"Just one more barrier." The dwarf-looking entity muttered. He found himself standing in front of the last barrier between himself and his objective: the outside world. To others though, it would have been the first barrier standing between them and his artifacts.
The artifacts in question included but weren't limited to the objects he held in his hands. A towering shield in one, and a gigantic hammer in the other.
The barrier was a powerful construct that the universe itself put in place to protect him and to protect his divine armory. No mortal or extraplanar being could hope to penetrate it. In his eyes, it resembled a rainbow-hued whirlpool of the life-force that his living-self had once leaked into the multiverse during the catastrophe that ended the mythic age. It had been eons since he last stood here.
He closed his eyes, mostly to keep copper-colored tears from falling and staining his beard. He solemnly lifted his war hammer, using a single hand as if the massive object were a toy despite it being an object that stood taller than he did, and pointed it at the barrier. The ornate weapon was tethered to his soul and was the very first weapon he had ever forged.
The gigantic hammer began to radiate scarlet energy. It coalesced around the head of the hammer and wrapped the blunt head of the weapon in a delicate glow. As it did, he began to smile. He waited a few moments and allowed more and more of the strange, ghostly energy to wrap around his weapon. When it was ready he felt the hammer begin to hum. His lips turned upward in his own oddly mechanical imitation of a smile.
He lifted the hammer up high and then inhaled. Air surged into his lungs for the first time in centuries. The irony that he was ready and willing to sacrifice himself to keep his people alive and that that was what made him feel more alive now than he had in centuries was not lost on him. He then aimed his hammer so that he would be able to unleash its full weight maximally on the barrier while expending the minimum amount of energy needed to do so. When he was ready, he brought the hammer crashing down.
The hammer rocketed downwards, aimed squarely at the center of the rainbow-colored barrier. It crashed into, and then through the barrier with little resistance. The shell of the god's home had been built to withstand any invasion from the outside, not attempts to break it from within. The barrier fell apart, having successfully accomplished its mission of protecting Morehammer's vestige for as long as the echo felt like being protected. Now it was time for the entity to act.
The godly ghost, a divine echo of the past, had successfully shattered the barrier that kept intrudes from encroaching on his home and could now act freely for the first time since he was a living god. As the barrier fell apart, the god took his first steps into the outside world. He shivered as he felt the chilly, dusty air of the bowels of the palace one of his own children had once built.
Having experienced death himself, the godly echo knew that some things were worth dying for. He could imagine few things worth dying for that mattered more to him than the fates of the people he created and died trying to protect. As he considered the reality and heavy consequences he would have to face for doing what he was doing, his mind was already flooding with new information, as trillions of alerts flooded into his soul.
Reading through the alerts, it only took him a few moments to figure out where Puerto Rico was. And only a few more moments after that to divine the location of Oscuridad and its mine, through notifications related to the dwarves who lived in the settlement.
As soon as he figured it out, the deific apparition wasted no time and teleported himself there. He was ready to prevent his people from falling into darkness by any means necessary.
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If I didn't know better I would have believed that the two dwarves sitting with me were twins. They looked eerily alike, even to my eyes. That said, I did know better. Partially because I created one of them. And the one I created had a serene expression on her face.
Aoife's clone had a perfectly peaceful smile on her face. Aoife herself had a confused look on hers. I could tell that she was unsure of what was to come. I turned my attention to her.
"Ava has sought nothing less than your death for years. What she seeks now is something more. She seeks to kill and then control you. Through necromancy." I told her, speaking truthfully of her sister's machinations. Aoife shivered as she began to finally understand the shape of her sister's sinister hatred.
"But... why? What did I do that was so vile to Ava that she now seeks to do something so.... atrocious to me?" Aoife asked, her voice revealing the depths of her sorrow and confusion. I considered what to say, but was beaten to the punch by the clone.
"Aoife, Ava believes you abandoned her. Her memory of the day you were captured differs from yours." The clone revealed, now possessing the full story, at least as far as both dwarves remembered. I considered how to proceed from here, but almost immediately realized that there was no point in keeping the truth from Aoife.
I reached out and grabbed the dwarf's hand, and as she gasped in reflexive response to my actions I went ahead and transferred all of Ava's memories into her. Just like with her clone, her eyes immediately began to radiate silvery light and she froze up. This time I was faster with my infusion of holy-energy and began to pour the power into her brain immediately. That kept her from experiencing any pain, though she did tighten her grip on my hand in response to my actions.
