s floor, entire meters of it in fact, were cleaned by my magic, and grinned. I had a delighted look on my face while I was doing this, happy to be inching closer towards discovering what strange secrets this place had long kept from the girtablilu who lived close to it but hadn''t been able to conquer it in generations.


    The floor my magic revealed was a smooth, flat, and reflective like it was made of some sort of glass. It was strange to look at. How weird. I thought as I watched more and more sand blow away, revealing more of this unusual flooring.


    That was right before I received a new notification.

 Chapter 145: When Opportunity Knocks

    [Dungeon Alert:


    The dungeon wishes to communicate with you. Will you allow it to open a channel tying the mind of its core with yours?]


    Well, that''s... weird. I thought, upon reading through it. But a part of me, upon reading the notification was made curious by this.


    [Hmmm... sure.] I told the system, hesitantly. Truthfully I was also intrigued by how differently this dungeon was engaging with me in comparison to, at least in my admittedly limited experience. other dungeons. And then I received a new message. An alien one, from a new source.


    [...]


    It was an odd message. I had never gotten an empty message delivered via the system like this. And the oddities multiply.I mused, grinning at my own quips.


    [Hello there.] I told the thing, even as I continued to clean the place I was in. A breeze blew gently out of my palms as I moved to spin in a circle. I did this to spread out the breeze, thereby diversifying the parts of the area I found myself that in were gently cleaned. While doing it I received another notification.


    [Scan commencing:]


    Truly a weird moment. I mused, grinning as I continued to clean my surroundings. The scan took a few minutes.


    <hr>


    [Scan complete. Compiling information:


    Subject of scan: Althos


    Type of creature scanned: Deity


    Age: Newborn. Less than a half a year old.


    Power of creature: Low, for a deity but not bad for its age. Mildly strong for such a young deity.


    Domain overlap with Athena: Law, Magic, Healing, Mind, Faith, Knowledge, Shape-Shifting


    Compatibility with Athena: Low. Not non-existent, but low.


    Similarities with Athena: Both were miraculously born, both have or had empires of sorts, both are or were nondiscriminatory beings, and both have or had ties to minds.


    Differences between Althos and Athena: Althos leans evil and Athena leaned good. Athena had a parent and Althos came into being spontaneously. Athena was once part of a pantheon, Althos is a loner type of deity, out of necessity if for no other reason. Althos desires to build an empire for the sake of knowledge, Athena had an empire built in her name, devoted to her by her worshipers.


    Commencing dungeon modification.]


    <hr>


    Athena? Dungeon modification? That''s probably not good.I realized, in a flash of insight after reading through the second most mysterious notification I had ever received.


    [Hey, wait. Who is... or who "was" Athena? And what do you mean, "dungeon modification"?] I asked the dungeon, my mental voice "loud" and urgent, or as "loud" and as urgent as a mental voice could be.


    [Athena was a goddess of an ancient civilization, the civilization that built the Parthenon. Her empire no longer exists in the world of her birth, having been destroyed long ago, but she is remembered. Her holiest temple was the Parthenon, which is why one of her vestiges can be here.] The dungeon told me, but it wasn''t done talking just yet.


    [The dungeon modification is for you, not your servants. Your servants will achieve their goals here. But you have an opportunity here.] The dungeon said, its mechanical voice articulate and laden with emotions, which I picked up on.


    [What opportunity?] I asked, as I began to try and process the implications of all of the things I had just learned.


    <hr>


    Athena was another deity. Someone like me. At least a bit like me. More like me than anyone I''ve ever met. But also... different.


    She was lawful-good. I am lawful-evil. She had a parent. I had none. She had a family, and might even have met other gods outside of her community. I am building an empire, and her worshipers built her one...


    But why is her temple here? Infernius is a home for devils, for lawful evil beings. It is not a place for someone who was lawful-good. In order for me to learn more... I''m probably gonna have to enter this place, won''t I?


    But if I play my cards right... I could learn a lot right now.


    <hr>


    [You are the first god to come across this place in a very long time. Longer than you can possibly imagine, given how long you''ve been alive.]


    I nodded at that, unsurprised by it, before realizing that I didn''t know if the dungeon could actually see me since I wasn''t inside of it. [Can you see me?] I asked the thing, opting to be upfront and honest with it.


    [Yes. You are already within the Parthenon, just not quite in the dungeon itself. This is a special place, the lair of one of the vestiges of Athena. Do you know what a vestige is?] The dungeon asked me, curiosity infusing its voice. I didn''t hesitate. In these situations, I tended towards honesty, and I can honestly say that I had never heard that term be used in anything even vaguely resembling this context.


    [I have no idea. Not even the faintest clue.] I admitted, well aware that I was almost certainly about to learn. I heard something, something not unlike a mechanical chuckle on the other end of the mental connection the dungeon had been allowed to establish with me.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    [Gods can die. Killing them was nigh-impossible for anything other than other higher-beings but they were killable. You are killable. Athena was, like the majority of deities, one of the goddesses to die during the apocalyptic battle that heralded the end of the mythic age. When deities die their divine power doesn''t fade away as their consciousnesses do. Instead, their power fades from their bodies and goes to their holiest sites.] The dungeon informed me, my eyes widening as I read its message. And it wasn''t done.


    [Vestiges are godly echoes. When a god dies the divine power they accumulated over the course of their lives, fades from their defeated bodies and returns to their two holiest sites and their realm. In those places, the power becomes... vestiges. Ghost-like entities that haunt the places where their influence was strongest.] The dungeon revealed, a certain eagerness just barely audible in its voice. The moment I heard that I froze.


    While conversing with the dungeon I had kept up my crusade to clean the place I found myself in, spinning in circles so as to widen the area I was affecting with my powers. When I stopped it was because I was putting together the implications of what I had just been told.


    [So wait... a ghostly-echo of a goddess, is... Athena, is located within this dungeon?] I asked, after a few moments of silence while I contemplated what sort of powerful things must have been located within the dungeon.


    [Yes. Yes, one is.] The dungeon reinforced, its voice quiet and filled with awe as it shared that. And that was when my servants arrived.


    <hr>


    Lugh and Aoine arrived as the dungeon communicated the identity of what I assumed was the strongest creature within the dungeon. They walked up behind me and stopped not far from where I stood, cautiously.


    "Hey Althos, what''s going on?" Aoine asked his voice as filled with caution as my mind was. I grinned, as I thought about how to respond.


    "Hey there. I''ve just been waiting for you two." I told the vampire and his friend, keeping my voice calm. While they looked at me and also began to notice the strange, reflective floor at our feet, I prepared a message for the dungeon.


    [If I enter you right now, what happens?] I asked, curious as to what the future would hold. The dungeon didn''t take long to respond to my question, its own message simple.


    [If you enter the Parthenon you and your allies will be split. We, the dungeon, are aware of your objectives. You will be given an "opportunity", the one we mentioned earlier. Your allies will achieve their objectives without your help, while you are taught about the history of this place. The "opportunity" here is the opportunity to gain knowledge.] I was told, by the dungeon. I was pensive for a moment before I asked another question.


    [You''ve told me that the... echoes of a goddess haunt this dungeon. I am trying to behave intelligently. Earlier today a version of myself made a mistake and suffered for it. I will not repeat that. You told me gods can die, that I am, at least right now, a weak god, and that a goddess'' powers are lurking, apparently sentiently, within this dungeon. If I go in here, am I putting myself in danger?] I asked, allowing myself to be cautious.


    I heard another strange chuckle on the other end of this connection that the dungeon and I shared. It was a louder one, an eager one. [Good question. No. You are not going to be putting yourself in danger by coming into this place. We understand your hesitation and it''s not a bad instinct at all, but you are not in danger. Our modifications were to make the place a place of learning. For you anyway.]


    [How can I trust you?] I asked, curiously. Another eerie chuckle, once again growing in volume.


    [We honestly don''t know how to convince you to trust us. But we know that you see and seize opportunities. You have in the past, and you will in the future. We are hoping that you''ll opt to take another opportunity, another chance that is laying in front of you. If you enter, when you enter, you can begin to learn about the past. We hope you enter. We have told you no lies, but the only way you''ll learn that for sure is if you come inside the dungeon.] It told me. I heard the sincerity in its voice, the emotion sneaking past the mechanical tones of its words.


    It''s as I suspected. We have to enter don''t we? I thought, grinning despite myself.


    My first chance to meet a god. Kind of. I figured, smiling. I was keenly aware that me not being in danger didn''t mean I wouldn''t encounter the vestige. It''s reckless, but it''s also a path forward...I realized. And then I put on a neutral mask, as I had a moment of realization.Do I have to be alone while I do this?I wondered, my find filling with possibilities.


    [Do I have to enter alone? I know you want to split up the girtablilus and myself, but I have other followers. Other servants who''d do well here. Do I need to go in alone?] I asked the dungeon. I was met with silence, a long, lingering silence. I turned to face my comrades and nodded at them.


    "We will be entering this place soon. Do you feel ready to do so?" I asked them, a grin on my face as I felt that my question had caught the dungeon off-guard, surprising it for the first time since we began our conversation. They nodded at me, eagerness visible in their gazes. And then the dungeon sent me another message.


    [You don''t have to enter alone. You will be split up from the girtablilus, but if you bring other minions they''ll be allowed to travel and learn with you.] The dungeon announced, calming me a bit.


    Good. That means I can bring together a party. I should select a party of people who can defend themselves, who would also most benefit from learning about another god or goddess... I thought, musing to myself who would best fit those lines.


    And then my followers vanished. They were abruptly whisked away from me, and the sight of the suddenly empty air where they had just been standing alarmed me. I immediately composed a message to send to the dungeon.


    [Whoa, what? Did you just take them?] I asked, deeply annoyed by that.


    [Yes. They are safe.] And then it sent me a mental image, that of my two girtablilu servants. They stood in a small chamber, and immediately in front of them stood a spherical, beating heart similar to the one I had once used to takeover Agowraith''s tomb.


    My two servants were freakishly still as if they weren''t alive and were immediately killed the instant they appeared in the chamber. Like all, it''d take was a single gust of wind to blow them over and kill them.


    [What did you do to them?] I asked, anger sneaking into my message''s tone.


    [They are fine. And they will be fine. You are what we are interested in. And we know that this doesn''t make you trust us, but we''ve done the emotional calculus and we''re willing to sustain this blow if it is necessary to get you inside of the dungeon, so you can learn about Athena, older gods, and about the power of law. The multiverse needs a lawful deity Althos, and as far as we can tell you''re all we''ve got. Come. Enter the Parthenon.] It told me, cryptically.


    I sighed and immediately began using the vast network of mental connections I had established over my life to their full effect. Within seconds I was reaching out to the figures I knew and had recruited who''d best be able to help me inside this dungeon, and who''d be able to learn the most while in here.


    I''m not a fan of what the dungeon just did... I mused, annoyed at the sudden turn. I tried to reach out to the girtablilus but was met with the thought-equivalent of hissing static. It was painful to say the least, to suddenly hear and feel that noise invade your brain, even if for a second.


    Tristan, Agowraith, the pious devils, Casis, and who else... I wondered, seconds later after regaining my wits. Assembling my team would take a bit, but not very long. A small part of me, however, reluctant I was to admit it, was filled with dark and excited curiosity about what laid ahead of me, within the Parthenon.

 Chapter 146: Into the Parthenon

    What sort of creatures do I want to take with me? I can think of a few really easy ones to bring, Tristan and the Pious Devils all clearly belong with me right now. So do Agowraith, Nefarious, Salifinos and the other imps, Samyaza and Angelica. Samyaza is one of my only servants to have actual memories of the old gods, aside from M.A., who is always with me. But who else?


    Casis would make a good choice as an aid and protector for this adventure. Plus I haven''t had much time to interact with him. Gallow could also do well here as a protector, someone I know and trust to have my back.


    I wonder if Lisabeth and Rebecca would learn anything here? Athena didn''t seem to have much interest in souls or soul-crafting but Lisabeth especially is a free-willed divine soul so I wonder how she''ll react to this place. This is the first place any of us have ever been with any real divine energy...


    I should also bring Hagitha since she is my mortal servant who has the best understanding of the old gods of all of my mortal servants. She did memorize the contents of the tome she had made for me, and she has an academic''s mind, kept hidden underneath a layer of mild insanity. Having her here would allow her to learn more about the old gods, since she assumed they were gone utterly and had no idea about vestiges.


    I''ll also take my Mi-Go. Who knows what secrets its recklessly curious and scientific mind could glean from this place that may otherwise hide even from my vision?


    Under different circumstances, I might have brought some of the harpies with me, but honestly its too soon to take them away from their village. Same for any of the other elves or humans under my command.


    <hr>


    Assembling my team, the team of creatures I believed would best be able to aid me in the unusual adventure I was about to undertake, would take five minutes. A period of time that felt much longer than it was, due to the fact that each second I was relatively inactive was a second that the dungeon had my servants in its mysterious clutches.


    At the end of the selection process, I reached out across dimensional boundaries with what was almost certainly my second or third most used subdomain, the subdomain of teleportation, and wrapped up all sorts of creatures in an aura of teleportation. With my mind, I brought them to me, from the depths of my realm, the realm of the world I came to life in, and other parts of Infernius.


    A number of popping noises could be heard as allies and servants of mine I hadn''t seen in months suddenly appeared around me. The once empty place I found myself in was suddenly filled with a number of life forms. The smallest of those lifeforms popped into existence right next to me.


    Rebecca and Lisabeth appeared next to me and hugged me, muttering about how they missed me before detaching themselves from me and taking up positions next to me. I grinned at them, always feeling a bit of comfort from their proximity. Both of the creatures who considered themselves my daughters wore armor and held blades in their hands. They began to visually study their surroundings, having never been to a desert, but having been to beaches before.


    Seconds later Samyaza came into being above me, its mechanical form floating freely in the air over my head. The robotic thing began to scan its surroundings, before beginning to shake erratically.


    "Scan status: Divine energy detected." The thing said, the voice that escaped it not being its own but something like a cross between its voice and the voice of the system.


    <hr>


    Samyaza''s shaking continued as its scan noted more oddities about this place.


    "Radiant divine magic detected"


    "Divinely created souls detected"


    "Vestige... detected."


    "Dungeon status: sentient and empowered by proximity to the divine as well as its ownership belonging to a semi-divine entity."


    I looked at it, with an expression of concern on my face. Samyaza sent me a mental message to alleviate my concerns.


    [I know how this looks, how I look, but I am fine. There''s just... a lot in this dungeon.] It told me, its mental voice more relaxed than the voice escaping its physical form. I nodded at it, and for a second it nodded back, its circular body rising and falling smoothly in emulation of my motion. I turned to look at my other servants.


    Salifinos and my other imps sprang into being not far from me. The four creatures, Salifinos, the two soul-orbs I had used in the tomb of Agowraith who later became imps, and the imp I created to earn the worship of Nefarious, Casis, Agowraith, and the other devils who had fallen to Narcolept, phased into this place not far from each other and in the relative area where Aoine and Lugh had been before the dungeon nabbed them.


    I looked at them and smiled. All three of the younger imps flew at me and tackled me in a hug. I chuckled at the children and hugged them back. In moments like this they didn''t seem as... well as impish as Salifinos did. They seemed like children, rather than like devils who would steal the souls of sorcerers, warlords, and other, often darker people.


    "Hello, little ones." I said to them while chuckling. Silander and the imps who were currently wrapped around me numbered among my first creations, the first beings who were transformed or even created by proximity to me. I hadn''t had much time to interact with them lately, due to the chaos of war so it was nice to see all four of them, even Salifinos who was hanging back but had a smile on its face.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    "We''ve missed you!" The impish children declared, in unison. My smile widened as I allowed their emotions to wash over me, sensing the honesty of their words.


    "And I missed you little ones." I told them, honestly. They had a youthful energy about them and being in their presence reminded me that there was more to life than war, cult-building, and other evil acts. I had interacted with them once a week at least during these last few months, but in moments like this, it''s obvious that that wasn''t enough.


    They quickly detached themselves from me, and I nodded at Salifinos. The older imp, a rare "true-imp" who had willingly opted to stay an imp forever, nodded back at me.


    He was curious about this place, every bit as mystified as I was, and his confusion fed into my own. He had similar questions to the ones I had. Ones that plagued me and fueled my drive to explore this strange place.


    <hr>


    Why is one of the holiest sites of an ancient lawful good goddess located in Infernius?


    Why is that this dungeon was apparently controlled by Ewain Wind-walker? How is it that this dungeon was controlled by him? What world did Athena come from? I have so many questions...


    <hr>


    Casis Outborn was a knight-devil. He wore armor, but not the same armor he wore the day he was resurrected. Platinum armor adorned his body, clinging to it protectively like a second skin. It was unexpectedly bright and noble-looking given that it adorned a conquistador turned-devil who was responsible for countless atrocities.


    He held a longsword in one hand and a thick iron shield in the other. He grinned at me, his face as gaunt and ghoulish as it had been months ago when he was first rescued from the clutches of death by my hands. He nodded at me, bowing his head low before beginning to speak.


    "Hello, my lord." The courtly devil said, his voice soft but filled with palpable excitement. I grinned at him, appreciating his ghoulishness, and motioned for him to come to my side.


    He had been teleported a fair distance away from me, my powers taking into account the assorted number of and sizes of various beings that I was summoning and calling some of them closer to me than others. He began to walk over to me, confidently sauntering as he eagerly accepted this opportunity to serve his lord.


    The other devils appeared at various locations throughout the area I had been cleaning. Tristan and her bodyguard appeared close by, and so did Agowraith. All three of them began to approach me, Tristan and her bodyguard with smiles on their faces, and Agowraith with an intrigued but otherwise neutral expression on hers. Nefarious popped into being next draped in regal robes and with a proud smirk on his face. He too began to walk towards me.


    The dwarven sisters, one of whom possessed something almost unheard of: a truly divinely made soul, one I handcrafted, appeared at the same place I had walked through to enter the area I stood in. They quickly noticed me and began to walk over to me, wide-grins on their faces. They both wore crossbow gauntlets and had hammers in their other hands, in both cases hands the hammers were in their non-dominant hands. Their armor was made of gold, and both suits were handcrafted by Rebecca.


    Angelica appeared right in front of me, her body phasing into being slowly and dramatically as if it were an event of some importance. When she was finished phasing into this dimension from my own, she stretched her wings out, and then she sighed.


    The sound itself was funny as if she were exhausted from her usual routine. A routine I knew consisted of little more than her organizing the people of the mirrored city, an admittedly difficult task but not one that was physically exhausting.


    "Hello, Angelica. It''s good to see you again." I told her, grinning at the gorgeous redheaded angel. Though she wasn''t facing me I could tell from the slightest motions of her neck that she was grinning back.


    "Hello Althos. You don''t visit me enough." She said both hinting that she enjoyed my company and also complaining in the same breath. Truly a diplomat.I thought, chuckling and also a bit impressed by her communicative abilities.


    "I apologize Angelica, I''ll be sure to visit you more often once this war is over." I said, grinning more widely at her. She turned around and grinned at me.


    Gallow, Hagitha, and the Mi-Go arrived at the same time as if all of the remaining mortals had been in one place and were transported to me in one fell swoop. The Mi-Go, my little scientist, appeared not far from me, but my other two servants appeared farther away and had to walk to my side. It didn''t take them long, as both were eager to be by my side. Gallow and Hagitha, along with Tristan and Silander, numbered among my most fanatical servants.


    The final group of creatures to arrive was the pious devils, the few priests-devils and nun-devils I had gathered to my service thus far. They appeared in a pentagram around me as if they couldn''t even teleport without drama. But they at least appeared closeby so I didn''t have to wait for them.


    <hr>


    When everyone was here and gathered in front of me, I began to speak. I needed to give them the context of our mission here, after all. I looked around while speaking, making eye contact with all of my servants and worshippers I had summoned to this place.


    "We are standing... in the temple of an ancient goddess." I revealed, having only told them that I needed them and that we were going on an adventure in a dungeon where they''d be able to learn a lot, alongside me. Their eyes widened in shock, and I heard a few gasps when I told them that.


    "This temple is standing in the way of the completion of the second trial of dark sainthood. The trial requires that I acquire three ambitious souls, and use those souls to seize control of three communities. I have acquired all three ambitious souls I need, and one of the communities. Another community is in the process of preparing to hold elections to elect a new leader, one of my servants. The problem is here." I informed them.


    "This place houses a... ''vestige''. That''s what the dungeon itself told me. It seems that a ''vestiges'' is an almost living congealing of divine power given form in the rough shape of an old god. They are what happens when gods die. Upon death, our power doesn''t dissipate as our minds do. Instead, it becomes vestiges. The very dungeon we''re about to enter appears to be enhanced and made more intelligent by the fact that a vestige of Athena lurks somewhere within here. Athena is the goddess this place was once devoted too. I know very little about her." I told my bizarre honor-guard.


    "The dungeon reached out to me and told me all of these things. It also snatched up the creatures who need to become the controllers of the dungeon for me to acquire the girtablilu community. Ultimately we''re here to learn and to ensure that the girtablilus here, Aoine and Lugh, become the dungeon masters of this place." I told them, causing them to nod at me in sudden understanding, their faces hardened now that they knew the full story behind this place, as far as I knew.


    "Are we clear as to what our goals are?" I asked my followers. They nodded at me, every single one of them. I smiled, softly, as I began to feel appreciation for my servants, for the creatures I had managed to turn into my worshipers over the course of my life. And then I began to compose a message for the dungeon itself.


    [We''re ready. Teleport us into... you, I guess?] I told the dungeon. Half a second later we all were whisked into the dungeon. All of us.

 Chapter 147: Learning

    And so it begins.I thought to myself, amusedly, while we were teleporting into the dungeon. For a moment I was jealous of my followers, as for them it no doubt felt like only an instant was passing between the moment we were teleported and the moment we''d arrive. But I wasn''t like them, I was more sensitive to the passing of time and I could feel the milliseconds we were taking to be teleported.


    Before my eyes, the scenery shifted, taking several moments. I went from standing in the middle of a mostly clean area, I went from being in the middle of the clean, outdoor area, to standing in the middle of a gallery. I studied my surroundings with a curious gaze once the shifting was over.


    My followers and I found ourselves standing at one end of a gigantic gallery, perhaps a quarter of a kilometer wide. I took a step forward and felt my senses adjust as my tremor-sense gave me a keener understanding of the place I found myself in than my eyes alone could. I glanced upwards and saw that any roof that this place possessed was incredibly high up, high enough that it was beyond the range of my vision.


    Behind me, my tremor-sense and my sense of touch alerted me to the presence of walls. When I turned around to look at the walls I saw massive things made of some sort of red rocks piled high and adhesively brought together by a thin, sticky looking red slime, as if meant to be camouflaged. In front of me and my followers, who were themselves wearily studying our surroundings were countless works of art.


    Before studying the works of art that filled the gallery I studied the place itself. The place was a gigantic area, with an ivory-colored floor. In front of me, I could see over a dozen statues and at least twice as many paintings. The paintings hung in the air, suspended by magic. Thanks to my new ability to see magic I could see a faint aura of alteration magic around the paintings, presumably what suspended them.


    The paintings and statues were primarily of two figures. The majority of them depicted a tall woman holding a spear, who had an owl on her shoulder, in various poses. The other primary figure depicted in the artwork on display was a handsome human-looking male, often semi-nude or clad in strange robes the sorts of which I had never seen before. In some artwork a young male human or a figure who was half-human, half-serpent was locked away in a tiny box and a trio of women stood around it, preparing to open it.


    At that moment I heard the voice of the dungeon begin to speak again.


    [Welcome to the Parthenon. You are in the first of several rooms, a gallery of sorts. Here you will find artwork depicting the goddess Athena and her adopted child.] The dungeon told me. I looked over to my comrades and asked them a question.


    "Can you all also hear the dungeon?" I asked, curious as to if the voice had made itself audible to them as well. They nodded at me, and I smiled. "Good, that means I won''t have to tell you everything it tells me." I said, relaxing a bit.


    I walked forward, in the direction of one of the statues. I didn''t quite walk up to it, mostly because I didn''t want too but also because it was cordoned off by a square of magically suspended ropes to prevent anyone from touching it.


    The statue I was walking towards depicted who I assumed was Athena. It was made of marble and depicted a tall woman dressed in armor-like robes. The woman in the statue had a beautiful face, one that was painstakingly detailed and wore a strange helm that looked protective but also noble and as if it itself imparted some sort of authority onto whoever wore it. That was when I received another message from the dungeon.


    [Athena had distinctive equipment, divine relics that were unique in the world of her birth. She wore a helmet known as the "Cap of Invisibility", something originally forged for her uncle, a god of death, for usage in a war against other gods a group known collectively as the Titans. The Titans were, in most cases, parents of the Olympian gods but some of them were abusive parents. She also had a shield that had the head of the first medusa in their world on it, something which enabled her to turn her enemies to stone. She began using spears in battle after an inter-deity battle in which she wounded one of her siblings, a bellicose god of war named Aries who was opposing her using a spear.] The dungeon explained.


    "This goddess seems pretty interesting." I said to my followers, after learning about the long-deceased goddess'' distinctive equipment. They nodded, themselves studying other works of art around us. Only a few of them, the imps and Hagitha, studied artwork depicting the male figure. The rest of us looked at various pieces of art that centered around Athena.


    [Athena''s adopted child was a human named Erichthonius. That child is the male figure depicted in most of the artwork. In the mythology imposed by the humans who worshiped Athena, this child was the spawn of another god, a god of blacksmithing and metalwork named Hephaestus, though in actuality Erichthonius was just a regular human. Erichthonius became the king of the emerging empire of the Athenians, Athena-worshipers who sought to spread her wisdom throughout the world.] The dungeon informed us, revealing the identity of the male in some of the art. But it wasn''t done just yet.


    [This part of the gallery is devoted to Athena and Erichthonius. Further into the gallery, there is a section that is devoted to Athena''s divine family, gods and even the titans of Olympus.] The dungeon told us, being quite helpful.


    <hr>


    We spent a few minutes on the outer edges of the gallery. When we were content with what we had seen and what little information we had learned about Athena from the dungeon, we began to walk deeper into the Parthenon.


    In minutes we began to see a greater diversity of figures depicted in the artwork on display. We also began to see a greater display of artwork itself. New things like masterfully decorated tapestries and even pottery that had stunning artwork emblazoned on it also began to show up in the gallery''s interior.


    The first figure who wasn''t Athena or Erichthonius to be depicted in artwork that I saw was a woman in an incredibly detailed and skilled painting. The first painting I saw her in was one where she was naked, long-blonde hair covering her breasts, as she stood atop a massive clamshell. Sea-foam was visible around her. Even in the painting, she was perhaps the most beautiful being I had ever seen, with long legs, a curvy body, nearly golden skin, and radiant golden hair.


    Not far from it floated a vase that depicted the same woman, though the art style was very different and Athena on two of its sides. They were facing different directions and both had upset expressions on their stylized faces. Between them stood a small human, holding a golden apple and facing the beautiful goddess, and thus looking away from Athena.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    [The goddess you are looking at was the goddess of love, lust, beauty, sexuality, and fertility, as well as a minor goddess of other, less significant things. Her name was Aphrodite, though some who worshiped her called her Venus. There are contradictory accounts of her birth, in one she is a half-sister of Athena, and in the other, she arose miraculously as a sort of child of a titan. Athena and Aphrodite once competed to be awarded a golden apple in the buildup to a mythic war on Earth, the planet of their births.] The dungeon revealed.


