Deep underground, at least as deep underground as we could be in my divine realm, my entourage and I silently wandered around the dark colony. With each step, the number of things my prodigious senses picked up grew clearer and also stranger.
This underground colony housed a number of oddities. Not just the Mi-Gos and their lab-rats, but all manner of strange devices, devices which helped the foul fungi create this colony in the first place. I could sense the fel-technologies which the fantastical fungi used in both daily lives here, and a number of machines that the alien civilization had long since stored away in case the day came they would need to use them again.
I heard some of the devices they used regularly hard at work. To learn about them I scanned the mind of the Mi-Go who was escorting us while also remotely inspecting the devices myself.
Some of the machines included oxygen modifiers that allowed the Mi-Gos to breathe comfortably while also limiting the amount of oxygen that the mortals received, and a device that dampened magic which had the effects of increasing the magical energy cost of spells and weakening them. These devices didn't bother me, but I could get why they'd pose a challenge to mere mortals. This was an environment hand, or rather claw-built for Mi-Gos and designed to be inescapable.
Other devices were far more interesting to me. Some of them were handy vessels for interstellar travel, including autonomous drones and even a number of armed transport vessels capable of both worldwide and interplanetary travel. Others were more defensive machines and a few exosuits for missions that required Mi-Go supervision to ensure successful completion.
That said, as soon as we began to encounter other Mi-Gos, I turned my attention towards them.
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By the time we encountered more of the maddeningly advanced fungi I had come here to truly recruit we were in front of other flesh-formed buildings. These buildings were both homes and private laboratories. My enhanced senses, including my mini-map, allowed me to detect and appreciate the diversity of lifeforms present in the colonies without us ever even needing to enter one of the no-doubt frightening laboratories.
We stood on what was in essence an empty street, though in actuality it wasn't a specifically carved or maintained pathway but rather the naturally eroded pathway on which humanoids and occasionally Mi-Gos walked on when exploring the colony or going about their day to day business. In front and above us floated a number of the eerie fungi which I intended to use as my personal researchers. They stared at me, and completely ignore my entourage.
They beat their wings monotonously and they hovered as they studied me. I chuckled as I watched them. They all superficially resembled each other, but I could pick apart minute differences between them and between the one who had escorted me this far. That said, I would have bet that mortals wouldn't have been able to tell the differences between the unsettling scientists. The differences were in the number of marginal cells that made up each wing, and in the number of antennae on their faces, as well as slight differences in the colors of their scales.
The creatures were telepathically conversing with each other and I could pick up the overall gist of the conversation with my ability to read surface-level thoughts. They didn't know who I was, and I didn't feel like revealing myself to them. They were merely ordinary members of the colony and not the elite scientists I was looking for.
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The further into the colony we got the stranger the architecture became. At first, at least from a distance, many of the buildings in the colony looked like buildings. Being made of humanoid flesh made them obviously incomparable to most buildings made by mortals but nevertheless, they resembled buildings and had clearly defined doors and such useful things. That changed as we went deeper and deeper into the colony.
Buildings stopped being clearly definable to those used to mortal architecture a few kilometers into the colony. "Buildings" became holes in walls that allowed those with the appropriate body-types, almost exclusively Mi-Gos, to flit in and out of the buildings with ease.
What's more is that the holes tended to be situated hundreds of meters in the air so even if a mortal managed to bend themselves in such a way that fitting in and out of such holes was possible, they'd be faced with the prospect of falling a vast distance and probably dying upon impact with the ground below them. That said, for some people here that may be preferable to staying here, alive. The further into the colony we went the louder the wails of pain became. I quite liked it.
Though I didn't always show it, I actually quite liked being a god of many diverse things. I enjoyed the notifications I perpetually received about the diverse tapestry of things I held some sway over. I like both healing people and inflicting pain. I didn't doubt that if I truly put my mind to it I could become a god who seemed to be truly benevolent or despair-inducingly malicious. In truth, I was neither. I was a god who first and foremost liked being a god and wanted to become a god of all things, the multiverse's first truly omnipotent and omniscient entity.
I wanted to gain the power to do anything, without difficulty and without failure. I wanted to be a god who could alter an entire species with but a thought, and even purify or corrupt an entire dimension just to see what would happen if the dimension were altered on a truly cosmic scale. Eventually, I wanted to conquer entire universes, both in the sense that in some I was the undisputed ruler of them and in others in the sense that I was all there was, that I was all beings and all beings were me. And to do that I needed to accrue more power.
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After a few minutes of seemingly mindless wandering, our escort guided us to a wall. Without hesitation, the strange creature took off into the air, and I followed behind it. My escorts followed behind me, endlessly and nearly mindlessly loyal to their creator.
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We flew upwards for no more than a minute before reaching a hole in the wall in front of us. My Mi-Go escort effortlessly fit into it and flew through the thing without any hesitation. I followed after it, making myself incorporeal to do so without having to use my liquid, or gaseous abilities. As I passed through the hole I pointed a single hand at my companions and altered their shapes.
