Deep in the depths of the new and strange region of the Wildlands, a powerful priestess of the egotistical creature known as the Sovereign of the Swarm approached the being she worshiped. She slowly and joyously did as her master bade her, her eyes filled with joy and love. As she approached him he began to smile.
He was an incredibly powerful and manipulative deity with a number of potent powers. He was especially powerful in a number of areas such as his ability to sense and alter emotions. He wasn't actively manipulating emotions as the creature who worshiped him move closer to her master, instead, he had just begun emitting an aura that made those in its radius feel intense joy.
The deity also activated his "divine presence" power, a power that was, in effect, a more potent and dramatic aura. The "divine presence" power she had chosen to activate was one that made creatures in his presence feel joy and one that made plants begin to joy around him.
The floor under his feet began to become home to bioluminescent fungi, fungi that grew at an explosive rate around him. His worshiper saw this and gazed at the fungi admiringly. Althos himself chuckled as one such fungus behind him grew so large that it stood taller than anyone in the room and hyphae-like tentacles began to extend from its cap and reach towards the ground.
One of the tentacles extended to the floor right beside him and he reached out and began to gently pet the thing. The fungus itself began to shudder, as it felt delighted by the gentleness of the touch of the deity of all fungi.
Althos began to gently and lovingly touch the face of the priestess who had come to him with his other hand. He had a soft expression on his face, and as the priestess stared at him Althos reached out and modified the priestess.
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I stared at a stat block for the priestess I had chosen to be the highest priestess that this particular group of the Swarm would possess. She was a decently high-level priestess, and so the way I was going to boost her wasn't by buffing her status as a priestess.
As I continued to gently massage the fungal tentacle in my other hand, I reached out and willed the fungus behind me to begin to release its spores. Sure enough, a second later a cloud of yellow spores began to seep out from the massive fungus's gills. Shortly after they reached us the priestess's nose was filled with them since she was a mortal and needed to breathe, and so took a breath every few seconds.
As her nose filled with spores, I gently stroked her cheek and did a few things all at once. The first thing I did was make her druidess so that she could more effectively commune with nature. The second thing I did was freeze her once more. I'd only be doing this for a moment. All I needed, at this level of power, was a moment.
I reached out across all of existence, or at least all of existence in this iteration of existence, and tethered every single fungus and fungal-based lifeform to the fungal ultramind that connected every victim of my potent parasitic spore power together. This power connected an unfathomable number of fungal-based lifeforms together, including the amoral, scientifically oriented, Mi-Gos. Numerous entire species, including in a few cases the entire populations of planets, were immediately tethered together and linked so that they all had one master and could transmit thoughts across dimensions.
Once I had tethered those minds together, I unfroze the priestess. As I did that she took a breath, though she didn't need too it was just her body reacting subconsciously to the strangeness of the moment she had been frozen.
The third and final thing I did was expose her mind to the potent power of the newly enhanced fungal ultramind that tethered all victims of my parasitic spores and all fungal life in this iteration of reality together. I wasn't making her a part of that mind, I was just allowing her to experience the weight of it. The power it possessed.
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Her entire life the nameless priestess in the thrall of Althos and his quasi-parasitic spores, she had had an ego. Not an intensive one or anything, but an ego that made her feel like an Independent being with thoughts and ambitions.
When her mind first connected to the ultramind that Althos had created by tethering together victims of his parasitic spores, she was mentally stunned and this ego suffered a blow due to suddenly realizing just how small it was in the grand scheme of things.
In her mind's eye, she was viewing a vision of a brain of truly and incomprehensibly vast size. One of such vast weight and dimensions that it couldn't be fathomed by the sane, even those with alien sanities like her own due to her nature as an evolved ant-priestess.
She mentally gazed at it in awe. It was currently frozen, as not a single being who was tethered to it, aside from Althos, was currently active since the god had frozen time. However, even in its inactive state, it was so powerful and awe-inspiring that it was capable of shrinking the egos of lesser beings exposed to its almost sanity-rending glory.
