Had anyone had the power necessary and the will needed to remotely observe the last god in the multiverse the moment his mind was expanded and opened to the multiverse for the first time, they'd have been surprised at his surroundings.
He wasn't in a gaudy temple surrounded by priests or priestesses, or in a massive space-ship floating through space. Instead, the part of him that actively activated the power was in a fairly average inn, situated in a lonely city in the middle of an eerie desert.
He was seated patiently, quietly, clothing himself in a disguise modeled after a desert-giant, in the solitary city of Namira. His room was quiet, as his companions were all sleeping soundly in the gigantic bed that was presumably intended for him. His eyes were closed as he focused on the litany of diverse voices that began to slowly creep into his mind.
He heard them, and the first instant he did so he was caught off guard. Their voices melted into one, a terrifying cacophony of dissident voices and often clashing needs and wants, that washed over him and for a brief moment startled the deity.
Some of the louder voices were almost understandable, but due to the chaotic nature of the ability, he had just used he only heard snippets of what they had to say rather than intelligent, full statements.
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The young god had focused and endured through the nightmarish and jarring assault on his senses provided by the first usage of his ability to listen to prayers. Despite their lack of context, some of the jumbled and fragmented words he could piece together stuck out to him.
Prison!
Fire.
Nightmare.
Debts.
Sandmen!
Faeries?
Dragon?
These words made little sense without their full context, but the deity was sensitive to the powerful emotions that accompanied them.
He felt the excitement of the strange voice that said something about sand-people, the curious nature of the two voices apparently asking about faeries and dragons, and he could sense the righteous indignation of the noble-sounding voice he suspected was complaining about a prison.
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Thankfully the instant the voices melted together, they were abruptly silenced. In the resulting silence, which was loud in its own way after Althos sat through the prior sonic assault he had had to endure, he had a second to think.
That was... a lot. The will thought to itself.
[Whoa. That was a bit intense. We caught it, and we're dialing it back. Give us a second.] The system told the curious deity, unintentionally agreeing with him. Althos took a deep breath to recover from the noise he was just subjected too while the system worked its magic. Seconds later the system spoke to him once more.
[Let's try this... again. Just this time, ask for just one prayer before you activate your power. We'll run through the collection of prayers that were left after filtering out the inapplicable ones, and find the one that most fit the flags you asked us to search for.] The system said, giving the will the sort of clear instructions the thing thrived on.
[On it.] The will responded, focusing momentarily so that he could reenter the state of mind needed to open his mind to the multiverse. And this time, having learned from its mistakes, the will carefully specified that it was seeking a single prayer.
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Just silence your mind... melt away all distractions. Be at one... with the multiverse. He told himself, quietly and diligently, breathing slowly so as to aid the process of slowing his mind down.
When he felt an amount of calm that he believed would be sufficient for the purpose of experimenting with his powers, he reached deep within himself and spoke softly. "This time... just one prayer is enough." He said, grinning gently and almost laughing at himself while he activated the power. His mind, previously nearly silent, was suddenly home to a new voice, one that sounded faint and far-away but also earnest and hopeful that her prayer would be answered.
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Althos' mind itself was teleported away from the depths of Infernius when his secondary will expanded his mind. It was taken from where it had been, sitting in the sacristy while chatting with Heryensis and Malefactor, and taken to a new place.
Impossibly, or perhaps merely inexplicably, the deity was aware of the fact that his primary will remained in Infernius, still chatting with the two devils about the finer points of oral copulation. Equally inexplicably, the deity retained an awareness that his secondary will was in his room in the city of Namira, having successfully reached the city and begun the process of making friends there.
But Althos' mind was in neither location. The area the formless entity found himself in was a blank, black space. Darkness surrounded him in every direction, as far as he could see. He took a few seconds to expand his consciousness as far as he could in this space, willing his mind outward in every direction.
Once he had pushed as far as he could, he wasn't surprised by what he found. None of it changed, not a bit. Every remote corner of this shapeless, featureless world was as blank as the area immediately surrounding the deity. The divine being was happy when a textbox suddenly appeared in his face, alerting him to what was going on.
