Olga Godzuik.
***
“You’ll get used to it!”
“Hopefully not.” I turned away from Doyle with a dejected sigh. Though I had to admit, the view was spectacular.
We hadn’t been in the air for a full five minutes before I started to get overwhelmed. The wind was tolerable at first, if not loud. Then it grew unbearable. Bugs started smacking me in the face. The wind began pressing into my skin. And I was too enamored with the scrolling landscape to look towards the others for the remedy. Seeing my plight, Doyle took it upon himself to bring me into his cone of displaced air. A meager feat for him, considering he was a Nimbuan with Cloud Magic. Though looking around, everyone else found some means to adapt. Even the ones who couldn’t manipulate the elements displayed no discomfort about being dragged through the skies at speeds that could compete with the fastest-flying creatures in existence. Some wore conical hats or flew ass-first, allowing their limbs to dangle loosely behind them. Others, like the barbarians, goliaths, or the Amazonian Warriors, simply accepted the challenge and endured.
My time for enjoying such things was long gone. As it was for Doyle and Zeff, I assumed, yet the former still wanted to fight and the latter still wanted to teach, even though we all hung up our cowls years and years ago. Even though we hung up our cowls, I was the only one to find myself in the sweet embrace of retirement.
As I gazed upon the so-called Captains of the Legio Noctis, spread apart in a conical formation behind their leader, they seemed much different from what they seemed to be just a year ago. They were disciplined. Bonded. United. Fearless. Wise. Much different from any graduate of the Bodhi Tree thus far. I wasn’t capable of teaching them to such a degree. I learned that months ago. I wasn’t able or willing to fight alongside them either. Nor was I capable of continuing to teach at that overbearing structure in the far distance. The Bodhi Tree- that God's forsaken place was no different from everywhere else people dwelled. Corrupted by politics and ill manners. It wasn’t where I belonged. However… it was what brought me here.
Fate, as the silver-haired man next to me so strongly believed, was what brought me to the Bodhi Tree and led me to meet the strange being ahead of me. He too seemed much different from what he was just a year ago. He was still unnervingly handsome as elves were, and also charismatic, wise, intelligent, and powerful. For a time, he seemed exceedingly dangerous. Now, however, I felt he was extraordinarily benevolent.
I couldn’t say that I believed him when he first claimed to be a God. Nor did a disbelieve him, though. If anyone had the power and knowledge to be one, as many have stated, it would be him. But what I- what we witnessed back there was unmistakable. What I felt made me realize his words were the absolute truth. But like many others, there was more that I needed to know. And since I now lived under his wing, by his rules, I was subject to the truth.
“What was that?” I scrambled through the air toward him just after we stopped above a mountain range, paying no heed to Doyle or his inquiring gazes.
Yet Amun, ever aloof and amiable, simply smiled and waited for the rest of his companions to huddle around him. “As per The Rules of Death, I’m obligated to curse, kill, or make a deal with anyone who found a way to cheat death,” Amun explained to both myself and the others. “There are exceptions of course.” He shrugged. “But Headmaster Zorrenor Knagh is not one of them.”
“Oh.” I instinctively backpedaled, feeling the danger once again.
“I do not wish to kill or harm him.” Amun continued unabated. “And he’s been cursed so much that I don’t have the patience to find a new way to condemn him. So, I made a deal with him. Part of that deal involves sixty-six parcels of land.” He waved to the rocky lands below. “One hundred square kilometers each. As you've just witnessed, however.” Amun paused, turning a wicked grin over the crowd. “That includes everything above and below it as well. The tower and the land before us make a total of ten parcels, for me and my future party. A parcel for each of you leaves just ten. Or eight if I count you two.” He pointed his chin at Doyle and me in a crude gesture.
“I invite you to find your favorite locations in the wilds and mark them. They’ll be used to weave your worlds. That,” he emphasized with a raised finger, “is the one task I have for you this month.”
The Captains voiced their affirmations at once, giving me the moment needed to invoke an intense wave of foolishness in myself by raising my hand. “Uhm. What makes this place so special?”
“My Doppelganger has been exploring the Darkworld for the last six months.” Amun casually explained, forcing me to recoil in shock. Although I recanted my actions a moment later.
“Not against the rules, I suppose.”
“He came upon a gray dwarf stronghold while he was down here.” Amun continued. “He, Lana, and Zaraxus killed them all, raised them as undead, and freed their slaves. Some of them will be subordinates for you Captains, I imagine.” He motioned to the others. “But the rest who choose not to join will remain as the first citizens of my divine realm.
"And they’re directly below us.” Doyle needlessly concluded as he so often did.
“Not for long.” Amun grinned, then in a blinding motion, released another pillar of that absurdly dark sorcery into the bowels of the mountain.
What ensued was a similar display of what used to be the tower, so far away, minus the silver mirror that transported it somewhere else. Instead, my eyes bore witness to an invisible drill withdrawing a pristine cubical core of dirt, water, rock, and magma from the Mortal Plane and erecting it high above the lands. Higher than the White Wall, it seemed, for its peak long since disappeared before the first minute of rising stone passed. Yet it ascended for several more before it slowly ground to a halt.