I turned the four guards into four heavy orbs of solidified silver, and telekinetically pulled them into my hands. For the time being I'd keep them like that. Ahead of me, the Mi-Go silently kept walking. It was determined to lead me to the grandest of the scientists this colony possessed, and I was quite excited to meet them. It didn't take us long to get far enough into the wall to reach the first of the experiments the Mi-Gos were conducting, and as I did I began to play around with my powers for a bit.
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The area my Mi-Go escort and I had been exploring had initially been a single, wide tunnel. It had been like that for almost a quarter of a kilometer. That changed when we reached the laboratory section of the wall.
The area around us abruptly widened and allowed any passersby to visually examine the countless experiments the Mi-Gos were conducting on their captives. The labs themselves were cavities in the wall that abruptly appeared in countless corners and provided adequate space for a number of things, creatures, and devices to be on the same relative elevation.
One lab contained a human who was strapped to a plain stone table and who was being monitored by a number of technological devices that weren't hugely dissimilar to the ones I had seen humans strapped too on Htrae. He was struggling against the strange technology and I could see rage building in his gaze. I chuckled and opted to have fun at his expense. I turned and entered the laboratory, leaping from up above the strange space to down into it and landing on the ground silently thanks to my powers over noise. That didn't stop the man from seeing me though.
"Hey! You there! Help me!" He screamed, desperation audible in his voice. He couldn't move his head Desperation wasn't the only thing audible in his voice either. I could hear rage, sadness, and pain in it as well. It was a pleasant cocktail of mind-breakingly powerful emotions. I walked over to the side of the man, and I heard him begin to squirm, trying to turn to face me.
"Hey! You're not like them. Or... Gods, I hope you're not like them. If you're not, free me! Please, I'm begging you, they're torturing me!" He said, practically wailing at me. He was quite slim, but I could tell at a glance that once the man had been powerfully built and muscular.
I slowly walked to the side of the man and as I do, I glide a finger along his bare chest. For a moment I consider inflicting pain on him, but then I decide against needless and random pain. I gaze at him and quietly utilize my powers over sloth to order him to sleep. My powers wash over him effortlessly. I sense him feel a sudden and unnatural burst of exhaustion, and I watch as his face contorts in confusion.
"What...?" The man mutters, clearly trying to ask something before his eyes close and I hear his breathing relax. A second later, he is fully asleep. I smile at him and return to where my escort was patiently waiting for me.
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The rest of the trip to where the elder scientist was located took less than ten minutes. Along the way, we passed by dozens of people, examples of alien technology, and other, odder things. I utilized my empathy power to glean information from my escort, despite the silence of the being. It liked when we passed by mortal experiments, was neutral towards alien technology, and was often unnerved by the stranger things we walked by.
The most intriguing of the strange things we walked by were things that melded technology and magic. In some cases, this was as simple as a Mi-Go in an artificial exosuit who held an arcane staff and was silently practicing hurling fireballs at targets in one of the little nooks which housed the experiments the scientists were working on. Others were stranger still, including a fully autonomous robot speaking arcane words and attempting to cast magic. It wasn't working, and as I examined the thing I realized why. It lacked the spiritual energy needed to cast spells. I could have changed that, but I didn't. I might, later, but I didn't as I walked by the thing.
I was fascinated by the blending of technology and magic. I had seen all sorts of examples of advanced technology, but most of them didn't blend science and magic. The space-faring vessels that the Mi-Go possessed were useful pieces of technology but weren't among the things that were being experimented on, only smaller, presumably more replicable pieces of technology were located within this particular laboratory.
When we reached the elder scientist I had come here seeking, we found it located in a vast, personal chamber. The room we were in was a large and sparsely decorated one. The room was oval-shaped, and the walls were a sleet white color, filling the room with light in stark contrast to the other rooms throughout the colony and laboratory that I had seen to date. It smelled of fungus and decomposing corpses, which to a mortal probably would have been thoroughly unpleasant but didn't particularly phase me.
There was a table-like slab in the middle of the room, on which the Mi-Go itself rested, and there were loose bits of bio-technical equipment scattered throughout the room, some of which was turned on and warmed fungus in quiet corners of the room. The Mi-Go itself was impressively large for a member of its race, and at a glance, I could assume that it probably stood around 4 meters tall if it stretched out its long body. It wore an exosuit that covered its body in a black film-like substance which I suspected granted it marvelous resilience.
The creature was not facing my escort or I, and yet I heard buzzing begin to emanate from it, buzzing which was automatically translated in my head. I smiled as I understood its words.
"Hello. Welcome to my humble colony, lord-god Althos." The creature said, in the odd buzzing language of the eldritch race.
"I hope you have enjoyed the portions of the colony you have seen. We are, of course, all at your disposal and eager to prove our worth to you." The creature told me, showing me the respect I suppose I was innately owed as a god. It was a pleasant change, from the usual first-times I met living creatures. I was silent for a moment, and then I began to speak. It was time for me to finish recruiting this colony. In all honesty, I think what I wanted them to do would be something they'd like to do anyway. I was smiling as I began to speak.