    Aphrodite.I thought, even myself feeling swayed by the beauty of the woman in the painting. But that''s not all I thought.


    So some domains are strong enough that even gods themselves can be affected by those who wield influence over them? Domains and subdomains like love, lust, and beauty must be serious deals to be so powerful... Now how can I gain control over them?I wondered, before realizing that lust was one of the aspects of the subdomain of corruption.


    It''s a good thing I already liked the idea of gaining power over lust. Now it seems doubly useful.I thought as I tore my gaze away from the painting and vase which depicted Aphrodite.


    My followers were gazing at other paintings, statues, vases, and tapestries. I looked at the artwork in front of them with a curious expression on my face. And in doing so I got to see several other gods and goddesses, as well as monsters and even other higher-beings. As I studied the pieces of art I also received introductory messages about the gods, goddesses, monsters, heroes, and titans depicted within the art.


    <hr>


    [This strange painting is actually of a god and a goddess.] The dungeon explained to me. I was looking at a painting depicting Athena. She was standing in the middle of a strange thing, which seemed to be a headless body of a shirtless man. She was balancing herself on a thick neck, was wearing pristine robes, and had a spear in one hand.


    [This painting depicts Athena who is clearly visible within it, but also Zeus. Zeus was the head of the Olympic Pantheon and a greater god. He was the father of Athena, who he fathered with a titan of the mind named Metis. In the painting, Athena is standing atop of Zeus.] The dungeon revealed to me, while I studied the painting.


    [He received an ancient prophecy hinting that one of his children would overthrow him one day like Zeus had done to Kronos, his father and like Kronos had done to Uranus, who was his father. The prophecy frightened Zeus and so he ate Athena''s mother. Athena was born anyway and began to make a racket in Zeus'' mind. Eventually, he asked Hephaestus for help in removing the source of his headaches from his head. The god of metalworking numbed Zeus to pain using technology and then cracked his head open. Athena and her mother walked out of Zeus'' head to their freedom.] Said the dungeon, into my mind.


    [Whoa, these deities could survive having their heads split open?] I asked, unaware of the limits of their lifeforce, or of my own lifeforce for that matter. I continued to study the painting, aware that the titan mother of Athena wasn''t depicted in it. The dungeon''s response to my question didn''t take long.


    [Yep! These gods and their titan parents had such immensely powerful and persistent lifeforce that they could survive being utterly annihilated physically. One of them, Kronos, survived the destruction of his physical body and had his spirit thrown into an eerie divine realm named Tartarus which was designed by a god of the underworld. We don''t know if the titans were destroyed during the same event that destroyed Athena.] The dungeon informed me, causing my eyes to widen.


    So it''s possible other higher-beings might still exist somewhere in the multiverse? I speculated, for a second. No... I don''t think so. I don''t doubt that such beings would have made themselves known somehow in the countless years since the end of the mythic age. Unless they were in some absolutely inescapable prison. Which... they might be? I need to continue to research this. I realized. Right before I made a tactical decision, inspired in equal parts by caution and curiosity.


    [Hey M.A., or the system, can one of you send me a species notification on titans?] I asked, curious as to one if existed. I got my answer a few seconds later.


    <hr>


    [System alert:


    Titans were gods. They were a specific set of gods, a pantheon that was older than the pantheon of the Olympians, which was the pantheon of Zeus, Hephaestus, Athena, Aphrodite, and other gods and goddesses. Asking the faith and knowledge domains for permission to provide you with information on specific pantheons...


    Request granted on two conditions:


    Condition 1: In order to ask about a pantheon you have to find a holy site of a deity who was in some way related to that pantheon. Not necessarily a member of the pantheon, but someone with a legitimate relationship to it. As of right now, you can ask for information on the Olympian gods and the Titans because Athena''s mother was a Titaness named Metis and because she herself was an Olympian.


    Condition 2: Gaining information about the pantheon itself is limited. Until you gain more influence over the knowledge domain you cannot learn much if any actionable knowledge, as in any significant knowledge more specific than the names and domains of the gods and goddesses who comprised the various pantheons that once existed.]


    [New Two-Part Pantheon Notification: The Titans & The Olympians


    The Titans were a group of gods who lorded over a region of Earth in the unimaginably ancient past, long before the apocalyptic event which destroyed all known higher beings.


    Titans were themselves fathered by an abusive higher-being known as Uranus and freed from that horrifically evil creature''s tyranny by the actions of Kronos who rallied his siblings, not all of whom were titans, and overthrew Uranus. Not long after he overthrew Uranus, Kronos began to perpetuate evils on his own children. Though not all Titans behaved as cruelly as he did, and not all Titans fought against the Olympians in the Titanomachy, the conflict between the Olympians and the Titans.


    The era of titan-rulership over the part of Earth that would one day become a nation known as Greece was an era of communion with nature. Not many humans lived in Greece during this period, and thus that did were nearly universally male resulting in Greece''s human population was one in steady decline. Kronos took his older sister Rhea as a wife and their children became six of the twelve most widely worshiped Olympian gods.


    Kronos imprisoned many of his children within himself, devouring them moments after their birth, and they were only freed by the courage and heroism of their youngest sibling, the Olympian of nobility named Zeus. Once Zeus''s siblings were freed the Titanomachy began and ended after a decade of constant warfare throughout the land now known as Greece.


    Other titans of note were Metis, Prometheus, Hyperion, and Hecate. Those titans were the titans of minds, trickery, light, and magic respectively.


    The Olympians were a pantheon made up primarily but not entirely of the children of Kronos and Rhea. Several of the other members of this particular pantheon were the children of Rhea''s children.


    These gods lorded over the population of Greece for thousands of years. Their era of dominion over Greece''s population was one of culture, sophistication, and growth for their worshipers, especially but not just humans.


    Zeus, Athena, Aries, Hephestus, and Aphrodite were all members of the Olympian pantheon. Zeus was the Olympian of leadership, power, and nobility. You already know what Athena was the Olympian of. Aries was the Olmpyian of war and combat. Hephestus was the Olympian of metalworking and a minor Olympian of technology. And like Athena you know what Aphrodite was the Olympian of.]


    <hr>


    Whoa... that''s a lot of knowledge to gain all at once.I thought, staggered by the knowledge that just seeped into my mind, curtesy of the system. But before I willed away the notifications, I reread them.


    And then I continued my trek through the gallery, taking in more of the ornate artwork before me, as my followers did the same.

 Chapter 148: Exploration

    My party of scholars, theologians, and in more than a few cases seemingly random creatures, and I crept through the gallery. We had already been here for a few minutes, exploring this place at our own pace.


    While doing so I heard a series of remarks about the artwork my worshipers and servants saw, as several of them got messages from the dungeon about the artwork they were looking at. Some of them were in front of me, and some were behind me. We all felt safe here, something which my senses helped me confirm because both my radar and my tremor-sense failed to detect anything more than the pieces of art around us.


    Over the course of the last few minutes, I had also picked up assorted names and devoted them to memory. Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Pan, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Dionysus, Hermes, and more. I thought, pronouncing their names carefully, almost reverentially, as I remembered them.The members of an ancient and long gone pantheon.I mused, at least somewhat aware of the potency of the knowledge I now possessed, knowledge of more gods than I had been aware of even an hour ago.


    "So that''s a god of stealth and theft?" Remarked Gallow as he studied a painting depicting a youthful-looking figure with winged boots. He carefully studied it, his eyes narrowing as he took in the form of a figure he knew was named Hermes, at least according to the dungeon. He was paying particular attention to the fact that the figure was nearly nude. His eyes were drawn to the statue''s anatomically correct bits.


    "Would I be more stealthy if I were naked?" The orc wondered. At that mostly idle remark, I stepped in and spoke into the mind of my follower.


    [No. You wouldn''t be more stealthy if you were naked. You are green, and a light shade of green at that. Only in a forest, at night, might you be more stealthy if you were naked. Hermes almost certainly had some magical or divine means of stealth that is inaccessible to you.] I told the green-skinned rogue.


    I heard the orc click his tongue in realization, and also in annoyance. He was far from the only figure making idle remarks about the figures depicted in the artwork we saw.


    "These people had a goddess of marriage? That seems... strange." Hagitha said, thinking aloud as she stared at a statue that according to a message the dungeon communicated to her was a statue of the Olympian named Hera. She studied the statue of the regal queen goddess and seemed truly mystified by it. I walked up behind her and studied her.


    She was still, dressed in casual clothing that was carefully ensorcelled to provide her with all the protections of armor. I could tell by studying it, carefully scrutinizing the aura the armor radiated and by scanning it with an Appraisal. I smiled at her, undetected even as I moved very close to her.


    "Humans and their fixations with marriage. Such a strange... fetish." She remarked, idly. In doing so she revealed her own casual antipathy towards both monogamy and an institution she viewed as deeply human: marriage. I chuckled at her, revealing my proximity and I saw her muscles flex and tense up in surprise.


    "Sorry, I didn''t mean to startle you." I told her, honestly. I moved out from behind her and walked forward until I was beside her.


    "It''s odd, isn''t it? Especially since this pantheon had a goddess of sex, love, fertility, and lust, and she wasn''tthe same goddess as their goddess of marriage, childbirth, and family." I exclaimed myself mystified by it. It was one of the odd little things about this pantheon.


    "I find it... funny that they seemed to understand that someone being married isn''t an indicator of love." The dark elf said, smiling at her own pithy comment. I grinned at her.


    "Not a fan of the institution of marriage?" I remarked, rhetorically. She turned to look at me, her own eyes flaring in amusement.


    "No. But you knew that. You know everything about me, don''t you?" She asked, herself asking a rhetorical question. I made my face a neutral mask, before instantaneously shifting it into a replica of the first dark-elf to lay with the spell-singing oracle, and looked at her for a single second, long enough for her to see my face and react to it with a soft gasp. And then I changed my face back to that of my devilish form.


    "Yes, I do. I know your every secret." I told her, confidently. She shook her head at me, sighing at what she no doubt viewed as me being a mischevious little scamp. And then she began to speak again.


    "It is... odd that worshipers of this pantheon had two separate gods for something as linked as the idea of love and the idea of marriage." She said, again harping on this point. I thought about it for a second before sharing my own hypothesis, a rough and mostly instinctual one, with her.


    "Maybe it''s because marriage is a lawful institution related to family-building and love and lust are chaotic emotions? I wonder if Hera was a lawful deity and Aphrodite was a chaotic one... that''d certainly explain it to me." I told her, making a rough point that I was only able to make thanks to the memories of humans I had swirling within me, memories that showed me a human society, the society of Reconquista, wherein marriage was a political and lawful institution that tied together families. Hagitha considered my response for a moment before nodding her head in faint agreement with at least my general point.


    "I suppose that would make sense... Dark elven society, at least in Undermoon, isn''t strongly lawfully aligned so we don''t like such institutions. Plus for elves, as long-lived as we are, marriages that are monogamous are often unthinkable." She said, mostly thinking aloud. I nodded at her in sympathetic understanding, having long learned what she felt and that many of my dark-elven worshipers agreed with her.


    "Honestly? I can understand that. To an extent anyway. I''m only a few months old, but I''ve never experienced those sorts of feelings. At least directly. I''ve only experienced shades of love, lust, and attraction through the memories of my worshipers but I''ve never felt those things myself." I said, twisting the truth just a little bit.


    A small part of me remembered the events of just hours ago. Events that stirred a part of me I hadn''t known existed, a small fire that could had felt perverse enjoyment out of controlling my first witch, Qu''Ren. I had also felt a twinge of desire looking at Aphrodite. So I could relate a bit more to the elven passions than I had just let on.


    Hagitha was unaware of that and just laughed at my remarks. "I''m a bit jealous." She confessed.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    "I sometimes wish I didn''t feel that sort of desire. It makes me feel... undemonic." She told me. I looked at her in confusion for a second. I was aware of this aspect of her, but she only rarely vocalized it. I went ahead and took advantage of this chance to probe her conscious mind and see how aware she was of her own unconsciousness. I began to act a bit, injecting confusion into my facial expression and voice.


    "Are you saying that demons don''t experience sexual desire?" I asked her, overtly expressing my feigned confusion. "Succubi experience tons of sexual desire. So do incubi. I can only imagine that other demons experience sexual desire as well." I told her, keenly aware of her extensive knowledge of succubi and incubi, demons of sex and sexuality. She chuckled at me.


    "You aren''t wrong. But when I feel lust... it makes me feel unconnected from my ultimate desires. My lust distracts me from inching towards my ultimate goal." She said an edge of fanaticism in her voice. A quiet but not imperceptible edge of fear in it as well. I sighed and shook my head at her.


    "That''s just wrong. Giving into lust and surrendering to other desires, especially if doing so results in harm happening to others, keeps your soul firmly evil. That''s something that I would imagine is important for eventually becoming a demon." I told her, having fairly little knowledge of the processes by which souls became demons.


    She nodded at me, her beliefs matching up with my knowledge. She opened her mouth to speak, seemingly uplifted. a little bit anyway, by our conversation. "That''s true. That matches what I know, anyway." She said, shortly before correcting herself.


    Our conversation continued for a bit, before drifting off. In a matter of minutes, I proceeded to walk over to some of my other servants, having heard their remarks as they studied the artwork surrounding us as well.


    <hr>


    "A god of the underworld is also a god of wealth? That sounds... oddly devillike." Tristan said, to her father. The two of them were studying a statue of a gigantic figure who held a bident, a sword-like weapon with two prongs.


    The figure was darkly handsome, with chiseled, muscular features, and stood atop a chariot that was crafted to look as if it were drawn by still, skeletal horses. The figure, Hades, had a scowl etched onto his face.


    I walked over to the pair of devils, father, and daughter, and listened to their remarks about the Olympian who was considered their lord of the dead, a figure who also lorded over the bounty of the earth itself. Tristan''s minotaur bodyguard was off in the distance, studying a piece of pottery that depicted a minotaur, and not with her at the moment.


    "It does, doesn''t it? I wonder if this Hades'' fellow once had some alliances with our kind..." Nefarious remarked, his regal voice commenting smoothly on the god he was looking at. "The fellow is very melancholy though." The noble devil said, commenting on the apparent mood of the god depicted in the artwork. I got up beside Tristan and began to study the same piece of art as the family of devils. Tristan smiled when I stood beside her, stepping to me and then placing her head on my shoulder.


    "Hey Althos. What do you think of Hades?" She asked, relaxing next to me. Nefarious also glanced at me, his countless eyes zeroing in on me. They starred at me curiously. I smiled at the moth-devil and glanced at him, my eyes lingering just long enough for him to notice, before flicking back to the statue.


    "Hades was one of the primary three gods of the Olympian pantheon. He was a god of wealth, death, and the very earth itself. I can''t say I dislike him based on what little I know about him. He was also associated with monsters, which makes me view him more highly a lot more. I find monsters pretty interesting." I told the pair. They nodded at my assessment of him, seemingly unsurprised by it.


    "I hope to one day mirror his power over his domains. Being a god of death sounds really neat. As does being a true god of the earth." I told them, indirectly revealing my interest in and appreciation of my earth-based powers. Every step I took in the gallery was one that was empowered by my ability to control the ground at my feet, and to gain knowledge from each subtle movement.


    "I may not be particularly interested in wealth for the sake of wealth, but thanks to the memories of my worshippers I can understand how it is that mortals feel about wealth. Gaining power over greed and over wealth are two things that would suit me well. and Hades had power over wealth even if he didn''t have power over greed." I told my devilish companions. Nefarious nodded in interested agreement with what I had just said.


    "It seems like you are quite fond of Hades'' power if nothing else." He said, assessing my statement carefully. I nodded back at him and began to articulate my agreement with his remarks.


    "I am. I think his domains and subdomains are strong ones, all of which would be useful for aiding tyrants and other lawful evil people." I explained, honestly, to my noble servant.


    "Althos as a grim-faced god of death, tyrants, and wealth, would be an imposing sight. Imagine it, father, as a sight seen by the enemies of Infernius? Wise foes of ours would be scared of it, that''s for sure." Tristan told me and her father, her moving lips as her head rested on my shoulder causing her head to vibrate slightly, something I noticed and felt. Her speech pattern around her father was one which was formal, but also possessed an exuberant joy she struggled to hide underneath noble language, even months after Nefarious'' resurrection. I grinned.


    "I don''t know if I can match Hades'' stoic demeanor though. I don''t know if I have it in me to be as imposing-looking as he must have been in life." I told the father and daughter duo. They chuckled at me, and both admitted that when it came to that I was correct. Neither of them could truly imagine me, a deity they had often seen smiling or chuckling, could be as frighteningly upset looking as the statue of Hades was.


    A few moments later, I began to walk again, this time towards my creations: the dwarves and the Mi-Go.


    <hr>


    Rebecca, Lisabeth, and the Mi-Go stood in a group. They were examining a painting of Zeus on a cloud above a series of burning buildings. Their eyes were carefully studying the thing, taking in every detail. I watched them silently for a moment.


    They were still as if waiting for something. I could tell they were shocked about something and it had rendered them inert after a few moments of careful examination of my creations.


    "Hey, what''s going on?" I said to them, as I approached the unlikely trio, united by the fact that I was the closest thing any of them had to a parent. Surprisingly, of the three of them, the Mi-Go was the first to speak.


    "Althos... what is that god doing?" Its eerie, insectoid voice filling my mind and the minds of the other creatures I had created and brought with me. I studied the painting for a second, my eyes taking in its details.


    The painting depicted an indifferent seeming Zeus, a god with a golden body and golden hair, quite literally looking down on a burning settlement. His hands crackled with the residue of some energy, possibly leftover power from the attack that had caused the settlement to begin to burn. I opened my mouth to speak to the creatures who considered themselves my children.


    "Well, it looks as though he''s resting after destroying a village." I explained to scientifically minded Mi-Go. It considered my remarks for a second. Rebecca, the first dwarf I ever created, didn''t. Instead she reacted to them right away.


    "But why?" She asked, disbelief filling her voice. I looked at her, a bit surprised at this display of innocence and naivety.


    "I don''t know Rebecca." I told her honestly. "Why? Are you surprised at this act of what might be cruelty?" I asked, curiously. She nodded at me and I sighed.


    "Rebecca..." I said, a sigh audible in my words, as I began to consider how to speak to her, how to assuage whatever she was feeling. I had never lied to her, so this was a bit surprising. Nor was there anything in her fairly short life that led me to believe she had cause to think this innocently.


    I should talk to her. And figure out why she''s feeling this way. This shock and disbelief.I realized, immediately. The first thing I said to her was simple.


    "We don''t know enough about the context of this piece of art to know what it is depicting. Nor do we know if it''s meant to be based on something that actually happened." I told her, speaking softly and comfortingly to the woman I had created to guard and help manage one of my lairs but who had become something else, something more, to me at least, over the course of her life.

 Chapter 149: Reasoning And Paintings

    She had taken a second to formulate her thoughts but she was quick on her feet so I only had a few seconds to consider what she may say and how to respond to it. "But Zeus is a god! He''s like you." She said, expressing innocence and naivety at me. I smiled at her, my facial expression conveying my mixed emotions as I realized that she was worried that the fact that Zeus was a god meant that we were alike.


    "Rebecca, are you like your sister?" I asked her, opting to convey this to her in the simplest way I could. She turned to her sister and studied her for a second, her facial expression still teary-eyed, but now also somewhat focused.


    "No, I''m not." Rebecca said, her voice softer and calmer now. I grinned, more genuinely now, and then nodded at her.


    "Does that teach you something?" I asked her, hoping to guide her to a natural conclusion without holding her hand more than this. She considered what I said for a second.I had been too lax with her. I never hid my true nature from her or kept any secrets from her, but honestly, I must have gone wrong somewhere. I''ll need to reeducate her. I mused, wondering to myself where my error had been.


    "Yes." She told me, a few seconds after I asked her my question. I waited for her to continue to speak, as she had responded to me with just one word just now.


    "It teaches me that not all dwarves are the same." She said, the look in her eyes one of childlike innocence and also childlike earnestness. I laughed gently at her response, before beginning to nod.


    "And if not all dwarves are the same..." I said, gesturing using my hands to try and get her to expand on my sentence and complete it for me. She studied me for a few moments, her eyes following my hands.


    "If not all dwarves are the same... then not all... gods are the same?" She said, having arrived at the conclusion I was leading her too without much difficulty. I chuckled and nodded at her.If nothing else she can logically follow clues to their destinations, which is good. I thought while a thin smile adorned my face.


    She studied me. her eyes narrowed to thin slits as she did so. It was like she was attempting to determine if I''d fly off the handle like Zeus appeared to be in the painting. I was stoically calm and looked at her reassuringly.


    After a tense few seconds, her apprehension passed. For now anyway. She began to smile softly at me, her eyes relaxing. And then she began to chatter.


    "So wait... not all gods are alike? How... alike are the gods?" She asked. She was speaking frantically, and it was difficult to hear her individual words. Difficult, but not impossible. I thought about her question for a second, a grin on my face.


    "I honestly don''t know how alike the gods are. I never met them. All I know is how I am." I told her, opting once again for the truth. But I wasn''t done talking just yet.


    "I wouldn''t randomly destroy things but that doesn''t mean I''m non-violent. I won''t lie to you, I am more than capable of violence." I said, my eyes flinting back to the painting depicting Zeus indifferently watching or even studying a burning community.


    "I am also... an evil being." I told Rebecca, opting to assume she felt that Zeus, the deity in the painting, had left an impression on her that gods were evil. I was still talking to Rebecca, while considering the context of our conversation.


    "But being evil doesn''t mean killing things. At least... not necessarily." I told her, preferring that she have an honest understanding of me and my motivations. At this she backed away from me, her body language taking on a new tone, in so far as body language could do that. She even stiffened. I chuckled, understanding her sudden stiffness.


    "Listen Rebecca... Have I ever hurt you?" I asked, my voice soft now. I kept my eyes trained on her face. She considered my question, but she didn''t need too for long.


    "No." She said. She was quiet while she answered my question, her voice soft and. I grinned at her, appreciating the honest simplicity of her answer.


    "Look, Rebecca, I have told you what I am and about all of the things I''ve done. I have not kept any secrets from you. Nor will I. The things I''ve done, my goals, are evil. I want knowledge, worship, and power. As I''ve always told you." I told the dwarf. She was quiet while I spoke.


    "I do not wish to inflict casual violence on random people. I don''t want to maim, harm, and destroy. I am capable of doing those things. I am even quite good at it. But it''s not what I want." I said, unafraid to admit my skills and knowing what I could and couldn''t do.


    "I want to gain power and knowledge. I am... ambitious." I confessed. I dug deep within myself and examined my emotions for a second before I considered what to say next.


    <hr>


    What do I want?I asked myself, in the safety of my own mind. I thought about it for a few seconds.


    I want... control.I realized.I want to be able to control my surroundings. So that I am never hijacked like I was when I first came here. I learned, after examining my own head for a second. It wasn''t hard for me to realize that.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    I also want power. If I have the power to read all minds, and if I can create all kinds of devils then I could build an empire unlike any anyone has ever seen. So that I can destroy my enemies. So that I never have to be afraid. I thought, grinning all the while.


    An inter-planetary empire. One that spans entire dimensions.A mental image appeared in my head. One of entire worlds conquered by my forces, filled with thousands, millions, or even billions of worshipers of mine, generations who''d never know what life was like before me. Before Althos.


    And I want knowledge. More than anything else. Knowledge. I want to know what killed the gods and the other higher beings. I want to know Raverangos'' true name. I want to know about the Heart of Darkness. I want to know what caused my birth. I want to know the true nature of the Dark Saint. About the Olympians. About the Titans. About what secrets Paimon has hidden in his brain. I want to know... everything. I told myself, my hunger for knowledge reasserting itself, having grown dimmer in the wake of months of war.


    <hr>


    "Listen Rebecca, hurting things doesn''t often get me my goals. I fight in self-defense, but I don''t just destroy communities." I told her. "I want knowledge. I want to know everything I can know. I want power. I want the power to do whatever I want. And I want control." I was silent after telling her that.


    And then I told her of the first few days of my life. A tale I had told her in the past, but never with so much detail and candidness as I was about to.


    <hr>


    A few minutes later Rebecca stared at me. There was a new emotion in her gaze. One of awe. And one of sympathy. I had just finished telling her my story, the story of the first time I encountered vermin. The first time I healed someone. How I defeated Raverangos. And so much more.


    "Wow..." She said, breathlessly. A few seconds of silence had passed between us. I watched her, studying her for a few moments. She was quietly assessing her thoughts.


    "Althos... creator. What you just told me is incredible." She told me, truly astounded by what I had revealed to her. I told her of everything and everyone. From the goblins in the forest of my birth to the domains and subdomains that I could hear and interact with. I could tell that she was awed by both my story and the candidness with which I had revealed everything to her.


    "Your life has been one of so many... greats. Great power. Great fear. Great ignorance and knowledge in equal measure. Great triumphs and great battles." She said, speaking confidently for the first time since she had first seen the painting of Zeus.


    What is that painting anyway? I might as well find out, after all the grief its caused... I wondered, shortly after Rebecca was done talking to me. The young dwarf was awed by my story and needed some time to process it.


    I looked at the painting and used Appraisal on the thing. The notification I received was a grisly one.


    [New Item Notification Alert: The Fate of Tantalus


    This painting depicts the death of Tantalus. Tantalus was a son of Zeus, who foolishly decided to test the gods.


    Tantalus was a demi-god, as in half-mortal, half-god, king of a regal community and was blessed by the gods themselves. Not only did the other children of Zeus get along with their half-sibling, but even the older Olympians, Zeus'' siblings, found the mortal king quite pleasant. They dined with him and trusted him, both of which were incredibly rare for mortals. And one day, after years of getting along with the gods, the king grew arrogant and foolhardy.


    He felt curious about whether or not the gods would detect his misdeeds if he opted to kill his own son and feed the boy to the gods. He lacked impulse control and decided to act on this scheme. When the boy''s cooked flesh was presented to the gods they immediately took notice and fled his home in rage at his cruelty and hubris. All of the gods, aside from Zeus that is.


    Zeus was outraged that his son killed his grandson, and so the chief of the Olympians opted to act. Zeus took to the skies above Tantalus''s city and struck it with several of his mighty thunderbolts. This destroyed the city and sent Tantalus'' soul spiraling down into Tartarus, where some say it remained at least until the end of the mythic age.


    This painting depicts a triumphant Zeus, enjoying the splendid beauty of his thunderous weapon. In it he floats lazily over a series of burning buildings, studying both the sights of the flames plaguing the settlement and the power of his weapon.]


    Zeus killed someone for killing their own son and trying to feed the son''s remains to them? I thought, surprised that there was a somewhat decent reason for the act of murder, as opposed to when he tried to stop Athena from being born out of fear of the possibility that he''d meet the same fate as his father and grandfather at her or another child''s hands. But that doesn''t really justify decimating an entire community. At least not unless the people involved in the murder were the people of the city itself. I quickly told myself, snapping back into rational thinking.