Gradually, my eyes mimicked everyone else's and fell the long way down to the ambiguous section of moist, fungal-infested stone just before us to stare expectantly at a dank cave housing a slim figure.
It was… Amun. Or rather, his Doppelganger, waving at the original while he grasped the hand of a figure just behind him. And with a gentle pull, he sent them drifting out towards us.
Another soon came. Then another. And then ten more and ten more after that until eventually, hundreds and hundreds more shockingly well-mannered individuals of a half-dozen species were seen drifting among us, exchanging tentative pleasantries whenever they weren’t marveling at the almost infinite landscape spread out below us. But still, the cavern belched out hundreds and hundreds more.
Of them all, I only spotted around a dozen or so dwarves unsurprisingly crowded around Thordrohilda and her compatriots. But what was more shocking was the orcs engaged in intense but well-intentioned conversation with them. Hundreds of deep gnomes were seen floating all about. Short as a halfling like all gnomes, with elvish ears and the same optimism found in their surface cousins, they weren’t as uncommon on the surface as gray dwarves, drow, or the ever-elusive dark halfling, but their reactions to the light found in the realms above were just the same as the others. On this night, however, they stared up at the Moon with glistening eyes and quivering mouths. All but one, who clambered as hard as she could towards one of the vampires who had yet to stop her prayers.
Hundreds of orcs and hundreds more goblins dominated the cloud of bodies around the indomitable pillar. Most were fawning over the moon with somewhat less intensity than the deep gnomes. More were having surprisingly intellectual conversations with the new humans before them. And yet, a minority of them were pointing out dales and copses along the mountain range and whispering words about erecting new strongholds.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Of the thousands of bodies present, though, only two were even remotely surprised by the situation. Me and Doyle. Though deep in my mind, I knew we weren’t the only ones. Further to the north and deeper to the south, hundreds of billions of individuals were repeating our current actions. Innumerous eyes spread across Nonus were looking above just as we were. Engrossed at the pillar that seemed to stretch onto infinity, yet unknowing of the thousands of bodies spawned from its bowels.
Emptied now, those bowels were, thus the pillar of matter surged once more and began accelerating upward. Slowly, at first. But with a pace that hastened with each passing second. Up and up and up it went, while more ground spat out and out from below.
For minutes and minutes, dense rock and magma and rare metals rocketed past until the dense foundations came racing past, releasing a haunting wail of stifling air into the otherwise quiet night, and after what felt like an eternity of existence, the pillar disappeared in an instant. So too did Amun. In their place was a chasm filled with an almost inviting darkness. It seemed to pull at me as we descended ever so slowly towards the surface- towards the Amun of Twilight, the Doppelganger, waiting patiently for us to land.
Once my feet met the ground, I did as before and approached him with full haste, thirsting for a glimpse of the future that I chose. “So, what happens next?”
He turned halfway to me and smiled softly as he whispered low, uttering words I heard at least once before, thus bringing me to look down just my shadow formed into an exact copy of myself.
“Now we wait!” My clone gave me a lighthearted shove. “Get to know people. Or, go out and pick your territory. Amun’s creating our home now.” She turned her gaze to the pale orb floating high above. “It won’t be long.”
***
Amun.
***
Under the relentless tug of gravity, I was pulled high above the atmosphere toward the surface of the hollow moon, yet, it too was being pulled away from me.
Higher and higher I fell, and at a faster and faster rate until, at last, I crested the summit of the ever-present White Wall, some 15 light minutes to the north. Yet, it wasn’t until I was some 400,000 klicks above the Mortal Plane that I landed and looked up from the surface of the moon to see the 1400 megameter-long pillar racing to catch up to me.
Ignoring it entirely, I focused instead on splitting my concentration between the living brace around my left arm, the acorn orbiting me, the dusty surface of the world below my feet, and the new organ in my spiritual body. While tiny in comparison to my Mana Well, the energy within my Divine Well was far more potent and was fed by a healthy stream of faith from the uncountable set of eyes that gazed upon the moon every night.
This action would serve as the first time I truly used the stuff and would indeed be one of the rare occasions I'd be able to use it freely. Thus I released every restriction imaginable on both my mind and the pores before I split the flow of divine mana and arcane affinities between the three objects of my concentration.
Within seconds, rather than minutes, a subtle scratching notion began to claw at the back of my mind. Giving me the notion, or rather, a compulsion to find a nice piece of land to call home. My wise rock had matured, yet I continued the flow until my divine seed germinated.
Much like the Bodhi Tree, it was a seed of massive proportions. Akin to the size of a beach ball, but with the irregular shape of a nut that’d been broken apart to reveal an exposed rib of arcane flesh. Like my arcana, that flesh glowed with a seafoam green radiance while the wood-like coat of the seed grew ever-darker, revealing rows upon rows of strange glyphs, symbols, and markings that soon started to glow with the same arcane light.
