The usual table danced across my surface, caressing me with its oiled hardwood. I was a lilac tablecloth, stained with age and frequent use.

I was Carezza, a European brand of discount olive oil, sliding down millions of gullets along with scrumptious bits of minced meat and fecal bacteria.

I was the left shoe of a six-year-old boy and felt his foot grow inside me daily. I had several masters throughout my lifetime, but in the end I was in tatters and was cast away retiring on a clothing heap in the Atacama desert.

I was a Tesla Coil and first killed several prism tanks, then a horde of mutants.

I actually thought I was a prototype electric Christmas tree until I, by instinct, started dishing out lightning, like a Chinese buffet dishes out diarrhea. God, that felt good, striking down my enemies electrical fire.

I was a Soviet trained spy and later a FSB semi-sleeper agent sent to America, working as an IT consultant. I had access to many corporate and institutional networks. Contrary to popular belief, the spying I did was mostly done with my waterproof "shoe phone," accessing wireless networks and planting Trojan horses for later exploits.

I was a righteous paladin fighting for God, Humankind, and the Motherland. While not being the religious type, I had, in time of need, taken up a divine mandate and smote evil off the face of Earth with the holy power of my LaserMax9000 printer.

I was a sewer grate, endlessly getting splashed by liquid and substances of varying density.

At the height of my life, a rat was stuck and died halfway through me. It took quite some time for the little vermin corpse to rot sufficiently to become soft and spongy enough to slide clear of me and on its eternal journey to the sluice gates.

"Alright, quit dunking your consciousness into the probability planar cul-de-sac. It is entertaining, I grant, but we are on a schedule, so let me help you with the focusing."

The voice looked in the direction of my cloudy fragmented soulciousness and made cloud-gathering motions with its arms. I felt my mind coming together like pieces in a puzzle, then straining to absorb the eternities I had just spent in a millisecond.

"Let go. You don't need them," the voice said soothingly.

And well, yeah, maybe I didn't need to dwell on the past. Just because you are stuck in some victorian sewer for 40 years doesn't mean you can't move on in life afterward.

Then the thought of millions of beings eating my hot gloopy discount olive oil body popped into my mind. My thought was interrupted by the same voice snickering and then uttering "Wow, that's a real stinker. Just let it all out."

I'm pretty sure that the voice took another sniff of my stinker when it thought I didn't look.

I looked down at myself and saw a cloudy mass, slowly forming into a man-like form, briefly going lilac at the fringes.

"No, no, you were a man alright, though the existence and life of a tablecloth also have a certain appeal," the voice gently corrected me.

"Well, your mind is an absolute mess, but it has a certain chaotic beauty to it.

And relative to other humans, you are quite remarkable and show some degree of excellence. I deem you ready for the next stage."

I was just starting to raise my hand and utter “wait but why?”

When an imposing white porcelain throne materialised itself in front of me, and I got sucked down the astral toilet, now clearly a human mind, and I grasped with the metaphysical question, was a human mind equivalent to astral fecal matter?

While I slid along the pathways of dimensions, surprisingly filled with greasy gunks these pathways.

My soulciousness coalesced into a cozy room. It looked like a simple wooden housing. With old cheap furniture. In a well-worn recliner sat a bearded greasy gnarled guy.

I squinted at him. What the fuck? He looked like some weird me.

"That's right, me boy, I'm ye fucking Divine Scrotum," the gnarled me said in a dwarven Scottish accent.

"Why the hell would I speak Scottish? and what the fuck is a Divine Scrotum?"

The gnarlton smirked at me. "Sit down, laddie. I've got myself a tale to tell ye".

I sat while shaking my head. I had never believed in an afterlife, but this was surreal beyond imagination.

Well, at least it was nice being anchored in a body again and not being an insubstantial cloudy form of mind.

I grimaced at the weirdness of that thought. It would take some time to come to terms with my new existence, but I felt that we were in somewhat of a hurry, even if my so-called Divine Scrotum seemed pretty relaxed.

"Methinks I could of course also have been your Divine Gallbladder, Prophetic Thorax, or even Cyclopean Third Eye.

This be but a label lad, oi be an extension of what ye sillily thought to yourself as soulciousness.

Powers greater than the wee both of us can fathom have intervened and changed your fate.

And boy did they change it.

