《The Forgotten God》 Prologue: You shall receive no mercy. As I was about to cut the life in front of me short with a killing blow, a small voice, frantic with fear, whispered ¡°please don¡¯t kill me, I have done nothing wrong.¡± I halted the swing of my arm midair, inches from her face. I stare into the sky blue eyes of a priestess. My face twitched from hearing her reasoning of not killing her. Slowly a smile, that did not reach my eyes, spread across my face. In a sarcastic tone I muttered in anger, ¡°Oh really? What a coincidence, neither did my Pandora! Oh, but because of her race and religion she was killed either way, in cold blood. Your church, in the name of your god, snatched her away from me. I¡¯m simply returning the favor by wiping this organization off the face of the Earth!¡± My voice had gotten loud and by the time I had finished, it echoed in the hall we were in. The eyes that were pleading for her life were now looking at the floor in front of her, understanding why she was in such a predicament. She looked at the bodies of various priests and Templar knights scattered around the room from her position on the floor. She knew her fate was sealed, but still she said with a sneer, ¡°It¡¯s a shame devils have to die.¡± This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. My fists trembled in fury. With the might of 150 men, I punched the wall beside her head. Her face had paled and her eyeballs bulged when she saw my fist sink into the wall like a lead weight in water. I slowly retracted my fist from the newly created orifice, and moved to her neck. She made a gasp with a pained expression as I lifted her a several feet from the ground. Her face had gone red, her eyes watery, at that point I tightened my grip on scrawny neck, and drew my face closer to hers by lowering her to my eye level. ¡°Remember my face in hell, human.¡± With that I snapped the neck of the priestess in front of me, and threw the lifeless corpse to the side. Looking around the church, seeing it devoid of life and smelling of blood and death, I once again exit into the daylight. ¡­ Chapter 1: Gathering Information My name is Erebus. My consciousness began in the human calendar year 35 of the Promethian era. This era was created when the previous monarchs of Estelia lost their thrones in a revolt to a man named Prometheus. All the plants I see in the distance are a chartreuse color, with buddings of various flowers, spring time. That is in the distance, in my location there is nothing but dead grass and a structure made from a dark material, black as the night. The structure is a temple made of basalt from a volcano that is a little past the horizon. Inside this temple there is an obsidian altar on a raised platform. Along the wall behind the altar, torches light the space with a true blue color of burning sulfur. This alter is where I first came to be self-aware. In front of the altar is a rug made from animal hide that covers the steps that lead to the altar. The only wall is behind the altar, so you can see outside for quite a distance. The people dressed in black in front of me seem not to see me, or not care that I am here at all. Most had their heads bowed; but a few had their eyes lifted toward the ceiling. They appear to be praying. Instinctively I knew they were praying to me, I could hear each and everyone¡¯s mutters as clear as day. Some prayed for good health, others for safe travel, but most just prayed for a good harvest this year. All the prayers were aimed at a name, just one, Erebus. Thus goes my first day in this world. ¡­ I have watched my followers for quite some time and gradually became curious about them. I have not appeared before them nor will I, most likely. However I was curious, so at the end of their worship, that last at approximately one hour, I followed them to them. After an hour of travelling a village came into sight, another hour and we arrived. Flying at altitude far above the village, I get a better few. In this village there are around two hundred houses, four or five bigger buildings toward the center and six or seven decent sized farms on the outskirts. A really small village, however the atmosphere is nice, it can be felt up here as I watch the children run around and the mothers watching from afar. Truly peaceful comes to mind when viewing this village. Satisfied with the view, I descend to conduct my favorite activity; eavesdropping! At this time, the sun was already setting over the horizon, as it does, I see quite a few burly men make their way to bigger building. Upon entering it, the air seems to be cheerful and bubbly. Few men who were seated at the bar set up in the back, were acting as fools, some were plum passed out. Hmm, it appears, the humans have dubbed this establishment a tavern. Interesting. I pass by a table, but I stop in my tracks and do a double take, the table I was about to pass had two slender men and a woman in various green and brown apparel. The apparel is not what caught my attention, it was the ears. The ears were really long and pointy, interesting. I want to hang near these guys. ¡°I like this village. There is no discrimination of elves and beast-men here, it is truly peaceful. It has been a long time since not being persecuted from each town.