For seconds and then upwards of a minute, the flow continued until suddenly, the radicle swung away from the seed. Yet, the acorn had yet to germinate. It continued to inhale my divine mana, but its hunger morphed into avarice. With invisible hands, it reached into my spirit to latch onto my Mana Well and withdraw from it every ounce of my arcana. Through every affinity core in my body, the energy passed on its path to absorption by the embryonic root until the seed, satisfied with my emptied Well, glowed in spirited arcane radiance.
Eager to sink its flesh into the first bit of material it could find, the solitary root reached out every which way. But like the Wise Rock, it would have to wait. My ambitions were much higher than some tower or a great tree, after all. So, with my astral ambitions in mind, I entered the vast rift on the surface to look upon the nigh-infinite darkness of Mani’s interior, using the blissful silence to imagine what the place would become until the horns of the oncoming train sounded.
With a wave, I merged those mental images with an abundance of Moonlight, Twilight, Engineering Essence, and Divine Mana, plus a touch of Death, Darkness, and Void before mixing them with excessive concentrations of Space-Time, Electromagnetism, Gravity, and Nuclear magics; and finally spread the amalgamated energy, not just to the interior of Mani, but to the freight train of solid matter crashing into it.
Naturally, the billowing invisible clouds of an atmosphere came first. Followed then by an uncountable volume of plants, animals, dirt, rocks, water, ore, gems, and magma that broke apart upon entry to form asteroid clusters, vast nebulae, and planetoids in the seemingly endless expanse of my divine realm. Simultaneously, the remnants of the tower and what sat below it were sent drifting indiscriminately throughout the space. And so too was nearly every rock, stick, metal shard, water drop, corpse, animal, or even a fragment of a seed I had stored in my combined magical dimensions. Even Karu and the Menagerie were released into the realm to feed on the divine energies while I carefully stacked, layered, and organized the material within.
I took the most care with the metals. Roughly 75% of them were separated by melting point and layered like a spherical cake that'd been baked by dual streams of electromagnetic and nuclear magic to create a miniature metal star. Named Ilium, it was placed within a region suffused with my Engineering Essence, along with several other planetoids.
What used to be the King’s throne room in the former gray dwarf stronghold- the Shadeforge, served as the core for the second, larger body, and what used to be the Tower’s storage room had been wrapped around that like a blanket. My old lab, observatory, and quarters followed and in turn were blanketed by the library, rec wing, and other areas of the tower along with patches of the forest and mountains far below. Thus completing the second body- my planetary ‘star’ and the center of this new universe.
It was, by all rights, a pocket universe within the moon. The Twilight Domain realized into a divine realm befitting of the World Weaver. And its center, an onion of a white barren world that held biomes and estates and forests within its eleven layers.
It was vast. It was grand. But still, it wasn’t yet done.
With a final burst of divine mana for good measure, I turned my attention inward to imagine a truly fantastical place. A home. Not just for myself. But for the Menagerie, the animals in my profile, and the party I would soon form before I hurled the pebble at the onion world.
The release of the potent energy in my Divine Well brought about an immediate change in the form of a flash of gentle light that bathed the entire realm in a Twilight-esque glow. The moon within the moon swelled, brightened, and paled all at once as it repositioned itself in the newly formed cosmos while the remaining clouds of air, water, and land diffused, spread apart, or converged into abstract shapes or new worlds entirely.
With the finish line close, I hurriedly released my thousands of undead workers before I spread my arms wide to watch the decades pass in seconds.
As was quickly becoming the norm, cities were erected in the relative blink of an eye. Art galleries of legendary proportions were carved, drawn, or painted and released upon the worlds to be uncovered. New materials were discovered and researched; and, more importantly, the diverse range of flora and captured fauna lived and died and evolved under my divine energies without end. The most important of them was the quasi-sentient body floating high above. As the creatures within it matured, so too did the ‘tower’ until, sooner rather than later, hundreds of boulder-like growths began sprouting across its barren surface before they self-ejected into space.
Naturally, every last one of them was captured gravitationally and amassed into a small asteroid that remained floating off to my left, leaving me with just one more thing to do. That said, the seed was germinated and the realm was complete. There was no need to spoil the surprise of seeing the final product. So, without thinking about it further, I sent the divine seed flying and watched it soar and land on the north pole with a silent thump.
With a final round of time dilation, I watched the arcane roots bury themselves in the surface of my world and breach through the south pole while the stem reached out into the void above, fading in and out of existence as the leafless branches radiated the various arcane and divine attributes imbued within them; and as the divine tree matured, so too did the quasi-sentience of the vibrant body it grew from until the second legion of boulder-like growths self-ejected from the surface and were amassed into an asteroid that floated off to my right.
With those asteroids orbiting me, I allowed the years to tick by with each passing second and left the realm entirely. Leaving the divine realm to grow and evolve and change until I returned with my followers to look upon the land for the first time.
Just as a God of Exploration should.