Althos's perception of his surroundings changed in the wake of him selecting the first option for his "second will" and he felt his mind zooming towards the little goblin who boldly approached him moments ago. Immediately upon his mind entering the goblin's the deity, for the first time in his life saw nothing but deep darkness, the sort of darkness a mortal associated with unconsciousness.
The darkness that surrounded him was strange and omnipresent. He didn't see a mental version of a sun, a moon, or stars. He didn't know it yet, but he was completely surrounded by utter nothingness on all sides.
Althos's mind-form spun in a circle to check out his immediate surroundings. After looking out in front of him he did this while having a suspicion that he'd be completely surrounded by darkness, and his first action in this strange new place only confirmed that. Unbeknownst to him, there was a reason beyond his understanding that explained why he felt surrounded by darkness.
In a matter of seconds, the darkness that surrounded him vanished and was replaced by something different. Before he could take a breath and analyze what now surrounds him his vision was temporarily overtaken by a massive notification from the system.
[Alert: Your mind and Amelie's mind are now synchronized. Until you gain the appropriate skill or feat it will take a second for your mind and the minds of victims of your mind magic to synchronize. If the victims of your mind magic are conscious, until you gain the appropriate skill or feat, or perhaps a certain level of influence over the right domain or subdomain, in order to successfully invade their minds you must synchronize with them.
The synchronization of your mind and the victims of your mind magic mind means they are aware of your mental intrusion. How they react to that... well, that depends on them and of course on you. But many people won't be happy, at least not initially, about you invading their minds. Which is fair.]
When Althos willed this notification away he was able to truly examine the changed environment he found himself in.
He found himself in a strange place. A quick check of his surroundings hinted that he was currently at the edge of the goblin's mindscape. Behind him and to both his left and his right was the same sort of odd darkness-like nothingness that surrounded him before. But he could vaguely make out something different, directly in front of him.
After checking behind him and to his sides he quickly looked out as far as he could straight ahead and off in the distance he saw a foreboding building that was covered in what looks to be dark green roots and other miscellaneous plant parts. The deity shrugged his shoulders and began a long "walk" towards a more central part of the goblin's mindscape.
As he wandered towards this strange mental approximation of a building, he wondered how he could see anything at all here. There is no light source that illuminates the building that Althos could see. During the walk the deity stored this question away in the growing catalog he is building of questions he can't answer right now.
At the beginning of the trip through Amelie's mind, he checked his mental map and found that it uselessly told him he was surrounded by "life". The deity rolled his eyes and wished he could have a smart way to detect life in any environment.
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The goblins were stunned to hear their peers and colleagues take a chance and approach the deity. From a distance, the dark-elves readied themselves to react violently to what the goblin, Brutus, had asked, and the dark unicorn who stood close to one of its secondary lairs looked into its cave curiously, wondering what the odd druid would do.
Althos's own allies approached him even though they were the group furthest from the action and in response, the others pushed closer to defend their own vested interests in the cave. It was then that Althos' second will, controlling his physical body within the cave, acted.
Althos' second will followed Althos's command and responded to the goblin with kindness. The voice it spoke in was a perfect replica's of Althos' surprisingly deep voice, mostly because it was an extension of Althos and not a new creature so it didn't have to replicate Althos' voice, when it spoke the deity himself was speaking.
"Well... Mr. Whatever Your Name Is, I can certainly ask."
And with that Althos' second-will used the deity's body and turned to the dark unicorn. Then the deity's mouth opened and Althos, speaking in the strange demonic tongue of the Heart of Chaos, asked if the unicorn would mind if Althos opened the cage.
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Though to Althos, in the mindscape, his journey across the featureless wastes to the strange building that was the only thing he could see felt like it takes several minutes in reality only a few seconds passed before the deity was standing just steps away from the odd feature of the environment he was in.
He looked at the building and analyzed what laid in front of him. It was a plain structure, made of the mental approximation of stone, and as far as he could see from the one side of it that was visible to him there is just a single door in or out of it. The deity, in a somewhat unusual moment of caution and forethought, took a second to explore the boundaries of the building.
The deity quickly walked around the building and was soon back where he started this quick expedition. Upon exploration of the building's exterior, he found that what he found originally was correct, there was but a single door in or out of the building.