It was a mental visualization of a powerful connection, and unity of thought and purpose that extended across entire dimensions. It unified an unknowably vast number of beings, in every single dimension and across alignments. Angels, celestials, demons, dragons, humans, regular fungi, eldritch monstrosities, and other beings were tied together and unified in such an intense way that even former nemeses forgave each other and came together for the purpose of enacting the agenda of Althos.
It was impossible for any single being unless they were a demon of pride, a greater angel of some sort, or themselves a kind of higher being to stare at the hivemind without experiencing some sort of internal diminishment. The nameless priestess, a small being compared to many kinds of mortals, felt the internal diminishment in a particularly keen way, as her sense of self shrunk in the wake of exposure to the metaphysically heavy mind.
The fungal mind was especially corrosive to the aspect of self-identity. It was an ultra-mind that fully erased its member's concept of themselves and any sort of selfishness or desire they felt for anything beyond serving Althos. Only the strongest minds, such as those of powerful, extraplanar beings or the Mi-Gos could continue to retain even the vaguest senses of self in the wake of joining the mind, even though their memories and minds weren't wiped out.
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The nameless priestess's mind was only exposed to the fungal supermind for a mere moment, and even then in the extremely controlled capacity of being forced to witness it while it was frozen. And somehow even that was enough to make the priestess feel small. And in the depths of her mind, she knew that the sort of mind her deity possessed was even greater than that of the fungal supermind.
"This is a sort of... offspring of mine. This mind is the result of my power." Althos's telepathic voice whispered, in the darkest corner of the mind of the priestess. She shivered as his voice penetrated her mind, feeling a wicked sort of delight as his hands continued to touch her mind and her mind's eye was allowed to look away from the fungal supermind.
It took a few moments, but almost before she knew it she was able to see her surroundings again, and she found herself in front of her deity, blood pouring down her eyes. Althos smiled at her, which made her smile back in response, and the deity healed her.
He didn't restore her sense of self, but he did cause her eyes to stop bleeding and undid the damage that proximity to the fungal supermind had done to her mind. He also took away the pain she felt, as the purpose wasn't to mentally scar her but to do something grander: open her eyes. And he had done that.
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"I am a mighty god. I command all sorts of followers, throughout the universe." I told the priestess, even as she approached me, and began to caress me as if to test if I was real. I chuckled as she did that.
Corruption watched as the priestess touched me, the joyous look in her eyes quickly turning to something more carnal. I felt her emotions shift, as the pain she felt faded from her mind before beginning to change into something more fun. Corruption approached me and giggled as the priestess's hands began to wander towards my lower body.
Myrmekes's possessed drider-like anatomies. They had the upper bodies of humanoids and the lower bodies of massive ants, much like driders had the upper bodies of dark elves and the lower bodies of massive spiders. The nameless priestess gazed up at me in ecstasy as her human-like hands began to explore my groin. She had soft-looking lips and softer hands, which I discovered as her hands began to lightly touch my fur-covered legs.
Corruption placed her head against the side of my chest and looked down on the myrmekes priestess. There was a look of satisfaction on her face as she did so.
"You really are more fun than a lot of older gods were. I bet the vices would love you. Especially lust." She whispered, as the evolved ant-creature in front of us reached my member and began to stroke it. There was a look of near mindless delight on her face as her hands massaged me.
"It's been so fun to watch you build your little empire. And I know in time it'll grow and grow. Someday it may even reach the level of Morehammer's empire, or better yet that of someone like the Dark Saint." She told me, as I relaxed and felt my priestess serving me.
"It's nice to see someone willing to use mortals as they are meant to be used. As sources of pleasure, stress relief, and servants. Not many gods got that. But you do." Corruption whispered.
The ant-like priestess's fingers tenderly and carefully worked their magic on me. As they did I stared at the face of the priestess.
