A Solitary God In A Dark Multiverse 37 Balance

It served as a needed reminder that for all of her beauty, she was a ghoul. That'd be an easy thing to forget if I wasn't careful.

I looked at her curiously and considered her question for a few moments. As I did so I was silent.

The truth was, there was only one thing I wanted, or at least one thing that she and the other undead could get me. And my thoughts about it were distorted by the part of me that was dark, tainted not just by the subdomain of corruption, but also now by the subdomain of necromancy.

Part of me wanted to order my undead minions to perform a ritual in my name. A ritual that involved them venturing into the forest and tracking down a powerful creature. That part of me wanted to order my worshippers to bring back whatever powerful creature they found and then sacrifice it to me, especially if I wasn't promised a reward for such brutal action.

Thankfully that urge was both not very strong and also so out of character for me that it was easy to spot as alien and reject outright. It was one thing for me to animate the dead that had died without my influence, but another thing altogether for me to order my followers to perform a sacrifice. I silenced the part of my mind that reveled a bit too much in the dark powers I now possessed and refocused.

I wasn't just influenced by the two twisted subdomains that I had a bit of influence over. I also felt the power and life-sustaining radiance of the subdomain of healing, and a smaller but equally life-affirming subdomain of agriculture. I didn't want something to die just to test my powers. I wouldn't let something die just for me to test my powers unless I was defending myself.

What I wanted was simpler than that. What I wanted was to get back to the task at hand, and inch towards enacting my plot to acquire living worshipers.

I looked at the drider and shook my head. "No, there isn't." I told them, lying so as to prevent unnecessary violence. I heard a soft chuckle in my mind as I said this, and wasn't surprised to hear a familiar voice in my mind seconds later.

[So you resisted temptation huh? Not bad Althos. Not bad at all. Especially because you have two dark subdomains working to influence you...] My companion remarked.

Internally I chuckled, but I didn't respond to the remark in a substantive way, or rather I didn't reply to the message in a substantive way. But it did make me think. For a second my mind turned to thoughts of Okig, who I knew I'd need to spend some time treating.

Breaking her mind wasn't my intention, even if it did award me a worshiper, and I needed to contend with that reality.

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For a moment I looked over at Okig. I studied her. I felt a pang of... something. This was the first time I focused on her in the wake of making her endure the odd and mind-breaking experience I put her through and now that I was doing it I recognized a few things.

Firstly, I recognized that it was an act of corruption. That wasn't an indictment of myself, it was an observation. The action was to test the powers over corruption, and over earth, that I possessed. And in that regard it was a success. An unabashed one at that.

I also recognized that it was excessive. It was me using my powers unnecessarily and irresponsibly. I had already won, and what I did was a form of violence. I needed to be careful to not do that.

And lastly, I knew that I either possessed the power to fix it, or I would gain the power to fix it. Fortunately, as I thought about that I learned something useful. It was more than likely that I possessed the power to fix her mind. I would fix it, if not today, then eventually.

[So you're working to maintain balance? Hmm... Well, we can't say that we hate that you're a neutral deity.] The system muttered, interrupting my moment of solemness and the vague sensation of regret that I felt.

[You do possess the power to heal Okig's mind. It's the result of you possessing power over both healing and minds. You can soften the damage her mind suffered, and that may just serve to endear her more to you. We'll teach you how to do it, if you can successfully enact your plot to bring the goblins to you.] The system promised, giving me more of a reason to exert my control over this situation.

I was a G.o.d, being in control was something I needed to master. It was time to act like a G.o.d.

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To get through the scene at hand I focused on navigating through the situation I found myself in. I'd have time to treat the ogress' mind soon enough but if I wasn't careful here I'd actively be responsible for deaths, which wasn't what I wanted. Not without a real cause.

"There will come a time for us to test our strength, and even now we'll test it in little ways, but I shouldn't let us get overly active. There is work to do, and deceptions to pull off. Now, if one of you would like to help me with one final task..." I told the creatures, leaving an opportunity to volunteer up in the air.

I was responded too almost instantly. But it wasn't by one of the figures I antic.i.p.ated it. The voice that spoke to me, via the mental link I created with her, was that of the she-wolf.