The deity approached it and observed it. It looked utterly mundane, a dull grey barrier blocking the deity from access to the knowledge the goblin possesses. He knew, instantly, that to actually benefit from this mental invasion he needed to venture beyond this door and into the depths of the goblin's mind and knowledge. Where he'd probably encounter some response from the goblin herself.
And then Althos opened the door. Just beyond it he could see more darkness, but this time the darkness felt more mundane and not utterly empty. Althos gathered his resolve and ventured beyond the open door and into the darkness behind it.
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The dark unicorn stopped looking at the goblins and turns slightly so that it's gaze fell on Althos. It pondered the deity's words and actions for a second.
Then it turned its head ever-so-slightly just so that it looked at the dark-elves. They were focused on what was going on within the cave and were only barely aware that the unicorn's gaze has turned to them.
At that moment Qut took a second to be introspective. The dark unicorn carefully weighed the weight and impact of its next decision. It contemplated how the elves might react, and how Althos' party might react. For a second it even considered how the goblins themselves might react. But only for a second, the unicorn wasn't kind and didn't care for the goblins who intruded on its domain and weren't strong.
And then it made a decision.
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Upon walking into the building and into the darkness beyond the open door Althos' environment changed yet again. And the first thing he noticed was that he wasn't alone.
Long before he noticed the stream of memories and the river of thoughts behind him he noticed that the environment had changed into that of a pleasant, strangely well-lit, grassy meadow over which floated a clear blue sky and that Amelie had materialized a mental form that now stood next to him.
The ego's facial expression conveyed how it felt quite clearly: scared and concerned. Feelings which were, given everything that had gone on in the past few hours for her, quite valid.
The goblin's vision of herself was not particularly different from her physical form. As Althos gave her a once-over he noticed that this mental-body was perhaps a few centimeters taller than the goblin's actual physical body, and her skin was a bit clearer. Aside from that, she was also a bit more muscular, and her nearly nude form was covered not by green-armor but by the mental reflection of assorted animal furs.
She opened her mouth to speak but Althos cut her off. In the instant before he spoke he considered how to approach this and after a moment of deliberation decided to be honest with the goblin, to an extent, and saw how she reacted to honesty.
"We are in your mind, you're trapped here until I decided otherwise. I am aware that you are probably aware of this, and I'm fine with the consequences of that. I am here in search of knowledge, and I really feel the need to stress this: not to hurt you. And I won't hurt you unless you attempt to instigate something. In which case I make no promises of your safety.
If you give me the knowledge I seek, which is and I must stress that there is a 'literally' here, literally everything you know, your memories, thoughts, and secrets, then we can leave here soon and I will help you in a way that you choose. I am seeking, without exception, every bit of knowledge you've gained over the course of your life, as well as your memories, secrets, and thoughts.
If I can acquire those peacefully and easily I can be persuaded to aid you in a way you choose beyond merely freeing you from the prison you're in. You can also try to resist this spell, but the odds of you successfully expelling me from your mind are... well they aren't high."
Althos spoke without hesitation and the blunt honesty in his voice, coupled with the odd display of his powers he made just by plunging both Amelie and himself into Amelie's mind convinced her of the veracity of his words. She looked at him, most likely sizing him up and she was probably considering what, if anything she could do to get out of this predicament.
The goblin's ego closed her mental mouth and thought for a second about how to proceed. Her facial expression changed from confusion, concern, and frustration to one of quiet contemplation.
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Without speaking a single word, the unicorn walked into its cave and acted. It approached the cage, its silence adding dramatic tension to the moment.
Althos' second will, in watching it, realized its intention and allowed the beast to do what it had entered the cave to do without complaint. He stepped aside and the unicorn walked right up to the edge of the cage.
The beast looked at its captives and made direct eye contact with Olizeo and Brutus. The goblins grudgingly engaged in a quiet yet tense staring contest with the unicorn and the bizarre version of chest-pounding going on in the cave went on for considerably longer than it ought to have.
And then the creature opened the cage, by clever usage of its natural telepathic abilities. It used telepathy to dissamble the lock and remove it in front of the goblins. Seconds later the door slowly swung open, giving the goblins the ability to walk out of where they had once been contained. It took the goblins a moment to truly realize that the door had been opened.
And it took the dark-elves even longer to realize what had just happened. Following their collective confusion they, one by one, moved forward, stepping into the cave and edging closer to Althos and the goblins than any of Althos' allies felt comfortable allying them to be. The assorted creatures and orcs Althos had gathered reacted defensively to the elves drawing ever nearer to their master. At that moment, from within the cave, Qut spoke.