[Welcome, young deity, to your first, divine realm. In the wake of your mind-expanding outward a decision has been made to relocate your mind itself to the divine area you have total control over. Until you personally decorate it, this place will be an empty, featureless void. If that's how you would like to keep it, that's fine as well.]
So this entire dimension is under my control. Wow... He realized, impressed. That's awesome! I wonder... what could I do here? The divine entity questioned, curiosity flooding its mind. The system answered that question with its next statement.
[This is your home. Here you are unburdened by the few limitations that burden you elsewhere. Powers of yours do not have to be recharged here, and you can populate this place with any number of any creatures you can create. Mortal worshipers of yours are brought here when they die, their souls coming to you as their god, to be with you in the afterlife.] The system informed the deity.
So this is my home. My real home. He realized, and if he had a face it would have been grinning at this delightful discovery.
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[This dimension is inaccessible unless you will it otherwise since there are no other gods in existence who could force their way in. If you wish to create portals to it, you can create portals to it, anywhere you feel comfortable doing so. That and you manually transporting someone here are the only ways for mortals to enter your dimension.] The system politely and mildly excitedly told Althos.
This place sounds amazing! What should I do first? He asked, talking both to himself and to the system, contemplating how to most effectively make immediate use of his new playground.
[In order to proceed, please begin to imagine the sort of terrain you'd like for your dimension to have. This is a boundless plane, one that extends as far as you'd like, but for now and for the sake of simplicity, please just think for a few moments about a distance of say... 5 kilometers. Clearly imagine the sky, the ground, and what, if anything is located underground.] The system instructed Althos, and then it waited to put together whatever the god imagined.
Oh! That makes sense. I suppose... I should build something I'm familiar with. I'll start with a dense forest, with both massive trees and gigantic fungi. Althos thought, eagerly basing his dimension on what he knew and was familiar with.
If I can I'll go ahead and populate it with... at least two creatures of every type I can create! And the underground will have a city, like the city of Undermoon. I don't hate the perpetual night of the desert, so I think I'll copy that over here. He told himself, and the system, transmitting his thoughts eagerly to the mysterious and evidently powerful voice that from time to time alerted him to new powers and abilities.
[Your route to power has been unusual and is complemented by the fact that you've begun the journey to become an arch-devil. Your clash against Narcolept, coupled with your powers over souls and the dark route you embarked upon when you decided to devour the soul of the first sickened bear in the world of your birth has given you an unusual option that is only truly becoming useful right now.] The system explained, filling Althos with a sense of curiosity.
[You have the souls of humans, dwarves, and both high and dark elves within you. If you decide to devour the weakest of those souls, you can use your soul powers to create humans, dwarves, and both high and dark elves. Those are four of the perhaps 5 or so most common humanoid races. All it takes is devouring a single soul of each kind. Just four souls.]
[This is a key moment. If you decide to do this you'll gain incredible power and knowledge. Would you like to devour those souls? If you do they are destroyed, but they were already dead. If you decide to do this, the weakest soul of each kind within you will be utterly annihilated, and in exchange, you'll gain the ability to craft bodies of their species.]
Althos' mind was still as he weighed his options. In exchange for the annihilation of four souls, I can gain the ability to construct legions of spies and servants who are utterly loyal and can infiltrate all sorts of societies. So this is just me having a use for the weakest souls in my possession. This is an easy choice to make. He realized, incorporeally smiling in the empty expanse before him.
[I'll devour the souls. And while the world is being made, I'll also create two families of each kind of the new humanoids I can create.] He told the system, confident in his choice. The instant he made his choice the world began to form. And as it did so, it drew from Althos' own boundless reserves of energy, using that energy to give life to the plants and fungi within the dimension, and drawing upon that energy to aid in the creation of the realm's first inhabitants.
Before his incorporeal eyes, where there was once nothingness, change happened instantly. The sky was formed at once, moonlight and starlight providing the empty void with dim illumination. A soft, blue moon was formed and hung over the sky. It hung high in the sky, splendorous in its radiant beauty.