¡± This came from a tall elf, joyous was he. He had rose red hair and eyes that were bright green. Wait did he say beast-men¡­ where? As I look around I see men women in various locations with the ears and tails of beasts. I see. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. The elf women next to him with bark brown hair and green eyes of the same color looked at him with a pitying gaze and spoke, ¡°If I had known you left the elf village, I would have you invited you to this peaceful village of Little Leaf.¡± So the village was called Little Leaf. Well suited, I¡¯d say. The shorter elf with blonde hair and sky blue eyes spoke up. ¡°But what of that cult? The one that they have in this town? What was it called, followers of Erneus?¡± ¡°Erebus! If you want to live here do not make little of their god!¡± The women said in a hurried whisper. She looked frantic; it was funny seeing it on her face. Hmm, well it has been getting interesting listening about me indirectly. Blonde seemed to hush up quickly. I guess seeing Ms. Brunette act frightened was something to worry about. Hmmm, is that a bad thing? Are my followers frantic? Well, now that the atmosphere had darkened, I think it¡¯s time to go visit the table that has that rabbit-eared girl. Now where did she go¡­? Ah! I found my target right across the room talking to a few humans. Upon further inspection I see that she has light brown hair, similar to the dusty look of a domesticated rabbit. She had a small cute nose that went perfect with those ears. Ah truly adorable! I decide to conduct the usual inspection and information gathering technique, eavesdrop. I listen in on the conversation, seems they are complaining about the crop production. ¡°Hmph. The carrots are doing horrible. I want my carrots by the bushel not by the handful!¡± Ms. Bunny was saying with a pouty face. ¡°Now, now. What about the rest of the crop such as potatoes, corn and cabbages? They are also doing poor, are you not going to comment on these poor crops?¡± Villager A piped up. In reply Ms. Bunny just did an ¡®hmph¡¯ and stuck up her nose. ¡°Come now, don¡¯t be like that. The rest of us like more than just carrots. Like wheat! Wheat makes this delicious alcohol hear!¡± Villager B then took a sip from his mug and let out a ¡®pah.¡¯ They continued with the lively attitude for the rest of night. At the very end of the night the Bartender had to kick everyone, drunken stupor and all, out to the curb. As the Bartender looked his doors, everyone had dispersed in drunken manor to their homes, some just staggered to continue the night with company of their friends. Hmm. reviewing the information I had gathered in the Tavern. It looks like there is discrimination across the land Estelia, with this little village as one of the exceptions. This village was named Little Leaf. Finally the farms, despite everything else flourishing, were not doing well. Well I guess as a local deity I guess I have an obligation to help them. Chapter 2: The Cavern. Ah, floating in the sky is relaxing. However I wanted to get this done before the citizens woke up, dropping off a present if you will. So I make my way to the farms from the sky. I am knowledge about my own power. They are powers that bring about destruction; however, if used creatively, it could be used to benefit others. Which I intend to do so now. Inspecting the farms, I had already guessed what the problem seemed to be. It was the agricultural level. It seems they do not know of proper irrigation and fertilization techniques. Hmmm, I guess this won¡¯t be an overnight thing¡­ or will it? About 25 feet below each farm, I hardened the stone to the sturdiness that surpasses that of steel. The space below the newly hardened stone, I gauged out the stone and soil to make vast air pockets. The hardened stone ceiling came down into pillars, so there wouldn¡¯t be a sink-hole effect. These nice air pockets under each farm should be connected by tunnels to an even bigger air pocket underneath the village itself. There a huge cavern has now been made, excellent! Now to provide water to the farms, all I need to do is make tunnels from each air pocket under the farms to the river outside of town. Better make the tunnel walls out of