I released my hand from her grip with a sudden and somewhat forceful yank. As I did so I turned to Aoife's clone. I was about to speak when my mini-map suddenly... changed. And then I received a notification through my domain-sense power, one pertaining to the death domain, that alarmed me and spurred me to action.
In an instant I teleported myself out of Aoife's home and into the tunnels where someone was enacting a hurricane of violence on my followers.
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The tunnel housing Ava and her allies and observers was a small place that was only barely able to accommodate the powerful and imposing looking undead warriors the necromancer commanded. Tragically, for them anyway, Morehammer's vestige was only the size of a short human. He wasn't uncomfortable in the strange dimensions of the place.
The deity had teleported himself to the entrance of the mine, incorrectly assuming that that would be where he could find Aoife. When he arrived at the mine he didn't find the dwarf, but he did find the scent of a dark-dwarf. Vestiges possessed senses only a tenth as powerful as gods, but his senses were sharp enough for him to be able to sniff out the precise location of Ava, one of the two foes he knew of by name.
He had entered the mine and wandered it, guided solely by his sense of smell. And it led him to the eerie tunnel where he found his foe. She along with a whole host of horrors stood, paralyzed by an illusion. And this brought an uneasy expression to the divine apparition's face.
"How... Strange." The god muttered, speaking slowly and carefully as if to not alert his foes. When the creatures did not stir or react to his muttered words the god felt a bit better, but not much.
"What is going on?" He wondered, speaking aloud once more. This too didn't stir them from their strange, magical stupor. The god approached them, his eyes focused on the lone dwarf in the group.
Ava was a strange creature. She had dark, almost obsidian-like skin and was clothed in robes that managed the impressive feat of being darker than her flesh. There was an odd-looking blade in a sheath made of shadows attached to a belt at her waist. She had a relaxed expression on her face, but her actual eyes were swirling arrays of multicolored light, reflecting the strange illusion that trapped and paralyzed her.
The once-deity approached her and studied her. As he did so he began to frown. He was studying everything about her, not just her physical appearance, but her personality and her dreams. The child was disappointingly dark, and until this point, the entity had hoped to spare her life. That said, he now knew that doing so wasn't possible.
Without a shred of hesitation or mercy, Morehammer lifted his hammer and rose it to the point where the thing was even with Ava's face. He then moved it so that it was distant from her head. And in a third motion, he swung the weapon at a speed that exceeded the speed of sound and the weapon effortlessly smashed through Ava's head, killing her painlessly and also splattering her skull, flesh, and blood everywhere behind her.
What remained of her head, following her execution was splattered across the strange tunnel she was in and coated her companions with gore, skull-fragments, and brain-matter. The corpse was also thrown by the force of the blow, but even as the corpse was sent sailing away from the place it had once stood, Morehammer flew into motion. The once-deity didn't have the time to mourn the loss of a dwarf life, even though in time he didn't doubt that he would.
The godly apparition exploded into violence. He turned first on the undead ant-human hybrids and then focused on the extraplanar horde behind Ava. He threw himself at them and swung his hammer, seemingly with abandon. That said, he was actually quite careful and precisely aimed his hammer to kill each extraplanar entity in a single blow, crushing skulls and destroying spines with the ease of a practiced martial artist going through drills they could perform in their sleep.
His body in motion was a thing of beauty, even if it would have been impossible for a mortal to appreciate it. His armor caught what little light existed in the tunnel and even the abundant darkness quite artistically, and his movements were maximally efficient even as he performed acts of horrifying violence with an unsettling detachment towards what he was doing.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
In his eyes what he was doing was a simple act of goodwill, one that shouldn't be fun in and of itself as that would be sadistic enjoyment of suffering and not a necessary purging of evil. Morehammer's mission was simple: put down the threat that was insidiously on the precipice of forever dividing the dwarven people. There was no enjoyment or amusement in his heart, only a dedication to his mission.
Althos noticed his presence at the same time as the strange entity was bringing his hammer down on the pain-knight who led the cult, and teleported into the tunnel just in time to see Morehammer finish off the head of the newest cult of Althonians. In all, perhaps half a second had passed since the dwarven-god had executed Ava.
Morehammer finished his whirlwind of violence by coming to a stop beside the defeated corpse of the pain-knight who worshiped Althos. He turned to face the youthful god, silently and covered in the blood of Althos' fallen servants. His armor, his face, and his hammer were covered in the slightly acidic blood of evil extraplanars.
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The tunnel I was in was illuminated by the little light that existed in the tunnel, and the light of the portal that led into and out of my tower. In an instant, I closed the portal that led to my home and studied the figure before me.