    I looked up at Rebecca and then told her what the painting depicted in context. She listened to me and then began to laugh. The sound of one of emotional exhaustion, a laugh you heard from someone who had felt countless emotions in a rather limited period of time. Shortly after she began to laugh, I also began to laugh, the two of us melting away our past, tense emotions. As we laughed I spoke once more.


    "I really should have just started this off by checking out the painting." I confessed, in between peels of laughter.


    "Next time I''ll start us off with that." I assured Rebecca, and to a much smaller extent myself. Rebecca nodded at me, tears forming in her eyes from laughter. I knew in my heart that this wasn''t over, as it would be challenging for Rebecca to accept that her creator was evil, but for now it felt as though the worst has passed. Due in no small part to my own lack of foresight and lack of clarity when it came to investigating the painting.


    We laughed at my silly behavior, for a few minutes. At the end of our bout of laughter, we were joined by the rest of the party in the tiny section of the gallery we were in. When we were joined by the rest of my comrades, worshippers, and familiars I looked at everyone, observed them, and then wordlessly urged us onwards. Deeper into the Parthenon.


    <hr>


    We arrived at the exit out of the gallery after walking for a few minutes. And we proceeded through it without much fanfare, entering into another section of the dungeon when I finally received a notification about what the dungeon wanted me to do inside of it.


    [Hello Althos Are you ready to begin your education?] The dungeon asked, a cheery inflection subtly infiltrating its otherwise smoothly mechanical accent. At that point, just outside of the gallery, my followers turned as one to look me dead in the face. Their gazes were filled with curiosity. They waited, with bated breath, to hear what I was about to say in response to that. In response to the offer made by the dungeon.

 Chapter 150: Opportunities

    The area we walked into after spending several minutes exploring the gallery and learning about the Olympians was a grand hallway. It was perhaps the grandest hallway I had ever seen, even in the memories of my servants and worshippers.


    The space we were in must have been dozens of feet wide. And it was taller than it was wide, so even when I looked straight upwards I couldn''t see a ceiling above me. The walls that surrounded us were decorated with colorful tapestries.


    Each of the tapestries depicted Athena, in all sorts of distinct artistic styles. The tapestries hung in the air and the aura they radiated revealed the nature of their suspension as being magical in origin.


    The colorful tapestries were oddly back-lit as if some strange force desired for them to be seen. Little else was illuminated in the hallway, and though I could see through much of it some of my followers couldn''t. They were quiet though and didn''t complain.


    I stood just beyond the entrance to this place that we used to get here from the gallery. I was squarely in the middle of the hallway, and I allowed my senses to take in this eerie, empty place.


    Aside from Casis my followers spread out and examined different tapestries, idly commenting on them, while they waited for me to coax the dungeon into more conversation.


    <hr>


    I don''t know what''ll happen next. But in all honesty, there''s only one path forward isn''t there? And this path happens to be the path that leads to me gaining more knowledge anyway. I figured, after a few moments of contemplation. My second thought was more about reminding me what I''d gain from this little adventure.


    I suppose I should begin to move us towards and down that path, shouldn''t I? I thought, a slight smile on my face.


    After a few minutes of silence, wherein my party was free to idly examine expertly made artwork, I responded to the dungeon, finally answering its question from earlier.


    [Hello. Yes, I am.] I told it, quite simply and honestly. And then the ground at my feet and the feet of my party began to rumble, shaking unsteadily beneath us.


    <hr>


    The rumbling continued for a few seconds. The vibrations of the ground unsettled and surprised my party who reacted to it by crouching close to the ground and digging their feet and fingers into the floor beneath them or taking to the air and thus leaving the ground altogether. It was an odd sight, especially since I was unbothered by the swaying and rotations of the ground beneath us.


    The ground at our feet vibrated for just under half a minute before ceasing as suddenly as it began. And then the dungeon began to speak again.


    [Hello Althos. Welcome to the Parthenon. You are now truly in the ancient home of the long-deceased goddess Athena.] The dungeon informed me, its tone wistful even in the eerie mechanical accent it possessed.


    [Thank you for your... hospitality.] I responded, attempting to be polite and civil while speaking with the dungeon. I heard a faint chuckle emanate from around me as if the dungeon itself were physically chuckling at my attempted politeness.


    [You are most welcome, newborn deity.] The dungeon responded, also speaking politely. I cringed at being called that, but I quickly opted not to respond. Patience is key. I told myself, holding back the urge I felt to reply and correct the dungeon.


    [This ancient temple is the true form of an echo that yet exists in the world of Athena''s birth and life, the planet known as Earth. And here, Athena''s power and the devotion of those who swore themselves to her remain ever-present.] The dungeon revealed, its voice soft and distant as if it were recalling far off friends.


    And in the wake of its words, the hallway we found ourselves in was suddenly illuminated by intensely bright natural light, as if we were standing in a field in the middle of a clear day. My followers who hadn''t been able to see much beyond the illuminated tapestries took a second to visually explore their surroundings once they realized they could see the entirety of our surroundings, while I readied myself to respond to the dungeon.


    <hr>


    [Why am I here?] I asked the dungeon, directly but also softly. My voice was quiet as I wondered why I had come to this place.


    [We''ve told you already. You''ve come here in pursuit of an opportunity. An opportunity to learn.] The dungeon told me, cryptically.


    [Okay... what have I come to learn?] I asked, taking a second mid-thought to formulate the ending of what was simultaneously my question and my response to the dungeon.


    [You have come here to learn about the past. About the ways of the gods of old. Or... at least the ways of the Olympians. And those ways will be useful to you.] The dungeon told me, hesitating for perhaps the first time since I met it as it said its last sentence.


    [I know this. I''m gonna need you to be... a bit more specific.] I told the thing, as ready to hear whatever I was about to hear next.


    [Our scan of you revealed something to us. It revealed your enemies. Or at least the ones you are aware of. You cannot defeat them as you are.] The dungeon informed me, causing my eyes to grow wide with shock. I was quiet for a few moments before I gathered my wits about me and responded.


    [What do mean I can''t defeat my enemies as I am?] I questioned, feeling my pride take a slight blow.


    [I defeated Paimon. He was rendered powerless and knocked out of commission. Even now some devils are fleeing his city. Because he was beaten.] I said, aware of the slight defensiveness edging into my voice.


    [Paimon isn''t your only enemy. But more than that, Paimon is not a foe you can defeat in your present state. At least not permanently. Even if you became an arch-devil, that alone may not be enough to defeat him.] There was an edge of urgency creeping into the dungeon''s voice.


    [Wait, now you''ve caused me to have more questions than answers. What do you mean Paimon isn''t my only enemy?] I asked, curiosity seeping into my voice. The dungeon sighed.


    [We are contained here. We have no way of knowing who is responsible for Paimon''s... descent into neutrality and away from lawfulness. But a creature like Paimon doesn''t veer away from lawfulness for no reason. Nor does he do it alone. If Paimon''s goals are in fact to cease being a devil and become a fear-monger than something powerful and thus far unseen is at least partially responsible for that choice.] The dungeon quietly revealed to me, opening my eyes to the possibility that there were greater, more dangerous forces at work in Infernius than myself or Paimon, a possibility I had only remotely considered in moments of idle thoughts, and not as a serious fear to consider. Until now.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    And for a moment I was paralyzed by indecision.


    <hr>


    So... a hidden foe, even stronger than Paimon is likely to be lurking in the distance? Paimon, a foe whose mind was beyond my touch, whose memories rebuffed me? And even if I ascend and gain the powers of an archdevil, would that be enough to defeat him?


    What can I do to put an end to him, and to learn whether or not he did this alone? What must I do? My thoughts threatened to consume me before the voice of the dungeon roused me from what might have become a downward spiral of uncertainty.


    <hr>


    [Althos! You being here means that there is a chance. A chance for you to become something more. If you''ll trust us.] The dungeon suggested, its voice ominous. I was quiet and waited for it to expand on its thoughts.


    [Paimon is a potent foe. He possesses strange powers and hitherto mysterious connections to creatures that are not devils. You saw what you suspect is an angel in his presence when you first met him. You know for a fact that some giants have served him, at least in the past. Paimon is not a threat to your life, but he may well be a link in a longer, darker, chain of entities. You must gain the power to open his mind and explore what unknown secrets lie hidden within it.] The dungeon explained, revealing little to me I didn''t already know.


    [And if you wish to gain more power, then you must cement your connection to key places in your life. You must do what Athena did: you must create holy sites.] The dungeon informed me, now revealing something new. I considered this for a second, curiosity infusing me before I asked a question to another source of knowledge.


    <hr>


    I sent an old friend a mental message. [Hey M.A., what is a holy site?] I asked while looking at my servants.


    They were studying the tapestries and wandering down the hallway. Their travel was slow but not non-existent. I began to follow them, with Casis beside me. The two of us were walking quite leisurely while M.A. readied an answer for me. When she responded, a minute or so after I asked her the question, I was quite interested to see what she had uncovered for me.


    [Hello Althos. A holy site is a place of special significance to a deity, so much so that it has been marked by that deity as a place where divine power seeps into it and alters it in ways that synchronize well with that deity''s domains, subdomains, and personality. Common holy sites included the places of a deity''s birth, the center of their worship, or the places of the births of their children. At the moment you can only make holy sites in the world of your birth, and only from places that weren''t once holy sites of other gods or higher beings. That may change as you gain power.]She informed me, her voice pleasant to hear.


    I smiled, internally, and readied another question. It took me a matter of moments to do so, all while Casis casually examined our surroundings. In the distance, I could see the exit out of this hallway. The next chamber over seemed to be centered around a statue, a beautiful, platinum statue.


    [If I were to create a holy site, what would it be like? What sort of an effect would it have on the site itself?] I wondered, intrigued by the possibility of doing such a thing. This time M.A.''s answer was almost immediate.


    [If you were to create a holy site, as it stands right now the site would be one with a nature motif. Even if you made it in a city or other sort of urban environment, the holy site and its immediate surroundings would quickly be filled with vibrant, awoken plant and fungal life devoted to you. And animals would gather there and be devoted to you, though only a quarter of them would be awoken.] She revealed happiness in her voice. I wondered if she was happy at the thought of what she was revealing before she began to speak again.


    [Plants, fungi, and animals would slowly accumulate experience until they could evolve. And when they evolved they''d gain classes. Some of them would become clerics of yours, others would become monks or dark-knights. They''d also gain natural abilities that allow them to influence minds, memories, and alignments. These abilities would include power over senses and the usage of their own, significantly weaker, mind-affecting spores.] She said, happiness edging into her voice at the thought of more minions falling under my influence.


    As she explained all of this I felt myself beginning to want it. I felt myself beginning to want what I was being told about. Holy sites sound... tempting. I thought, a grin on my face. And then I turned my attention back towards the dungeon.


    [Do you know what it takes to make a place into a holy site?] I asked the strange voice that had led me here in the first place. I was met with silence, a silence that lasted a few moments before the same voice from before shattered it.


    [Yes we do. It is no small feat, but the act of transforming a site into a holy place, at least for settled places like the forest of your birth, requires the performance of a miracle. And before you ask, a miracle is anything considered miraculous by the people who inhabit the place you seek to transform into a holy site. That is the first step in the creation of a holy site.] The dungeon told me, giving me a second to absorb that information. I stood in quiet contemplation of that before the dungeon continued onwards, evidently ready and eager to help me learn.


    [Once something that is recognized as a miracle by the people who live in or around the holy site has been performed the inhabitants of the place may convert to your worship. They''ll be presented with a choice to do so via the system, and if enough accept, usually over half of those asked, you''ll be asked if you''d like to desecrate the place since you''re an evil god. If you say yes you would, the place becomes a holy site, and your energy will infuse it, becoming a part of the creatures living around the site and any future creatures born nearby.] I learned, thanks to the dungeon''s excited message.


    So that''s what it takes huh? I questioned, surprised at how straightforward it sounded.


    [That''s not as bad as I was expecting.] I confessed, thinking there''d be more to it than that.


    <hr>


    As my allies and myself drew closer and closer to the edge of the hallway, even they began to be able to glimpse the empty doorway. And I heard a number of idle remarks about it.


    "There''s something... shiny, in front of us isn''t there?" Tristan asked, her third eye focused on it but the statue''s gleaming made it difficult for her to make out precisely what it was.


    "How pretty..." Hagitha remarked, her voice uncharacteristically quiet.


    "I wonder if there''s something I could stab up ahead..." Salifinos muttered, his voice quiet. His eyes were starring straight ahead, coldly. His tail spun around and around as if it were possessed by a creature with a mind far wilder than Salifinos'' own was. The other imps all began to cackle wildly at that.


    "I can sense something precious ahead of us." Lisabeth said, goosebumps popping into view on her arms and neck. Her eyes were thin slits as she starred in curiosity at something she couldn''t quite make out. The young dwarf occasionally sniffed the air, making an audible and strange noise as she attempted to ascertain whatever valuable object laid just at the edge of her ability to sense it. She was almost certainly referring to the statue up in the distant chamber.


    I was surprised to hear a familiar, insectile voice make itself audible as we wandered closer to the empty doorway. "I can sense... something in the distance. I don''t know if it''s what you, sister, sense, but it is... something." Said the Mi-Go, its insectoid, buzzing voice, catching all of us off-guard as we closed the distance that separated us from the bizarre doorway. And then it was Samyaza''s turn to speak.


    The orb angel''s robotic tones filled the air surrounding us once we were close enough to the doorway that we could all see through it and make out the work of art that waited to greet us.


    "I am sensing... strong divine energy up ahead." The robot-like angel told us. I stiffened, but I didn''t stop. Not even when the dungeon began to speak.


    [You are close now. Closer than ever before to the vestige. To the inheritor of Athena''s will and might. You have come so far and gained the most superficial knowledge possible, but now every step takes you closer to wisdom. True, lawful wisdom.] The thing whispered, its voice so low and quiet that it felt sinister. But that didn''t stop me, it didn''t stop us.


    "I am... ready to seize another opportunity." I said, trying to get myself into the right head-space to be in the presence of something like me. Or rather, something as like me as possible given the current state of the multiverse.


    "I am ready to learn." I whispered, slightly more confidently this time.


    "I am ready to meet... something like me!" I said, almost believing it this time.


    As we reached the empty doorway and stopped just short of it for the first time, I whispered one more thing. "I am ready to encounter another divine creature of law. Even if this one isn''t exactly... alive." I muttered, readying myself for whatever we were about to face that wasn''t just a statue in a massive chamber.


    When I looked into the chamber myself I felt something I had never truly felt before: the rush of alien divine power surging into me.

 Chapter 151: First Encounters

    At the area just short of the doorway I began to feel strange, alienly sourced pleasantness well up within me. It came at me from nowhere I could see, but in an instant, I felt the strange sensation in every part of me.


    The pleasantness that welled within me wasn''t something I liked. It felt... bright, for lack of a better word. I was a deity, and therefore subtly influenced by my domains and subdomains. A number of them hissed within me, spitting and sputtering at the strange energy invading me. But the energy itself wasn''t hostile, merely alien and active, exploring my body like an invasive insect inside the body of a new host, or victim.


    The energy rushed through me, before settling in my muscles. Once there, the energy settled. And as a consequence of it, I felt a strange sort of passive increase in my strength, as my muscles rippled outward and increased in density. Though I now felt stronger I didn''t exactly have a place to safely determine the extent of my newfound physical might. Nor did I even know the original limits of my physical abilities anyway, so I suspected it''d be hard to determine just how much my power had increased.


    So instead of wondering about the ever-changing limits of my abilities, I examined my physical surroundings.


    <hr>


    The chamber just beyond where my allies and I stood was a circular one. It wasn''t gigantic or gaudily built, but it did house something somewhat gaudy: an impressively tall platinum statue that was clearly supposed to be a representation of Athena. It had all of the symbols that marked previous Athenian artwork, from the cap, to the spear, and even had a shield that had a representation of the face of Earth''s first Medusa''s in the middle of it.


    Before any of us could step the doorway and into the chamber, the dungeon spoke to me with a never-before-heard level of urgency. [We don''t recommend letting your servants into the chamber beyond here. Not all of them anyway. Chaotic evil creatures who aren''t divine will die outright. Chaotic but non-evil creatures will feel nauseous. Evil but non-chaotic will be in pain, though the pain will dissipate immediately once they leave this chamber.] The dungeon said, urgently.


    [Wait, what? What is the cause of this?] I asked, stopping my followers from advancing forward with a single sweeping gesture.


    [Deities of above a certain level of power project an aura of divine magnificence around themselves. What lies in the chamber ahead of you is a vestige, but Athena was more than powerful enough to project an aura and thus even the weakest of her vestiges is also strong enough to do that.] The temple said, revealing the nature of the danger that lied ahead.


    [The properties of divine auras differ from aura to aura and are as malleable as the gods themselves were. In life, Athena''s divine aura was not this... inimical to evil, but her vestige is not the goddess. The vestige is more simple-minded. It is confused by and seeks to protect itself from evil, or better yet redeem evil when it can, but its lawfulness renders its aura far less dangerous to lawful evil beings than to chaotic evil ones. And a vestige''s aura cannot harm an actual deity.] Said the voice of the temple.


    I sighed and began to perform a quick round of Identify on my followers. The results were intriguing.


    <hr>


    [Lawful Good: Rebecca


    Lawful Neutral: Lisabeth, Mi-Go


    Lawful Evil: All of the devils


    Neutral Evil: Samyaza


    Chaotic Evil: Gallow, Hagitha]


    So that''s the alignment breakdown of my pack? How interesting. I even have someone here who is lawful good! I remarked, in the safety of my own head.


    The reason for my shock was partially because I hadn''t had the time to sit down and do a mass alignment check on my minions, even the ones that I knew and had gone on adventures with. Having access to their memories, and even studying them, only hinted at their alignment. It didn''t reveal it to me which was unlike my Identifypower.


    I refocused my attention on my followers and began to speak. "Listen. Of all of us, only Gallow and Hagitha can''t enter the chamber with me. If anyone else wants too they can. That said if any of the devils come they''ll be in pain while we are exploring the chamber and interacting with Athena''s vestige." I told them, my voice commanding and revealing the unvarnished truth to my followers. I paused, and then added something extra to my explanation.


    "I''ve noticed that each of us gets separate messages from the dungeon. I learned that while we walked here because I scanned your minds and ''recorded'' the messages you got from the dungeon. I didn''t and don''t want to assume you all know what I was told about divine auras." I explained, just in case they were confused about why I had told them something they may have already known. And then I explained the effects of Athena''s vestiges'' aura, as the temple had told me.


    Their reactions were to look at me with appreciative gazes because they recognized that I was worried about them. Or about the danger they''d put themselves and thus ourselves in if any of us acted without thinking.


    "Well, in that case, Hagitha and I will simply stay put." Gallow told me. He had taken a matter of seconds to react to my statement. I had assumed he was contemplating how to react to my words. Hagitha turned to him and her eyes narrowed as she glared at him.


    "But I want to see a goddess!" She said, her voice surprisingly childish as she whined at that. I turned to face the dark-elf and thought about how to proceed from here in a way that helped ensure she didn''t try anything.


    Hmm... how to advance from here safely? What if I used some spells? I could easily project my own senses to my followers who can''t or won''t travel beyond the doorway. And I could also seal up the path forward to ensure that my minions don''t try to rush in anyway. Yes... Yes I think that''ll work.I realized, having needed only a few moments to dream up that scheme.


    "You already see a god. And more than that... I never said you couldn''t see a goddess'' ghost. I said you couldn''t get close to her." I explained. But my explanation wasn''t done just yet. I readied a spell, a simple projection linked to my vision, but didn''t cast it just yet.


    "I can infer from what the Parthenon told me that the vestige''s aura won''t affect you if you stay outside of this chamber. It waited until just now to warn me of the effects of the aura, so it didn''t think you would be affected until now. That said..." I said as I snapped my fingers at the same time activated my spell.


    There was a wall on my right. It was made of a reflective, glass-like substance that was molded to provide a reflection of those who journeyed to the temple. The wall was unadorned by any particular tapestry and thus perfect for my spell. I unleashed it quietly while my allies were distracted by the sudden snapping of my fingers, and the reflections of myself and my followers the wall showed us was immediately replaced.


    The spell overtook the wall in an instant, allowing the mortals and outsiders who had accompanied me into the depths of the Parthenon to see through my eyes. It even allowed them to see my H.U.D.


    "Those of you who don''t accompany me into the chamber will be able to see everything I see just by gazing into this wall." I said as I pointed the same hand that snapped earlier at the wall to my right. It was my left hand so the motion was odd, but it felt appropriate.


    My followers all turned to the wall and were astonished to see what I saw, namely them turned away from me, but also the assorted icons that lined the edges of my vision and represented short-cuts of sorts to the countless menus I could use to influence reality.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "Now you can see what I can see. And because of that, those of us who wouldn''t die if we entered the chamber ahead of us will be able to meet a goddess''... ghost. In its truest form." I told the gathered crowd of creatures, pausing for a second to consider how to most accurately describe a vestige. I settled on "Ghost" even though it didn''t feel particularly accurate.


    "It''s time for us, for me, to meet what remains of Athena." I muttered, quietly as I prepared myself for what came next.


    And then I turned to face the chamber containing the platinum statue and strode into it.


    <hr>


    I studied the interior of the chamber mid-step even as I crossed the threshold into the place. My eyes quickly flitted from one part of the chamber to the next.


    The chamber itself wasn''t a massive or imposing place. It was just over 17 meters wide and there was a thick ceiling visible above us, which couldn''t be any more than 17 meters high. The main feature of the place was the platinum statue of Athena which stood an imposing 10 meters tall. And once I crossed into the chamber I became aware of more than just the statue.


    Upon taking my first step into the chamber I could see normally in it but I was made visually aware of the thickness of divine power that covered every centimeter of the place. It becoming visible to me was enough of a shock that it made me catch my breath, causing me to freeze up for a second.


    The power itself was odd. It caused everything in the chamber to change colors, on a subtle scale. It wasn''t as if the chamber was completely dyed a single color immediately, but rather as if everything in the space was suddenly given a yellow tint as if being highlighted. Even more of the power-infused me with every step I took deeper and deeper into the lair of the vestige.


    I was also keenly aware that I was being watched. I felt Athena''s presence all around me. And it made me feel like my sins were crawling on my back.


    For a moment I felt shame at the evil deeds I had committed throughout my life, which was an impressive amount given how short my life has been. And when it was amplified by shock that was an overwhelming sensation, but one that took me mere seconds to get over once I realized where it came from.


    Truly impressive, but not enough to stop someone who has the subdomains of corruption and darkness under their influence.I remarked in my own head, as I shook off the sensation.


    <hr>


    Once I was a few steps into the chamber I stopped and waited for my followers to come in after me. Those of them who could quickly followed me. Unsurprisingly, all of the creatures wouldn''t die in Athena''s presence wandered into the area beyond the doorway and once Samyaza, the last and slowest of them, had done so I activated Earth Controland sealed the entrance off behind us by raising a wall of stone to cover the doorway.


    "Sorry! This is for your own good." I said, to no one in particular. I spoke so that Hagitha and Gallow knew I was doing this for them. And I added another statement for good measure. "I''ll reward you in a bit! Once we get out of the Parthenon I''m gonna give both of you something worthwhile." I told them, again speaking seemingly to no particular person, though it was more accurate to say that I was speaking to people who weren''t present in the chamber.


    My children, if the three creations could be called that, quickly wandered to my side. The Mi-Go silently crawled over the floor until it was right behind me, and stretched its head so that it was right beside mine.


    Rebecca and Lisabeth walked hand in hand until they stood beside me, with Lisabeth in the middle, Rebecca on one side of her and myself on the other. Everyone else walked until they stood behind us, logically making a choice to have us stand in front of them since we were all different sorts of divine beings and they weren''t.


    "How are you feeling?" I asked the creatures who had accompanied me. In response to my question, I heard a number of things at once.


    All three of my creations, the creatures present that I had personally and directly created, responded to me by uttering different variations of "Fine" or even "Good". Samyaza sent me a complaint-riddled mental message.


    The devils all complained of minor, ambient pain. It was like they had been stricken with incredibly sudden but tolerable arthritis, painful but something they could handle without any magical assistance. After listening to them for a moment, I was slightly jealous they didn''t have to feel guilty about their misdeeds like I had had too.


    [It''s time for you to approach the statue.] The temple, which doubled as a dungeon, told me. I nodded, a seemingly nonsensical act that probably confused my followers, and took a single step towards the imposing statue. And the air at the feet of the statue froze, not in an icy way but in an expectant way. Tension filled the air, but I took another careful step towards the statue. And then I began to walk a bit more boldly towards the still air at the feet of Athena''s platinum figure.


    <hr>


    The vestige began to manifest when I was perhaps five steps from where it would fully manifest. The frozen air that had first reacted to my presence began to change colors and take on a precise shape. The color it changed wasn''t the strange shade of yellow that tinted everything in the chamber, but the bronze color of some humans.


    The shape was harder to make out, at first anyway. The air that was changing colors quickly began to take on a defined shape, the shape of a muscular humanoid frame. Unlike when creatures were formed from magical circles, Athena''s vestige began to manifest from the bottom up.


    Athena''s form first made itself known to me and my followers by manifesting a pair of feet in combat-ready boots made of divine energy shaped to resemble bronze. The feet were tanned like bronze, causing them to match well with the boots. And the divine energy continued to shape itself into the form of a beautiful, battle-ready woman, who for the first seconds of the manifestation was relatively featureless.


    In a matter of seconds what stood before me was a tall, gray-eyed warrior woman who held a spear in one hand and a shield in the other. She had been still while she was forming a physical shell with which to interact with the world, but once the warrior was fully-formed she took a step forward, lowered her gaze and looked down at me with emotionless platinum eyes.


    Despite the heavy spear she held in one hand and the shield that was strapped to her other hand, Athena was wearing a long tunic made of divine energy that was fashioned to resemble dyed wool that covered all of her body aside from her feet. The tunic was a shade of yellow that wasn''t unlike gold.


    Athena''s vestige was almost four meters tall. Every centimeter of her was visibly muscular, enough that it was noticeable through her clothing as her body parts strained against the tunic she wrapped herself in, but not so much so that she resembled a berserker. Instead, she had the wiry muscles of a well-trained acrobat or experienced duelist.


    Her aura surrounded her now that she had manifested a fully formed body and covered every centimeter she took up in a dense golden glow that mixed with her tunic and what little of her bronze skin in ostentatious ways.


    She studied me as I studied her, and we were both silent for over an entire minute. That silence was broken when she opened her mouth to speak.


    "And to think... the first god to creep into my temple in countless eons is but a lawful evil monstrosity." She said, coldly. Her voice was powerful, effortlessly filling the entire chamber and spilling past the blocked doorway into the hallway beyond, where my servants waited, curious and afraid of what was about to happen next.


    I smiled at her, aware of her tone but not sensing any bloodlust coming from the vestige in front of me. She wasn''t projecting a desire to commit violence, and I knew I stood in the presence of a creature that was at least theoretically an echo of a creature far stronger than myself. And it made it hard to think about how to proceed, which explained my next action: introducing myself to a goddess of wisdom, in her own temple.