These powers dragged your soul through some crazy upgrading scheme, where you now remember but brief glimpses of your previous incarnations and connections with higher dimensions.

I judge that these memories are somewhat also a result of the human mind being expanded into a Tier I Deity receptacle, trying to cope with the unfathomable.

But laddie, don't ye be hanging with ye head, we got plenty to do, and places to be and all that. Just know that we are now together in this.

You might think I'm annoying as hell, but I'm as much part of you as your kneecap now, and as your kneecap, you can get rid of me. but It will hurt a lot and cause a plenty of problems in the future".

The Divine Scrotum stopped talking, then belched and started to scratch his lower back vigorously.

"Alright, laddie, first thing. Ye need to form a Godhead. This is your immortal body when not frolicking on a prime material plane in an Avatar form. I have been supporting your current body, but ye need to learn how to piss yourself.

Now ye Godhead will also define characteristics for you and, by extension me and the faith around you.

Oi get that ye are full of questions, but first the Godhead, in the next room ye will find a grand collection of books and magazines each represent a specific godhead, go through them, and make darn sure to choose right lad" The gnarly me intoned, the last bit with a lifted finger waving at me.

"Now move, laddie," he beckoned me towards a door in front of me, which had definitely not been there before.

I went through the door, my self-styled Divine Scrotum trailed after me, closing the door behind us. I sort of felt the cozy room behind us phase out of existence, as if it never was.

The new room was a premise stuffed with reading materials, shelves wall to wall, tables overflowing with stacks of reading material. "Get on with it, laddie" my scrotum tossed me a magazine.

I leafed through it.

It was a comic with lizardmen, led by a shaman caste who used acid breath attacks. Sacrificing victims to the everhungering avatar of their god, when not indulging in ritualistic acid orgies. I somehow quickly absorbed the contents of the comic, and a lot of undertones regarding this socalled godhead.

As I threw it on the floor to grab the top one from another pile, a notification came into my view.

Acid Shamanism Godhead - Innate Compatibility 31 %

Choose this Godhead as your permanent Godhead (yes/no)

I quickly chose no.

The second magazine was a story or description of small, stocky humans. Their priesthood is divided into berserkers and golem makers. Carving out holdfasts in the mountains and building mighty fortresses. It sort of appealed to me. Having always been a fan of Terminator, the golem part appealed to me.

While not in war the avatar created golems and buildings of majestic rarity, when in war he attacked with reckless abandon.

Raging Artificer Godhead - Innate Compatibility 61 %

Choose this Godhead as your permanent Godhead (yes/no)

"Hold on to this one. Let's see if we can find something better," I said while handing the magazine to my scrotum.

I grabbed a leather-bound tome, somehow easily reading the spidery script. A god controlling key followers through direct thought control, the controlled minds slowly withered from this control, and new hosts were needed. Being in many places at once ensured a uniformity of direction in the society, but the multiple impressions from many beings at once, confused the hell out of me.

Psionic Hivemind Godhead - Innate Compatibility 3 %

Choose this Godhead as your permanent Godhead (yes/no)

Easy choice, definitely not this one, I thought to myself.

I apprehensively took another leather-bound book. Beautiful runes flowed across the pages, speaking of peace through mediation, bountiful harvests through a deep connection with nature.

Fey creatures were dancing with other races and engaging in a dialogue to settle their differences instead of war.

The avatar himself brought peace and fertility, and interpantheon love.

Fey Peacebringer Godhead - Innate Compatibility 8 %

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Choose this Godhead as your permanent Godhead (yes/no)

It seemed nice, but my compatibility with it was pretty low.

"Hey, scrotumdwarf, what does compatibility matter? Why does it differ?"

"It matters cause ye will mold ye divine soul into this Godhead, if the mold doesn't fit, ye soul will start to itch, if left unchecked, it could become necessary, with hmm, what could be considered an amputation of the part of the soul that doesn't fit, but that is a horrible idea.

Just try to find one with high compatibility and where you can imagine being that god from now and for the next foreseeable millennia, that is if we survive. And stop asking questions and get reading already laddie!"

Okay, no pressure, I went through a few other magazines and books, all of them with percentages beneath 61, and while interesting, they seemed weird.

Then I picked up a red leather bound book. A powerful state religion, with a Priest-King Avatar presiding over both state and religion. Both secret police and holy inquisitors ensure full compliance of the population and that the decreed wishes of the deity were fulfilled. If not, officials wielded demonic derived powers.