"Master, may I be of service?" She asked. Her voice was a quiet one, and it felt like she was straining to communicate with me, even though she was using a mental link.

I found this curious, and to address I considered blessing her with the power of the necromancy subdomain. That was my thought process for a few moments until I remembered that in addition to raising her intelligence it'd also make her a "champion of mine" according to the blessing's details which wasn't something I knew enough about to use properly.

Instead I quickly refocused on the matter at hand. "Can you retrieve the corpse of a deer for me?" I asked the she-wolf. I spoke out loud as I asked for the creature's a.s.sistance, for the sake of convenience. The she-wolf looked at me in confusion and so I sighed and readied myself to explain more fully what I planned to do.

"Today is the day I reveal myself, or a form of myself, to a nearby goblin tribe. I want to come bearing presents in the form of deer flesh. I already have two sources of deer flesh, I just want one more." I told the gathered creatures. They turned to the two stags in confusion for a moment after I was done talking.

And then their eyes widened as the realization hit them. I grinned as they turned back to me, surprised and displaying various emotions on their faces. The drider and the grave-giant, in particular, had contrasting emotions on their faces.

The drider was shocked, the emotion dazzling on her face. On the other hand, the grave-giant was delighted. Her face was alive with joy, and given her status as an undead creature, it was a particularly unusual sight.

"You want them to eat undead flesh?" The grave-giant asked me. I nodded at her. And then she began to laugh again, this time sounding both awed and delighted by the idea.

A hush fell over the party, aside from the sound of the giant's laughter. I chuckled and decided to use this time to inspect the stats of my new servants. I targeted all of the brand new undead creatures and triggered my ability with but a flex of my mind.

[Initiating creature a.n.a.lysis... Creature a.n.a.lysis complete.

Creature name(s) and species: Imbrosa Ravenfist (drider), Mof Winejug (satyr), Guskaxa (Silver wolf), Fungoid (Fungal Folks), Risa (Medusa), Nivar (grave giant). Nameless (Gug)]

What followed was an extensive list of skills, templates, and stats that ranged from subpar, in the cases of Guskaxa and Fungoid, to astounding in the cases of Nivar and Imbrosa.

Nivar had a strength score of 45, and Imbrosa had an intelligence score of 40. Those numbers set the numbers my other servants had to shame. And I knew that I'd need to rely on them in the future. I made a mental note to comb through the minds of both Imbrosa and Nivar sometime soon.

It was at that moment, while I was studying the stats of my minions, that Guskaxa ran off in the direction of the stag I intended for her to bring me. There was an eagerness to her trot that prevented me from interrupting her, so instead, I silently began to guide her to the corpse.

It didn't take her long for her to bring me the thing, and it took me even less time to reanimate the corpse. And with that, after what felt like an eternity of distractions I was back on track.

A few more minutes pa.s.sed, filled with idle chatter and the complaints of the living. But once I felt that I had heard enough of Okig and Iret complaining, I ordered us to finally stride towards the village of goblins and we began a casual stroll through the forest.

Reaching the goblin encampment didn't take long. We were a big party, but because of the scent of the ogresses mixing with the scent of the undead, no creature dared approach us. And soon enough we found ourselves within earshot of a gathering of goblins.

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I stopped us when we were just far enough from the goblins to not be detected by them. All of us came to a stop, not quite immediately, but fast enough that no goblins reacted to us. When all of us were still I wordlessly ordered my two zombie deer to move forward and to stride towards the heart of the encampment ahead of us.

I watched them begin to strut towards the goblins. And then as the goblins first noticed them I closed my eyes envisioned my form changing. I envisioned the bizarre omnielemental form I adopted when I spoke to the lucid dreamer named Alma. I shivered as my form changed.

Over the course of a few seconds I changed, my flesh fading away and transforming into the fusion of elements that made up the body I had chosen to give Cosecha. All in all the process took a handful of seconds and when it was done I was looked at by two different groups of creatures.

The living, gradually growing accustomed to my powers, were surprised by this but they reacted more quietly to it than they had to my other displays.

The undead, being the eerie and reverential creatures they were, quietly spoke to me using our mental link. Their words were a mixture of awed whispers, and ghoulish comments about the potential applications of my powers, to the creation of more undead. Though their views on creating more undead were a bit more active and usually more violent than mine were.