the hardened stone. Once the tunnels reached the underside of the river water flowed with the direction of the current. The water rushed through the tunnels and filled every one of the pockets of air. Now that I have provided ground water, the land has become very fertile as if it were located on the edge of a Delta. Ah, I feel tired. I raise a platform in the center of the central cavern. I made the tunnels at such an angle; it would not completely fill the cavern. Satisfied with my surroundings, I sat on the platform and watch the fish swim through. Perhaps in a few hundred years these fish will grow accustom to living here, and adapt. I close the tunnels that connect to the river with a thin layer of stone that could erode in a hundred years. Around that time this place might need more water. Drat, as I was relaxing I had come up with more ideas to turn this into a habitat of a cavern. Hmm, well¡­ I guess I can make a hall away from the farms extending a good 500 yards, with a few twist and turns of course. Oh, I should make split- dead ends as well! Ok, so following the main tunnel I made it into a steady incline toward the surface. Once I broke through, I was on the side of a mountain no too far from the village. Nice! I¡¯ll make the entrance a bit taller and more natural looking. Ok, now we have a cave! With this animals should inhabit the cavern, such as bats, other rodents and wolfs or bears. Whatever decides to move in is welcome. The cave was situated to where it would be hard to be discovered by humans, but one with a high affinity for nature could easily find it. Now, I¡¯m satisfied. Ah, the sun is almost already up, the farmers should be awake here shortly. With this thought in mind, I speed my way to the farms. I hover above the farms, about 200 feet or so. From here I can tell the sprouts are livelier. Hmm, with a power to speed up time of organisms in focus to their death, I focus on the crops only for instant, not to kill them. The result was I was looking for, all the crops sprung forward a two months in advance of their life, almost to the point of bearing fruit. Ah, so tired. ¡­ In the distance I could shouts of joy from farmers urging the rest of the village to see a miracle on their own property. Immediately I heard prayer of thanks being lifted onto my name. Some of my fatigue immediately dissipated. Ah, this feels good. Why did I not just put the crops at the fruit bearing stage? Why did I go through the hassle of doing the ground water? Simple, I wanted to provide a miracle, benefit them in the long run, without them relying on me. Humans that rely on the miracles would eventually expect more from me, turning me from something divine to a tool for survival. Stolen story; please report. Still, this praise is quite splendid. From the most devout, I hear murmurings about offerings as thanks. This should be interesting. A commotion starts as the villagers load their best crops and meats onto a wagon. The wagon, with the crowd of people, began the trail toward my temple. Oh, let¡¯s see how this turns out. Without any hindrances the wagon and the villagers arrive at my temple. The people unloaded wagon of its good in front of my altar dark wooded table they brought along. Once everything was loaded unto the table everyone backed away and knelt down in prayer. The prayers I heard now were pleading to accept their offerings. Hmm, maybe I should make an appearance¡­ At the back of the crowd I see the elves I saw at the tavern. Oh yes, I am definitely make the believers. I look at the table full of foods and metals. I accept. As soon as I thought this, everything on the table slowly turned into a black mist that seemed to be absorbed into the black altar. Looking around the temple I could see a few dumbfounded faces, a few faces in awe, and few that looked like they expected as much. I made the same black mist that went into the altar, swirl around me. Letting it condense into a black silhouette. My consciousness was then limited to that silhouette. In my vision long black hair swayed before my eyes, I quickly brush it to the side with an alabaster hand that had claw like nails. Looking down at my body, I saw it was clad in a long jet black robe that looked frayed around the edges of the sleeves; it also seemed so light it would dissipate in the sun as it swayed with slightest motions. Standing height I was a head taller than the tallest villager here. Sweeping my gaze across the crowd, half the people regained their senses from total awe and immediately bowed out of respect or fear, it was hard to tell. I couldn¡¯t hold back a smile. I quickly glance at the elves. Haha, totally worth seeing their faces, they are so bug-eyed, it looks as though their eyes will pop out! I look down at the kneeling villagers, and decided to test out my voice. ¡°Greetings, my faithful servants, I received your offering and am content. If you continue what you have done today, I will continue to bless your village.