"But that said... When will you finally take the plunge and do as Morehammer did? When will you head to the 616th layer of the Heart of Darkness and take command of the multiversal abyss?" Corruption asked as she looked at the side of my face. I sighed in response to her question and closed my eyes for a moment. I began to reply after a few moments of silence wherein I pretended I was alone and could enjoy the sensations of the myrmekes serving me.
"I shall go to the multiversal abyss when I am good and ready to do so Corruption. Every deity's conditions for using it were different, so even Morehammer's memories do me very little good there. It's entirely possible that if I use it I will be stranded in whatever other universe I visit until I become an overgod. I need to acquire more power before I commit to that." I remarked, revealing secrets that I knew Corruption hadn't known in the past.
My statement was true though. Every deity who had used the power of the multiversal abyss had had to fulfill different conditions to properly use it. The condition Morehammer had had to fulfill to use the multiversal abyss was to send out a portion of his power into whatever universe he wanted to be able to travel to and create dwarves who could summon him through. Whenever he used the multiversal abyss he was left weakened until the day that the dwarves he had created summoned him into whatever universe he had selected.
One of the greater vestiges I had slain when I performed my deicide was a greater deity of magic and vermin named Alistar, and he too had used the multiversal abyss during the mythic age. His condition was to use a portion of his power to amplify magic in a world in whatever universe he sought to enter. The amplified magic would result in more powerful magic users until someone arose and became an arch-sorcerer. Alistar would then possess that person and summon his main body through to the universe he wanted to enter, killing the arch-sorcerer in the process.
For a lesser being, especially a mortal, two examples of different conditions might not be enough for someone to definitively state that the multiversal abyss created unique conditions for safe travel between universes, but I was also an "Authority" within the system. I had the power to seize the knowledge it contained, and I had done so during some of my relative downtime after becoming a nascent overgod.
The knowledge I had seized revealed to me beyond any shadow of a doubt that the multiversal abyss created conditions keyed to each specific deity who sought to use it.
"When I go to the multiversal abyss, I will in all likelihood be committing to being in it, until I can safely travel between universes, and even then there's a chance I won't be able to come back until I become a true overgod. Even my authority over reality isn't unlimited yet and even with my immense knowledge I do not know for sure that I'll be able to freely travel between universes without using the multiversal abyss again." I explained to Corruption.
"I am not an overgod. Not yet anyway. And only when I am will I be free to roam universes as I please." I told the subdomain, shortly before sighing in delight. My priestess was not listening to what Corruption and I were saying. She was wrapped up in my auric powers which made her feel nothing but bliss as she busied herself with the stiff rod in front of her.
"And besides... A small part of me wants to try and fight one of the over-vestiges before I leave. Once I've taken out Morehammer and can turn all of my attention towards one of them. Maybe the Dark Saint. Becoming the overgod of the lawful evil alignment sure sounds nice." I told the subdomain, as I considered what it'd be like to enter the deepest layer of Infernius and to defeat the Dark Saint himself.
"Lawful evil? That would be a good alignment for an empire, wouldn't it?" Corruption wondered, even as I began to sigh a bit more. The priestess in front of me smiled lewdly as she awaited something.
"Plus this universe only has lawful evil and chaotic neutral in it anyway. The Dark Saint and Rok. Originally some others had visited this place, like Benico, but none of them had settled here. Nor had they been here when they died." Corruption explained, revealing that she too was privy knew a few things I didn't.
Benico was one of the overgods I was the most curious to meet and defeat someday. He had been one of the overgod of the neutral good alignment, predating the one who had died during the end of the mythic age. And he was the creator of the mysterious artifact known as the "Scarlet Seat", which currently sat in my seat of power in the first layer of Infernius, the strange place known as Gehenna.
After a few moments I motioned for the priestess to stop, and I bade her go back to where she was before I froze time. She did as she was commanded, and when she was back I sighed and unfroze time. It was time that I get back to work.