The figure did not appear on my mini-map or my not-so-mini-map. My senses hadn't detected him either, though now that he was in front of me I could perceive him. I quietly activated a familiar knowledge-domain ability and attempted to appraise him. Thankfully that managed to shed some light on who he was. And the truth was so much weirder than anything I could have imagined.
Name: Morehammer (Level 20 berserker, level 20 warrior, level 20 paladin)
Species: Vestige*
Alignment: Lawful Good
Personal Virtue: Diligence
Personal Vice: Pride
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Magic sensing: This is a vestige of the creator-god of the dwarves. Its magic is beyond that of any creature you've ever met.
Faith sense & authority detection: Morehammer was the god of the dwarves. Other gods existed in the ancient dwarven pantheon but they were all the creations of Morehammer. Morehammer was a greater god once, a being of unimaginable power who you in your current state wouldn't even be able to touch. That said, as a vestige it's power is barely a tenth of what it was when Morehammer was alive.
As the chief god of the dwarves, Morehammer held nearly absolute power over the dwarves as a species. Now, as a vestige, a ghostly echo of a god left behind when it dies, it's power is comparable to yours. If dwarves who are pure of heart stand in his presence they will no doubt begin to worship him again, swayed by his radiant aura to love and serve him.
In life, Morehammer closely led and strictly watched over his creations, working hard to keep them pious and good-natured. His stewardship was so effective that it kept them good-natured as a species, with only relatively minor exceptions even half a million years after his passing.
Soul sense: This creature's soul is a pale shadow of that of the actual Morehammer. That's why it is only level 20 what classes it retained even in death and of the religious classes, it only kept the paladin class.
*: When a god dies, the divine power they collected mixes with the faith of their followers and the domains they had influence over. All of this collects in their holiest sites and transforms such places into something vaguely like a grave for a god. Minutes after they perish, a vestige coalesces in their holiest site, and their artifacts appear there as well. Vestiges are the eerie echoes of the gods, as gods are too powerful to merely die, even when truly and permanently slain.
These strange entities are free-willed, almost truly alive creatures that contain the souls and almost all of the memories of whatever god whose death gave them their strange imitation of life. The overwhelming majority of these entities are content to rest for eternity within their holiest sites, where they are as close to immortal as any non-higher-being can be. That said, rumors persist that some can leave their holiest sites, even if only temporarily.
These beings are undetectable by any of your detection based abilities at your current level of divine power and overall influence over any domain or subdomain. These beings are also able to largely resist even your powers over knowledge and thus I cannot get a firm reading on Morehammer's intentions. That said, they are not incapable of escaping the notice of domain-based notifications.
These terrifyingly powerful entities retain only the barest connection to the system, but they retain many of the powers they once possessed in life. As far as I, the domain of knowledge, know these creatures are the most dangerous beings in the multiverse, aside from perhaps yourself.
Morehammer began to quietly study me. He was silent as he did so, but before even a split second had passed I willingly shed my physical form and took on an incorporeal one. It was only after my physical form was completely gone that I dared to speak.
I was no fool. This creature's actions filled me with anger, as it had intruded upon and destroyed a scheme in process, but it was also apparently close to as, or even stronger as I was. I wasn't about to challenge it to a fight that didn't benefit me.
"Morehammer... I never imagined that I'd come across you in any capacity this early in my life." I confessed. I knew of the creature through the dwarves who lived in this world, particularly in Atlantis, but all of my dwarven worshipers knew of him in some capacity. The vestige didn't move, but he did speak.
"Althos... To think that a newborn god would cause such mischief." The creature said, speaking even as he stared where my body had once been. His voice was powerful. It mixed the force of an avalanche rushing down a snow-topped mountain with the vibrato pulsations of an earthquake.
"Little god... Do I frighten you so much that you dare not stand in my presence?" Morehammer asked, even as he began to step towards me.
"Do you fear that I shall do to you, what I did to your servants?" The armored echo asked, his tone indicating his displeasure at my actions. I chuckled in response, a sound that revibrated throughout the tunnel. This made the strange being stop and look around in interest and confusion.
"Do you think I fear you?" I asked it, sincerely. My question caught the entity off-guard. I could tell that it appeared to have believed that and hearing me to question it so directly had evidently thrown the being off-guard. That caused me to laugh, which unfortunately refocused the strange being. He growled in anger, and began to approach me again.
"Enough talk... I shall not allow you to corrupt even another dwarf. When I finish doing to you what I am about to do, I will track down your vestige and make sure it also gets no chance to corrupt or further corrupt even one of my children." The dwarf-god growled, his voice suddenly taking on the intensity of a landslide, with the heat and ferocity of a volcanic eruption.