¡± Hmm, my voice has a low brassy sound to it. Not bad. Well, I¡¯m done for today, so I¡¯ll send them on their way. ¡°Go now, and be blessed. Live prosperously!¡± With my declaration, I disperse my form back into black mist and my consciousness is freed from that limited form. When everyone saw me vanish they then happily talked amongst themselves of what they just saw. They then exited my temple and quickly made their way toward the village to spread the news. Perhaps my religion will also spread. Not going to hold my breath, but it could very well happen. Chapter 3: Precious Gems It turns out when they provide offerings it gets rid of all my fatigue and lets me use more power. It¡¯s like supercharging my batteries. Pretty sweet, I must say. After a few months of watching the village, I confirmed the food shortage had been fixed and they were starting to get a surplus that they then sold to neighboring towns and villages. Even though the village was starting to make some income, it would not be very prosperous until the end of fifty years. I kinda wanna see this village grow. So the thought of getting something valuable to be produced in this village to be traded by the merchants, bring at least eight times the income. On the other side of town, from where the entrance to my cavern is, there is another mountain that is considerably closer to the village, it happens to be right across the river that I used to supply the ground water. I decide I will use this mountain. I make a large pocket of air by turning the rock into nothing at all. With a giant cave like room, I make a few branch-like tunnels that split off and in the tunnel walls every so often I would make some of the rock super condensed and heated forming precious gems. For this cave I choose to make rubies and sapphires of various purities. If a torch were to pass through here, it would seem like the walls were sparkling; a very dazzling sight to behold. In one tunnel, I decided to make fewer gems, reason being: I made diamonds. Satisfied, I make a small entrance to the cave. It is small enough to be easily overlooked, but big enough to raise curiosity for exploration. Not even a week rolls by that it gets discovered. Soon the whole village is buzzing about Miracle Cave. Miracle Cave? Well at least they didn¡¯t name it after the guy who discovered it, that would be unsavory. Not long after the discovery, explorers have decided to take a gander at this Miracle cave and have claimed it harmless and full of riches. By then, miners have appeared and began mining away the precious gems I had provided. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. This village has its food source secured and now it has an income of sorts. With this I just need to observe this village¡¯s growth. Maybe it will become a city or even a metropolis! Why do I want this village to prosper? Simple, my believers reside here. The more they benefit the more thanks I receive. Let¡¯s just say I like being thanked. Two years blows right by when the people of the village completed a church. The foundation was made of the same basalt as my temple in the distance. The rest of the building was made of wood though. They had painted it black and had lighting that was similar to the one behind my altar. Inside there was a raised platform and everything. I saw the whole progress of it being built. When it was finished, I tried getting close to it. When I step inside the fence, black mist quickly clung to my figure, materializing me. Interesting. If I want to go in a church, it appears that I¡¯m forced to materialize. As soon as my form took shape I had heard a few gasps from onlookers. Among the gasps I saw the religious leader, he immediately bowed then approached. ¡°We have built a church in your marvelous name. I hope it is to your liking.¡± He put the last sentence out nervously. I just simply nod my head. I firmly say, ¡°I shall watch over the village of ¡®Little Leaf.