35 Schemes And Payoffs (1/2)

The metallic smell of blood filled the forest air. The source of that scent decorated the path that my undead companions and my new ogress friends found ourselves on. The blood was quite pretty, adding a much-needed splash of color to the grassy floor and I didn't mind the smell.

Okig laid in a bloody heap, an ecstatic smile plastering her now somewhat lumpy and heavily bruised face. The ogress was still under my control, which was why she hadn't tried to use her skills in her defense. Her head was cradled in my lap, and I was emitting healing rays of magical energy into her, to tend to the often brutal wounds she had endured.

Iret found herself glaring at Okig and I. I could tell she was mad, probably at me as well, but I also wasn't overly concerned about it. I had kept my end of the bargain, and allowed Iret to give Okig what the younger, taller ogress felt her tormentor was owed. And now I was tending to Okig's wounds. I wasn't about to have to reanimate the ogress this early on.

I used all ten of my fingers to search for and then undo wounds the warrior had suffered while she endured my other companion's rage. Gentle beams of healing light escaped my fingers and seeped into the ogress, causing her to softly sigh in delight and occasionally, boldly, try to touch my fingers. Whenever she tried that I shot her an annoyed glare.

After listening to her for a few moments I realized that her voice, at the moments she sighed at least, wasn't that of a battle-hardened warrior. It was that of someone who felt something profound, and in her case, something deeply sinful. It made me chuckle. I wasn't the only one amused by it either.

[So your first worshipers are a pair of undead animals and a single, lust-struck ogress. You truly are a god of chaos.] The system muttered, almost complaining into my mind. It brought a smile to my face to hear it almost, but not quite complain.

We laid like that for a few minutes, until I tracked down and healed the last wound. This was, of course, unnecessary. I could have easily instantly healed the ogress, but I decided to do it this way to appear kinder than I actually was.

The fact that it let me touch her was a not unpleasant part of this as well. I enjoyed the physical contact and the sensation of healing her. To someone unfamiliar with me and unaware of the extent of my powers it probably looked like I was playing doctor with the ogress.

That said, once she was healed I only allowed her to cradle her head in my lap a bit longer. Less than a minute after healing the final wound, I got her head out of my lap. I still had other things to do today, and I wasn't about to stop doing them just to play with an ogress. As she got off of me and climbed to her feet, I also began to stand and motioned for Iret to join us. The ogress began to stride towards me.

I sent out a single, powerful message to my undead companions. It was a single word, spoke mightily, through the connection that tethered our minds together. ”Come.”

The undead didn't disobey me. and soon I was facing my five allies. They stood in a line, one member of the pair of ogresses on each end of the line. The mindless zombie deer stood in the middle of the line and stared in my direction, blankly. I studied the group for a second and lost myself in my own thoughts.

________________________________________________

”It'd be nice to have minions who know the truth...” I mused. My whole life, a whole three days, no mortals, but especially no goblins or humans, knew the truth about me. All of my interactions with mortals were built on lies.

Even my interactions with creatures like Mawby and Troik, two of the simpler and more childish creatures I had met to date, were built on lies. Mawby only knew me as Cosecha, and Troik only knew me as Althos, even though he knew of Cosecha.

The ogresses in front of me, one of them a partially mind-broken warrior, and the other a violent and sweaty berserker, only knew of me as Althos. They knew me as Althos, the god, but they were still being left out. It was a lie by omission.

There was a part of me that didn't mind that. Actually, if I allowed myself a moment of introspection I found that that idea didn't really bother me. The problem was that I didn't know how much of that was influenced by the quiet presence of things like domains, subdomains, and titles. Knowing that such things were real and had an influence on me made me want to be careful and introspective.

”I wonder how telling the truth might affect me...” I muttered, in the confines of my mind. In moments like this time seemed to slow to an almost painful crawl. I was aware that in the time I had spent thinking my servants were looking at me, expectantly, but I also knew, from experience, that what felt like a lengthy conversation in my mind was actually just a few moments to them.

”I'm just postponing the inevitable, aren't I? I know what I want to do. I want to tell them the truth.” I told myself, aware that the whole reason I felt the need to think about this was that I wanted to be honest. I had an inclination to honesty, even if it was one I had a funny way of showing.

I closed my eyes and felt certainty wash over me. If there was something to be said about honesty it was that it being honest made me feel good. And then I opened them again, grinning at my gathered followers.

________________________________________________

When I refocused I gave my servants a thoughtful look. It was a contemplative stare, and it lasted for five seconds. And then I began to speak.

”Someone ought to know the truth, and I guess it makes sense that it's the five of you. Or rather... the four of you.” I told them, before noting the mindless nature of the first of my two undead stags.

The two ogresses looked at me in confusion but were silent as they awaited an explanation for my remarks. I didn't keep them waiting for very long.

”I am a god. I am also... well I suppose the best word for it would be a trickster. My name, my real name, is Althos. You all know that.” I muttered, beginning by reassuring the ogresses that they knew the truth. I knew my undead creatures didn't care one way or another so I didn't aim that remark at them.