The surface of the world was formed equally as quickly. In a flash kilometers of verdant green soil and densely wooded areas were created at once. Trees and fungi as massive as trees sprung to life, some young, and some ancient.
And then Althos' own version, his own copy, of the world beneath the world sprung into being. Underneath the dense forests the system had just called into being, it began to hack and slash through the surface's layers of dirt, soil, and rock.
In doing this it created wide tunnels and a single enormous cavern. The tunnels were packed with roots, fungi, water, and other things critical to life, while the cavern became home to the lone premade city in the dimension. A potent mixture of magic and divine energy was thrown into the area the system designated as a copy of the city of Undermoon, so as to immediately clear it out and make it suitable for speedy construction.
Buildings sprang into being, even as the souls that would inhabit the city were being birthed in the strange realm where divinely made souls were crafted from the energies of the gods who made them. Homes, stores, even temples and schools were made in an instant. A city made of and from divine energy.
Aether was called upon and shaped to form the few tools the city's first inhabitants would have access too. It was used to give them furniture, and to make their lives livable underneath the rule and perpetual vigil of a mighty and divine overlord.
Seconds after the process began, it came to an abrupt end. The system's efficiency ensured that the complex process by which Althos' true home was constructed was completed not long after it began. Althos was informed of this by the system itself. [Hello Althos. For now, construction of your divine realm has been completed. The first inhabitants of this realm are being created as we speak. At the moment it is an empty and eerie place, but that won't be the case for long.]
Althos willed away this textbox seconds after reading it, and decided to explore the eerily empty place that was created from his imagination, thanks to his own divine energy, and shaped by the system itself.
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In the depths of the adequate khan Althos and the desert-dwelling party were resting in, Althos' secondary will began the process of listening to the closest prayer the system found that met the specifications he had asked for when searching for prayers.
In the case of the prayer he was listening to right now, it came from a local Namirian, it was prayed while the young man was within the city itself, and he was both a spellcaster and was deemed to be at least somewhat susceptible to Althos' faith-based influence. At the moment he learned that about the prayer-giver, a young desert-giant named Berk, he grew quite excited.
So some people still pray... I wonder if it's because they are desperate for aid and are reaching out across the cosmos in search of it? Althos had wondered at the moment he loaded up the prayer to give it a second, clearer listen. He had no way of knowing that the first prayer he'd hear would so perfectly answer that question.
Hello...? Can anyone hear this? Ugh I shouldn't assume that this is the sort of thing that'll get an immediate response. That's selfish of me. Sorry. I just need help. And I need it pretty soon. But I guess I should start from the beginning right?
My name is Berk. I don't know if anyone who'd hear this prayer would be capable of determining that without me telling them, so please... mighty powers, don't be offended if I say something ignorant. I live in the city of Namira, a desert-giant city in a massive desert, that languishes underneath an eternal moon and I need your help.
I am in trouble. Or rather... my family is in trouble. We are farmers. There's a drought. And we were already in debt. I honestly have no clue how prayer works, and so I'm sorry about that, but god... gods, if there's someone out there who can hear this and who can help my family, just let me know what it'll cost me. Please... Please! We're good people. We don't deserve this. If you can help us, I'm willing to do... well I'm desperate.
I know I shouldn't try to do something like this from a position of weakness but honestly, if someone can hear this and answer it, I'm not about to try and pretend I've got strength in comparison to them. Please help me. Please.
Please help my family, the Vox family, pay off our debts. If you could help us through just ensuring we grow enough food to be able to pay off our debts, I will be eternally in your debt. Don't let us fall victim to our debtors.
Althos reread the prayer in front of him and then smiled. This is just perfect. This is a comically easy opportunity for me to demonstrate my power. Thanks, system! The entity thought, excitedly.
And with that, he silently stood up and began to walk out of the room the party had received mere minutes ago. While doing so he asked for directions. He entered the hallway out of his room and immediately began to look around for exits he could take that would allow him to escape undetected.
[So, where am I going?] Althos politely asked the system, readying a simple illusion spell to render himself invisible just in case he couldn't find an alternate exit out of the inn.