"My fellow Unseelies, I must insist that you take a second and contemplate your actions... I have not freed these goblins, I am merely showing them consideration and good manners. Come now, let us bargain once again. Let us bring in our new companion to the most honorable of tables: the bartering table."
The unicorn's voice rang out in the cave and echoed across its narrow walls. Those words carried with them an odd conviction that was also quite curious in nature. The elves were unsure of what the unicorn's play here was, but they knew that as of yet there was little they could justifiably do. As one the four elves relaxed their guard and waited to see what would happen next.
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In that particular moment, Amelie's will was stretched tight and she struggled to make sense of the events of the day which quite quickly had gone from mundane to rather extraordinary in the most horrifying of ways.
The young goblin had started off today by investigating Althos and his allies and in very short order, while retreating was knocked out alongside her peers when they intruded upon the territory of the dark unicorn. An unknown amount of time passed while the goblin was unconscious and she then had woken up just in time to interact with Althos.
Althos, who immediately upon being interacted with pulled what a lot of humans would call a grade-A dick move and immediately invaded her mind while also trapping the two of them inside of it.
It was, quite frankly a lot to take in and it understandably took a toll on her will and her sanity. The young goblin was feeling quite pressured at that moment and Althos could see that. The deity watched her, his gaze never breaking not even to blink.
And once again Amelie, in desperation and a desire to understand, coupled with the fact that though the goblin was intelligent she was lacking in wisdom, looked into the obsidian-colored pits that were Althos' eyes. What she saw while starring into those eyes, and trying to make sense of Althos, was a sort of hunger and a drive that as far as she could see were limitless.
Deep in Althos' eyes, she could see how the deity hungered for knowledge. It was intense, and there was a purity to it that revealed that for all of Althos' real flaws the deity wasn't lying about his intentions. There was a simplicity to the deity's hunger and drive for knowledge that almost made the creature seem reasonable albeit a bit aggressive but it was all honest.
"All I want is knowledge. All knowledge, actually. I'll freely admit that pursuing all knowledge is a big undertaking and will take a long time but we've all got to start somewhere and our dreams don't have to be realistic, do they? Now... what do you say, Amelie? Will you give freely and in return be rewarded and helped, or will you say no? There's a non-zero percent chance I can just leave and leave you trapped here but I don't want that. Just give me what I want and I'll give you what you want."
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The deity spoke words that once again put pressure on the mind of the goblin. She grimaced and weighed what might happen next with each choice laid out before her. Fortunately, there were only two real options: for her to give in and give Althos what he wanted, or for her to say no.
The goblin was quite intelligent. She may not have had much common sense, and she may have been bull-headed but she had a terrific memory and she was skeptical by nature. This skepticism empowered her to test the waters she found herself in.
"Althos... if I give you my knowledge, all of it, can you intervene and secure my freedom and the freedom of my friends? We are about to be sold and dark-elves don't just practice slavery, they also sacrifice living creatures to the demons and other dark creatures they summon and ally themselves with."
Upon finishing her explanation the goblin looked to Althos, her mental form's eyes were wide with fear and frustration. Althos looked at her and considered her suggestion. He thought about how he might have to work against the new strange elves and undermine their objective. He thought about how they had explicitly said they were going to purchase the goblins. And then he considered whether or not he could do Amelie asked.
It only took him a second to be sure of his ability to do this. He looked at her and spoke, ready to convey that information.
"Amelie... I am certain I can secure your freedom. Am I right in assuming you don't particularly care how I achieve this, so long as you and your friends come out alive?"
His voice once again carried no hesitation, no doubt. She looked him in the eyes and nodded. And then Althos began to grin.
"Well, then Amelie... We have a deal, don't we? I get all of your knowledge, thoughts, memories, and secrets,"
As Althos said that his dark eyes began to glow as if indicating his knowledge-focused greed.
"And in exchange... you get your freedom and the freedom of your friends."
Amelie herself began to grin, a mixed expression on her face once again revealing the complicated feelings she felt at that moment.
And Althos began to think of how he could most efficiently secure all of the knowledge this goblin had within her brain. And while doing this a pillar of solid darkness descended from what felt like the sky of the strange meadow the two creatures found themselves in and engulfed Althos, taking him out of Amelie's sight due to its darkness.