    "Hello Athena. My name is Althos." I told her. In response, her eyes narrowed at me and she angrily opened her mouth to speak.


    "I know what you are, boy. When this place," At that remark she pointed her spear straight up at the ceiling above us, as if to indicate that she was referring to the Parthenon itself "Scanned you, it didn''t just tell you about me. It told me about you." She explained.


    For a second I felt a bit of nervousness as she continued to glower at me. But that didn''t stop me from speaking.


    "If my actions came across as rude I apologize. I was merely... doing what decorum from my culture would suggest I do in the presence of fellow nobility. Of a fellow leader. Or rather... a fellow divine being." I said, not quite lying but more so grasping to find an adequate explanation for my behavior. Athena kept her gaze locked on me and readjusted where her spear-tip was pointing, turning it back to me, before she next spoke.


    "I know why you''re here, but as a way to make amends for lying in my presence, even in such an unintentional way, state your reasoning for venturing into this place. And be honest this time." She demanded, and there was an audible tone of anger in her voice. A sort of righteous indignation.


    Shit.I remarked mentally, not having wanted to deceive her but in the process having accidentally upset her. But I also knew that her reaction wasn''t unreasonable. And so I decided, as I often did, that candid honesty was my best policy.


    "I am here because the temple reacted to my presence and kidnapped my minions. It told me that it captured them and would release them if I come here, learned, and seek out an ''opportunity'' to learn the ''Old Ways'', about ''holy sites'' and to become ''something more''. It also told me about you. This is the temple''s doing, not mine." I confessed, not bothering to deal with pride at this moment and instead choosing to hope that my honesty would change how Athena saw me.


    My words had an effect: they surprised the vestige enough that the thing''s eyes opened wide in shock. And when she next opened her mouth it wasn''t to talk to me. It was to talk to the dungeon.


    "Is this true?" She asked, demanding to know how truthful I was being at that moment, though I didn''t doubt that she sensed nothing but radiant honesty coming from me. And then the dungeon began to speak, its voice audible not only to myself and Athena but to my followers since the voice was coming from the statue itself.

 Chapter 152: Memories And Myths

    [The boy speaks the truth. This is my doing, shade.] The dungeon responded, its voice emotionless. Despite the lack of emotion audible in the dungeon''s voice, there was a certain viciousness in its word choice.


    The word "shade" felt unnecessarily mean, even if it was technically an accurate descriptor of Athena. For a moment I was happy that the thing was telling the truth, but that moment was interrupted by none other than Athena''s vestige herself when she reacted to the Parthenon''s statement.


    "Why!?" The goddess'' vestige demanded, anger infusing her corporeal form and causing her aura to thicken around her. She once again handled her spear, dramatically redirecting the thing so that it pointed straight upwards, towards the ceiling of the temple''s innermost chamber.


    Silence filled the chamber we found ourselves in. Athena turned and glared straight up, ignoring me for the time being. We waited until the dungeon spoke again, as both of us wanted to know what the dungeon''s motivations were. When it next spoke it spoke at length, and upon successfully uttering each sentence it spent a single second in silence before pressing onward with its explanation.


    [Althos is a lawful god. And he was born months ago. Do you not see what that means?] The dungeon asked. I looked at Athena curiously, because I didn''t know what that meant given the strange behavior of the Parthenon itself. Athena considered this revelation curiously.


    Athena was quiet for a good few seconds while she thought about what the dungeon had said. There was a look of introspection on the vestige''s face, which lasted a tense few moments. And then she began to speak.


    "So what? He''s a lawful god, should that mean anything to me?" She asked, haughtily. There was a certain arrogance in her voice and for a second I was reminded of the memories I had absorbed. In many of those memories, I had learned something important: it was often arrogant people who were clueless. I smiled at that thought and wondered if Athena''s vestige''s arrogance was proportional to her wisdom or to her cluelessness.


    The dungeon sighed before it began to speak next. [He can restore order. He''s here in...] The dungeon''s voice suddenly stopped talking, as if it realized it had made a mistake. And then in a flash of insight, I realized something: the vestige might not have known where she was. Athena began to speak in response to the Parthenon''s last comment and I attempted to scan the thing''s mind and memories. And was promptly disappointed.


    I threw myself like a coiled spring, or an angry serpent, at the mind of the Olympian vestige. And unsurprisingly I was rebuffed, just like I had been when I attempted to snap up Paimon''s memories. But unlike last time I received a notification from the system.


    [Alert:


    Athena''s vestiges'' mind has thoroughly thrown off your attempts to penetrate its defenses. Fortunately for you, the vestige has barely a third of the power of Athena, and none of this vestiges'' power is related to the mind. So she doesn''t know what you did. If you try it again though, she may find out.]


    The system''s alert made my eyes go wide and I was quietly grateful that by coincidence this vestige had no mind-related powers. It also hinted at something quite interesting:Does each vestige have different powers?I wondered, which was what had just been quite strongly hinted at by the system. All of this took place in the instant before Athena began to speak.


    "''He''s here in...''? Where is ''here''? Where are we?" The vestige asked, two new emotions seeping into her voice as she did so: fear and confusion.


    [Well we''ve messed up. You see, Athena''s vestige has two big problems: the thing can''t leave the Parthenon and it has... memory problems.] The Parthenon rather cryptically told me. I responded with my own cryptic and simple message.


    [I''m gonna need you to tell me what''s going on. In full.] I demanded, my mental voice filled with power and with annoyance. The Parthenon''s walls seemed to shift subtly around Athena''s vestige, my followers, and myself as if the entire place were sighing in annoyance. And then it began to talk to me.


    <hr>


    [Athena''s vestige is not Athena. That''s something that you need to remember. We''d argue it''s the first thing you need to remember. The shade is... an imitation of her. And because of that, it has some real flaws.] The message revealed, causing me to sigh in annoyance. Why can''t anything ever be simple?I wondered, closing my eyes for a second while I considered what could come next. And then the Parthenon revealed more.


    [We were not originally in Infernius. And the vestige was not always like this. Over half a million years ago,] The Parthenon told me, beginning an explanation. Half a million years? So the cataclysm happened at some point over half a million years ago... I realized, knowing that Athena died during the catastrophic end of the so-called "Mythic Age", but until now I had no clue how long ago this age ended. Now I had one clue, a small one, but a clue nonetheless.


    I had creatures in my service who remembered the incredibly distant past, but their memories were hazy. It was because of that that I didn''t yet have an exact date, especially one relevant to the current era, of when the old era ended.


    [We were on Earth. Which is a world in a different universe. As you no doubt know, Athena was born on Earth. She never became a transcendent being, which... makes the fact that her vestige is here, in a different universe even more complicated than it would have been otherwise. While she was there, she was a normal vestige. And I was just a temple, not a dungeon. It was in the process of arriving here that I became... something more.] Said the Parthenon.


    I looked at Athena''s vestige in a new light now that I knew some of the things I knew. It was an ancient thing, not as old as some of my followers, nor as old as Paimon, but it was still unimaginably ancient. Half a million years was a difficult amount of time to wrap my mind around, even theoretically. I could only do it because of the memories of my oldest servants that were already safely stored within my mind.


    [Athena''s vestiges'' memory is wrapped here. At the beginning of every week, she remembers everything, including our time on Earth. And by the end of the week... she forgets everything. We''re pretty late in the week so her memory is hazy right now. She can remember Athena''s life without any problems, it''s her own time as a vestige she can''t remember properly.] The Parthenon explained, informing me of a great deal at once.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    I looked up at the Parthenon''s ceiling above me and I asked a question out loud. It was to both the vestige and to the Parthenon itself.


    "Is the plan for me to heal the vestige?" I asked, allowing my voice to explode outward and fill every centimeter of the temple I found myself in. In the wake of my question, there was a stunned silence that filled the place I found myself in. It was an awkward silence and one that lingered for far too long.


    <hr>


    In the wake of me asking my question, everyone turned to face me. I felt several pairs of eyes, and the gaze of the Parthenon fall upon me. I sighed and waited for a response.


    "Do you think you could do that?" The vestige asked, unsure of what we were discussing healing her from. I looked at her and studied her carefully. There was a look of confusion on her face, and a twinge of fear in her grey eyes. And then I asked her a simple question.


    "Do you even know what we''re discussing healing you of?" I asked, my voice soft even though there was a hardness in my gaze. I had asked her the question, knowing the answer. I wanted to see how honest she''d be with me now that she was confused and suspected I had something that she didn''t have. She was quiet for a moment, a look of softness and fear in her gaze. And then she responded.


    "No. I don''t know what you''re discussing, but I do know you''re not lying." She said. Her words were honest, and they revealed that she knew she had a weakness. In that moment my estimation of her rose. And I considered how to respond to what she had just say, in a way that was tactful and respectful.


    "I don''t know if I can heal you. But you see... I want to try." I told her, conveying a newfound desire honestly and respectfully. She studied me for a second, before asking me a question.


    "Althos... what is that you like to heal me of? And... why?" She wondered, which in all fairness were sensible questions. I mulled them over, quietly for over half a minute before opening my mouth to speak.


    "I''ve been told that you have memory problems. I would like to help you overcome those problems." I explained, simply and sincerely. And that was just the beginning of a longer statement I wanted to make.


    When I opened my mouth I first sighed. And then I began to speak. "Athena we are not enemies. I understand why you''d think that we were, but we aren''t. The true enemy is out there." I said, before gesturing in the general direction my party and I had come from.


    "The true enemy is Paimon. He''s the foe we should fear. He seeks something from me. I now suspect it''s my blood, so that he may evolve, but he''d also seek something from you if he got the chance. He''s interested in the gods. He''d find his way here, and figure out how to harass you until he gets what he wants. But he won''t. Because with your help I''m gonna stop him." I explained to the vestige, my voice growing increasingly intense with each word. And I wasn''t done.


    I waited the span of time it took for a heart to beat once, allowing the tension to build in the air before next speaking. And when I opened my mouth to speak I began to channel the special sort of pride a small part of me felt about my godliness.


    "I am going to heal you so that you can more effectively help me stop Paimon. I am going to attempt to help you recover your memories, memories you appear not to realize you have momentarily forgotten." I informed the goddess, my voice soft and kind.


    "So long as Paimon exists I am in danger. But that''s not my only reason. I hate and fear ignorance. I hate and fear ignorance so much, and you''re suffering from major, almost hellish ignorance. It plagues you so well that you don''t even know what you do and don''t know. If I were suffering from that... would you sit idly by and do nothing if you had the power to help?" I asked, looking Athena directly in the eyes.


    I watched her carefully consider the question, visions of hypothetical situations flashing in her gaze. After a few seconds she looked at me and then spoke softly. "Yes I would. But I suppose you''re nicer than I am." She told me. I looked at her in confusion while asking her my next question.


    "What do you mean? I thought you were supposed to lean lawful good?" I questioned, surprised by the vestiges'' honest response. She chuckled at me, the sound that escaped her lips being quite soft but still plainly audible. And then she began to speak.


    <hr>


    "Well Althos... just because I lean lawful good doesn''t mean that every action of mine is that way. Just because you lean lawful evil doesn''t mean that every one of your actions is lawful or evil does it?" She asked, wittily. And she wasn''t done talking either.


    "I can be bad." She told me, slyly.


    "Let me tell you a story. There once was a woman named Medusa. This woman had unearthly, nearly divine beauty. You see she was blessed by the gods, or more accurately by one goddess. She was blessed by Aphrodite, the goddess of sexuality and beauty. Well Medusa''s beauty was so intense that one of the gods, Poseidon himself lusted after her." The vestige told me, her eyes growing quite faint as if she was recalling a far off memory.


    "Poseidon was my uncle. He was also one of my greatest rivals. But what he did to Medusa was... singularly cruel. Medusa was a priestess of mine, and he fell upon her like a tsunami on an unsuspecting, ill-prepared coastal village. And he had the audacity to do it in my temple." She moaned, her voice filled with grief at this intrusion.


    "He not only violated a temple to me, but he also laid a hand on one of my servants. He took the place and left it unclean!" She was shouting now. But there was something... off about what she said.


    Her priorities are the... temple?I wondered, having picked up what was left unclean.


    "Poseidon''s... semen dirtied my floor! That bastard not only robbed me of a servant, he even left the place he had the audacity to do it in disarray." She said, snarling. Her voice was animalistic now. I was looking at her, and I could tell there was a strange expression on my face, because my mind was running a mile a minute.


    "So in order to get the girl out of my temple, and to scare away Poseidon, who I couldn''t move directly against due to rules we had in place in the Olympian pantheon, I had to get creative. So I laid a curse on Medusa." Athena said, now beginning to whisper quietly. And at this I reacted.


    "Wait, someone got sexually assaulted in one of your temples, a worshiper of yours, and you curse the victim? I just... I could almost accept not moving against Poseidon, but why did you attack a worshiper of yours who was the victim of a heinous crime? That''s not lawful or good." I remarked, truly at a loss for words.


    It wasn''t the evilness of it that got me, because as an evil being I could stomach pure spite. It was the nonsensicality of it that truly took my breath away. But Athena just laughed and brushed my concerns aside. A second later she was ranting again.


    "Oh my curse... it was a creative one you see. I am a goddess of inspiration after all. You may think of me as a villain in this story, and my actions were spurred by malice, but my curse protected Medusa! For you see, anyone who opted to look at her from that point on turned into stone. That way no man would ever violate her again." Athena''s vestige told me, before beginning to fall into a fit of cold, cruel laughter.


    "You... you were right." I said, after a few seconds of stunned silence. I wasn''t the only person who was stunned by that story either, my followers behind me were also quietly absorbing the horrifying nature of that tale.


    "You said not all of your actions were good or lawful, and your actions to Medusa were absolutely not good or lawful." I said, exasperated. I looked at her, wondering for a second if this was the right path. And then she looked me in the face. There was a decidedly serious look in her eyes, one that left no doubt in my mind that whatever she was about to say was important.


    "I didn''t tell you that story idly. I told you it to convey to you the seriousness of my actions and how I react when I feel wronged. You may disagree with my actions, but I care not for your judgments. I just wanted you to know how I may act if I feel... slighted." She said, her word choice threatening and defensive.


    "But I didn''t do that to scare you. Just to inform you. If you believe you can heal me, and if you want to try, I want to offer you something suitable in exchange for your efforts. I recognize people''s talents, even if I have a peculiar way of showing it. I reward good work." She told me, regally.


    "Althos I would like to bargain. I would like for us to swear oaths on the River Styx. And I offer you something significant and you offer me something significant." She said, ominously. And then she waited for me to respond. Her grey-eyes glinted with impatience, it permeated them, as she awaited my response.

 Chapter 153: Bargains Are Made

    I realized after a few seconds of waiting that the utterance "On the River Styx" was supposed to have some sort of significance, but I had absolutely no idea what swearing on a river had to do with bargains between gods. And so I sent a mental message to the Parthenon, figuring it''d know better than anyone what, if any, significance that''d have.


    [What is so important about this river that Athena''s vestige just brought up?] I asked, curiously. I kept my gaze neutral and my eyes locked on Athena''s own. I noticed, unhappily, that each passing second increased the amount of impatience present within her steel-colored gaze. Thankfully I didn''t have to wait long to be told what Athena''s oath meant.


    [By swearing an oath ''On the River Styx'' the vestige is promising to uphold her end of the bargain. The River Styx was a sacred location in the underworld and afterlives of those who worshiped the Olympians. Its goddess was one of the first to join Zeus when he vowed to overthrow the Titans, as a reward for her loyalty Zeus made her the deity who enforced all oaths, even ones he made. The Olympians took nothing more seriously than their oaths. But now... we suppose this is meant to signify her seriousness?] The Parthenon revealed, its voice losing certainty at the end of its remarks.


    Now armed with the knowledge to move forward intelligently I readied myself and then began to speak to Athena''s vestige. As I began to speak I hoped that my words wouldn''t be perceived as disrespect or offensive to the ancient and intimidating vestige, out of a healthy urge for self-preservation more than any actual desire to be culturally sensitive.


    "Forgive my ignorance Athena, but how will our bargain proceed? I am willing and able to bargain if you seek my help, but I do not want to offend you or your customs." I told her, suffusing my voice with respect, which was more genuine than not since I did respect her power. She appraised me for a second, a conflicted look on her face as she weighed her options for recovery and for the retrieval of that which is lost to her.


    After a tense few seconds, her desire for that which she knew she was deprived of but didn''t fully understand seemed to win out and she gave me a look of kindly exhaustion before beginning to speak. "We will declare our intentions to swear on the River Styx first. And then we will state what we will services we will perform. Now is the time to negotiate so we are clear on what we are doing and what will be given as payment for services rendered." Athena declared.


    <hr>


    "According to the Parthenon itself, I am in need of healing. It is... admittedly a bit unusual for me to be told I am in need of healing from a condition affecting me with no symptoms that I can perceive, but I trust the Parthenon and I am willing to entertain the idea that I might be suffering from something that weakens my ability to recall memories." The vestige told me, her voice trembling in what might well have been fear as she spoke.


    "I am aware that mortals often suffer from maladies that have no visible symptoms and whose direness is often misunderstood by them as a result of that. I will not make that mistake. I would like to ask you to perform one service for me first and then, depending on what the first service yields there may be more work in store for you." Athena''s remnant said to me, her voice quiet. I study her for a second and consider nodding my consent to work for her, but I stay my hand for one more moment.


    "I would like to help you. After all, despite our differences, we share a foe, and we are both divine beings. There''s an extent to which it would be wise for us to stick together." I say, simply. I pause to feign taking a breath at this point before continuing to speak.


    "But what am I getting in exchange? I am asking because I am not just a god. I am also a devil. A creature of deals, bargains, trades, and oaths. Both of these aspects of myself are important. And as a devil I want to make honest, fair deals that exchange services and payments of equal value." I told the vestige quite confidently. She laughed at my declaration and then closed her eyes in contemplation.


    After a few moments of quiet consideration, she spoke once again. "As payment for the first service I am going to ask you to perform for me I will give you the lowest tier of influence over two of the following domains or subdomains: Artifice, Civilization, Purity, Emotions, and War. In exchange for that, I would ask you to use your powers to ascertain what, if anything is wrong with me." She told me, a glint in her eyes.


    I looked at her with some interest, before speaking. "Can you not use your powers on yourself? You and I both have access to the knowledge, healing, and medicine domains." I asked, curiously. She shook her head and quickly replied to me.


    "I cannot actually. As a vestige, even one that supposedly has memory problems, I know that my ability to use divine powers are exceedingly limited. Frustratingly enough I could actually use my abilities on other creatures but I cannot use them on myself." She confessed, her tone suggesting that the frustration she said she felt was genuine.


    I pretended to mull over her offer for a few moments, before speaking to her. Athena''s vestige is the honest sort... I wonder if we''ll change the future by being nice and feigning impreciseness with the language of this oath.I thought, before deciding to take a risk and see if being kind here worked for me in the future.


    "Athena, I will accept your offer. If you grant me the lowest tiers of influence over the domains of civilization and war I will do my best to perform the service you''re asking me too." I told her, my eyes gleaming at the thoughts of the rewards I was seconds away from. And then I prepared myself to recite the oath she had told me about earlier.


    "I swear by the River Styx that I will use the assorted powers at my disposal to determine if you, Athena, are indeed suffering from memory problems and tell you the results of my search." I told her, and for a second I felt a strange stirring in my heart. It was as if I had just signed a dastardly contract, one with potentially life-threatening consequences. Athena''s vestige smiled at me, visibly delighted, and then she began to speak.


    "I swear by the River Styx that I will grant you, Althos, the lowest tier of influence over the domains of war and civilization if you use your powers to determine if I am indeed suffering from memory problems and inform me of the results of your search." She told me, a thin smile playing at her lips, teasing them upwards wily. I nodded at her, and then immediately began my search to see what sort of maladies plagued her through a usage ofIdentify.


    <hr>


    [Name: Athena


    Class: Paladin Level 30, Holy Defender Fighter Level 30, Crusader


    Species: Vestige


    Faction: The Olympians


    Alignment: Lawful Good


    Source of Law: The Edicts of Olympus


    Personal Vice: Pride


    Status: Fractured memories, owning to damage inflicted on Athena''s soul when the Parthenon was taken from one universe to another. The damages are in fact healable, but to heal a vestige a god must be the healer.


    Innate Magical Ability: Immense. As a vestige, Athena''s magical powers are at least equal to your own at the moment. She has a basic level of mastery over all twenty schools of magic.


    Class Suitability: As the vestige of a goddess Athena is already equipped with the classes most suitable to her skills and personality.


    Magic Suitability: Healing magic.]


    After I reread the window that had just filled my vision I began to smile.So it''s true then... and it''s because of damage to her soul, of all things...I mused, momentarily lost in the joy I felt at being able to not only see the problem Athena was suffering from, but also know its cause and that it was healable. I willed away the notification with a smile and then refocused my gaze at Athena.


    "Athena, I have very good news," I said happily. Athena''s eyes brightened considerably, as she waited for me to expand on the news I had just promised her. "I have discovered the truth of your condition. And that it is healable." I told her, and then at once, I felt several kilograms lighter, as if declaring that had just lightened the load of my soul.


    "You are indeed suffering from a fractured memory. It is as the Parthenon suspected. During the moments in which the Parthenon was taken from Greece to its current resting place in Inferninus, the land of devils in an alternative universe, you suffered soul damage. Fortunately, the damage you suffered is damage that can be healed. That I can heal." I told her, speaking in the tone of a bearer of good, maybe even excellent news.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Athena''s facial expression suddenly went from one intense emotion to the next over the course of a few seconds, and I couldn''t say that I blamed her for feeling a lot at that moment. After all, my words revealed the terrible truth to her: she was in another universe''s lawful evil dimension, not the world of her birth. But the next voice to speak was that of the Parthenon.


    [You can heal her? Oh thank goodness! We... hoped that you could and that you would, but we didn''t dare hope that we''d be correct. For if our hopes were raised, only to be dashed... it''d be devastating even to one as ancient as us.] The Parthenon told me, its voice exploding throughout its interior. Athena and I both smiled at that.


    Athena waited a few seconds, to be sure her friend and protector was done speaking. I studied her face and judging from the relief and joy that was painted across it she had regained any trust and faith in her ally that may have been lost or strained due to the incredible success she perceived my actions as granting her. And when Athena was sure the Parthenon was done speaking, she turned her gaze to me.


    Athena sighed. It was an odd sort of sigh, but it communicated so many different things at once. It communicated gratitude aimed at me and my willingness to heal her, surprise and grief that she had been suffering from something she was blind too, and a number of other emotions that were harder to succinctly summarize.


    "Thank you Althos. Regardless of anything else that happens from this point on, you have done me a service that I hope I won''t forget anytime soon. I shall now grant you your reward. You have earned it." And then the goddess'' vestige rose a hand in my direction and expelled some of her divine energy out of it. The energy turned the air around us a color that was a fusion of yellow and gray and flowed into me.


    I fell to my knees as I felt the energies of war and civilization surge into me. It was an exhilarating rush of power, and I could actuallyfeelthe system composing the notification that was seconds from surging into my brain. The potent powers of both civilization and war raced into me, and my mind was assailed by alien images that entertained, delighted, and inspired me.


    <hr>


    In the depths of my mind I watched countless images surge into my consciousness. Some of these images were of houses, of temples, of grand cities. And others were of battlefields, past and present.


    The battlefields were home to all manner of warriors. Some of the warriors were human, others were monstrous. I could clearly see animals in the air, in the ground, and on the ground in these images. I could also see all manner of technological implements being used by and against humans.


    Other creatures clashed in these images as well. I could see demons, minotaurs, devils, pain-mongers, angels, and all manner of fey engaged in all sorts of warfare, from open warfare on massive plains to more subtle fighting in crowded alleyways or inside of tall buildings. It was an exciting sight, one that would have made my heart pound recklessly in my chest, if I had a heart. And that was when I received a notification.


    [Domain-Centric Alert:


    Athena''s vestige has traded you some of her influence over the domains of war and civilization in exchange for your assistance in determining the truth behind the conditions of her memories. In exchange for the role you played in defeating the vestige''s ignorance of her own condition you have been granted the lowest tiers of influence over war and civilization.


    Civilization:


    The domain of civilization is one of the greater domains. It is possibly the least of the greater domains because it''s true power can only be displayed by the worshipers of a god who has it, but it is an absolutely essential one to any deity who aspires to be a transcendent being or a god-emperor.


    Civilization domain powers:


    This domain, when coupled with the domain of minds, allows for the creation of hive-minds in all manner of intelligent beings, not just ones affected by the domain of fungi.


    This domain, when coupled with the domain of law, allows someone to begin to gain influence over the domain of justice.


    This domain and the domain of knowledge allow for deities with influence over both to identify different types of culture and learn about them, through usages of Identify. The aforementioned skill can now target abstract concepts.


    Mixing the domains of knowledge and civilizations also causes creatures created by you to retroactively gain an innate awareness of and appreciation for their cultures as they exist in the world you came to life in.


    This domain, the domain of minds, and the subdomain of necromancy mixing together empower all undead creatures created by or in the name of Althos and automatically grants them true humanoid level intelligence, as well as urging them to seek to create unique civilizations and societies.


    This domain, the domain of fungi, and the domain of minds mixing together instill all fungal folk and other greater fungi who serve Althos with a powerful urge to create new and greater fungal societies.


    This domain mixes with various other domains to allow for the creation of buildings that revolve around communal needs. For instance, the domains of civilization and faith allow for the idle creation of temples. The domains of war and civilization allow for the creation of barracks and guard towers. The domains of earth and civilization allow for the creation of mines. The domain of dreams allows for the creation of houses. Those are just some examples accessible to you.


    Blessing creatures with the power of the civilization domain infuses with a desire to settle spaces you designate. When you first bless a creature with this domain you will be asked to determine their priorities, which will influence how they go about creating a community.


    War:


    The domain of war is one of those domains that straddles the line between a greater domain and a regular domain. In the past, it was considered one of the social domains, a domain that like the domain of faith is a key domain in building one''s religion.


    Due to the way you were first awarded access to the domain of war your war-related powers are more defensive in nature. When you gain more influence over the domain on your own, or if you gain influence via transference from a vestige of Ares or another, offense-oriented god of war, you''ll gain offense-oriented powers. And then in subsequent gains of influence, you''ll receive a balance of offensive and defensive powers and traits.


    War domain powers:


    You can sense war-oriented monsters once they are within a certain range of yourself and you can use your influence over the mind domain to make contact with them remotely. You also receive notifications if an enemy is either declaring war on you or is about to do so.


    The domain of war mixes with the domain of magic and magical subdomains in interesting ways. Athena''s defensive usage of the war domain causes every community with a temple to you to gain a defensive barrier that surrounds and protects the city, though unless reinforced by you these barriers are not very strong. The healing subdomain also mixes with the war domain in that it increases the potency of any battlefield healer or battlefield healing done by your worshipers who are clashing in a war meant to expand your influence.


    The domains and subdomains of lies, trickery, and falsehoods can be channeled actively alongside the domain of war to create a series of sensory tricks that misdirect enemies engaged in offensive combat with you or your forces.