Imperial Warlock Godhead - Innate Compatibility 93 %

Choose this Godhead as your permanent Godhead (yes/no)

Wow, jackpot, this seemed like the right choice. I got so excited I dropped the book. Bending over to pick it up, I pondered why I had such high compatibility with this Godhead. Well, maybe some deep beliefs or early years of state indoctrination, it was hard to tell.

Wait, what is that!

I saw a small post-it attached to the underside of the table, it was scrawled with small dots and lines, but I could easily decipher it.

A nomadic people rode beasts, which were blessed by the priesthood, and bred upon to form new subspecies, specializing in a variety of roles. These powers were electrical-based, and the priesthood also had access to what could only be described as Lightning magic.

The Avatar harnessed the power of Lightning to give new life to species, but also to deal death on her foes.

Beast Lightning Godhead - Innate Compatibility 97 %

Choose this Godhead as your permanent Godhead (yes/no)

WHAT! I had a difficult choice. Before it was easy, but this little innocent-looking post-it screwed things up. Fortunately, my scrotum distracted me by speaking up.

"Oi, it seems ye have struck gold there, laddie. Ye found a secret godhead, and its a Godhead of Superior rarity, with a really stupid name, claim it already laddie."

I was a bit unsure though, the regimented oppression of the Imperial Warlock Godhead had a certain homely appeal to me. And Beast Lightning sounded like a bad pun.

"Oi, I get the appeal of absolute power, and a second chance of a bygone age, but laddie, ye can't see the true beauty of this Godhead. As I said, it's Superior, all the other have been Common, but the previous which was Uncommon.

And since we have high compatibility with this, so let's get on with this already.”

I scowled, then sighed, then chose Beast Lightning to be my groove and Godhead.

The postIT of Beast Lightning swirled around increasing in speed as it orbited me, and began pulsing with light.

It spun ever closer around me, starting to swirl my surface as well, it didn’t hurt when it cut into me, it seemed I was not made out of flesh and blood, but still just the cloudy stuff.

Whenever it cut into me, small puffs of cloud came out, and I lost more and more of my cohesion.

Then my little gnarly scrotum jumped onto my leg, grinding against me in a bizarre and assuredly vulgar way.

“Just relax laddie, its gonna hurt less that way” he strainedly spoke, as I fell to my knees, or rather my cloudy feet and ankle dissipated and the whole experience was overwhelming me.

I focused inwards, onto the calm center of the storm inside of me, and let the weirdness around me run its course.

Maybe cloud was not the correct term, more like a frothy milkshake, and the postIT was swirling me around with sparks coming out of it.

It felt a bit like I was a milkshake and now the chocolate bits or crispy bits were added to the medium. My Divine Scrotum, whatever the fuck that actually meant, was also part of the milkshake.

I tried to not care. Just another day in a hyper weird reality, with my new life as a god.

The conclusion came to me, I was no longer under operational orders, I had to define my own orders and strategies. What would it take for me to become a successful god, I mused while shutting out the scene of my scrotum, which now was a semi-coherent head also being swirled around, gleefully laughing while being shaken not stirred.

Then things quieted down a bit, my scrotum disappeared completely, and the milkshake with electric crumbles coalesced into a distinct humanoid form, my form.

I stared at now well defined hands, which I instantly recognized as my own. A flash of lightning, announced my ugly dwarven self, thundering into existence.

“Bam Laddie, first step dun, and I already feel much better. Now I’ll be wanting to explain ye a few things. I mentioned that you had sponsors earlier, but that didn’t make any sense to you.

A world has been opened up to the planes, much like Earth also was. This world however is at a much more primitive stage. Instead of waging all out war over such prizes, it has long been the custom that interested parties may participate with one or more candidates.

What ye would know as an administrative oversight committee, is elected to appoint the rules of engagement and enforce these during the godly contest of the world.

The members of this committee are the custodians of this enterprise, and collect the entry fees, and any additional sponsor fees. As you might imagine the price to get on a committee is quite literally astronomical, only dwarfed by the fees and bribes that the committee members collect during their tenure.”

The weird dwarven mini-me prattled on while scratching his backside.

“To cut the crap, ye sponsors have paid an exorbitant price to get us ahead of the competition. They have crafted gifts of unimaginable power, but at their level of power, it probably equals idly folding a paper plane while taking a shit.”