[Alert: You have secured permission by this creature to plunder her knowledge. How you go about this depends on you and what you will. Do you wish to be maximally efficient and possibly risk harming Amelie's brain, or do you wish to take your time and considerately explore the depths of her knowledge, absorbing it into your own while freeing both yourself and her from this strange location?
If you choose this second option both you and Amelie will be freed from here, and copies of Amelie's knowledge will steadily be created and transferred to you. The process will only take a few minutes, or a few hours depending on the knowledge of the creature whose mind you are plundering. Amelie is a young goblin but is bright for both her age and species. It will take a few minutes to create copies of her knowledge, secrets memories, and thoughts and transfer them over to you but it won't take more than 15 minutes to do all of this.
If you are maximally efficient you will instantly absorb all of her knowledge, memories, thoughts, and secrets and you two will leave here right now but there is a real possibility the process will harm her mind. Make your choice, please.]
Althos wasn't exactly merciful, but the creature's impatience wasn't so high that he'd willfully put the young goblin, who had just cooperated with him, in unnecessary danger. He didn't hesitate to choose the second, more considerate, option. And the instant he thought this, his surroundings changed once again.
The deity instantly went from the strange meadow whose parts would soon be flooding his own mind, back into his body and thus the mortal plane.
The deity found himself approaching the dark-elves, with a new mission that went quite well with what his secondary will had been doing anyway, which was treating the goblins with a bit of careful kindness.
Unbeknownst to the deity, Amelie was also instantly returned back to control of her own body, and she was the last of the goblins to leave the cage. As soon as she was out of the cage knowledge of what had gone down while she was trapped in her mind, without a secondary will, was given to her in the form of memories her body made while her mind was preoccupied.
She grinned at Althos, though she was confused by how he was able to move and talk when she couldn't.
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Moments passed while the elves approached Althos and the goblins moved to congregate behind him. His allies appeared behind the elves and moved into position behind them to make it hard for them to leave unless they were moved. While this was going on Althos's mind was smoothly incorporating the first bits of knowledge copied from the goblin.
Althos was learning about the names of plants in the forest, and about woodland critters, one could find in the forest. This knowledge, especially that of the woodland critters, was useful to Althos who found himself tempted to go out and awaken more things, especially birds. It was synchronizing first because it smoothly touched on Althos' interests in lifeforms and in the forest he spent the first few moments of his life in.
The elves took a few moments to reach Althos and when they were standing just in front of the deity, Qu'Ren immediately began to speak.
"Althos, if you wish to question these goblins please feel free, after all, we already agreed to that... but are you planning to secure their freedom or perhaps purchase them for yourself? Because if so that's quite inconvenient for me and my kin."
The witch infused her voice with arrogance and power in a paultry display meant to put the deity on the defensive. Internally Althos rolled his eyes, even as his mind was expanding and the number of things filling it was growing ever wider than they were a few minutes ago.
At that moment Althos was learning about eating, something he had seen his servants do once and which he allowed Raverangos to do to the bear corpse back at the river's edge. He found the idea of eating something quite intriguing after learning that most mortals needed to do it to survive.
Althos opened his mouth to speak to Qu'Ren and the other dark elves. He willed the language he spoke in to be the dark language of the abyssal realm from which Raverangos hailed. His infernal allies cringed in response to hearing the dark words escape from Althos' lips.
"Qu'Ren, as a fellow leader I find that I've come to quickly respect your natural grace and eloquence. Allow me to be direct and honest with you for a moment will you?"
Althos appealed to Qu'Ren's pride and given her track record of speaking for the group coupled with what he had learned from the notification he had received about dark-elves. His manner of speaking was influenced unconsciously by fragments of Amelie's knowledge and her memories of the other residents of the forest, knowledge, and memories that were still being absorbed by his mind.
And at that moment Althos aimed at all four dark elves and activated the spell he had accidentally created while trying to discover the vestigial traits of his followers. He hoped to see if there was something hidden within the elves that he could offer as a trump card to get them to leave here without the goblins.
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At that moment the secondary will Althos had gotten minutes ago was acting as a buffer that prevented the deity from being overwhelmed by the knowledge the goblin had agreed to give to Althos. Althos's chosen method of mercifully copying that knowledge as opposed to just taking it helped prevent him from being overwhelmed as well since there was a limit to the knowledge he could absorb in any one moment because it had to be copied and transferred over to him.