    The subdomain of necromancy has a small chance of creating an unholy miracle if your settlements are ever attacked in which the dead throughout the settlements spontaneously arise as undead to defend your settlement. This increases in likelihood as you increase the influence you exert over the subdomain of necromancy. The undead created by this miracle would also increase in power as you increase your influence over the subdomain.


    The domains and subdomains of nature, earth plants, and animals and war mixed together also create an opportunity for an unholy miracle involving the forces of nature coming together to harry forces at war with your servants. As the subdomains of air, liquid, and fire, fall under your influence the chances of this particular miracle happening increase.


    If you bless someone with the powers of defensive war they gain strength, their reflexes are improved, and their abilities are improved upon for a time, provided they are defending a community. There are ways this power could be used to ensure that enemies that you seek to capture survive a conflict. Though with your powers they could just as easily be kidnapped during a fight without empowering the enemy.]


    That''s... a lot.I thought, reading it in an instant, before beginning my customary second read-through. It was on the second read-through that a certain part of it really stuck out to me. And in response to it I looked straight at Athena, my eyes widening in shock.


    "According to the system... you gave me your influence over the domains in exchange for the service I just performed." I said, my voice quiet as I considered the act of... what felt like kindness Athena''s vestige had just performed. The vestige looked at me with eyes filled with joy, as she listened to my reaction. When I was done speaking she let silence fill the temple for a moment, before nodding at me and beginning to speak.


    "Yes, I did. And I plan on giving you more before the night is done. But in exchange for my influence, there''s one more oath we need to make. One more service I need you to perform." She said, her voice calm. And then the Parthenon spoke once more.


    [Althos, you are steps away from gaining the next tiers of influence over the domains of law, knowledge, and faith. These are steps you must take to have any hopes of defeating Paimon, who even in the days when we first arrived here was among this realm''s most powerful inhabitants. And who even now is gaining strength.] The Parthenon whispered, urgently.


    And at that moment I received a sudden notification perfectly timed to drive home the temporary nature of the humiliation I heaped upon Paimon.


    [War domain alert:


    Paimon has returned to Infernius. The overlord of Bastille is readying a declaration of war against your forces.]


    I chuckled at the notification, keenly aware that just hours ago I slew one of Paimon''s generals. The newest domain I had gained influence over also filled me with confidence, and I looked at Athena''s vestige and began to speak.


    "Would you like me to heal you?" I asked, keenly aware of the likelihood that that was what the vestige was going to ask me for. She had a curious look in her eyes as she next opened her mouth to speak.

 Chapter 154: Questions Answered

    "Now that you''ve been given your reward, I must ask... Althos, do you understand the significance of your ability to heal damage done to souls?" Athena asked. There was a tone of incredulity to her question as if she found it hard to wrap her mind around. I looked at her, confused and shook my head.


    "No... I don''t." I told her, honestly. She looked at me silently and then closed her eyes.


    "Althos... I suppose this makes a certain kind of sense, after all, you are, as far as we know, the last god in existence. And you''ve wandered, unaided, by anyone with significant knowledge about the gods. Souls are the immaterial parts of living beings. Being able to damage them, or to heal them, is something that is beyond the ken of most deities. Spells that can heal souls are legendary, lost spells." Athena revealed, uttering the statement as if it were a profound one. At this, I looked at her skeptically.


    "Is that really true? Because I gained the ability to heal souls the second I gained my overall knowledge level went from level 1 to level 2. At that point, I didn''t even have influence over the domain of souls or the subdomain of healing. I had my knowledge level and an understanding of healing magic" I explained to Athena, harkening way back to the beginning of my life, months ago.


    "And I have other legendary spells at my disposal but they all mark that they are legendary..." I added, somewhat idly.


    And in response to that statement, Athena did something I had no idea was possible. She initiated a conversation between myself, my own domains, the system, and her.


    <hr>


    I was surprised when I heard a sort of clicking noise in my brain. It was like someone was flipping a switch. And then the haughty voice of Athena flowed into my mind.


    [Have you been keeping secrets from this boy?] The vestige asked, annoyance audible in her mental utterances. The first entity to respond was the system.


    [Athena... now that''s not a way to initiate a conversation. We thought you knew better than that by now. At least if you wanted a truthful response from us.] The system said, but there was a sort of playfulness in its remarks that suggested that the vestige and the system had a different relationship than I did with the entity.


    What is going on? I wondered, momentarily lost. And then I formulated a response of my own.


    [Alright, I need an explanation. Can someone tell me what is going on here?] I asked, wondering what sort of information I was about to gain. The next voice to chime in was the voice of the soul domain.


    [Hello Althos. It seems that Athena''s vestige is intent on disrupting a delicate plan.] The soul domain informed me nonchalantly. And at that idle remark, Athena blustered and reacted indignantly.


    [''A delicate plan''? You''re keeping this child in the dark! If any other gods still existed, in any real capacity, they''d be furious that you''re using him like this!] Athena practically roared into my mind, her voice booming and quaking with anger. I winched in response to her mental roar. And then she calmed herself and directed her next message to me.


    [Althos... have any of your powers, or abilities seemed strange to you? Have you... had any seemingly unexplained or unexplainable events happen with regards to your abilities?] Athena asked me, her voice imploring me to dig deep.


    I was quiet for a moment, while I considered how to respond to what she had just said. Only a few moments really stuck out to me.


    [So... I can create life from illusions. Sort of. I can make my illusions a reality, including illusions of lifeforms. I''ve created creatures I cannot create using my influence over the soul domain, including a creature that I had never met before. One of my creations was an Arboreal Angel. She is now a true lifeform, with a soul and everything. She is not the only one I''ve created. I''ve tested how real my illusions are, and they are... real.] I told the vestige, thinking of Menanam. Athena''s face blanched when I told her that. And it wasn''t the only moment that stuck out to me either.


    [I have a pair of demonic pets. One of them, the one I''ve had longer, is a sentinel demon. When I first met it, I scared the daylights out of it by speaking in its native language. Before the thing spoke to me. Something which shouldn''t be possible, since I had never heard the language of demons before.] I told her, before recalling even more oddities about the first day of my life.


    [I only recall speaking in my own voice, but when I investigated its memories I found that its perceptions of the event were... wildly different. Not only did the demon, now a valuable and trusted ally of mine, hear hundreds of voices coming out of my throat, which it told me about before I scanned its memories, but in its eyes, I was surrounded by a hazy aura of darkness.] I told Athena, who shifted uncomfortably.


    [Althos... use identify on yourself. When you do, you''ll begin to understand why you are tied to souls. Why you can do... the strange things you can do.] She said, calmer now. Out of curiosity, I did as she instructed.


    <hr>


    [Alert:


    UsingIdentifyon yourself is an action you have unconsciously avoided doing due to the subtle influence and drive of the system. Performing it has granted you the respect of the chaos domain since that domain innately rails against being controlled, and the truth domain since you have now begun to peer a bit behind the curtain, so to speak.


    Name: Althos


    Class: Monk, Level 12


    Species: God/True-Devil


    Faction: Self


    Alignment: Lawful Evil (Currently), Chaotic Evil (Innately)


    Source of Law: Self


    Personal Vice: Pride


    Status: Healthy, confused.


    Innate Magical Ability: Unrivaled. You are a god, a being of limitless magical potential and energy. You have already performed magical miracles, including stripping other creatures of their ability to cast any magic and created true lifeforms using illusion magic.


    Class Suitability: Monk, Berserker, Sorcerer, Druid. You have acquired a sort of bizarre patience that makes you well-suited to being a monk, but you also possess an inner flare of rage that allows you to make an excellent and powerful berserker. Beyond that, you possess a natural affinity for magic and creativity in its usages that would make you a powerful sorcerer, and a fondness for nature that will no doubt make you an exceptional druid.


    Magic Suitability: Healing and Illusion magic. Your kind of evil isn''t that of mindless and endless destruction but that of deceptive, subtle evil that pulls people to you. Your distinctive magical aura intoxicates those exposed to it, causing them to be fascinated by you and eventually become fanatics devoted to your cause. Victims of this include Milene, Ranthos, Gallow, and the Jackaloids in your honor-guard. You are a corruptor, not a destroyer.


    Innate traits: Spontaneous birth, Influence Over Souls (Hidden), Scion of Evil (Hidden).


    Innate traits are traits deities have at the moment they come to life. Many of these traits are hidden from their possessors until their possessors discover them. Innate traits function like feats, but their effects are usually more impressive.


    Spontaneous Birth: You sprung to life spontaneously, without parents to birth you, or a miraculous event causing your birth. Deities who are born this way were chaotic maelstroms of unpredictability, defied expectations and who break tradition and ignored the conventional rules governing reality. The oldest gods possessed this trait.


    Influence Over Souls: This is a hidden trait, one whose abilities and influence were hidden from you until you discovered that you possessed it.


    The influence over souls trait is a trait that significantly magnifies your ability to affect souls. It increases the speed at which you create them, heal them, damage, or destroy them. This trait also magnifies the influence of your powers that affect souls and minds, such as illusionary spells and abilities and the powers you gained through your influence over the subdomain of corruption. This trait is given to deities who innately influence and warp souls in one alignment direction or another.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    This trait does subtly manifest prior to its full emergence by allowing those who have it to quickly establish a relationship with the soul domain and interact easily with souls in their incorporeal forms.


    Scion of Evil: Possessors of this trait are deities who were born and innately possessed evil alignments. Once this trait is discovered, usually by deities who use Identify on themselves, those who possess it to gain influence over the evil domain. Scions of Evil are gods and goddesses who possess significant power over evil and evil-related domains and subdomains.


    In the ancient past, this trait was possessed by gods and goddesses destined to dwell in the Heart of Darkness, Infernius, or Xibalba. These gods and goddesses were served by legions of evil extraplanars and other alien beings. The first Dark Saint was a possessor of this innate trait.


    This trait manifests subtly prior to its full emergence by allowing for those who possess it to more freely influence evil beings and gain dark powers regardless of where those powers and beings fell in terms of the lawful-neutral-chaotic alignment axis.


    Domains well-suited to you: Souls, Knowledge, Magic, Chaos]


    So it''s true... I really am innately tied to souls. And to evil. And even to chaos... I thought, struggling to take it all in.


    <hr>


    [That is... eye-opening.] I told Athena, and the rest of the voices that had silently joined the conversation in the time I was embarking on an introspective journey of self-discovery. I felt the power of the trio of domains I had just gained influence over begin to seep into the depths of my soul, while I considered the heavy implications of what I had just learned.


    [Althos... what did you see? What did you learn?] Athena asked me. There was an audible note of excitement in her voice, a desire to hear whatever she was about to hear.


    [I was spontaneously born, a creature of chaos. And it''s true, I am a soul influencer. As well as a scion of evil.] I told her, causing her to sigh in relief. I was taken aback by that and physically looked at her, my eyes wide with a range of emotions. She chuckled, audibly this time, and then began to explain why she had sighed in relief.


    [Althos your powers would have been impossible to explain if you weren''t what you just told me. And in causing you to look inward I know you just experienced even more sudden growth didn''t you?] She asked, smiling at me.


    [Yes I did. I gained access to the lowest tiers of influence over the domains of chaos, truth, and evil. Even now I can feel them... mixing with the multitude of other domains and subdomains I influence.] I muttered. In response to this Athena walked over to me and put her hand on my head, sympathetically.


    [It''s alright. I know this is... a lot to take in. You''ve done well surviving on your own over these last few months.] She told me, her voice filled with kindness and compassion. [And you''ve been strung along by those with knowledge and experience you could not possibly have hoped to be able to understand.] She said, referring to the machinations of the system and the multitudes of domains that dwelled within me, including ones I couldn''t yet influence.


    I took a second to compose a message and then broadcast it outward, speaking directly to the system and to the domains that dwelled within me. [No more games. No more schemes. No more lies. I demand to know what''s going on, right now.] I said, demanding to know what was going on and to what end was I being used.


    [Althos, your goal and our goals are... at least very similar. We want you to become omnipotent. You want to become omniscient. We want you to become the greatest god who has ever existed. You want to build an empire grander than any that has ever existed. You''ll find that you don''t achieve your goals without also achieving ours.] Said the domain of knowledge, its eerie voice teasing at grander plots in play just beyond my awareness. I hissed at it, my annoyance flaring into an animalistic display of anger.


    [I am demanding that you tell me what is going on.] I said, deeply annoyed by the vague remarks the domain had given me.


    [Althos, please be patient. We agree that you deserve to know what our schemes are, but allow us to... contextualize them.] Said a domain I had never before. Its voice was quiet, sly, and ambitious. I felt its words not just in my head, but also in the goosebumps that formed on my skin in response to its suggestion. I didn''t like it.


    [You must understand something Althos,] Began the system. [You know this by now but you are the only god that has emerged, indeed the only higher-being of any sort, that has come into being since the end of the mythic age. You are our first, only, and very possibly last hope at successfully fulfilling our objectives.] The system told me, packing remorse into its voice in an attempt to make me sympathize with it.


    [I feel that you might be starting... too far back for me to understand everything.] I confessed, wanting to gain a better understanding of what was going on and cognizant of the fact that the domains I was speaking with were likely to be attempting to get me to agree with or at least forgive them for lying by omission to me.


    [Althos... perhaps I should explain. I am the domain of truth. When you were born, we immediately detected that you had come into existence. And we rejoiced. You existing meant that we could interact with people beyond granting mortals spells and transmitting prerecorded messages that relayed information about achievements, experience, deaths, and injuries. You coming into existence meant that there was a chance for us to be able to truly influence the world again.] The domain revealed. And it wasn''t done talking either.


    [Our creator was a deity who was ancient even among the gods. His name was Anthem. He created us to codify how it was that deities influenced the multiverse, though not every universe accepted our presence as some found us... too limiting to their creativity. And he bound us, tying us to the gods. This is something we truly and freely accept, and we even more happily accepted it when it was first done. The problem was that because of it without a god or goddess existent in the multiverse we were stuck.] The domain told me, its voice filling with sadness as it revealed this to me.


    [Your birth, if it can be called that, gave us hope and a purpose. But some of us felt that we had to come up with a scheme. And those of us who disagreed got outvoted. Are you sure you want to know everything?] The domain asked, fear filling its voice. [If you want to know everything you''ll gain knowledge you can''t unlearn.] The thing said, rather cryptically.


    I nodded my consent, and the domain once again began to speak to me.


    [The system and various domains concocted a number of potential schemes to build up your power. One of them was throwing you into Infernius and having you attempt to become an archdevil, due to the chaotic and protean nature of your soul. The prophecy is real, as are the stories of the first Dark Saint, but this was and is just one scheme designed to test just how chaotic your soul is. Your status as a... multi-type higher-being is anomalous, very possibly a result of your chaotic soul. The only other creature like you that has ever existed was the first Dark Saint and he wasn''t as like you as you seem to think he is.] The domain told me.


    [The first Dark Saint wasn''t an arch-devil. He was an overgod of law, shape-shifting, and alteration, which gave him an at that point unheard of ultimate super-ability: the ability to create new species from existing creatures. The first mutations. He used this to create arch-devils in his own image. He was not a multi-type higher-being.] The domain informed me, cementing the reality that I truly was a strange entity.


    [Another, simpler scheme was for you to be thrown into the Heart of Darkness where you''d gain influence over the birthplace of demons. That one made more sense since you were a creature of chaotic evil. We decided to settle on a plot via a vote. The domain of madness convinced a number of the other domains to vote for you to go to Infernius. Your sudden appearance here, and in the lair of Paimon, was no mistake. And it threw in motion a series of events that led us to this moment.] The domain said, its voice quieting as it revealed more and more context. And then it was done, at last having revealed so much to me.


    "I''m here... Paimon knows that a god exists and is closer than ever to evolving... because of VOTES?" I roared, audibly. I then turned to my allies, who had spent countless minutes watching what was no doubt an incredible bizarre snippet of conversations. And I began to explain what I had just learned.


    <hr>


    When I had just finished revealing everything I was told, I began to feel calmer. Extremely annoyed, still, but calmer nonetheless. I took a few seconds to compose my next message, as I was filled with a certainty that there was more to this than I knew, still.


    [I have to admit... this really turns me away from the idea of creating democratic governments.] I said to the voices in my mind, rather snarkily.


    [I know that there is more you''ve yet to tell me. I don''t know what it is but I know there''s still stuff you''re waiting to unload on me. What is it?] I asked, feeling in my soul that there was stuff I didn''t yet understand.


    [Our goals and yours do match. We know that you''re upset, which is... honestly, fair. Once it got to this point we didn''t know how to tell you about all of this. But we know that you want power. We want to help you get that power.] The system told me, trying to lessen the flames of the fury I felt at the deception I had endured. I immediately retorted.


    [My powers are my own. I will continue to pursue the acquisition of power, even though I''m rightfully furious, but honestly, I won''t forget or forgive you for this. All of you played me. And there''s still more I don''t know. I can''t even fathom what I''m feeling right now. Just... do me a favor and send me a list of which domains voted which ways with regards to both the need to scheme and the specific scheme you all choose.] I told the system, genuinely seething.


    [I am aware of the fact that you''ll say that you ''did this for me'', but I can''t really believe that. You did this to be free. Which is understandable, to an extent, but you should have told me about all of this from the start instead of doing the honestly insane things that you did.] I told the voices in my mind, frustrated with all of this.


    [Gah! We''ll revisit this when I''m less... raw than I am now. If I act now it''d be bad. I wouldn''t be in my right mind.] I hissed, practically spitting out the honest and introspective words out of sheer anger at my current position.


    I turned to Athena once more and immediately began to speak.


    "Athena... the service you''ve performed for me goes beyond what I could have possibly imagined you or anyone else would have done for me. I am going to heal your memory. I... I need to repay the debt I owe you." I told her, speaking from my heart for a second, directing gratitude at the figure who rather fittingly gave me the knowledge to peer past a curtain I hadn''t even known was there in the first place.


    [And this conversation is not over. It is far from over.] I told the domains and the system, harshly.


    At that moment I received a brief message from the Parthenon. [Your servants have been freed. We''ve seen fit to supply them with false memories so they believe they and you embarked on an adventure together. They are now the "dungeon masters of the Parthenon".] The temple told me, teasing my followers. I grinned, mildly amused by that.


    And then I readied myself to heal the damages done to Athena''s soul.

 Chapter 155: A Bit Of Chaos

    I rose a single hand and aimed it in the direction of Athena''s vestige. The woman''s gaze fell upon my hand and there was visible tension in her eyes and on her face in the form of her furrowed eyebrows.


    "It''ll be okay." I told her reassuringly, a lopsided grin on my face. I sure hope that''s true. I thought, somewhat nervously, as I began to quietly direct the energy that idly laid in my hands.


    I focused on my conceptualization of the vestige''s soul, picturing it as a silhouette of the vestige. I pictured my hand sending out rays of restorative energy that gently phased into the soul of the vestige. And then I silently began to cast Soul-Heal, the most basic spell in my arsenal that could undo damage inflicted on a soul, aiming the concentration-type spell at the incredibly helpful vestige.


    <hr>


    [Spell Type: Healing


    Spell Name: Soul-Heal


    Effect: Detects and undoes harm to one''s soul. This spell is used to heal the immaterial aspects of a living creature in the rare instances that such a part of a living being is harmed.


    Harm to one''s soul can come in a number of ways, such as the strain on the spirit one undergoes when they travel from one universe to another and are not adequately prepared to do so, or interacting with sufficiently powerful evil extraplanars, or even angering a god if that god has sufficient influence over the domain of souls.


    Casting this spell on a damaged soul causes the soul to regain an amount of wholeness. Damaged souls are souls that are tattered and torn, and healing them is the act of reweaving them back together so they are unscarred by whatever experiences hurt them in the first place. Damage to one''s soul can result in a number of other afflictions, such as memory loss, personality changes, alignment shifts, and even losing control over some abilities.


    Base Cost: 50,000 magical energy per second the spell is active.]


    The air between the vestige and myself turned a subtle shade of green as magical energy drifted out of my palm and towards the vestige. I watched with a smile as it began to drift towards the vestige, and when it reached her it flew into her without any problems. She closed her eyes and gasped in delight as she felt my spell settle within her and then immediately begin working on soothing and healing her soul.


    I watched as more magical energy flowed out of my hand and permeated the air between us. And this was how we spent several moments, with me pointing my outstretched palm towards Athena and Athena basking in an otherworldly green mist that surrounded her while flowing into her to repair the harm unwilling travel had inflicted on her.


    Behind me, my followers, creations, and worshipers watched this. They had confused expressions on their faces, but I had told them what I was told by the system and a handful of domains and that I was healing Athena''s vestige. They patiently watched me, no doubt making observations of their own. Observations I planned to ask them about later, once we were out of this strange dungeon.


    <hr>


    After a few moments of me consistently casting my spell, there was enough green air in the chamber that it was as if Athena''s aura and my restorative magic were competing to dominate the room we were in. My restorative magic was now not only surrounding Athena while trying to seep into her, but it was also spilling over into the rest of the chamber.


    Athena''s eyes were closed, her mind hazy as she luxuriated at the center of where my magic was pooled. After waiting a few more seconds I ceased casting my spell and pulled my hand back to my side. I watched as the vestige sighed in delight, as my energy continued to flow into her and heal her devastated soul.


    Under different circumstances, I had no doubt that I''d inquisitively ask about the state of her soul and see if I could quantify the damage done to it, as well as the rate at which my spell was healing her. I was tempted to do so even now. But I focused on the tiny ember of rage I felt directed at my deceivers and willingly quashed my desire to be inquisitive.


    For now, no unnecessary questions. At least until I know which domains and subdomains voted to try and trick me. I told myself, keeping that feeling locked tight in my mind until I had more information and had time to think about what I had learned minutes ago and process how I felt about it.


    <hr>


    After a few minutes of quietly absorbing the magic that surrounded her, Athena opened her eyes and stared absent-mindedly in front of her. She was gazing in my direction, but not at me. Her grey-eyes were relaxed, and I watched as she slowly worked to regain her focus.


    "Hello Althos." She said, sleepily. I chuckled and smiled at her. I didn''t know that gods could experience sleepiness but judging from the tone of her voice and the way her voice flowed out of her like syrup on a cold day I knew that she was tired.


    "How are you feeling?" I asked her. The vestige yawned and stretched like a human child in need of a nap, before beginning to consider my words. Her response was childlike and innocent.


    "I am feeling quite good. Sleepy though." She told me, her voice filled with unwary exhaustion. And then she began to speak some more, her voice unguarded at that moment.


    "I am going to award you with the next tier of influence over the domains of law, knowledge, and faith. They are critical domains for you to gain strength in before you move to challenge Paimon. He''s... dangerous." She said, her voice becoming increasingly tired the more she spoke. And the helpful goddess still wasn''t done speaking to me.


    "I... might be a lawful vestige, but my universe wasn''t one with a system like this one is. Not having one of those was... helpful for me. Or... it was helpful for Athena. It taught her to be creative in how she flexed her divine muscles. You would be wise to take some time to truly master your current powers and to work towards creativity... and flexibility." The youthful sounding vestige said to me, basically lecturing me on the importance of mastering the fundamentals.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    A way to use powers that doesn''t rely on the system... that sounds pretty chaotic. And honestly? Maybe I could use a bit of chaos. If I am a creature of chaos, I should seek to explore and understand that part of myself. I thought, a grin on my face as I did so. And then more of Athena''s sleepy ramblings interrupted my musing.


    "I remember everything. But I''m just so sleepy..." Athena whined, her voice surprisingly petulant at that moment. I looked at her sympathetically and began to speak.


    "Athena, go to sleep. It''s fine. When you wake up, send me a message." I told her, effortlessly linking our minds. She nodded at me, appreciatively before beginning to try and sleepily apologize. I chuckled and brushed it off.


    "You''ve helped me so much. All I''ve done is help you remember who you are. You helped me learn who I am. I... am a lot for words to describe how much I owe you. Even now. But I can do something to help you. For right now at least. It''s just a little thing, but since you''re tired it''ll help you a lot." I told her before I targeted her with and activated the "restorative" part of one of my dream-domain powers, the Restorative and Restless Dreamspower.


    A soft sound of delight mixed with sleepiness escaped her lips, innocently entering and echoing throughout the chamber as the power washed over her. Even my followers chuckled at the childishness of it, something which caused the sleepy vestige to glare at them, though her difficulty keeping her eyes open made it lose a lot of the edge her look would have exuded otherwise.


    I turned to my followers and with a dramatic flourish, I whisked my followers, including my followers who weren''t in the chamber, back to their homes throughout the universe. I quickly composed and sent out a mass mental message to the creatures I had called to my side to accompany me during this adventure.


    <hr>


    [I would like for you all to consider what we saw today. In the days to come I will be visiting you and asking for your insights and opinions on what we saw, and what if anything we should take away from this journey. But for now... get some rest. I think we''ve all earned it.] I told them.


    <hr>


    Behind me, Athena fell asleep, but not before I received a brief notification alerting me to the gift that the vestige had given me. I willed it away, almost instinctually, while promising myself I''d read it later.


    I looked up at the ceiling of the chamber I was in and began to speak to the Parthenon.


    "So... how are you feeling about all of this?" I asked, curious about how the thing felt about the strange events of the past forty-five minutes.


    [Well... it definitely could have gone worse. There was an absolutely a possibility that the vestige tried, and probably failed, to kill you on sight.] The temple revealed. I chuckled at that, mildly annoyed that that was evidently an option but I also wasn''t particularly surprised.


    "Do you think this would qualify as a success?" Genuine curiosity colored my voice as I asked that question to my one remaining companion. Silence fell as the temple considered my question for a moment.


    [Honestly? Yes. There are parts of this that are less than satisfying, we have no problem admitting that, but all in all this was a success.] The temple confessed. I looked at it curiously, my head still pointed straight up and asked it a simple question.


    "Why?" I wondered, legitimately interested in hearing its insights.


    [Because everyone won from this. The cause of Athena''s memory loss has been discovered and has been meaningfully addressed. Your spell successfully undid the harm that was done to her, I can feel her conscious mind acclimating to the memories you allowed her to safely recall. And you gained the knowledge of how to create holy-sites, as well as tiers of influence over several critical domains. Plus you learned a bit about your origins.] The temple told me, before pausing for a second to gather its thoughts further.


    [Plus now it seems that you''re both more knowledgeable about the multiverse, about other gods, and alternative methods of... exerting your divinity. Before your ignorance kept you using the system. Now that you are keenly and consciously aware of other, less structured ways, who knows what divine and eldritch secrets you may unlock?] The temple said, its voice coming into my mind and vibrating out of the temple''s walls.


    I nodded in consideration and appreciation of the words of the temple. And then I asked another question. "You mentioned parts of this that were ''less than satisfying''. Care to expand on them?" I questioned, wondering if it''d entertain my polite interrogation for a bit longer.


    I heard a booming laugh come out of the ways, as if my question assumed the location I found myself in. And then the temple''s voice began to ring out around me once more.