I winced at that particular moment of my scrotums tirade, and interrupted him.

“What is the arrangement with these sponsors ? what will they expect in return ?”

The gnarly scrotum shrugged with his whole body “who knows laddie, trying to guess that might be like a yeast cell trying to understand the motivation of a human filing a 501k tax return, something that doesn't even make sense to the human. Should we survive, methinks that the possibility of us just being, an elaborate before supper snack for these aforementioned sponsors, is quite low, but still nonzero.”

I stared at the weird me, trying to make sense of his blabber. “if you are me, then how do you access all this information regarding sponsors and all of this”

I made a gesture

“ because it sure as hell is not from some holiday memory I forgot. You must have a source of this information, what is this source ?” I inquired my scrotum.

“Well, as I understand it, newborn Tier I gods usually take quite some time to form and manifest their new powers.

One of the new things to get used to is being several places at once. I’m our current manifestation of our power over the Ethereal planes, planes of pure probability, dreams and mana. Oi represent our affinity with sorcery, magic and such but also to a certain part intellect, memory, imagination and humour.

Now our sponsors used some cheat mode, to insta-manifest me, so that oi could guide you.

Oi can intuitively tap into and read the currents of the ethereal planes, not very good mind ye, but this is what has given me our current level of information.

Now your pretty little self, is currently the celestial manifestation, the divine form of us. If somehow we are challenged in the celestial planes, it is you who will smite down the would be usurpers, or we are toast.

Now in a short time, you will be split and manifest your Avatar, your corporeal manifestation, how it will work splitting your personality between the corporeal and celestial manifestation, we don't know yet, just hope for the best, fingers crossed and everything.”

I thought more about getting my soulciousness flushed down a toilet. My scrotum nodded at me, “yeah laddie, we're in for a treat. And since we are idly bantering away precious time.

This contest to become a major god on this world, I expect it to be quite long winded. But, methinks the start will be grisly and bloody, many candidates will be eliminated in the opening.

We have almost zero experience fighting monsters using magic and all that D&D shit, it is imperative that we do our utmost to learn, adapt and survive.

Our sponsors gifted us with the immediate manifestation of darling me, and they even powerleveled me a bit, which is also why i’m such a fountain of Knowledge.

Also this mindscape we are standing in, that allows you easier interaction with the contest mechanics, which I tell ya lad, would otherwise be a hard and dangerous process for ye wee little celestial arms”.

The scrotum took a deep breath. “The final gift of our sponsors is some probability skewering ability called Sweet Luck, which should be a boost for all of our manifestations.

With that being said, you need to focus yer sweet arse, as the celestial governor of our little god hivemind, and find our Chosen People.

It is as important as finding a Godhead, so I hope our Sweet Luck skill might come into play again, lets begin !”. The little weird man clapped his hands and the room filled with books and magazines again.

“Dig in laddie !”

I sighed, and grabbed the nearest book,

A feral people of owlmen lived in caves, while others were sleeping while perched on treebranches during day. They were active and hunted at night.They displayed a sort of vicious cunning.

Owlen - Large humanoid, nightvision, nocturnal, natural weapons x2 wisdom +1

Select as your chosen people (yes/no)

Perhaps, being the first, I didnt know if this was in the good or bad end of the lot. I discarded it, but took note of where I put it. And grabbed the next one.

I grabbed a glitzy magazine next

A sort of sexy squirrel lady climbed gracefully down a giant tree, meeting her kin on a joyous summer eve in the forest. They had a great feast and then enjoyed themselves even more.

Squillari - Tiny humanoid, natural climbers, natural weapons, carefree

Select as your chosen people (yes/no)

Somehow, I didn’t really buy into the whole furry thing, and while sighing I crossed my godly fingers that not all races would be weird furries.

I grabbed a leather bound book with blue etching and started flipping through the pages.

Penguin people waddled around in their village, saying goodmorning, they really seemed to say goodmorning a lot, far more than necessary. And then going for a dip in some arctic sea. Ending each day with a hymn to the sunset while standing in flock, and then saying goodnight.

Penguinarans - Small humanoid, semi-Aquatic, Arctic, carefree

Select as your chosen people (yes/no)

Argh, damn furries. Something else, or am I going to be god in a cartoon world?