The manner in which Althos's mind was absorbing the information he had gained depended on the information in question. Amelie's memories were being absorbed into his own, and at the end of this process, as in when copies of all of Amelie's memories were stored in Althos, would grant Althos a knowledge base with which he could begin to make predictions based off of patterns and even grant him the ability to make rudimentary plans that went beyond a few hours in length and weren't incredibly vague.
Amelie's factual knowledge was being added to Althos's own factual knowledge bit by bit with each passing second. Althos was quietly receiving secondhand notifications which were influenced by the fact that the deity had an upgraded knowledge level, thus giving him far more detailed notifications than Amelie had gotten.
Amelie's secrets and thoughts would be copied and transferred over last. They would just be added to the mental log Althos had of his own thoughts. The deity didn't really have what passed for secrets among mortals, due to his simple-mindedness so there was no existing mental repository for him to store them in like there was for memories, thoughts, and knowledge.
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Althos was grateful for Amelie's knowledge because it granted him an understanding of things he had heard of but didn't fully understand. Even as fragmented as the knowledge he was absorbing was, he had the basest knowledge of things like slavery, sacrifice, and the ways some living creatures organized themselves.
This knowledge came to him in spurts and bursts but it was enough to allow him to speak intelligently to the dark elf who stood in front of him, awaiting a followup to what he had originally said to get her to take him a bit more seriously. He had tried to do something called "flattering" her, and he suspected that it worked because the dark elf didn't immediately shut him down.
The amoral diety's first tactic was to gain an understanding of what the elves wanted from the goblins. So far directness had worked so Althos continued that approach.
"What do you hope to gain from having goblin slaves? What's the goal there? I lived in places like this forest my whole life, so I'm genuinely trying to understand what is in it for you, what benefit you stand to gain, by enslaving these little green fellows."
Althos creatively came up with a bit more to his own falsified backstory, and it was easy for him to think up that detail since it wasn't exactly a lie.
Qu'Ren looked at Althos and considered what sort of statement she could make to grant her a leg up at this moment. She turned and looked over at Raverangos and came up with what she felt was a brilliant response to the young deity's query.
"We want them so that we can summon more demons. We'd normally hesitate to confess that, but frankly, your sentinel demon looks... surprisingly loyal to you. It obeys your commands and moves to defend you even without specific instructions. It's honestly kind of impressive given the hatefulness demons normally demonstrate towards us non-demons."
Qu'Ren met Althos' own strange honesty with her own strange honesty. Her intentions with the goblins was to torture them and then to sacrifice them to summon more demons. And in making that confession she inadvertently gave Althos a weapon only he could use against her.
Before the deity could speak, he received an unexpected yet welcome message from his own pet demon.
[Master, even if all of those goblins were sacrificed at once to summon a single demon... it wouldn't be as powerful as I am and I am a not a greater demon. If you sacrificed the orcs, Silander, and especially Samyaza or your infernal allies... all of those would result in far greater demons appearing. It's not really worth making any extra efforts to collect these goblins if your end goal is sacrifice and the summoning of one of my kind.]
Raverangos, Althos' pet demon sent its master a quiet message. Althos grinned at this and knew how to proceed, at least for a second.
"You want to summon a demon with just those goblins? My demon once ate an entire bear. I don't believe any demon you summon using these goblins as sacrifices would be very strong."
Althos spoke this with a hint of laughter in his voice, but also turned his gaze towards Amelie for a second and grinned at her, before turning back to face Qu'Ren yet again.
This made Qu'Ren's eyes flash with anger. She felt, rightfully so, that Althos was making fun of her. She was about to open her mouth to respond, but Althos knew that if he let her do that they may be no going back so he immediately cut her off and spoke once again.
"Before you speak, let me make sure we're on the same page. You're after these goblins because you want to sacrifice them? If that's correct let me make you a... counterproposal. I can empower you right here and now and grant you powers that would make you far better able to go out and catch worthy sacrifices. The only thing I ask in exchange is that you leave here without the goblins."
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Moments ago when Althos had activated "Vestigial Examination" the results that appeared before him were quite interesting to the young deity.
The external traits he had seen were as follows:
Spear mastery (Qu'Ren, Milene)
Thermal vision (Qu'Ren, Milene, Mianthus, Drow)
Natural armor (Drow)
The internal traits were also interesting:
Telekinesis (Qu'ren, Mianthus, Milene)
Pyrokinesis (Milene)
Ichor veins (Qu'Ren)
Clairvoyance (Drow)
Poison generation (Mianthus, Milene)
True shape-shifting (Mianthus, Milene, Drow, Qu'Ren)
Of those, the most unique to Althos were "Ichor veins" and "Clairvoyance". The deity contemplated immediately resurrecting both of those traits no questions asked, but patiently held back.