The dwarf reached close enough to swing his hammer at me, and I was surprised when I felt the mighty weapon actually connect with me and blow my incorporeal form back and into the walls of the mine. I was so surprised at that, that before I felt the relatively unfamiliar sensation of pain begin to wrack my mind, I felt a wave of shock and something resembling a more hateful form of awe creep into my heart and mind. Those emotions were aimed at my powerful foe. That was all before the pain hit through.
The pain was considerable, nauseating, and had I been a lesser being would have unfocused me enough for me to not catch the sensation of the wall I was blown into beginning to come apart, thanks to my foe. That said, my connection to the earth itself was strong enough that I felt the rumbling sensation of the dwarf's divinely-powered attack on the walls that surrounded my incorporeal form.
It was while the dwarf was focusing on tearing apart the wall I had been blown into that I received a new notification. It detailed a simple, yet ominous quest.
As I read it, I began to ready a gift for my enemy, and I began to strengthen the wall that separated Morehammer from me. I could do many things at once.
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Quest: Survive
Quest type: Survival
Quest giver: The System
Quest details: Everything about this is wrong. A vestige is on the loose. Very, very few vestiges should be able to roam freely and Morehammer isn't one of them. That said, this vestige is dangerous and could inflict lasting damage on you that is beyond your current ability to recover from.
If you want to uncover the truth behind this, and if you want to see tomorrow, it is critical that you find a way through this. If you ask me, the best possible way out of this is to flee. But no matter what you do, take care and treat this vestige seriously. It possesses abilities beyond yours.
Deadline: This is a waste of space.
Reward: I don't seriously need to give you a reward for this right?
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As Althos was reading through the notification that the system sent him to warn him of the serious nature of the threat Morehammer posed, Morehammer closed in on him. The echo was an echo of a dwarven god, one who possessed influence over the earth itself and so each of his blows destroyed part of the wall that protected the young god.
The wall Althos had been blown into by the dwarf's Warhammer was solid and thick, and even for the vestige it didn't entirely give way immediately. As powerful as the entity was, he wasn't a god. His opponent, on the other hand, was.
Althos' mind was taking on multiple tasks all at once, including reading the notification, strengthening the wall, and preparing an unpleasant gift for the vestige. As soon as Althos finished reading the notification, the god teleported himself out of the tunnel. Now that he knew the stranger was an enemy, Althos immediately began to take him seriously. As a consequence of that, Althos activated a number of his other powers at once.
The floor beneath Morehammer's feet lost its solidity and became a toxic, wet, marsh in an instant. And the wall Morehammer was destroying abruptly liquified and came hurtling towards the strange vestige. Morehammer roared in annoyance as he felt his prey slip through his fingertips, and as the wall he had once sought to destroy surged towards and then over him, hitting him with torrential force.
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Tasting a legitimate defeat for the first time, with the deaths of my extraplanar minions and Ava, I fled from the mine beside Oscuridad. I felt a number of emotions as I teleported myself far from the deep subterranean area close to where my tower once was. I knew that the mine, and almost certainly the town of Oscuridad were lost to me. My power may annoy or even slow down the vestige, but I knew that such weak abilities wouldn't stop him. I sensed it, in my heart.
His war hammer had struck me in the face, and it inflicted real damage, which I proceeded to heal almost immediately. That said, I still felt some sort of phantom pain. My face stung and that didn't go away. It was uncomfortable and served to remind me of the defeat I had just suffered.
I had an enemy now. And it was one who could stand against me in a direct fight. I didn't flee to my tower, instead, I fled further than that. I teleported myself beyond the world of Torus, and into outer space, just outside of Torus.
As I did so, I opened portals all over Oscuridad and sent out a mass notification to the town's inhabitants. I falsely warned them of an attack by devils on the mine and encouraged them to run through the portals, to distant, allied communities. Without fail the people of Oscuridad obeyed me and in minutes the town was abandoned.
I was thankful to not have to read another notification detailing a servant of mine dying a painful death at the hands of the "mysterious entity" which was what the notification that alerted me to the death of Ava had said. When the town was abandoned, I remotely willed the cavern that once housed Oscuridad to suffer a cave-in.
Millions of tons of rocks and stones collapsed into it, filling it. I didn't doubt that my enemy would have survived it if he had even been in it, but it was nice to give him an extra challenge if he didn't have an instantaneous way out of my cavern. Believing that he was stuck in there for a few hours, or even days brought a thin, cruel smile to my face.