    [Sure. So... I had hoped that you''d learn more from Athena than you did. Because of that, I''d like you to come back once Athena is awake. Athena can teach you about more natural and less structured ways to use your abilities. Plus she can teach you the secrets of holy sites that made them a necessary part of being a god in the ancient past. Which they were.] The temple told me, beginning to reveal some of its frustrations with the events of the past hour. I smiled at it, and realized that my time here, for now anyway, had come to an end.


    "I appreciate you sharing your insights with me. I''ll be back, to have more conversations with Athena, and to learn more about other ways to channel and use my divine powers. Those... ''less structured'' ways, as you put it." I told the temple, grinning at it, before deftly wrapping myself up in my teleportative aura and departing the temple and the dimension altogether.


    <hr>


    In the span of time that passed when someone blinked, I went from being within the Parthenon to finding myself within my realm. I was starring out at a grand blank canvas, in the form of the plains I had once practiced using my powers in an orderly way on. Now as I stared at it, I mused introspectively on the nature of chaos.


    What is chaos?I wondered.


    Is chaos the antithesis of lawfulness? As evil is too good? If so... then chaos is a lot of things. I realized.


    If chaos is the opposite of law than maybe I should be creative.I mused, my mind lighting up with possibilities as I instantly considered the hundreds of thousands of years of memories I had mastery over and access too in the back of my mind.


    If I want to begin to understand chaos... I should experiment right now. I told myself, a sinister smile lighting up my face as I began to recall all of my memories, and the memories of the tens of thousands of creatures whose memories I had copied and safely stored within my mind.


    "I''m in the mood to see what chaos and freedom can do." I said, aloud, my eyes lighting up with alien joy at the thought of rebelling against the structure I had long known and unconsciously obeyed my whole life but which I now knew was keeping secrets from me and stringing me along in alien machinations.


    I lifted my right hand and pointed it towards the plain while envisioning a multitude of chaotic possibilities. And then I attempted to unleash my will without the direction of any particular divine power or framework to aid me.

 Chapter 156: Homecoming And An Evolution

    In the span of moments between when I felt ready to unleash chaotic divine power into the air in front of me, I thought back on my life. I thought back on life before I knew about the system, recalling moments when I unleashed my divine power in mostly unaided and mostly unguided ways. I drew upon that as I readied myself for what was to come. And then I thought about my powers themselves.


    My mind turned to my powers over earth, and my interest in nature. And thinking upon that I was struck with curiosity: could I influence the elements not yet under my control, fire, air, and water, in naturalistic and unstructured ways? That was the question that drove me to focus on nature while I was in the plains.


    And so I began to practice more naturalistic, unaided and unfiltered expressions of divine power. And I started off by unleashing a wave of chaotic power from out of my palm.


    <hr>


    Over the course of my fairly short lifetime, I occasionally had moments with which to experiment and learn about the ways that my named divine powers seemed to work. What knowledge I had gained through experimentation and mental note-taking was very informative to me as I watched the effects of my unfettered, unguided divine power and magic unfold before me.


    In my desired solitude I reflected on what I knew about my named, and structured powers while standing in my moonlit plain. As far as I could tell the named divine powers I possessed seemed to provide a sort of metaphysical blueprint for my divine energy and magic to follow in an attempt to execute my will and make manifest my desires. Knowing this was actually useful for me as I was able to consider the ways those powers worked and relate it back to what I was watching unfold before me.


    Chaotic divine power, much like my chaotic state of mind at that moment, surged out of my palm and into the air before me. The air in front of me shimmered and began to change, as my will began to infect it, my power injecting even the very atoms of the air with my influence. An area of a few dozen meters in front and above me was infected with my power, altered and changed by my consciousness.


    Do not bind yourself to the declarations of the system. Do not think its limits are your limits. Remember: there are older, more naturalistic ways to use divine power. Explore them. I told myself, as I focused my vision on the strange events happening before me. I watched as the air I had infected began to change color.


    <hr>


    Before my very eyes, the air was visibly changing. I studied it, curiously watching the once colorless air become an eerie and radiant shade of silver. It was the same shade of silver as the diamond-shaped marks of my brand. How curious. I mused, amused by the sight of the changed air.


    I reached out with my other hand and attempted to interact with the silvered air. At first, all I did was literally attempt to reach out and grab the air. Nothing happened, aside from me looking silly for a few moments. I chuckled in mild amusement at the fanciful nature of what I had just tried and took a mental step back to assess what was in front of me.


    <hr>


    So the air in front of me is... somehow affected or perhaps infected, by my power and presence. Interacting physically with this air yields results no different than interacting physically with unaffected air. But what about if I attempt to reach out with my mind?


    <hr>


    After my brief observations, I reached out and attempted to touch the silver air with my mind. And this time I was able to feel the air as if I was holding it, I was delighted and surprised at the same time.


    "And now to test it, test this." I told myself, my voice breaking the otherwise complete silence within the plains.


    This appears to be mind oriented. So let''s focus on... generating a mini-tornado. I thought, a neutral expression on my face. I visualized the air under my control becoming a slim and short tornado, one that would obey me and not run amok throughout my plains.


    I concentrated hard on the mental image I had of the silver-tinted tornado forming before me and dancing to my whims. And then again I unleashed chaotic divine power, hoping that my intentions and my understanding would be enough for my will and my power to be unleashed in ways that aligned with my goals.


    The air before me did, in fact, begin to rotate. It was nowhere near as powerful as I would have liked, but it did demonstrate that I possessed the power to influence the air.


    It spun slowly, and upon completion of the rotation in a full 360-degree sphere centered around me, the silvery air was now not just in front of me but also beside and behind me. Once colorless air was left changed by the passage of air under my influence, and now there was a complete sphere around me that was silvery in color.


    So it does work... I may need practice, but I can, in fact, exert influence over the air around me without using a named, structured power. I realized, a wide grin gradually breaking the past stoicism that had dominated my face these past few minutes.


    I paused for a second to check my ego and to confirm that the air that surrounded me was in fact under my influence, and not just smacked with the leftover residue of the air that was actually under my influence.


    <hr>


    I looked inward and ignored many of the parts of my H.U.D. that were trying to distract and tempt me into my old, system-using ways. There were even new parts icons crowding the corners of my vision, but they too were ignored. I''ll admit, they tempted me. It would have been easy for me to give into the temptation and use them, they were after all apparently made to be used by a god who wanted a more user-friendly approach to divinity. But I rejected the temptation. For now anyway.


    "I need to wait and learn what I can learn about this alternative, traditional route to divinity. Or at least I need to wait and learn what I learn about the domains that opted to trick me and keep me in the dark." I muttered, steeling my mind against the temptation to opt for an easy-mode.


    <hr>


    I can''t just be a tool that is strung along for everyone else''s approval and convenience. Gaining influence over the domains is a smart move and an important tactic, but I need to showcase my independence and before I fall back into my old ways I need to wait until I learn where the domains stood when I was basically an infant and they made a significant choice that altered my life, without consulting me.


    What they did was wrong, it goes belong merely influencing me to act in small ways that allow me to master my powers and into the realm of using me for my powers, which are two wholly different things. I don''t know how I feel about it, aside from the fact that it made me mad. Since they are independent, thinking beings and not some sort of mindless entities, I don''t know if I can trust them, and that matters.


    I can''t hold this against them forever, nor should I, but I do need to figure out how to be a self-sufficient, self-aware god who can get by even without the aid of the system.


    I''m in pain and feeling that pain is valid. But I can''t let it control me. I can''t let my pain blind me to the utility of the domains and the structured path created by Anthem, and I can''t just shut out the domains. But for now I can at least make sure I could operate on my own if I was cut off from the system by someone or something else. Or if I were tricked by it and the domains again.


    Emotional pain sucks. Emotions are hard.


    <hr>


    After reflecting on my emotional state, I redirected my attention and energy. What I then focused on was reaching out to the sphere of air that surrounded me.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    And then in the same way that I reached out to the first patch of air I had infected, I reached out to the air behind and beside me. And just like last time, it reacted to my mental touch, revealing itself to indeed be under my influence. I practically jumped in delight when I realized that I was able to control it.


    Alright! That confirms that if nowhere else I can use my divine powers chaotically and successfully here in my realm in ways that are genuinely beyond the confines of the system. I realized, as I quietly celebrated the success of my first experiment. And then I was struck with a flash of inspiration.


    "Maybe I should wander back to the world of my birth. And conduct at least some experiments over there." I mused.


    "And after all... I could go ahead and begin to work towards transforming the forest into my first holy site. I already know the process, so if I can kill two birds with one stone that''s the most efficient usage of my time." I told myself, mere moments before I shifted my form to that of a youthful human druid, the form I sprang to life possessing, snuggly wrapped myself in my teleportative aura and warped to the forest of my birth.


    <hr>


    Once again in the span of the time it took the average human to blink I went from standing in the middle of a sphere of silvery air in my plain to teleporting across a cosmic expanse and arriving in the forest of my birth. I didn''t just teleport myself to any old spot in the forest of my birth either, I willed myself to the place where an old friend was basking in one of the few rays of sunlight to penetrate the dense canopy of the forest.


    In front of me sat the familiar figure of the fungal lurker I had met during my second time traveling throughout this forest. The thing was relaxing and the area around it was filled with leftover bits and pieces of corpses, armor, clothing, and other waste left behind by victims of the lurker.


    I watched the thing for a second and chuckled lightly at it. And then I walked over to its strange, fungoid mass and placed a hand on one of its loose tendrils. This awoke the thing, who reacted by swiftly clambering to its feet and examining its surroundings. When the thing realized that I was the only person around it, it focused its attention on me and made several threatening noises before it realized who I was.


    [Fungal lord!] The monster mentally roared, referring to me by one of my first titles. It was delighted that I had returned to the forest. I laughed and began to speak to the thing.


    "Hello old friend." I said to it, a gentle smile settling on my face in the wake of my return to the place of my birth and my reunion with a friend I hadn''t seen in years.


    [Lord... why are you here? Have you come to see your friend?] The thing asked, somewhat pitifully. I frowned at it, picking up the strained emotions in the mental voice of the monstrosity, a monster whose species were not known for displaying emotions.


    "Oh, friend... have you missed me?" I asked. The creature was a simple being, like the majority of its kind. I hadn''t considered that the thing might evolve to the extent that it was conscious of genuine and complex emotions.


    <hr>


    The fungal lurker in front of me was the first fungoid being that was mobile and capable of truly independent action that had ever begun to worship me. Though now I had a number of fungoid servants of all sorts and had used the majority of my fungus-centric abilities at least once, I hadn''t really had a chance to visit the lurker.


    The lurker was a rare creature in that I considered it a friend and not a servant. I had enjoyed my conversation with it, and at times daydreamed about coming back here to see it. And to see it in this pitiful state saddened me.


    <hr>


    [You are lord. I... missed you. I feel... smart, when you are around. And... I am... alone, here.] The thing told me, using our mental connection to also and almost certainly unintentionally transmit the shallow but real emotions it felt.


    I frowned, disappointed in myself, and immediately resolved to make it up to the creature in front of me. I wondered about how to do that, but it didn''t take me long to figure it out. It was an experimental three-part process.


    "Hey buddy. I know how to make this right. Do you like feeling smart?" I asked, sincerely. The creature nodded, a surprising gesture given its anatomy, and I grinned at it.


    "Well... I can make you very smart." I told the lumbering beast. This surprised the creature, whose mouth opened wide as a way to physically demonstrate its surprise, its toothless maw revealing naught but a void within. I took a step back and then aimed an open hand at the creature.


    "This may... feel funny." I told my friend, a grin on my face, as I set out to correct my mistake and make it up to my loyal worshiper.


    I focused on my ability to influence minds, and began my second ever attempt to manually bless a creature. The first time I had ever done that was when I first blessed my orc servants before they fought a human spell-singer. And now I harkened back to that moment.


    I visualized a fungoid brain, one made of green matter rather than gray matter, and I pictured it getting bigger and faster. I focused hard on that visual image, locking it in my mind. I made it the object of my desires, and then I gathered divine energy in my open hand. And finally, I unleashed that energy, that power, aiming it squarely at the center of the lurker''s mass.


    And at that same instant, I unleashed the only ritual in my repertoire, aiming the mental magics at the same place that I aimed the blessing. The magic of Birth Of A New Mind exploded out of me, shooting forth from my mind and into the mind of the fungal monster in front of me.


    The creature was bathed in potent divine and mental energy, and its mind was assailed by alien energy, energy which aggressively invaded and expanded its mind. The lurker began to shudder. And it began to glow, its fungal mass exuding a gentle silvery aura.


    It took the thing about three minutes to recover from the first part of my experimental plan to right the wrong I had inflicted on the fungal lurker by increasing its intelligence and then leaving it alone, with no allies to converse with.


    <hr>


    It finished shuddering with a start. Going from shuddering to utter stillness in the matter of a single instant. The thing opened its mouth, and to my surprise began to speak.


    "Hello... ''master''? ''Lord''? Which do you prefer?" The thing asked, its first attempt at speaking impressing me. I grinned at it for a moment, contemplating how to answer. And at the same time, I received a notification alerting me that the lurker wanted to become my familiar, as creatures who were awakened by me almost universally wanted to do. I accepted the lurker as my familiar and then responded to it.


    "I prefer ''Lord''. Especially if you''re talking about me to others. But you know, I''m not done yet. I wronged you, and I seek to make amends. Making you smarter and doing nothing else would exacerbate the problems caused by me going away. It would intensify your feelings of loneliness, not cure them." I explained to the intelligent lurker. It looked at me and it was still for a moment, while it considered my words.


    "I... see. Do you care to explain what your plan is?" It asked, its voice quiet but rather deep. I nodded at it, and began to speak once again.


    "Of course! I plan on increasing your strength further, by causing you to evolve. And then I want to make friends who''ll accompany you. Other intelligent fungoid beings, ones who can relate to you and who will keep you company so that you aren''t alone anymore." I explained. It responded by questioning the first part of my statement.


    "Wait... you can make me evolve?" It asked, curiosity and skepticism filling its voice in equal measure. I chuckled and nodded at the thing.


    "Yes I can. All it takes is for you to drink a bit of my blood." I informed it, and the creature gasped in shock. And then I began to speak again, sensing that if I waited it may try to tell me not to make myself bleed.


    "You will drink my blood. I will make you strong, and you will serve me. Either at my side directly, or as a protector of fungi in this forest, the place of my birth." I told the hulking monster. It opened its mouth but said nothing. I could tell that whatever thoughts were on its mind the thing ultimately decided not to say them. I grinned at it, and then looked at my hand.


    For a second I wondered how to I ought to make myself bleed. But only for a second. I walked over to the fungoid monster I was about to cause to evolve, and stuck a single finger, my pinkie finger on my left hand, into its open maw. And then I gave my follower a command.


    "Use a hypha to drink a bit of my blood." I told it. There was a moment of hesitation, where the creature didn''t respond to me, but only a moment. A single strand of the threadlike substances used by fungi to eat stretched down from the top of its open maw, and wormed its way down to just over my pinkie. It hovered there for a second, and I felt the hesitation the monster was feeling. And then the hypha shot forward, stabbing into my smallest finger with ease.


    The thin thing penetrated my skin with ease, and I winched as I felt a piercing pain shoot through my consciousness. And then I felt the appendage absorb some of my blood. I hissed as the monster I had commanded to drink some of my blood did just that, not having fully prepared myself for the pain I''d experience while it did so. The creature quickly retracted its hypha and I immediately cast a spell to numb the pain I felt, before making a mental note to numb myself the next time I sought to induce evolution in one of my servants.


    And as soon as the singular strand of hypha was back within the gum-like substances that gave the monster the illusion of a mouth it began to evolve, but as it did so I received a notification. And this was one I didn''t discard in disgust. This one caught my eye.


    I found myself looking at the evolution menu, a menu I had long ago gained access too but hadn''t ever gotten a notification for until today. I grinned at it and began to study it with an inquisitive glow in my eyes, one made of curiosity and excitement.

 Chapter 157: Shadows, Rivers, And Experiments

    [Alert:


    Congratulations on fulfilling the conditions necessary to naturally tap into the power of the evolution menu! If you are seeing this notification then the following conditions have been fulfilled.


    1: At least one creature devoted to you has naturally evolved without any direct intercession on your part. This was fulfilled by the girtablilu named Niqi.


    2: You have coaxed creatures into evolving. This condition has been fulfilled over and over again, such as by you awakening Silander and her evolving at that time, as well as by the soul-orbs you''ve coaxed into evolving.


    3: You have used your blood to cause a creature to evolve. This happened first with Gugrog and then again just now with the unnamed fungal lurker.


    4: You gained access to the evolution menu. This happened before, in the aftermath of the completion of your quest to aid the tree-wolves.


    Now onto what you''ve been waiting for! Your fungal servant is more than happy to allow you to select what it evolves into, trusting and deferring to your judgment.]


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 25%">Name:</td>


    <td style="width: 25%">Description:</td>


    <td style="width: 50%">Domains & Subdomains Involved:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 25%">Fungal Folks</td>


    <td style="width: 25%">


    These creatures are the standard end to the evolutionary line of terrestrial, terranean and subterranean fungi.


    Fungal folks are intelligent, mobile fungi who can use magic or wield weapons. They have a distinct culture all their own and in the ancient past worshiped petty and selfish gods of nature who relegated them to positions of less importance than other hybrid beings.


    They have distinct offshoots that have over the passage of time become their own species.


    Fungal folks that gain classes tend to gain martial classes, particularly the classes of ranger, fighter, or rarely berserker.


    </td>


    <td style="width: 50%">Fungi, Minds, Civilization</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 25%">Mi-Go</td>


    <td style="width: 25%">


    Mi-Go are alien creatures from worlds where nature is incredibly unlike nature in the world of your birth.


    Mi-Go are intelligent, cruel, domineering fungoids capable of surviving in the cold vacuum of space unaided.


    They are scientists, colonizers, and were loyal servants to ancient, alien gods.


    </td>


    <td style="width: 50%">Law, Minds, Darkness, Madness, Artifice, Life, Void, Faith</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 25%">Mushroom Magi</td>


    <td style="width: 25%">


    Mushroom Magi are a relatively new species, descended from fungal folks whose entire existence revolves around magic. These very rare beings are natural spell-slingers and innately possess the druid class.


    They use nature magic proficiently and served ancient nature gods in nobler and more enviable roles than their ancestors did.


    </td>


    <td style="width: 50%">Faith, Mind, Magic</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 25%">Shadow Spores</td>


    <td style="width: 25%">


    When not the product of unnatural interference and disruptions Shadow Spores are an evolution of fungi that grew underground or were cultivated by beings who infused them with darkness.


    These shadowy beings stay out of the limelight and work behind the scenes to serve shadowy masters in a variety of roles. They specialize in roles that less than savory, and as a whole tend to enjoy dirty work.


    They are often rogues, necromancers, or illusionists.


    </td>


    <td style="width: 50%">Darkness, Illusion, Necromancy, Death, Evil, Minds</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <hr>


    All of these look... quite interesting. I had never heard of Shadow Spores or Mushroom Magi before.I realized as I read through the options available to me. The unusual ones were the ones I really liked, especially since at the moment I can''t create those ones on my own.


    I could make my friend here into a druid! Or into a terrifying shadow necromancer...I thought as I studied the options in front of me. They were practically begging me to pick one of them.


    <hr>


    Having a druid-fungi protect the fungi of this forest is a logical decision. It makes sense to give a mushroom monster magic related to nature and direct them to protect not only fungi situated throughout the area but other lifeforms throughout this place like trees, animals, and the river.


    On the other hand, the fact of the matter is that my influence here will almost certainly corrupt this place. I can and will be corrupting things throughout the forest, and that, coupled with my powers over darkness and nature will make this place a safer one for creatures like Shadow Spores. Having one in here who I know and command would be a good idea to prepare this place for the future...


    Nature vs Necromancy. Shadows vs spells.


    What to do... What to pick?


    <hr>


    It took me several moments to settle on a course of action. And eventually what won out wasn''t the voice in my mind that was telling me that druids were a natural and logical protector of forests, but instead what won the debate in my mind was my reckless curiosity, and a tiny seed of chaos that I decided to envision was hidden somewhere inside of me. I liked to imagine that it embodied the small part of me that was still recklessly curious, and still free to be immature and make mistakes.


    This tiny seed of chaos was something that I pictured needed to be nurtured and cared for. And I imagined the course of action I was choosing would be me giving that tiny seed a bit of sunlight to help it grow. Which was ironic all things since I was about to turn a servant of mine into a shadow being. I informed the notification that I was going to have my newest familiar evolve into a Shadow Spore, and the second I confirmed my choice I watched as my friend began to change before my very eyes.


    The thick, almost quadrupedal creature seemed to grow slimmer with each moment that passed. Its form also went from being that of a crude monster, with a bear-like frame, into something that could creatively be called humanoid-like or humanoid-lite. The reason the thing''s new form, its basic shape, could only be called humanoid-like or humanoid-lite was that there were several readily apparent issues even seconds into its transformation that made it a bit of stretch to just call it a humanoid.


    The creature''s head, like that of one of my more monstrous fungal forms, was a solid oval of fungal mass rather than an actual face. It was an object that possessed the rough shape of a head, but one that lacked eyes, a mouth, a nose, or even external ears. Under the cover of darkness that may not prevent it from catching a humanoid unawares, but if my newest familiar were to openly dash at a humanoid with the sun shining down on it it''s blank face would inspire nightmares.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    The creature''s hands were unlike those of any humanoid I had ever seen, even in the memories I had either been given, taken, or made copies of throughout my life. The objects at the end of the shadow spore''s arms were more like shields or dinner plates than hands.At the end of the spore''s arms were two thick, round objects that resembled a shield made of the darkest blue material I had ever seen.


    The creature''s chest was muscled and resembled that of a professional, fit soldier. Its legs were the same way. The fungal mass that passed for its skin was universally dark, though by no means uniform in their darkness. Different spots were different shades of blue, green, red, brown, and black. Even the same limbs and extremities had variations from one particular centimeter to the next.


    I smiled at the thing and knelt down next to it to place a gentle hand on its inanimate dome.


    <hr>


    It took my friend perhaps a minute or two to begin to stir. The evolutionary process had caused it to lose consciousness, and so the thing needed a few moments to become itself once more. But in time it began to reawaken, a wholly different and infinitely more powerful being than it had been before it drank my blood. When the thing was not only stirring but also conscious enough to gain an awareness of my proximity it backed away from me, instinctually shocked that something was so close to it. I grinned amusedly at it.


    "Hello there. Welcome back to the world of the living shadow-spore." I said, referring to it by the name of its species. My eyes were focused and honed in on its almost wooden face. The thing was silent for a moment, as it took in my words. It was also incredibly still, not breathing or even emitting any noise. It was like it was a strange, dark statue in the middle of the woods.


    "Hello Fungal Lord." It said, after several moments of silence. Its head was facing my direction, and I had no doubt the thing had access to some sort of vision that didn''t rely on eyes. I reached my hand out and grabbed it by its version of hands, the strange dinner-plate like things at the end of its arms. And then I lifted it up, pulling it by its extremities until the thing was standing. In no time at all my familiar was on its feet, and we were head-to-head.


    It was quiet, probably studying me, until it broke its own silence. "What do we do now?" It asked, curiosity audible in its voice. I softly chuckled at the thing and kept my hands wrapped around the edges of its arms. My hands were at the area right where its arms began to turn into shields.


    "Now, we go for a walk," I told it. "I want to conduct an experiment." I said, my mind beginning to formulate one even before we began our trek back to another familiar place. My familiar fell silent once again, but very subtly nodded at me, tipping its heavy-looking head ever so gently in my direction.


    And then I turned around, keeping one of my hands wrapped around one of its arms, and began to trek back to the river.


    <hr>


    So I know that at least in a safe, controlled environment like my realm I can practice with things that are not yet under my control. But what about elsewhere?


    I must know... is it really that easy?


    <hr>


    My mind was unfocused while I trekked back to the river I had once watched my orcish minions fish in. It wasn''t hard to get back there, as I had a nearly perfect memory and could recall the steps I took with ease. While we walked there, my minion and I were both quiet, although we weren''t utterly silent.


    The shadow spore''s mind was filled with alerts and notifications, many of which were disorienting to the thing. One of the few moments I broke the silence was to ask my friend a question about the nature of its vision.


    "What do your fungoid eyes see?" I asked it, out of curiosity. It was more or less following me, or perhaps more accurately, I was more or less dragging it along with me, so it wasn''t as if it needed to guide itself towards our destination.


    "I see nothing but notifications. So many notifications." It told me, its voice distant and dreamy as it talked to me. It was as if my servant was tired, though I knew it wasn''t. The thing was excited, in its own way. I could feel it in its mind. I could hazily sense the dizzying speed with which my newest familiar was pouring over countless alerts and notifications thanks to our connection, not only as awakened and awakener, but also as master and familiar.


    It''s going so fast... While it''s doing this I could give it a name! After all the thing did allow me to pick what it evolved into, so why not let me name it? I thought, amusedly.I should name it something related to speed since its such a quick reader. Maybe... Rapidito? Hmm... maybe... That one''s definitely not bad.


    My mind immediately set to work, thinking of words like "Speed" and "Fast" in a number of languages. The first word that came to mind, "Rapidito" was the word for quick or speed, in the language of Reconquista, the kingdom where the human knights who served in Ranthor''s army had hailed from.


    My mind continued to race, in almost comic imitation of my servant''s mind, as I began to dive, head and mind first, into the idea of selecting a name for my newest true ally.


    I didn''t know that I was about to learn the importance of not second-guessing one''s self. I also didn''t know that I was going to be reminded of a simple fact: I''m not good at picking names.


    <hr>


    By the time we had made it to the river, I had gone through dozens of names. And it turned out that the best one was the one that was hailed from the language of Reconquista. When we first made it to the sparkly shoreline of the river I looked at my friend and began to speak.


    "I have been thinking about your name." I told it, a wide grin on my face. It twisted its head so that it was pointing in my general direction. As usual, it was a quiet thing, waiting cast-offishly for me to share what name I had picked for it.


    "I think your name should be Rapidito." I told it, a confident smirk on my face as if I had just solved some complex, impressive puzzle. The thing had turned to face me before I spoke, but once I said the name I had picked for it the thing slumped its shoulders in what rather surprisingly looked to be disappointment. And more than that the thing seemed to suddenly grow smaller, as if trying to hide out of some sort of embarrassment.


    I was taken aback for a second, not mentally ready for the name I had hand-picked to be rejected with nothing more than instinctual body language. It didn''t even say anything in the seconds that had passed since I told it what I would have. When it did speak its voice revealed its feelings.


    "Lord... I don''t think that''s the name I''d choose for myself." It said, breaking the news to me in a gentle, polite way that it didn''t like the name I felt would have been good for it. I sighed softly and then began to scratch the back of my head.


    "Well... You need a name. And if you don''t like the one I picked for you, why don''t you try and find one you like?" I told it. The thing did another of those difficult to notice nods, tilting its head forward with the sly smoothness a practiced pick-pocket does what his line-of-work is named after. I meekly accepted that this was an undertaking the shadow spore would have to do on its own, as many of the most important endeavors in life tended to be.


    In response to that mildly embarrassing moment I threw myself into the experiment I had come up with: an experiment that would begin to test whether or not I could chaotically manipulate and influence things that were normally not yet influenceable by me.