¡¯¡± I turn around and leave the church grounds. Upon leaving my form dispersed into mists again. The townspeople had gathered around where I had materialized earlier for a short time before and slowly dispersed when they realized I was gone. More prayers were offered to me, and I felt this pleasant kind of high that I experience every time. I could get addicted to this but I have to remind myself to not become a tool. Chapter 4: A Little Decorating Over the next few months to a year, I witnessed the wealth starting to seep into the city more and more. Trade posts were set up, and influx of a variety of people came to the village. Inns opened up to accommodate the steady flow of travelers. Some structures were torn down to their foundations and rebuilt with stone instead of wood. The church had a few upgrades as well. As civilization was kicking up speed in the small village of Little Leaf, I returned to mass cavern. There was hardly any dry land since most of it was flooded, but I had no need for foot holds, so I did not care. I wanted to do a little more with this cavern. I materialized myself on the raised platform and looked around the massive room. Looking into the water, I saw dozens of eyes staring back as if they were waiting. As if they were waiting on me to do something. So an idea appeared in my head, since I was going to make this my retreat I will alter everything. I looked over to the walls and decided they needed to be not of dirt or rock but something new. Something that would still help with keeping the ground fertile but much sturdier than most of the metals that passed through the village. Gliding through the air, made my way to the walls, I placed one pale hand on the dirt walls. I close my eyes and put my focus into the attributes of sturdiness and the ability to manipulate the elements. By the time I opened my eyes; the dirt had become really hard, dark, and gained a luster to it. It was a little glittery. Next was lighting and I had a general partialness to the lighting of my altar. However, I don¡¯t want torches. Instead I took the idea of fire being alive and made it so. These burning blue wisps floated all around the cavern providing light. Not going to lie I like the look of the cavern already. I suppose walkways for things that can¡¯t float would be needed. Instead of solid walkways, I made them bridge like walkways from one raised platform to the next. I wanted the water inhabitants to be able to get around without being confined to only a single section of water. Now for the inhabitants! I decided I would leave the fish population mostly untouched, however I did make them produce more offspring as to serve as the other inhabitants¡¯ food supply. I was trying to decide what the food chain should consist of but then I saw a small pack of wolves sitting at the edge of the room staring at me. Another epiphany, I will keep the food chain simple. I decided on highly nutritious water and plankton being at the bottom, then various fish, and wolves being at the top, with rats being the scavengers, and I would work the decomposers. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. The diet of the wolves is going to be mainly fish, so I have to alter their bodies so they don¡¯t die out. I approached a pooch and started to stroke its fur and closed my eyes visualizing the body of the wolf inside and out. I altered its taste for red meats toward something that complements the palate of fish. If these guys were to hunt fish, they need to be quick in water. So narrower bodies, thin muzzles to further increase aerodynamics, next, I slightly tilted the hips toward the back and increased hip muscles for powerful kicks. I spread the each toe a little, adding surface area to the paws, and added a fleshy bridge between the toes. A little flexibility for shoulders to make quicker turns in the water. The hair fell out and was replaced by a smooth, slick skin that had the same patterns as the fur. The skin was that of an amphibian, in that oxygen was directly exchanged through the skin. This left extra room in the chest for further work; I decided another heart would be useful, increasing blood flow keeping the species warmer than that of the rest of canine family so they won¡¯t freeze to death. Extra eyelids so they could see underwater. Lastly, I gave them hooked teeth for the fish diet. When I open my eyes a pack of these magnificent creatures stared back at me. When I stood up, I gave a nod releasing them to do their own business. Now for the fungus, I want to keep it simple. The air has the spores everywhere to begin with will grow on decaying matter. The fungus will be luminous and the spores will serve as food for the wisps. Releasing the creatures, I was satisfied. Now at the biggest room in the cavern, the place of the first platform, I raised more of the dark material into a shape that resembled an altar and was done. It still doesn¡¯t feel as comfortable as my first altar and I still felt that tug in my chest for being away from it. The fatigue is kept away by prayer but I feel as though I should stay near my altar despite not seeing it in a few years. It was just a feeling, but I think I know how to get this to feel like home. Time for me to fetch the priest, dissolving my form I phase through the ground and shift my consciousness toward the church.