I grabbed a wrinkled book and started reading

Furry winged insectoid humanoid crawled and bit at large herd beasts, then laid their eggs inside them. They were a sort of nomad locust-plaque parasitical society, quick to enslave other races both as incubating hosts and slaves.

Oestridaesians - Small humanoid, Flying, Parasitic

Select as your chosen people (yes/no)

“Oi, those be mighty cute laddie, can they pretty please be our chosen people?”

My insufferable scrotum rumbled.

I smacked the book shut, and then pointedly threw the book over my shoulder.

“Absolutely not.” I said and grabbed a magazine, turned my back to him and started flipping through the mag.

Burly Hippofolk ranged across swamps, tundras and savannahs, they co-operated naturally in smaller and larger units. Their bulky size and coordinated teamwork made them dangerous, if a bit too creative sometimes in terms of weapons-engineering and not knowing the limits of reason.

Hipponians - Large Humanoid, semi-Aquatic, Excessive Force, Militaristic

Select as your chosen people (yes/no)

“Now that is it!” I exclaimed, while my scrotum stared at me with a deadpan stare.

“Ye can’t be serious ?, hippo people.”

I grinned at him, then selected yes to the prompt.

You need to select a name for your god before entering the world of Glenhalla

Select a name!

My scrotum immediately riled himself up “Thor, come on we be the god of lightning and thunderbolts”

I ignored my rumbling agitated scrotum, and with a thought projected at the prompt, it changed

Select “Perun” as your name? (yes/no)

I selected yes, and the world, or mindscape started shaking, and I tensed up.

“Quick, laddie relax, ye have to let ye corporeal aspect whisk away now, don’t be all clingy now.”

I steadied my breathing, and mind, and slowly the toilet came again.

“It's not a toilet you buffoon, it's just how your mind interprets it, enjoy the ride !” My scrotum shouted at me as my form again went all milkshakey and got sucked down the pseudo toilet, and into the intricate piping system of the planes, I appreciated that these were somehow cleaner, and then the pipe ended and I tumbled down into container, and suddenly got separated and then felt how the other part of my soul went into another container.

My mind was trying to comprehend this, in a weird extra-sensory way, as the milkshakey medium I was made of surely did not have any sensory organs.

And yup it was almost like a soda dispenser with 2 cups and a Cthulhu like monster looking boredly at some bar receipt.

One of the cups tipped over the contents splashing out on a greasy table, a tentacle scraped the contents from the table while spilling some on the floor, and getting quite a bit of the loosest sedimentation from the table surface with it.

An unseen orifice said “örci blergh” in a “what can you do” way, while the tentacle wiped itself on the husk of some dried up creature. Then it did its thing with the 2 cups, and suddenly lost the boring patterns of its swaying tentacles as it got a bit distracted by the echoes of its thoughts rebounding on something massive in the ethereal realm.

It swayed while holding the cups, amazed at the stupidity of humans, but also intrigued.

Then it refocused, looked at the tentacle holding the order receipt and found purpose, in this purposeless existence, it was supposed to make 1 male and 1 female each in their separate cups, not 2 girls 1 cup.

I sensed the other cup, and could somehow sense that the stuff that got scraped of the tabletop was reacting violently with the milkshake medium that was me.

I then completely lost my train of thought as a giant toilet loomed in front of me, and first one cup was flushed, and then the cup I was residing in was also flushed down the astral toilet.

These drains were however the nastiest I had seen yet, but it was still a step up compared to having the tentacle monster and plastic cup scene superimposed upon an insubstantial consciousness, and suddenly hitting the psionic eddies of a powerful internet meme.

Coming to a weird intersection I plopped out on a flat featureless surface extending into eternity in all directions.

I saw, both the female me, and my scrotum were waving happily at me, while standing on a cloud.

Wait what a female me ? Somehow I was not at all surprised that I was also a female standing next to the scrotum. Unlike the woman, the scrotum didn’t look like me, but I knew he was part of me.

“The dude monster making the separation of the Celestial and Corporeal aspects fucked up, and we appearantly got some feminine aspect mixed into it, or maybe it was there all along. Fight hard, we rely on you !” The scrotum shouted at me, forgetting for once to keep his Scottish accent.

“Maybe now things will not get weirder” I thought to myself while getting myself ready for the ride on this next toilet which had materialized in front of me, hopefully the last for a long time.

But in heart I knew that the weirdness was there to stay.