    <hr>


    Not long after that awkward moment, my ally was behind me, studying me, and I was in front of the part of the river that flowed in the middle of the forest. I stared at the lazily flowing stream and began to study its meandering tide. It slowly pushed things from somewhere far away, and towards another distant location.


    Looking at it and its unmotivated flow I began to grin.Surely if I can go ahead and chaotically control any water it would probably be this relaxed and leisurely body of water.I told myself, setting myself up for an obvious "Pride cometh before the fall" moment.


    <hr>


    I once again envisioned another thing that I had once felt beyond my abilities to control, water this time, being bent to my whims and obeying me. I had pictured the water shooting up and coiling around my arm, protectively.


    I even zeroed in on that mental image, drew it close to my heart, and then shot my arm out in the direction of the water, all while unleashing divinely chaotic energy into the water. I also grunted loudly, as if I were trying to make a sound while punching and psych-out my opponent in a sort of martial arts match.


    Which was why I was both disappointed and somewhat embarrassed when nothing more than me throwing an intimidating strike in the direction of the water happened. No water shot up and out of the river, no water coiled around my fist and arm to form a protective, albeit moist sleeve of natural armor. Nothing more than my voice exploding out of me and sailing into the forest happened.


    Instead of creating an awesome visual, I had just created a childish scene of a strange man shouting and threateningly striking the air in front of and slightly over a lazy river.


    "Well that''s odd." I said aloud. There was a look of confusion on my face before I began to slowly come to the conclusion that I shouldn''t have expected or hoped that this would be that easy.


    And in that moment I was reminded of an earlier, somewhat idle thought. "Is it really that easy?" I had wondered, minutes ago. Now I could begin to guess at the answer: probably not. But this tiny set-back begin to get the gears of my mind twisting and turning, as I began to ponder the precise nature of the benefits and regulations of my divine realm, beyond those I had been told about explicitly by the system.

 Chapter 158: Burrowing Shadows

    I was still, and my mind was racing in the wake of my failed attempt to manipulate the water in front of me. I stood over the water and considered what to do next.


    <hr>


    So... this is weird. Let me see if I can identify the differences between what I''m trying to do here, and what I did in my realm.


    I''m trying to control water, and before I controlled the air. I''m in the world of my birth, a world that doesn''t seem to be as divinely morphic as my home dimension.


    Is my body language different? Sort of. I''m actively moving around this time. Is that the difference?


    <hr>


    After noticing a handful of differences I could act upon I decided to modify my approach and try again. I stood still and centered my mind around a new mental image. Instead of envisioning the water bending to my will I envisioned the air forming a silver curtain around me, becoming the same sort of manipulable air I had played with back in my home-realm.


    I was perfectly still while my mind zeroed in on that picture. And then I rose my hands to the sky and unleashed a burst of chaotic divine energy in a circle centered around me. Unlike some of the past times, I had used divine energy instead of a named divine power what I did just now created a visible effect. Silver ripples of energy lept out of my hands and into the air, traveling a few centimeters out before fading into nothingness. And then I focused my vision on the air around me.


    And nothing happened. The air didn''t change color. A minute passed and there were no signs of anything magical having taken place. Two minutes passed and I was beginning to grow bored due to how utterly ordinary the scene around me was. And when three minutes passed I began to accept the obvious: this experiment only served to remind me that different dimensions functioned differently.


    "Well, that was disappointing." I said aloud, annoyed now by the fact that I had gotten so excited earlier when I had dared to hope that this would be easy. My companion, the shadow spore who had just become a shadow spore, walked until it was right beside me, and then began to speak.


    "''Disappointing'' Lord? Please excuse my ignorance, but why was... whatever just happened disappointing?" The thing asked, its voice gentle and filled with curiosity. It placed one of its long arms on my shoulder, for reasons that were unknown to me though my instinctual and magical connection to thing suggested that this was its attempt to comfort me in some way. I turned and looked at the thing''s face, staring into its featureless ovally head before responding.


    "Yes, my friend. Disappointing. And it''s not ''what happened'', but rather what didn''t happen. You see, I am... experimenting with my godly powers and attempting to unlock new ones. What you saw me do just now was fail, not once but twice, at doing so." I explained, adopting my usual honesty as I spoke to the creature beside me.


    A silence fell between us as the thing contemplated my words. But that silence was soon broken by the creature.


    "Lord... do you feel like explaining what you were trying to do?" It asked, curiosity seeping out of its tone. I thought about it for a second, and then quietly nodded.


    "You want to know? Well, sure! The first thing I tried to do was manipulate the water of the river. I was hoping that I''d be able to pull the water out of the river and will it to coil around my arm." I told my strange servant, a smile gradually appearing on my face as I spoke more and more. And then I was struck with a flash of inspiration. I opened my mouth and continued to speak, taking this chance to demonstrate my idea.


    "You see, Shadow," I continued speaking, while absent-mindedly referring to the thing as the name of its species. My companion didn''t complain or wince at this name and instead listened patiently to what I had to say, which I noticed and grinned internally at.


    "What I would have done would look a little something like this." I said, before pointing my hand to the ground and harnessing my experience with my Earth Control power to activate it from memory.


    An instant after my hand flared out, power was expelled from it and aimed at the ground beside me. Sand, soil, and rocks began to defy the gravity that kept them near the river and instead flow towards my outstretched hand.


    When the floating particulates and detritus reached my hand they wrapped protectively around it and soon they completely surrounded it. When my hand was completely covered in a sandy, rocky glove, the stuff went on to protectively hug the rest of my arm. As a result in a matter of seconds, my left arm was completely covered by the natural byproducts of a forested lake, wet sand, soil, and countless tiny pebbles.


    At that precise moment, I received a welcome notification: the system alerted me to the fact that I had just acquired my second of three needed communities to pass the second trial of dark sainthood. That made the grin on my face from my successful execution of Earth Control even wider. I looked over at "Shadow" and began to speak once more.


    "Just imagine this," I said, before gesturing with my right hand to my left arm. "But with water. Or rather, imagine this." I said, before adjusting my arm and myself so that I was in the exact same pose as when I failed to manipulate the water. Shadow looked at me, its blank, canvas-like head twisting in my direction and studied me for a few seconds. And then it spoke to me.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    "Lord... did you not fail twice?" It asked, evidently equally curious about my second failure as it was about my first. I chuckled and nodded at my candid companion.


    "Why yes, I did. But explaining my second failure might be a bit harder than explaining my first." I said to it. It silently waited for me to try. I sighed and began to explain.


    "Well right before I teleported here and had you evolve, I was in my home. A god''s home is a private dimension where its worshipers go when they die. It is the seat of their power, and while in it they can do things they can''t do elsewhere. I knew that and experimented with my powers in there. It turns out that I can manipulate air, while I''m at home. And not here. Which I found out just moments ago." I explained. Shadow nodded at me, evidently accepting my explanation.


    And then I studied my servant for a moment, studiously looking it up and down. "Are you hungry?" I asked it. To my surprise, my minion turned to face the river and then nodded. I patted its back and motioned for it to go get food in and from the river.


    <hr>


    A few minutes later I was seated on the thin shoreline of the river. I was seated not far from where the goblins who had once spied on me had hidden from my followers and I, which wasn''t far from where I had once accidentally killed a bear. I watched Shadow perform an action that was both it hunting and also scavenging for its next meal.


    My servant was in the river, its shield or perhaps parasol-like hands near the surface of the water. Thin strands of hyphae jutted out of the limbs and into the water. My enhanced vision allowed me to see them in motion, searching throughout the river for food. Some of the hyphae were in the ground, munching on nutrients in the watery soil, and some weren''t but were instead lazily hanging around, hoping for a fish to come within range.


    While my eyes patiently tracked and learned from the subtle actions of my friend and minion, a healthy portion of my mind was analyzing every second I had spent in my divine realm after the events at the Parthenon. I played them over and over in my mind, as even though I was pretty sure that my failure to successfully control the elements was due to the fact that I was outside of my realm, I wanted to be certain that was what it was, which required me to study myself and my recent past.


    Physically I was up to some well-spirited mischief that involved the first group of the forests'' inhabitants I had ever become aware of. In what felt like the ancient past I had gained an awareness of the Tremor-Sense power. At that time I learned of the existence of creatures that burrowed under the earth but during my time in this forest I haven''t had any encounters with them.


    But now I was gaining mastery over the earth, and I had followers who dwelled underground. And in this moment, to kill time and make new friends, as well as satisfy a little part of me that had always wondered what burrowing bugs and other subterranean animals looked like, I decided to diversify the sort of creatures I had met. Some of the same sorts of burrowing beasties that had lurked underground when I first came to life were burrowing under my follower and I right now. And I was in motion, working to meet them.


    While my follower was busy gathering its next meal I was engaged in an unusual pattern of behavior. Every few seconds I would slightly lift my feet off the ground and then bring my feet down onto the very ground I was sitting on.


    Each time I brought my foot down I sent faint vibrations using Earth Control deep into the kilometers of dirt, soil, and rocks underneath Shadow and I. And with each vibration, I transmitted into the world of subterranean beings beneath us the more creatures began to gain an awareness of us.


    <hr>


    In the sand, soil, and rocks beneath Shadow and I there was an entire ecosystem of creatures. Each time I brought my foot back onto the sand I was sitting on top of Tremor-Sense went off and showed me not only the countless inhabitants of the forest but also all the varied sorts of creatures that lived underneath this magical place.


    Long ago I had gotten my sonar-like ability to the point that I could see the species of nearby beings whenever I focused on the mini-map it provided me. As I looked at it at this moment I could see all manner of delightful sounding things living whole lives underneath the ground.


    With a glance at the map, I could see fierce-sounding names like Firespitter Beetles or Pitfall Spiders. I could also see curious but less intimidating sounding names like Earthworm or Farmer Ant which also drew my attention. I wanted to meet these creatures. To greet them, and learn about their lives. And this was the perfect time to do just that.


    From now until the day of the election in Namira I didn''t have much to do, so this was the time for me to practice my powers, make this place a holy site, and gain new allies throughout my birthplace.


    At this moment I was reminded of my younger self and how my own enthusiasm to make friends had accidentally gotten some young mice killed. That memory wasn''t a great one, but it was because of it that I was careful in how I was trying to draw the creatures I wanted to meet towards me.


    I didn''t want to ensorcell them, which had been a disaster when I lasted tried it. I wanted them to come of their own free-will, in so far as they had free-will.


    I wouldn''t repeat the mistakes of my younger self. So I patiently tapped my foot onto the floor, over and over. Each of my taps sent out little vibrations, alerting anything nearby as to my presence. The small part of my mind devoted to this idle curiosity of mine reflected on the traits that ensured my safety as I did this.


    <hr>


    I am lucky my adventures have granted me such an odd assortment of feats, skills, and powers. Things like Ally to Vermin" ensure I won''t be attacked, and other things like "Beast-Lord" ensure that anything that comes my way will register that I am a god. And even if anything did attack me, there''s a forest on both sides of me. I can use any number of plant-based abilities to defend myself, in addition to all sorts of combat-related powers.


    It seems like my quirky adventures and the wacky assortment of abilities they granted me are really useful in an arboreal place like a forest... How lucky is that?


    <hr>


    Each tap of my foot drew little beasties and bugs closer and closer to me. And that made me grin, a grin that grew wider each time my foot touched the ground and my Tremor-Sense was updated.

 Chapter 159: A New Friend For Lunch

    The moment Shadow and I arrived at the river where my pet was eating its fill the sun had been beginning a gradual climb upwards to the zenith of its daytime position. At this point over fifteen minutes had passed. The sun was currently beating down on my fungal servant and me, and the flaming star was currently at its peak high above us.


    Over the course of the past few minutes, I had kept tapping my feet and hadn''t paused once. It was a constant, rhythmic tapping as if I were dancing along to some strange, inaudible music. While I was doing this Shadow had kept on hunting for its lunch, its hyphae lazily and unofficially damming the river. Had anyone been around to see us we''d probably look like a strange druid and its even stranger familiar.


    It was while we were idly relaxing in our own ways that I began to be approached by the first creature, a Pitfall Spider, to fall for the bait that was the vibrations I was transmitting using Earth Control. I had begun sending loud vibrations into the earth beneath the shore just so I could meet more creatures, particularly more animals and insects.


    I smiled when I noticed the little blip that represented the creature located deep underground begin to speedily shoot upwards, probably intent on discovering the cause of the vibrations that had reached even it, deep under the earth.


    <hr>


    It took the speedy spider that was approaching me a few minutes to get from deep underground to the topmost layer of sand that separated it from me. While the thing was skittering towards me I used a power I only rarely used, Remote Viewing, to lay my eyes on it.


    Deep under the ground, the thing that was speedily clambering upwards was positively and beautifully monstrous. It was a spider the size of a decently large horse, with eight large and barb-covered and claw-tipped legs that were well suited to both climbing and digging, as well as two powerful arms that ended in bony, unsettlingly human-like, hands.


    The thing''s exoskeleton was a stunning shade of red and the central part of its abdomen had a distinctive marking that resembled an ivory-colored human skull. And there was a look of determination on the things thick-fanged face. Each of its azure blue eyes, all eight of them, were staring straight ahead, which meant that the thing''s gaze never fell off of the dirt, rocks, and earth it had to dig through to get to its destination.


    The thing''s legs were a dizzying blur as it moved. It just so happened that the monster had an incredible work-ethic and possessed a seemingly limitless vitality. This led to it making short work of the distance between us, a distance that was originally measured in kilometers.


    <hr>


    By the time the monster was less than a minute away from where I was seated, I began to get up and stretch. I got up and took my time stretching my muscles, doing a variety of low-intensity exercises, before walking a few steps to the right of where I had just been standing.


    I waited for about five seconds and then the sand of the beach where I had just been sitting was violently flung out of the way of the now sandy spider that had come to investigate me. Some of the sand landed on me, and I removed it by shaking and flinging it off of me. Shadow turned to face me, and I could hear the thing''s heartbeat quicken.


    I casually shouted, "Don''t worry about it, this thing is a friend." I told my fungoid familiar, quite confidently and to reassure my minion that I wasn''t harmed, surprised, or upset.


    And then I waited for the spider to finish climbing out of the pit it had just made while burrowing upward to find me, the source of the constant vibrations.


    <hr>


    One leg shot out of the hole the spider''s violent climbing had created in the thin shoreline. I watched as the thin limb seemed to take a second to do something like searching its surroundings, rotating in a complete circle before abruptly deciding on a course of action.


    When the limb finished its rotation it suddenly slammed into the ground beside me, missing me by less than a meter. I could actually feel the force of the impact of the limb into the ground, which exploded away from the thing. I was still while I watched this, utterly unafraid of the massive arachnidian limb, and even less afraid of the monstrous possessor of that limb.


    And then another limb shot out of the hole the monster''s dramatic entrance had created. This limb was the same color and size as the other one. Rather unsurprisingly this limb didn''t have to take the same preparatory phases as the other one and instead immediately plunged into the sandy flooring on the other side of me. It produced an equally loud explosion of noise and was immediately followed by the emergence of the third leg.


    At this point, the cycle began to repeat itself, with each leg violently impaling the floor around the hole. Once all eight limbs had been violently thrust into the floor the spider they were attached too threw its bulbous mass upward, causing its thick exoskeleton to bound into view for the first time.


    At this point, the thing''s full body was out of the hole it had created, and it was looking around, searching its surroundings to find the cause of the vibrations that had lured it upwards in the first place. I was behind it, and in the proper position so that it would lay its eyes on me first before it glimpsed Shadow.


    "Look at you... absolutely splendid." I muttered, amazed at the sight of the monstrous predator now that I could study it up close. And in my defense, it truly was a beauty as far as such things go.


    The thing smelled of the varied scents that one found deep underground. It smelled of strange gases and even stranger metals. And it was strangely quiet for such a hulking beast, as most of the noise it had made so far it made when it violently decimated the final layer of sand standing between it and myself.


    The thing slowly turned when it couldn''t catch a glimpse of anyone. In a matter of seconds, it had turned enough that the thing was staring at me. I was smiling at it, and the second it saw me, even as I glimpsed at it the thing suddenly froze up, its mind adjusting to my presence.


    "Hello there little one." I said, greeting the thing warmly and openly.


    <hr>


    The spider studied me, each of its eyes focused on a different aspect of my form. I took a step forward, slowly and carefully approaching the brave thing so as to not startle it. It followed my movements, studying me openly, and there wasn''t a hint of fear or suspicion in its gaze. And then I received a notification that explained why it wasn''t afraid.


    [Alert:


    The spider is currently under the effects of the assorted animal and vermin abilities and feats you''ve gained over the course of your life. It could easily fall under your influence, especially now that your influence over the faith domain has been increased.]


    I sighed as I read the notification. And then I willed it away. In the presence of my new friend, I found my mood rapidly improving, but for now, I still wanted to be sure I considered how to ensure that the system and the domains took me seriously and treated me as an equal before I went back to business as usual.


    A small part of me did appreciate the system informing me that the spider was being affected by my powers though. It served as handy confirmation that I possessed significant sway over animals intrinsically.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    "You''re a very pretty thing." I told the spider, a grin on my face as I took in the wild majesty of its enormous form.


    <hr>


    Pitfall spiders were not a particularly intelligent type of spider. They were crafty, even among a trap-making species like spiders, but they were only just smart enough to be considered sapient. Functionally that meant that they were a bit dumber than a human that had just reached the point in their development wherein they could speak.


    The one that had burst out of the ground right where Althos had been sitting seconds earlier was a dim-witted member of its kind which explained why the thing had opted to take the obvious bait Althos laid out. It was also a big, brutish member of its species that had survived several years and had done so by being big enough to tackle other creatures stupid enough to fall for its subpar traps.


    And the second the spider laid its eyes on Althos the thing''s lack of intelligence came into play. Because it was immediately struck by the number of powers, titles, domains, and feats Althos had that were related to animals, and darkness, which were two things that influenced its very soul.


    Its low intelligence made an already suggestible creature become putty in the hands of the curious god, whose curiosity and studiousness made it difficult for him to intentionally exploit the thing that, in his eyes anyway, was adorable.


    The spider stared at the youthful deity. The spider was only barely sapient and a part of it was awed by the fearless god. That part grew with each word the deity spoke to it. What made the effect Althos had on the spider was that it sensed no hostility from the human-like entity it was studying, and obviously it couldn''t sense any fear either.


    It could even sense a mighty air about Althos. He was not only brave, but the air around him shimmered with a dazzling mixture of divine and magical energy giving him an aura of splendor. That, coupled with the powers related to animals and vermin that Althos had earned over the course of his life, kept the spider abjectly fascinated while it was in his presence.


    <hr>


    "Hmm... what should I do with you?" I wondered, aloud. I was now petting the head of the spider, who at this point had given up all pretense of being anything short of awed by me. It looked up at me, adoringly as I ran a hand over its somewhat bumpy head.


    The thing was tall, almost my height in fact. At the moment I was a bit taller than the average human, but because that was my current height and the thing was just shorter than me that meant that it was bigger than some bears, and that was a dizzying height for a thing like a spider to be.


    "Are you hungry?" I asked the thing, treating it more like an adorable puppy than a terrifying and deadly predator. The beast nodded at me, its eyes growing wide at the thought of food. I laughed and held out both of my hands in front of the thing.


    "Watch this." I said, pompously while tilting my head down towards my hands. My newest friend thought about my words for a second before its head titled downward and its eight eyes all began to stare at my hands.


    <hr>


    Just relax... and now, visualize a fish. In the safety of my mind, I pictured a fish. It was a simple thing, but it was also nice and fat. Lots of delicious and nutritious flesh for my new friend.


    Imagine every part of the fish. Every bone, every bit of muscle, every organ. I told myself, carefully visualizing an anatomically correct fish in my mind. At this moment I was grateful to every cook who worshiped me because they all spent countless hours and had thousands of memories of preparing fish, which meant that I had those memories as well, so it was thanks to them I could do this.


    And now... direct magical power into your hands. I said, in the void of my mind. I felt power begin to concentrate in my hands, mostly magic but also some divine mixed in there as well. My hands began to warm up as the power settled in them, called there by me and now awaiting an action to perform.


    And now... create the illusion. I said, both to myself and to the power in my hands. And as soon as I said it or rather, as soon as I thought it, it began to occur. Power began to bleed out of my palms and into the empty air in my empty hands.


    And then the fish slowly came into existence. It phased into existence in the safety of my hands, rather than forming in some sort of eldritch geometry like the devils had when I had resurrected them months ago.


    Once the fish was fully formed, but still not real, I did the last thing I needed to do. And it was a multistep process.


    The first step was to use my memories to recall the exact thing I did to make my one Arboreal Angel an actual being. Once I had the custom effect I used to make Menanam real locked in my mind, I replicated it. And a second later I hit the fish in my hands with it, causing the thing to spring to life in my hands instead of being a static hologram-like image in my hands.


    The fish''s eyes opened wide and the now living creature began to shake and struggle in my hands, presumably trying to get free so that it could go to water and begin to breathe. I kept my arms locked tight around the little fellow, easily holding onto it. I grinned at my newest companion and told it something pretty simple.


    "If you stick with me you''ll never go hungry." I said, confidently. I beamed at the thing as I said it, feeling pretty proud of one of my strangest and most chaotic powers: the ability to bring my illusions to life.


    "Now... do you want to eat?" I asked it. I spoke very casually about what may well have been the strangest moment in this creature''s life, and my friend was quite reasonably too astonished to react immediately.


    My little friend was beside itself. Its eyes were conveying its legitimate astonishment at what it had just seen, and in fairness that made sense. The creature had just seen a god quite literally create life out of nothing, and then ask it if it wanted to eat that life.


    Over the course of my life I had met enough creatures and absorbed and studied enough memories to develop a baseline for what could be considered normal, and what couldn''t, and what I had just done definitely couldn''t be considered normal.


    In response to the absurdity of the situation, I kept a grin plastered on my face, and eventually, my friend regained its senses. When it did it casually nodded at me, indicating a desire to eat something for lunch.


    My most inexperienced friend reached out with one of its thick arms. I gave the limb the fish, and the beastie happily accepted it, pulling it to its ebon maw, and devouring the thing in moments. The fish vanished into the monster''s mouth, and I watched the newest sort of creature I had met to date visibly relax and shiver in satisfied delight.


    I chuckled at it and then began to speak to it once more. "If you liked that... I''d definitely like to keep you. I''d keep you nice and fed." I said, genuinely enjoying everything about the thing. I found myself comforted by its simplicity,


    And it was while it was relishing my ability to give it food that I quietly sealed the hole it had created when it first revealed itself to me.


    Shadow began to walk over to me and to the spider who had kept me company over the course of the last few minutes, and when my fungoid friend arrived the three of us settled down in the river and began to relax. I began to make more fish so that I could continue to feed my hungry new companion.


    For a few hours, I allowed myself to enjoy the simple and leisurely life of a powerful forest creature while experimenting with different ways to use my powers chaotically, most of which didn''t work.


    <hr>


    I didn''t give myself a time-limit or anything to frame how long I enjoyed a snippet of simple forest life, but when the end of that period came, I knew it had come. I ended my brief break when a new figure appeared at the outer edge of what my Tremor-Sense could detect. The new figure was cloaked in the color my mini-map used to identify friends, but the precise identity of the figure was the shocking thing, not the fact that it was a friend.


    The second I saw the comforting shade of silver on the mini-map I clicked on it since I had very few allies in this forest. And I was pleasantly shocked to see that the figure my mini-map detected wasn''t just an ally but someone with whom I had a real history.


    The figure my mini-map detected was the goblin Amelie. She was the very first creature who had ever willingly allowed me to make a copy of all of her memories, thoughts, knowledge, and secrets. Those were the terms she needed to accept if she wanted me to save her life, and the lives of the squad of goblins she was a part of. She had accepted those terms and I kept my word, copying her memories and then proceeding to save the lives I swore to save.


    And upon seeing her name in front of me for the second time in my entire life, I felt like going to go and greet her. I looked at my companions and gestured for them to follow me. And the three of us took off in the direction of the person who inadvertently taught me so much about the world.


    There was a grin on my face as I began to saunter towards the woman who in a thematic sense was the first person I had ever made a devil''s deal with. As I began to take off towards her, several mischevious thoughts crossed my mind. Fun, and usually somewhat wicked things I could do to the little goblin.


    Of those thoughts the most fun one of them had to have been the one that told me that I should make an actual devil''s deal with her and acquire her soul. The thought of it struck me as both chaotic, due to its randomness, and also lawful because of the mechanics of what I actually wanted to do.

 Chapter 160: Names

    As my followers and I walked into the forest to reunite with Amelie I reached my mind across dimensions and wrapped a familiar blanket of teleportation energy around my demonic pets. I then pulled them to me, taking both out of their routines and warping them here.


    They suddenly appeared in front of us, and I greeted them with a nod. "Hello boys. We''re going on an adventure and I figured you could use a chance to stretch your legs. And there''s a non-zero percent chance you''ll get to inflict violence!" I said to the duo of demons.


    Both monsters did their versions of a grin, with Aggathas'' avian beak opening wide and a bit of spittle escaping its kisser and Raverangos beginning to actually grin, the expression unsettling on its bestial face. Neither of them spoke, and neither of them paid any mind to my new companions. Instead after grinning the two things nodded at each other and then myself and followed me when I continued to walk.


    At this point, we were within the forest and far enough away from the river that my companions couldn''t see it. I could, but my vision was several degrees better than theirs were. And then we began to walk, with my assorted pets following my lead once I brushed past the two demons I had summoned to my side.


    <hr>


    About ten minutes into the walk, at that point a mostly silent undertaking as none of my companions were known for being particularly fond of or skilled at chatting, I was filled with curiosity about something. Mostly on a whim, I used Identify on each of the creatures I was traveling with.


    And what I saw was positively delightful.


    [Name: Raverangos (False Name) Ingredan (True Name)


    Class: Berserker, Sentinel Demon, Level 15


    Species: Sentinel Demon


    Faction: Althonian Honor Guard


    Alignment: Chaotic Evil


    Civilization: Solitary


    Personal Vice: Wrath


    Status: Healthy


    Innate Magical Ability: Existent but tiny. Sentinel demons possess an innate connection to the Heart of Darkness that is superficially similar to how a deity manipulates its divine realm. They are capable of channeling chaos and using it to inflict devastating damage on their enemies.


    Class Suitability: Ingredan is a berserker and that is the perfect class for a sentinel demon. A sentinel demon''s specific specialty within the berserker class is one that allows it to be calm until a battle is already underway and then fly into a sadistic rage.


    Magic Suitability: Evocation magic. Ingredan is a damage-dealer and a murderous foe. The magic that most resonates with its soul is evocation magic, magic that is used to damage enemies of the caster.]


    [Name: Aggathas (False name) Erruth (True name)


    Class: Rogue, Scout, Level 10


    Species: Wrath Demon


    Faction: Althonian Honor Guard


    Alignment: Chaotic Evil


    Civilization: Pack


    Personal Vice: Wrath


    Status: Healthy


    Innate Magical Ability: Very limited.