”But you see there's a village of goblins, wherein only one of them knows Althos, and not as a god, but a few of them know of something called 'Cosecha'.” I told my little posse. The ogresses' eyes went wide as they began to mentally speculate about what I was telling them.

”I am... a newborn god. I am still learning about my powers, and so I created 'Cosecha' as a cover that allows me to use a few of my abilities in the form of a mysterious spirit, while also interacting with goblins and with humans in this fake form.” I told the creatures who I had transformed into worshippers or servants. I gestured to myself when I said the words 'fake form'.

This caused Iret to look at me in alarm. She spoke out before the caution needed to not speak up in such a rude manner could stop her. ”But wait, then what is your true form?” She asked, her eyes filled with curiosity. I chuckled at her and then gave the question a few moments to marinate in the forest air.

”I suppose I don't really possess one. I came into being possessing this form,” I explained, gesturing to myself in my all too human guise, before continuing to speak. ”But I don't really feel any attachment to it. When I think of myself I don't think of this form.” I informed the inquisitive ogress.

She looked at me carefully. Her eyes were sizing me up, and it made me laugh, but I did so internally. I didn't feel like upsetting her right now.

”So... can you make a true form?” She asked, after a few seconds of carefully scrutinizing me. At this remark, I feigned scrutinizing her back for a few moments. She flinched at the intensity of my stare and took a step back out of an instinctual fear for my eerie powers. But then I began to think about her words. And I found that they actually posed a good question.

”No.” I told the ogress. Both Iret and Okig looked at me in shock when I gave the younger and more inquisitive of the pair a single word response, especially one which was negative. I told the ogress ”No” because it was the truth. Or at least it was what was most likely to be true.

The source of my shapeshifting abilities was an inborn trait I possessed called ”Shapeless One”. I was young and didn't possess a considerable amount of knowledge, but my knowledge of the world grew every hour and I had a sharp mind. I was able to infer, using a combination of etymology and

logic that I didn't possess a true form.

I studied the ogresses while I considered how to follow up and expand on what I had just told them. But after a few seconds of trying to come up with an excuse for my statement, I realized I was getting away from the overall point of this talk. The truth. I took a deep breath and then began to just tell them the truth.

”I am a god. Gods come into being possessing innate traits. One of mine is that I don't have a true form. In exchange for a true form, I can shapeshift.” I told the ogresses. I allowed myself a moment to look at my first servants, or at least my first servants who acknowledged that they were my first servants since I still had influence over the swarms of ants under the surface of the forest.

My undead minions weren't particularly interested in all of this. They stood perfectly still, looking like eerie taxidermied dolls. It endeared me to them because they didn't try to have me answer annoying questions.

”Now, it's time we refocus on the matter at hand. You are now my servants. Now and forever.” I declared, stating the reality of their situation as I understood it. And I spoke authoritatively, allowing neither of them to challenge me.

”I seek more servants. And I have begun making inroads to gain more. Today I begin to enact more concrete steps, more public ones to achieve that goal.” I announced, smiling arrogantly at the two women who I had made into my servants.

”I plan to offer the nearby goblin tribe some food. Not just cute little apples like these ones,” I whispered, speaking loudly enough to be heard but also lowering my voice, as I created an apple and infused the thing with corruptive energies. I then tossed the thing to Okig, who caught it and bit into it without hesitation. I smiled at her.

”But actual food. Like that guy right there.” I said as I began to point at my zombified stag. My skeletal stag reacted to this news, since its flesh was on the admittedly grisly menu as well, straightening itself out to stand majestically and draw attention its way. I chuckled at its display, aware that the thing was proud of the role it was to play in my schemes.

”I can do a number of things with undead creatures, as a god of undeath.” I told my followers, lying to them about the extent of my power. That said, it wasn't a lie that would remain one for long.

”One of the things I can do is reanimate a corpse, and then snuff out the spark that animates it.” I told my gathered followers, as I reached out a hand towards the zombified deer and proved my power.

I closed my eyes and focused on the unholy outline of the deer that appeared in my eager not-so-mini-map. I envisioned the loosely animated, barely and only technically reanimated corpse falling to the ground, inert once again.

And as I did that, I reached out with my mind and made mental contact with my dumbest servant. I explored the framework of its mind, an empty and disturbingly hollow place, before touching the spark I bestowed upon it when I reanimated it. And then I ripped out that spark. I felt the spark of baleful energy attempt to burn, insofar as such a thing could burn, my mental hand but ignored it.

The zombie's eyes darkened and the thing stiffened. The monster then fell forward, collapsing like a puppet whose strings had just been cut. I grinned at the display, and at the shocked gasps from both of my living worshipers.

The frightening display of necromantic power delighted me, and also inspired the faintest outlines of a scheme. It was somewhat annoying to feel only the faintest outlines, the quietest whispers, of a scheme, tease my mind, but that was the case with whatever plot was being forged in the recesses of my brain. That said, I held onto the tiny fragments and whispers of a scheme that lingered in my mind, and refocused on the scene before me.