Ichor veins was an ability that granted Qu'Ren a secondary sort of blood vein all over her body. When attacked in a way that caused her to bleed this ability would cause the wound to expel the dark ichor-like blood Raverangos had in its veins.
Clairvoyance, if resurrected, would grant the male dark-elf named Drow the ability to see visions given to him by Althos. This was a powerful ability that Althos would almost certainly resurrect at some point, even if not right at that very moment.
But Althos had no way of knowing just how incredible it was that he possessed the ability to resurrect the power to shape-shift that laid deep within the genetic makeup of all elves. And he wouldn't learn how significant this was until he informed the elves themselves of this reality. Which wouldn't happen immediately.
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A silence fell over the cave as the elves all considered what Althos had just told them. So as to sweeten the deal, Althos decided to provide a demonstration of his powers.
He quietly selected the young dark elf female who stood a ways away from Qu'Ren and cast one of his earliest legendary spells on her.
In much the same explosive way that it had occurred with Salifinos hours ago a spectacular pillar of darkness the same shade of darkness of the void between stars themselves came down from the natural ceiling of the cave and engulfed the younger sister of the warrior named Mianthus. She was surrounded on all sides by the potent magical power that was needed to resurrect the chosen vestigial trait.
Within the pillar, she felt the power that surrounded her being steadily absorbed into her body, and she felt something strange happening to her mind. It felt like her mind itself was gradually becoming more and more powerful, like she could do things with just her mind and not with magic or with her own hands.
While still surrounded by the pillar's anti-light she heard the whispers of her ancestors. She heard them offering muted praises and felt their respect for her increasing. She smiled and began to graciously accept the boost to her own powers.
Though the pillar that surrounded her was very impressive, after a matter of seconds it faded away and left just the girl standing there, feeling more powerful than ever.
Althos waited a few moments while the girl returned to what passed for normal among dark elves and then he spoke to her. He didn't know her name, but he knew that she'd know who he was referring too.
"You there... Do me a favor and demonstrate what you've just been given. Use your gift on the cage my friends here just left."
Milene looked at the strange deity and considered whether or not to obey him. She considered this until she realized this was a way to undermine Qu'Ren, something her dark-elven nature delighted at the chance to do, and until she recognized the reality that without Althos none of this would have been possible in the first place.
Milene nodded at Althos and then turned her gaze to the cage. She extended one of her hands towards the cage as if to direct her mind in its direction and then quietly willed her mind to lift the cage up.
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Qu'Ren had known Milene, Drow, and Mianthus for decades. She knew Milene as a quiet little alchemist, not a potent sorcerer or psychic. The girl, at least relative to Qu'Ren, was good at many things but magic and psychic abilities had never been on the list of things the girl was capable of pulling off well.
The iron cage that had previously held the goblins and was now empty must have weighed at least a few dozen kilograms. And within a matter of seconds, it began to move, slightly and slowly at first but that only lasted a few moments.
Milene's initial mental reaction to the dense cage was to balk at its weight given that she had never used this newfound ability before, and when sweat formed on her brow. That was when the cage only budged in response to her mental pushes. But then the girl refocused and felt a newfound measure of self-assurance and self-worth from deep within herself. A product of innate dark-elven pride and self-respect.
She centered those emotions deep within herself and tried to move the cage again. This time she audibly groaned in response to the effort she was making, but this time the cage obeyed her will and like she was actually lifting the cage by hand slowly and visibly rose in the air, shakily but still obviously off the ground.
Althos grinned at this and then turned to Qu'Ren to speak again. A grin was still plastered onto his face as he spoke.
"I can empower all of you. How you'll be empowered differs from person to person, but what I did for her, I can do for you. And once again, the only thing I ask is that after I do it you all leave here and let the goblins go free."
Qu'Ren had a look of serious consideration on her face, as she weighed her desire to sacrifice the goblins coupled with her frustration at Althos, against her desire for immediate self-improvement and free power-ups. Althos was delighted to see that she was so seriously considering how to proceed from here, and the young deity hoped that she'd take what he felt was a good deal.