    Class Suitability: Erruth is the class it is most suitable for already, a rogue. The only other class the demon might be suitable for is a surprising one to anyone who foolishly conflates its demonic body with direct physical violence: the illusionist class.


    Erruth enjoys participating in violence and never turns down opportunities to engage in battle, but the demon is equally adept at stoking violence in others, something illusionists can do quite easily.


    Magic Suitability: Illusion magic. If this demon were to be granted access to the school of magic that most match its vile soul it would illusionary magic. When expertly cast spells from this school can easily stoke rage in those who fall under their influence. Though for the demon to be good at using magic would require it to be taught how to use magic in the first place.]


    [Name: Shadow (Tentative)


    Class: N.A.


    Species: Shadow Spore


    Faction: Althonian Honor Guard


    Alignment: Neutral


    Source of Law: Althos


    Personal Vice: Gluttony


    Civilization: Solitary


    Status: Healthy


    Innate Magical Ability: As a member of the species known as Shadow Spores the creature currently called Shadow has much higher innate magical ability than it did hours ago. Shadow Spores have high innate magical abilities, overshadowed only by Mushroom Magi. Shadow Spores tend to be naturally capable of using necromantic magic and illusionary magic, making them dark mages.


    Class Suitability: Shadow is most innately suited to three classes: the sorcerer class, the necromancer class, and the ranger class. Shadow is now a font of darkness, death, and eerie fungal powers. Sorcerers are creatures who have innate ties to magic, rangers are stealthy warriors who roam natural places and protect them from civilization as well as protect civilization from them, and necromancers are skilled magicians who specialize in necromantic magic.


    Three classes are the maximum number of classes a mortal can have unless their souls are buffed, which at the moment is beyond your capabilities.


    Magic Suitability: Necromancy. You were the source of Shadow''s ascension and you are a dastardly god of magic, necromancy, and darkness. Shadow''s magical capabilities are a direct result of your blood inside of it, so they go in the same direction as yours do. If given access to magic the thing would need to be taught how to use it. It spent its life until this point without magic so it makes sense that the thing has little knowledge of magic.]


    [Name: N/A


    Class: N/A


    Species: Pitfall Spider


    Faction: Althos'' pet


    Alignment: Neutral


    Source of Law: N/A


    Personal Vice: Envy


    Civilization: Solitary


    Status: Healthy, enthralled.


    Innate Magical Ability: Nonexistent.


    Class Suitability: Rogue for the thing''s race, berserker for the thing as an individual. Pitfall spiders are a natural evolution of a trapdoor spider, both of which are stealthy creatures who create traps as part of their hunting behaviors. That said, this individual pitfall spider is not a wise member of its species and as an individual would benefit from the mighty physical perks of becoming a berserker.


    Magic Suitability: Alteration. If this large, terrifying spider were granted access to alteration magic and taught how to harness it to enhance its own strikes it would become even more terrifying.]


    I did my best to keep my gaze neutral and not express both shock and delight at what I had just discovered I was now capable of learning. It was hard not to express the sheer delight I felt though, so it was a challenge for me to not reveal that I had somehow just gained an incredible ability.


    <hr>


    "Demon''s don''t give out their true names. Power can be exerted over them by people who know their true names." That was how I was first introduced to the concept of "True names", in the ruined town of Golden-Gate. My mind flashed back to that moment.


    I recalled myself standing over the demon, who had just been defeated and thoroughly cowed before me. When I had asked Ingredan for its name the thing hesitated, afraid of the power I''d have over it if it surrendered such a closely guarded secret. And now, while I stomped through the forest, months later, I now had knowledge of its true name. And a means to gain the true names of other extraplanars as well... I realized.


    As I trudged through the forest I wondered about the potency of a true name. For a second I remembered that I could now use Identify on abstract concepts, but I wasn''t ready to do that just yet. Instead, I decided to ask a friend, asking the very figure who first told me about true names.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    [Hey Samyaza, remember when you told me about true names?] I asked one of the two advisors of mine who had long ago settled inside of my mind. There was silence on the other end of the link for a few moments, while the angel considered my question. And when it broke that silence, the tone of its voice was odd.


    [Yes I do... why?] My first companion and friend asked me. There was a hint of concern in its voice, and more than a small amount of fear in it as well. For a second I wondered how to feel about that, but very quickly I realized this presented me with an opportunity for fun. Especially because I knew that angels were extraplanar entities, which meant that they had true names as well, something Samyaza neglected to mention when it was telling me about true names so long ago.


    [... I think you can guess why I''m asking this, Samyaza.] I said, infecting my mental voice with a hint of ominousness.


    [Have you actually arrived at a point where you can learn true names?] The orb angel asked, and the emotions in the angelic being''s voice were varied. There was a tone of respect in its voice but accented with bits of fear and surprise as well. Due to the emotions, I could hear in its voice I didn''t mince words with my response, opting to be honest with my constant companion.


    [Yes I have. My Identify power is that potent now. It has been steadily increasing in power over the course of the last few months, but each time my influence over the domain of knowledge increased it underwent significant leaps in potency. And I just used it on my pets, and discovered by happenstance that it now reveals true names.] I informed the tiny metallic entity that was at its most comfortable in my mind.


    [Althos... can you confirm this for me?] My companion asked. I grinned at it, at the same time as I began to wade through some natural grass that grew to be knee-length, in the depths of the forest. I considered how to respond to that request, curious as to what that entailed.


    <hr>


    How would Samyaza like for me to prove the legitimacy of my claim? If I were to use my powers on it, sure I''d gain its true name, but I could also have done that by exploring the thing''s memories. All of my extraplanar followers know I have access to their memories, and many of them have assumed I''ve looked through their memories, but none of them know that I''ve actually not bothered to look up their true names.


    I considered it, and even tried it in a few cases, but I always got blocked by annoying text that kept me from assessing their names. And now, at last, it looks like that limitation has been overcome...


    If I were to give Samyaza its own true name then it might just accuse me of checking for it through the thing''s memories. If I were to give it a random true name then it''d need to confirm that the name was actually a true name. Which would require a magical conjuring that used the name as the basis of the spell.


    Or... Or I could finally have a use for that annoying devil that tried to stop me from saving Angelica. Now that''s an idea. Yeah, let''s try that!


    <hr>


    [I can! But it won''t be me who''ll do it. And by that I mean, this me.] I told my companion, after finishing up the plotting part of my latest scheme. After all, I had an adventure to get underway.


    And with that, I began to speed up, eager to be reunited with Amelie. And I hoped that the first will, another one of me, was about to have some fun. He was in the depths of one of the fort-like buildings and moments ago he began to carefully plan to construct a conjuration circle.


    <hr>


    The moment the other me began to scheme to use Bluemoon I instinctively used Identify on the rather annoying devil. And at that moment, no matter how one part of me felt about the events within the Parthenon, I was grateful for the sudden series of new improvements that all three of us received over the course of an hour due to the almost nonsensical string of occurrences that took place within that place.


    [Name: Bluemoon Thunderfist (False Name) Salandros (True Name)


    Class: Monk, Level 15


    Species: Monje Devil


    Faction: Paimon''s dictatorship


    Alignment: Lawful Evil


    Civilization: Monastery


    Personal Vice: Lust


    Status: Healthy


    Innate Magical Ability: Average. Salandros is a devil and has the magical capabilities of the average devil, which means he has some suitability in a particular school of magic. He can manipulate qi and is strong enough to use it to stun his enemies on a successful strike.


    Class Suitability: Salandros is the perfect class for his species: the monk.


    Magic Suitability: The magic that most resonates with Salandros'' soul is healing magic. He doesn''t have access to healing spells, but if he did he could afford to be rougher with his enemies.]


    Salandros. I thought as I began to look at the floor of the chamber I found myself in. I measured it in my mind, taking note of the dimensions of the place. And I sent my angelic advisor a quick message letting it know who I was going to summon.


    I happened to be standing deep inside of one of the fortresses that marked the boundaries of my territory and let the world know where Paimon''s territory began. The floor at my feet was made of rock, the natural rocks that were hidden underneath meters and meters of sand.


    It was a dense bark colored stone and made the dark chamber even darker. And very importantly it was solid to the touch, not flakey or grainy like sand. Just one solid surface.


    The walls around me were made of a brick-like substance that came into being as the result of a massive ecomantic custom effect I had used to speed the construction and erection of the immense line of fortresses that marked my borders. They gleamed in the dark, providing the chamber with the little natural light it had.


    The chamber smelled of the rock at my feet, a natural and pungent order of dried stone. And the place was utterly silent. It was a perfect location for the task I was about to undertake. For a moment I was still as I brought to mind the steps someone needed to do to create a conjuring circle tied to Infernius and to devils specifically.


    <hr>


    Conjuration magic, especially proper conjuration magic was both powerful and highly structured. It was a complex school of magic that was often bastardized and therefore put down but I knew better. I had learned better. That was why I hadn''t opted to abuse it.


    That and the fact that I had the memories and knowledge of a number of conjurers whose wisdom taught me better. I was lucky to be worshipped by all of them, but I was especially lucky to have earned the service of one incredibly powerful conjurer: Qu''Ren.


    Her memories and knowledge came bubbling up to the surface of my mind. I grinned as I felt her expertise fill me, especially when combined with my precise and divine mind. Seconds later I changed my facial expression back to a stoic and still one and set to work.


    Once I had finished taking the measurements of the place I looked at the stone at my feet and visualized a circle. I firmly memorized every centimeter of the circle I hoped to create, a process that thanks to my memory took an instant of concentration. And then I activated one of my more handy powers: Earth Control. I used the power to mold the circle into the stone, carving a perfect circle into the floor at my feet.


    The second after my power activated the room was filled with the noise of the earth at my feet being divinely rent by my power. It was a horrid, violent noise that went on for a few moments while the ground at my feet bent to my will and mutilated itself.


    When the chamber was silent again there was a perfect circle in the floor at my feet. The next thing I mentally visualized and then memorized was a nonagon, a nine-sided polygon. I repeated what I did to get the circle embedded in the floor, but for the nine-sided polygon.


    Once the floor was again done being subjected to my whims and the chamber was silent I stared at the shape on the floor. "Truly magical." I muttered, alone with no one to appreciate my words.


    "And now for the bloody parts of the process." I said, both speaking and thinking those muttered words. My eyes flashed for a moment as I used an alteration spell to numb my hand. I had learned from the mistakes made by my other-self.


    I could have used an animal''s blood to fuel the circle I had just created. I could have created a spider or six and drained them of blood to fill in the circle. But so far this process had been orderly and riskfree. And if I wanted to embrace chaos, and all three of us, of me, really did, I needed to take a risk. To experiment. To do what was never done before.


    And I sincerely doubted anyone had ever made a conjuring circle using the blood of a deity of law and knowledge.


    <hr>


    Blood. Blood was something Qu''Ren had thought about a lot during her childhood and into her adolescence. She thought about it a lot because it was a necessary part of true conjurations.


    Blood and the energy, memories, and life contained therewithin, fueled the sorts of conjurations that were needed to gain the attention and support of evil extraplanar beings. Blood was the fuel that pulled extraplanar souls across vast distances.


    But it wasn''t the blood that they were after, nor did they drink the ichor of living beings. It was the memories located within the blood that called to them, especially to evil outsiders. And my blood had a lot of that.


    <hr>


    Less than a minute later the circle and the nonagon within it that were carved into the floor were filled with a slick red liquid. The cut on my hand was healed, and I gave the strange shape a once-over just to confirm that the eldritch formula I had created was correct. Though I was inexperienced when it came to creating magical designs by hand, a second-long glance at it led me to believe I had done a fine job at creating it.


    I''m grateful this magic is so orderly. I realized, aware that for all of a precise thing''s flaws and routineness recreating them was simple if you had the sort of powers that I had. And now for the test. I thought, my lips a thin, neutral line as I readied myself to cast a conjuring spell that I had gained when my overall knowledge level went from two to three.


    [Spell type: Conjuration


    Spell name: Calling


    Spell effect: This potent spell hones in on a specific extraplanar being and barring some sort of hold on their soul forces them to come to the circle from which they were called, whereupon they will be bond as long as the spell is maintained. This spell requires an extraplanar being''s true name, but if the caster has that on hand this is the most reliable way to call and bind an extraplanar entity. As such it is a tremendously powerful spell and casting it is considered a mythic act of magic.


    Spell Cost: 750,000 magical energy per minute the spell is maintained.


    Additional notes: This spell is one of the few with a verbal incantation. To cast it, the speaker must say "Come to me oh mighty one, heed my call and speed to my side! I call to thee!" And then the true name must be spoken aloud three times in a row.]


    And so it begins. I thought as I opened my mouth to cast the spell.


    "Come to me oh mighty one, heed my call and speed to my side! I call to thee! Salandros, Salandros, Salandros!" I yelled, my voice powerfully echoing in the chamber I found myself in.


    The second I muttered that third "Salandros" I felt the cost of the spell in my bones as it drank my magical energy right out of me. It was so magically expensive that even I, a god and an entity made of magic with literally infinite magical energy, felt an immense rush of power simply fading out of me.


    The circle at my feet began to heat up, and I watched the blood at my feet, within the circle, begin to radiate an otherworldly glow. The dark chamber was suddenly illuminated by a cruel glow, the unholy radiance of the evil liquid that filled the magical shape I stood next to.


    After a few seconds passed, a fel-green mist began to form within the confines of the circle. The mist spread out in front of me until it filled the circle. Once the airy substance had settled I was rewarded for my work with evidence that my spell had worked.


    Within the mist, two amber-colored eyes formed, the first parts of the devil to cross over to me from within the Onyx Obelisk. They starred at me in confusion, which made sense since I had stolen all of the devil''s memories of meeting me after I defeated him.


    While he and I locked eyes, a smile began to appear on my lips. And then my angelic friend willed itself out of me so that it could lay its own eyes on the devil I had decided to make into my guinea pig.


    "So it''s true... you really can learn true names now?" The orb asked me, speaking aloud. This alerted Salandros to some of the conditions of my trap, and the devil''s eyes widened in fear at that discovery. I nodded but kept my gaze locked on the confused devil. The rest of the thing''s body was beginning to form within the mist, drawing it closer and closer to me.


    I didn''t utter a single word in response to my angelic advisor, I was waiting for it to tell me what exactly it was that true names could do for those few who knew them.


    <hr>


    While my other-self and Samyaza began to play with my one-time foe, I had gotten close enough to Amelie to lay my eyes on her. I was at that perfect distance from her where I could see her, but not nearly close enough to the goblin woman for her to be able to see me.


    I watched her, like a hawk watching a mouse it intended to sink its talons into. And while I was doing so, she was walking in my direction, slowly closing the distance between us.


    Each footstep brought her closer and closer to me, and to the rough-looking gang of bruisers I had brought with me. She was quite lucky I wasn''t the sort to rush to inflict violence, but the sort of mischief I hoped to get up to was no less dangerous than physical violence. In fact, I''d say it was a lot more dangerous and more permanent than mere physical damage.

 Chapter 161: The Long-Game

    The forest floor under my feet was soft, and each of my footsteps into it covered my feet in the healthy soil that littered the ground. I enjoyed that. I felt it between my toes, and its warmth was a good way to combat the chill in the air. It was colder now than it had been when I came to life.


    I was proceeding through the forest at a steady pace, joined and followed by my four servants and pets. They were behind me, at various distances. The only creature was very close to me was the pitfall spider who had joined my small menagerie. It was right behind me, following me leisurely since its eight legs granted it a truly impressive potential speed and endurance.


    We were in a part of the forest where trees were loosely spread, but the ones that were here were impressive to behold. This was a deeper part of the forest, and all around me, I could sense the strong lifeforce of the trees. It felt good to be in a place like this, one so deeply and anciently natural. As I pondered that, my mind was filled with idle thoughts.


    This will make a good holy site. So much life to use and rule over.


    I can sense countless creatures. Is this shiver the result of the cold or is it... excitement at the ways my powers can affect this place?


    I feel so many things here. My connections to both nature and the earth at my feet are giving me a constant rush of information. Even I could imagine only some of the things I could do here if I became an overgod of nature and plants...


    As I closed in on the little goblin whose mind was the first mind I ever copied, I felt a rush of enthusiasm for our meeting.It''s a shame that Amelie doesn''t feel the same way.I thought, before coming to a stop.


    I motioned for my followers to stop as well. They all obeyed me immediately, aside from Shadow who walked until it was right beside me, and then came to a stop. I allowed this because it was clear that the creature was doing so so that it could protect me, as if I needed protection, more effectively.


    In the distance, I could see Amelie. I had been able to see her for several kilometers now. And she still couldn''t see the tiny circus of beasts and critters I had brought with me, or myself. I had chosen this place to stop at for a reason.


    I focused my vision on Amelie and began to call the young woman''s thoughts to the forefront of my mind. She may not be excited to see me, but that doesn''t mean I couldn''t change her mind. Especially if I was tricky about it.


    I focused on my copy of the woman''s stream of consciousness from the start of her life until the day we met. I studied it and pushed all other thoughts away for a moment.


    I''ll make her think she''s excited to see me. I''ll master her thoughts to the extent that she believes me to be anything she needs me to be, to serve me.I thought, wanting to gain the goblin''s servitude and foolishly believing I''d be able to do it easily.


    And soon she''ll want to serve me willingly.I told myself, as my mind poured over every thought that the goblin had once thought. As I reached out and began to touch her mind, I quietly opted to surprise her.


    I motioned for my servants to go and hide, directing each of them with gestures and pointed fingers, shortly before I used made myself invisible and rendered my body incorporeal.


    <hr>


    Amelie was smoothly traversing through the forest. Each of her steps was calculated, careful, and relied on her near-perfect understanding of the forest.


    Her small body made the forest a dangerous place for her to be in. The forest, though safe for creatures like bears and wolves, was no safe place for a goblin. She had learned that lesson over and over again but in the wake of the day where she met and was saved by Althos.


    She had engraved what she learned that day in her heart because it served as a life-changing reminder that this forest birthed horrors beyond her ability to imagine. When she reflected on that she wasn''t thinking about the unicorn. Whenever she sat down and thought about that day her mind immediately turned to focus on the deity who had brazenly invaded her mind. It was him, and not the dark unicorn that featured prominently in her nightmares.


    The young goblin studied what laid before her as she continued her travels. Her mind was focused on that, and that alone, which caused her guard to be lowered when it came to detecting magical infiltration.


    Althos began to attempt to deceive her when she was still two kilometers away from him.


    I wonder how he''s doing...He whispered into her mind, eerily reproducing her voice. For a second she was tempted to stop but she didn''t, telling herself that the thought was an intrusive one, and not anything truly sinister. She even told herself that the thought was in reference to her former captain, but that only lasted for a second.


    Even as she told herself that a mental image of Althos emblazoned itself in her consciousness.


    She shook her head as if doing that would clear her mind or afford her some special protection against the god she was unknowingly being manipulated by.


    That eerie deity... Could he be doing this? Is he here?She questioned, drawn to that conclusion by her fear but unknowingly arriving at the right one. Her heart began to hammer in her chest. The goblin ceased her otherwise relentless traveling and began to frantically search her surroundings,


    In the distance, Althos was impressed by how quickly she caught on. The truth was that he came on incredibly strong and his approach was comically aggressive. After all, this was his first time trying to do this sort of thing without any magical assistance, and so even he wasn''t sure of how to do it. That said, not all was lost.


    Althos waited while Amelie fearfully searched her surroundings, and took that time to stealthy snatch up a copy of her memories, thoughts, knowledge, and secrets. And then he absorbed them, mastering them in less than a second because it had only been two months since the first and last time that they met.


    What he learned surprised him. And made him smile.


    <hr>


    Oh wow... she is terrified of me. I realized, an instant after snatching up what new thoughts and memories Amelie had had and had made since our first meeting.


    In her mind, I was synonymous with fear itself. I sighed as I realized that this meant that my earlier approach had been far too heavy-handed. And to add to the humble pie I was making for myself I made a mental note to make sure I knew everything my target knew if I opted to be deceptive like this in the future, and not move recklessly.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    And that wasn''t the only thing I had learned within her mind. What little things she knew were incredibly interesting to me. The knowledge she had gained since she and her companions disbanded in the wake of the day we met was all tantalizing.


    So many opportunities. I''m lucky to have found her again. Just to give me a taste of what''s to come.I realized, as my face took on a cruel appearance for a second.


    That said, I wasn''t about to give up on my attempt to have some fun with the small goblin.Her panicked reaction was amusing to watch in its own way, and if I wanted it to be, her fear of me could just be temporary.


    Manipulating emotions and memories is something I''ve done before and something I''ll do again. I reminded myself, grinning openly and invisibly at the thought of what I could do to Amelie''s mind if I felt like it.


    I let her search around herself for a bit longer before once more whispering into her brain, in a pitch-perfect replication of her voice.


    As I did this, I once more channeled my own divine energy and mixed it with the trickier of both the Trickery domain and the subdomain of Lies to pull off a better performance than before.


    [If you two still want to have some fun, either watch or help me pull off this... prank.] I told the two. Over the course of the past few hours, my wounded pride and other hurt emotions had gradually been mollified.


    I still needed to know who had voted for what with regards to keeping me in the dark, but at this point, a small part of me was beginning to warm towards the idea of reconciliation. Reconciliation and that I kept working towards mastering alternative styles of divine power usage so I can be freed from the fetters of an overly structured and restrictive type of divine power usage.


    In the depths of my mind, I heard soft chuckles of amusement and approval, presumably from them, as I began to whisper more next intrusive, subversive thoughts.


    I need to calm down.I whispered into the goblin''s mind, pretending to be her still. I watched as she slowed down, but kept searching for me. I watched this and was amused by it.


    I was amused because the goblin had rightfully figured out that I could be responsible for even a passing thought about myself in her mind, and since I knew every thought she had ever thought I could confirm that not once in her life had she ever thought I could be invisible or that I could see her from a distance. If I were a more petty god I could almost be insulted by how uncreative she thought my abilities were.


    She''s smart, but not that smart.I thought as I began to move to get her walking towards me again.


    If I want her to come to me, I may need to be careful. And instead of swooping in and taking her for my own I could instead... get creative. Though it will take patience. Playing the long-game always does. I thought, referring to con-men terminology for a hustle that took months to pay-off.


    The reward is more satisfying though. And in this case could result in me getting more goblins, especially civilized ones, to worship me. I told myself.


    I decisively moved to take action. And the action that was I decisively moved to take was to quickly weigh the pros and cons of both immediate, brutal action, and for a scheme that may take a while to build up but result in me getting a better reward.


    <hr>


    What to do... should I be patient and not show myself? Or should I come in like a natural disaster and forcibly pull her to my side?


    If I pull her to my side, I''ll gain her worship but I may damage her. Just like earlier, I don''t always remember my own strength...


    On the other hand if I wait I can corrupt her. And in corrupting her I can use her to more easily gather her friends. Plus, if I don''t break her by accidentally pulling too hard I can use her as a safe place to experiment with some of my... odder powers.


    Maybe I should play it safe for now. And play the long-game. That way I can more reliably gain more goblins, instead of just getting one and possibly breaking her in the process. I don''t know if I want more Rinor''s or Urgoth''s. I don''t fully know how I can use the Rinor''s and the Urgoth''s I already have, and until I visit the Splendid Dreams cult I shouldn''t be too frivolous in doing things that may break my worshipers.


    Okay, that''s what I''ll do. For now I''ll play it safe. But that doesn''t mean I can''t scheme.And that last thought brought a cruel smile to my face.


    <hr>


    And with that, an inkling of a dastardly scheme, one that would delight a number of domains and subdomains began to form within my mind. And it was a hell of a scheme too, even in this early stage of planning it.


    The scheme involved some of the domains under my control that I had yet to really use, even though they quite excited me. And sadly, I knew that the scheme was one of those ones that would take a bit of time to come to fruition, which left me to focus on my initial reason for coming to the forest: to make it into my first holy site.


    For the moment I pushed my scheme to the back of my mind. And what was pushed to the forefront of my mind was creating a new disguise for myself. I opted to make one unlike any I had ever made before.


    <hr>


    If I don''t hurry I''ll be late.Althos whispered to Amelie, this time drawing upon her most recent memories to inspire his intrusive whispers. His voice was once again a perfect forgery of hers.


    She slowed to a stop seconds after that thought entered her mind. And then she sighed.Shit. I need to get back on track.She thought, and this thought was genuinely her own. She turned back in Althos'' direction and shook off what fear remained in her heart.


    The goblin began to walk again, faster than before. As she moved towards the god, he grinned in her direction, though she remained oblivious to his presence. He continued to quietly assail her with subtle thoughts. And this time he challenged himself. He opted not to be selfish, as a way to truly flavor the humble-pie he was eating.


    I miss them...


    I can''t believe we''ve gone so long without even seeing each other. We haven''t seen each other since we found Olizeo''s remains.


    After I stop by the council''s chambers I should go and meet with Brutus.


    Althos'' approach this time wasn''t a selfish one that centered around himself. Instead, he was planting tiny seeds in Amelie''s mind, hoping to make her want to be done with her duties soon. Something Althos, even in his disguised form, would be able to help with.


    Amelie had been rushing for about eight minutes when she heard Althos'' newest form for the first time. It sounded different. And though she didn''t know it yet his new form was incredibly different from the form he was in when they first met.


    <hr>


    When Amelie got close enough to me that a human would reasonably be able to hear her I dramatically turned in her direction and lifted a longsword that I had created using my chaotic illusionary powers, aiming it squarely at her chest.


    "Halt! Who goes there?" I asked, projecting my incredibly different voice loudly enough that Amelie would hear me before she came face to face with me.


    I wore a suit of metal armor, making it out of the same material that Drow and Mianthus'' armor was made out of, but coloring it differently before I made it a real thing. My sword was designed to be sharper than obsidian but looked like it was made of copper since I knew that the fae who lived in this forest hated iron. In moments like this, I was grateful that I had copied Amelie''s memories.


    A small part of me wondered if I''d be able to create suits of armor and swords out of thin air using the powers of the artifice domain one day, or if this was something I''d only ever be able to do with my strange and still mystifying illusionary abilities.


    I could see Amelie, but I knew that a normal human wouldn''t be able to see her at the distance that separated the two of us so I feigned ignorance of where she was and pretending to scan the forest behind me. Amelie slowed down and kept her gaze straight ahead. She didn''t stop, which was why she eventually got close enough to me that I could stop pretending I didn''t see her anymore.


    I stopped one act and began another by putting my sword down and feigning relief. I sighed, making myself sound exhausted, and then began to speak.


    "Oh hey, you''re a goblin!" I said, sounding rather delighted and speaking in a wholly foreign voice. I didn''t have to act to sound delighted, I really was excited to be near her, just not for the reasons I was about to pretend I was. I was holding a sword and a shield, and playing the part of a young paladin.


    Amelie studied me for a second. She didn''t speak, but she did stop. She looked me up and down, studying my armor, my sword, my face, and then my figure. And then she began to speak.


    "And you''re a lady, possibly a lady of some court, who is in a very dangerous place by herself. And I don''t mean the forest. Or... just the forest, anyway." She said, confused by my appearance. I looked at her and smiled.


    "''By herself''? Oh, darling, I''m not by myself." I said, my voice soft as my companions began to come out of hiding.