103 Worship And Freedom (2/2)
It was actually while I was thinking about this that I received another notification. One that brought a smile to my face.
[Subdomain alert:
The subdomain of necromancy recognizes your labor. It is conscious of the work you've done as an unholy necromancer and the impact that your undead hordes have had on the world.
You are a most unusual necromancer. Your undead creations have unintentionally saved lives and protected people. That said, in order to do so they inflicted terror on the living and killed.
The subdomain of necromancy isn't just nihilistic, it is actively opposed to life. It has mixed feelings about the way that you've handled its powers so far, but it is still happy to offer you the quest to acquire the second-tier of influence over it. It senses how bloodlust affects you and is eager to give you more tools to sate that bloodlust, hoping that you'll more readily surrender to the dark temptations that it so readily offers.
In order to acquire the second tier of influence over the subdomain of necromancy, you must use an army of necromancers and an undead horde to totally destroy a settlement of over 5,000 individuals. All 5,000 individuals living in the settlement must die and if possible become undead. If they don't become undead then at the very least their souls need to be captured.
Once this is complete you'll acquire the second tier of influence over the subdomain of necromancy.]
”So that's all it takes huh?” I asked myself, a grin on my face. I didn't hate the image of a town on fire as my servants explored it, hunting down every last lifeform.
That said, I didn't want to go out and actively destroy just any old settlement in the name of the subdomain, so I would need some time to do some research and pick a target worth destroying, a place that should actually be wiped out.
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A few minutes later, I was actually sitting down for the first time in the last few minutes. I was accompanied by several dark-elves, handsome men who looked at me respectfully and demurely. I smiled at them, and knew they had something to say. It took them a few moments to gather the necessary courage to do so.
”Althos... We feel as though we should be the leaders of your new cult. Your order.” One of them, a sibling of Milene's said. He spoke softly at first, but after a few moments wherein he spoke his voice grew stronger. I grinned at him and motioned for him to continue speaking. He gave me a smile, and grew bolder.
”Our sisters doubted you! They don't deserve to stand at the top of our family if they didn't believe in you from the start. We sensed your greatness. Your divinity.” The dark-elf proclaimed, as his siblings and other relatives began to smile at me.
I chuckled. I sensed that this was going to take a bit of time. These sorts of negotiations always did.
A fragment of my mind, one even smaller than the fragment that carefully animated and controlled the projections of myself that were running around Puerto Rico focused its attention on the real reason why I had come to the Ardor family holdings.
I kept my eyes wide open even as that small part of my mind focused on ensuring that the guards who had been ordered by the senior family leadership to enact my will actually enacted it.
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A small contingent of elite dark-elven guards spent many years of their lives closely and carefully supervising the daily activities and labor of the hundreds of slaves owned by the Ardor family. It was boring and unchanging work. Or at least it had been, until a few minutes ago.
The dark-elven guards were now furiously working to gather all of the slaves, a challenging task given the sheer number of slaves who worked the gargantuan property owned by the Ardor family. This was a first for them, and they weren't sure what the night held for them.
The order they received from Modred, the unusual prime patriarch of the family solely instructed them to gather every single slave and keep them still near the edge of the familial property. It'd take them over an hour to finish that work.
Little did they know that they were about to undertake a thankfully uneventful trip into the depths of the subterranean region in which Aronms, the encampment, and Althos' eerie tower were all located. The main reason why the trip was uneventful was because of Althos' careful guidance, and his caution. He kept the dark elves and the slaves they were watching over safe from the start of the trip to its end hours later.
As Althos' 11th day alive began, hundreds of new individuals were safely able to reach the eerie and freed settlement of Oscuridad. Their first impression was that it was odd that an abandoned town existed next to an sorcerer's tower.
The town was, as far as they knew, utterly abandoned. And it would continue to look that way until after the dark-elves who had escorted them through the tunnels and other dark regions of the subterranean world were well on their way back home.
Once the guards were gone, the seemingly abandoned settlement began to come to life, as driders and other creatures stepped out of their empty-looking homes and revealed themselves. For the life-long slaves who had endured decades of torture and forced labor at the cruel whims of the Ardor family, it was a strange but exciting way to begin their new lives.
Althos, meanwhile, had been forced to help his newest cultists navigate intrafamily struggles and drama for far longer than he would have liked.
That night his other projections were able to explore a sinister brothel and meet more of the ogres he sought to one day rule over as only a god could. All in all, it was a productive night.