151 The God Of Freedom (1/2)

Althos stood right between the orcs and the dwarves. His abrupt appearance had caused all of their eyes to turn to him. The dwarves were mystified by his sudden appearance, ignorant to the role he had played in orchestrating the invasion of their home. His aura was seeping out of him, and in an instant, it made contact with the dwarves closest to him.

It filled them with despair, all while stealing an abundance of their energy. For the dwarves unlucky enough to be close to him his aura was leechlike. It shrouded him in a hazy field of shimmering, silver-tinted air and began to steal the energy of those he was opposed too. It also instilled in them a potent fear of him and the orcs behind him, those he viewed as his allies.

The orcs, one of many tribes that had sworn fealty to him, were not aware that he was their god. For once he was not proclaiming that fact. He had other, stranger goals in mind here.

The youthful and mischievous god was still and silent for a heartbeat before raising his fingers high into the air. And then with a swift snap of two of the slender digits, the odd divinity called a line of fire into being behind himself that forcibly stopped the fighting that he had egged on earlier that day. He closed his eyes and smiled at the dwarves before him.

He looked human, but something about him informed the dwarves that he wasn't. There was something eerily unsettling about the odd god. And it wasn't just his strange capabilities, it was something primal and almost genetic. A sort of innate madness that he leaked as readily as he radiated his deific auric powers.

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The dwarves in front of me were afraid of me. I sensed their terror, their despair at not only the invasion of the orcish warriors who had chosen to become some of those who delivered my unkind vengeance on Morehammer but at my actual presence.

This satisfied a dark part of me. A part of me that hungered for blood, and for fear. It was one of many parts of me that existed deep within my mind.

During my time in the tower over the course of the past twenty days, I had spent a considerable amount of time being introspective. I explored my mind and engaged freely with the domains and subdomains that lurked within me. I had also begun to learn about the potent desires I had lurking deep within me.

Some of these desires were simple. Heck, I had even learned that to an extent at least some of these desires were felt by mortals. Many but not all mortals craved love, community, and respect, though admittedly more often than not they carved these things in ways that were unlike how than I craved them. I desired to be loved, not to love. I desired to create communities that praised and served me. I craved to be respected and feared. These sentiments were not often shared by mortals.

Other desires were not so simple. I desired to be worshiped. I enjoyed the rush of a range of emotions I felt when other beings supplicated themselves before me and offered me their hearts, their lives, and their fearful yet potent love of me.

I desired to grow in power, as I wanted to become omnipotent. That goal was not impossible for me but it was still far out of reach. I wanted to become a being who could destroy worlds with a glance, and resurrect entire fallen civilizations at will. I wanted the power to create stars and the ability to destroy entire galaxies.

I was greedy in this context, and I had become addicted to gaining new powers, yet recently I had begun to contend with this. I was reaching a point in my development where for me to gain new powers it was necessary for me to use the ones I already had, rather than excitedly get them and not make use of them. This was a good thing for me if I was being honest.

A part of me desired blood and carnage. This wasn't just my dark side either. I had a side that was good that enjoyed the idea of facing down armies of darkness and using powers over light and goodness to prevent wholesale massacres. I didn't mind the idea of going toe to toe with large armies even by myself. I knew what sort of brutality I was capable of, what my powers would allow me to do.

The dark side of me wanted to slay and maim far more than I felt comfortable with. Even now I was carefully protecting a fair portion of the world from the effects of the volcanoes, and I knew that I possessed the power to bring a near-instantaneous end to the volcanic fury I was unleashing on the world. I also possessed a number of potent abilities that would mitigate the actual damage the volcanoes did to the life found on Torus if nothing else.

One ability ”False resurrection” was a passive power that I possessed that I knew I'd be able to do a considerable amount with. With it, I knew that this miniaturized apocalypse would only allow me to grow in power. It was an incredibly insidious power that allowed me to make use of corpses to create living cults of evil that worshiped me.

I knew in the time shortly before I began to aid Ava that I ought to indulge in my darker side. I didn't doubt that doing so would reap rewards and allow me to explore things I hadn't really begun to explore. I had no idea that it would result in such tragedy, and in myself beginning to experience new emotions associated with loss.

Such emotions were unpleasant for me to experience, but I knew they'd one day make mighty weapons in my arsenal. The emotion domain was one of the few I was aware of that eluded me. One day though I'd gain power over it. And when I did... My ambitions would only climb.

That said, I also possessed a good side. This good side was a quieter part of me lately, but it wasn't gone. And this part of me also recognized the importance of defeating Morehammer. Morehammer was a tyrant who had refused his people's freedom. He had lorded over them and utterly abandoned those whose hearts became too dark for him. More than that though, he told me he had worked to prevent a god of dark dwarves from coming into existence.

That almost certainly meant that one could have existed and guided dark dwarves if not for his interference. That was an act of evil itself. An act of tyranny. Something he ought to be held accountable for. And I honestly believed that I was the right god to stop him and to hold him accountable.

I had told many lies over the course of my life. But something I had legitimately worked to be was a god of freedom. I allowed people to worship me in ways that made sense to them, I fought to free slaves all over Torus, and I had allowed people to live as their true selves. I had even given bodies to the bodyless and worked against possession with demons like Sombra who'd otherwise fill their days with possession while yearning for a real body of their own.

I legitimately valued freedom. It was perhaps the single strongest value I possessed, as an intrinsically chaotic and naturally neutral being. That was why the only people I had subjected to mind and will breaking powers were people like Milene who had once enjoyed slicing through the freedoms and lives of others. I didn't regret doing what I did to her, as it cooled her off and the main thing I stopped her from doing was behaving cruelly towards those who were ”owned” by her family.