72 Powers On Display (1/2)
I took a second to mentally glance at my newly improved mini-map. It was considerably more active than before now that it could display flying creatures.
I saw a myriad of creatures that I hadn't seen before. Some were simple birds and things like butterflies. Others were a bit more complicated. In the subterranean area underneath my feet, I detected a number of creatures that I had previously seen, gigantic bats ridden by the dark elves.
It turns out that such creatures were called dire-bats. I could detect hundreds of them throughout the island's hollow interior. At any given time only a few of them were ever on the ground, and being able to detect them in mid-air was extremely helpful when it came to keeping an eye on them.
I turned my attention back to my new servants. Drow was back on the ground, and Lilith looked at her and then at me curiously. I chuckled at the two of them and began to explain what had just happened.
”I gain powers rapidly. Or at least... in the beginning, I do. I can gain degrees of control over these things called domains and subdomains. In order to do so, I need to do things related to the domain or subdomain in question and then complete a quest it assigns me. In letting Drow 'fly' I completed the quest for the subdomain of air.” I told the two, explaining my circumstances rather casually.
Their eyes opened wide as they considered my words. As their eyes widened in reasonable shock I mentally targeted Drow and activated one of my new powers: ”Flight mastery”. I willed for my dark-elven servant to gain the power to fly. I registered his even bigger shock when he actually gained the ability to fly and grinned at him specifically. I continued to speak even through his shock.
”I am a very, very young god. But even if I had just been born yesterday, which I wasn't, I would still have immense power.” I told the two. I fell silent for a moment as I considered how to properly explain my power.
”There are so many things I can do. I can grant someone classes. I can create buildings in an instant. I can collapse caverns. Even a cavern as big as that the city of Aronms is located within could be crushed in an instant if I willed it. But that's not the only way I could destroy Aronms.” I told the pair of dark elves I had brought to my side.
”I could unleash an epidemic of unimaginable proportions. One that plagues every single person in Aronms, and leads to their death and eventual reanimation as an undead creature. Or I could just cause a famine that leads to the starvation of the city's residents, after walling off every entrance or exit out of the city.” I explained to the pair. I sensed their impression of me shifting. Which I liked.
The part of me that almost feed on mortal emotions directed towards me, a quiet part of me that only really came out when I gained new worshipers, enjoyed this moment. I felt their awe for me increasing, even as the emotions that caused them to submit to me became slightly more fearful. They knew I wasn't lying about my powers.
Lilith looked at me and began to speak. ”Althos, have you given any thought to how you plan to achieve your objectives?” She asked. I could hear the curiosity audible in her voice. For a moment I paused and considered her question.
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At the moment that I began to focus on Lilith's question, I intentionally focused and entered a new state of mind. It was one wherein time was slowed down, and I was able to gain more time to consider how to proceed.
The first time I did this I had done so unintentionally. It was when I was traveling through the tunnel I had used to enter Aronms for the first time. I had been able to travel down the tunnel at the speed of light, and while I did so I had time to think and reflect on my day, all while I moved at speeds beyond the minds of mortals to comprehend. And as I entered a light-speed state of mind I fully realized the untapped potential of using my power this way. All the time in the world.
”How should I do what I set out to do?” I asked myself. I knew my objectives with regard to the city. I knew that I wanted Aronms to join my empire. I wanted to connect it to my lair and to use my myrmekes ants to protect it as well as actually gain trading partners for my ants. But how should I go about doing that?
”I suppose I can start off by displaying my powers to the general public?” I figured, well aware of the potency and undeniability of my powers. If I wanted too I could even go about this with my usual display of power: a single usage of ”Healing burst”.
I knew that such a display of power would not only heal every resident of the place but I also suspected that such a large usage of the power would cover the city in radiant silver light. If it did, I'd be able to truly confirm that my power was responsible for that, which would explain what happened in the Rodan forest. But I also wanted to explore and mix which of the abilities at my disposal that I used.
”I could mix things up... If I wanted too I could take things a bit more slowly and target the city's nobility. I bet sending them powerful diseases and amplifying their effects for a day or two and then healing them would send a powerful message.” I told myself, quite excited at the possibility of so rampantly using my powers.
I was normally somewhat cautious with my powers so a part of me that was rebellious wanted to unleash my powers fully on the Ardor family. I felt the deep and powerful dislike I had for them tempt me into unleashing my full wrath upon them. And now I had so many ways that I could do that.
I could blind every single member of their family if I wanted too. Or I could unleash the parasites that feasted on the slaves the family ”owned” on the family's leaders. I could even create such creatures within the confines of the family's estate and pack them full of powerful diseases to unleash upon the leaders. As I thought about that over I realized something.
”If I willed it, diseases could become a powerful weapon under my control. And I could create entire societies wherein anyone infected with diseases was visibly marked as someone I was displeased with.” I mentally remarked. Such a realization was a powerful one. It made me feel positively godly.
That realization also made me want to begin to work towards gaining true mastery over my disease-related powers. I wanted to become a god who well and truly possessed a mastery over health including and especially diseases. Which was when the route forward became visible to me.
”What precisely is the trigger for me to be able to target creatures with my disease-related abilities?” I asked, directing my question towards the system.
[The trigger for you to be able to infect someone using your passive powers, at the moment, is that you have interacted with them in some particular way. This has a lot of different meanings. If you have cast a spell on someone they become targetable for you. If you use your powers on someone they are targetable. If you have been in someone's presence then they are targetable.] Explained the system.
There was eagerness in its voice. I could tell that it was excited by what bits of my idea it was able to hear without me explicitly inviting it into my mind. I chuckled and decided to test out one of my new abilities.
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The Ardor family lived in an estate situated on the outskirts of the city of Aronms. Their estate was a massive one. It consisted of their homes, including the pens in which they forcibly housed the slaves they owned, and large fields where they grew massive subterranean crops.
The familial heads consisted of twelve people. Two couples and their eight oldest children. The youngest person in this twelve-person band was a dark elf who was over seventy years old. At the precise moment that the young god Althos reached out and targeted them with one of his brand new abilities, the couples were sleeping and their children were managing the day to day activities of their family.
The couples were the first to be targeted, as they were the oldest members of their family. All four dark elves were over eight-hundred years old. And in an instant, all four of them were forcibly awakened as the oxygen that filled their lungs was suddenly and to them inexplicably withdrawn from their lungs.
Both couples lived in the same building. They did sleep on opposite sides of it though so they didn't hear each other. Their eyes rocketed open as their lungs were suddenly stripped of the life-giving gas that filled it. One of the males and one of the females reacted so violently to the sudden attack on their persons that they fell out of their beds and crashed onto the floors of their rooms, coughing and in agonizing pain.
Althos kept this up for a few moments, sensing their discomfort. Though the god that was responsible for their discomfort was kilometers away from them he could sense the fear and anger that welled within the dark-elves he had targeted. This was his doing after all.
That said, the deity wasn't planning to kill any of them with this power and so he quietly stopped using it. Relief-giving oxygen quickly flooded into their lungs after the god ceased using his power on them. But their unknown enemy, the god who they had unknowingly infuriated, wasn't done yet.