The figure wearing grey khakis and a white shirt sleeve shirt sitting in the security office chair opposite a massive screen was sat upright. His face and hands were both covered in a cheap costume of a mock-goldfish monster.

A number of the thousands of monitors had simply deactivated and were filled with black screens but there were more than enough to capture his interest. Only a few were lit up in different colour borders surrounding the screens but they were few and far between.

The room itself was a minimal grey without doors or windows, beyond the rows of monitors entirely filling up one side of the room there was nothing else except the office chair and the lone figure. The floor was an odd feature as it was covered with several deep layers of dirt, the figure in the chair had feet touching the earth and kicked it lightly.

The air inside the room was extremely arid to the point to the point where there was a near complete lack of moisture within the air and the dried-out dirt flooring.

When the figure in the air raised a hand towards the rows of screens on the wall a particular screen detached and enlarged to immediately fill his entire field of vision. He looked down at his gloved hand, it was part of a larger fish-man costume which covered his entire upper body. The quality of the outfit was entirely unrealistic and despite its glimmer appeared as entirely home-made or cheap quality.

The office chair was a standard black leather covered one with a high back and armrests on both sides. It had a wheeled base which ended in a tripod mount with a single wheel on each end. When the figure flicked his cheap gloved golden scaled hands the screen it began to grow brighter with a mixture of light blues and greens.

As the neon light of the room filled his immediate field of vision the figure turned his attention to one particular screen where a woman had taken off her grey suit and allowed herself to become naked in front of a younger man before she had connected it back to her body.

His eyes glinted out of his colourful goldfish-head mask, a smile hidden underneath at her actions. She was turning out to be even more of a surprise than he thought and well-worth the investment. His little trick with her communication device and inhabiting the consciousness of her group member had been done to try and keep her safe. She had drawn the attention of the Ocean Gods far earlier than he had anticipated and planned for.

The fact that she showed off her scars was going to make Grumera angry but then again, the Goddess of Mermaids always had an attitude when she took a dislike to someone for breaking her home-grown rules. The waiting was the boring part so he allowed himself to zone out a little and use his usage of divinity for other thoughts.

Cheap shots.

Is this all I’m strong enough for?

Cheap messages through a system of my own design.

We’ll see how far a so-called weakling can go.

They were all broken in their own ways but it wasn’t as though he been the one who had pushed them to drown a planet. Becoming a god was all about ego, the stronger the will and personality of the individual the more power they were able to accumulate through enough worship and energy from living beings.

He’d got his own back when he’d indirectly insulted her own chosen on the submarine scenario. They were a messed-up group but when every player-candidate was broken in some way. He had been truthful in calling them psychopaths but hadn’t his favourite already had her own share of breakdowns? Mortals were frail in so many ways, but he didn’t pity them for it. Hated a few who went against his own beliefs but never pity.

Who else would have agreed to come to a reality on a flooded planet with a few beings calling themselves gods running their own game? Crazy people. Mostly. Or those on the edge of death. The one who had been a runaway slave from his Master and Mistress had been a key example. Bubbles of blood from his mouth with a hand stretching out towards the ocean on a shoreline, only a few metres separated his dream from his reality as bullets penetrated his dying form.

That was one of the sad cases, a genetically developed slave, designed to work in the waters and treated as though he wasn’t even a pure human. He’d been a special case though, the figure had a working relationship with him these days, even providing their own specialised memory construct for the group after one of their comrades died.

They had been so close to killing one of the demi-gods when he had been betrayed by his fellow Ocean Gods and another one had been thrown into the combat zone. Trickery and lies could work both ways though and as soon as he had the necessary resources and power, he’d be able to pull through on his promise to them to bring back their comrade in a new form. The hard part was getting them to fight a demi-god again and win this time and all of it had to be done without any of the other Ocean Gods directly inferring his influence, thankfully several of them either didn’t care or had their own opinions.

What did they name their group again?

Ocean Peak?

Ocean Rising?

He’d need to check his records through the Ocean Gateway System when he was done here. They’d been ignored enough and patient for a good while and while his plan was proceeding, he knew the value of checking all the moving parts. There was only so much time left before the Ocean Gods made their move and decided to restart without his help this time.

They’d easily abandon him accordingly, although it had been his fault for working so hard and so long on it. He’d been younger and naiver back them and they had played on his weakness of relative isolation when his own creator had died fighting another god.

Then they had the discussion about what constituted heresy before the pantheon from they were set on building. Except for his rare moments of true access, the figure had only maintained the program after building it. Control has been mostly removed his grasp and the rest had been largely automated, he could look and corrections during his own scenario builds and hide a few key elements while moving a few of his personalised constructs around but he’d been forced to rely on others.

Considering that, how is my current favourite doing?

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Alive but moderately stable.

Time to pay a little closer attention.

Drawing his attention back to the initial screen had had enlarged and zoomed in when he noticed that the woman with reddish hair had unconsciously crossed her arms and frowned as she talked to the young man with platinum hair. He’d flushed slightly but nodded in agreement.

Good.

The Lady should have briefed him on his mission and I tweaked him a tiny but when I had to take control of him.

She should never had relied on one so young. A little more life experience does wonders for mortals. Especially young men who like to fight.

Then the pair had put down both of their spatial storage bags on the work surfaces of the research room and had begun to remove and catalogue items.

Huh, actually thinking for once.

He’d done it partially on purpose but mostly to sate the Ocean Gods who frowned upon her and his decision to bring her into this game-like reality with a dead flooded world and conflict. They’d wanted her restricted-on arrival, even disabled most of her genetics that made her useful to him but he knew that if they realised the extent of her potential the she’d be dead, another corpse floating in the water with the other few hundred million who had died.

Still, her actions weren’t interesting. He’d received a series of notifications of various Ocean Gods watching her little fight with the transformation construct he’d designed for an opening opponent but had switched off after she’d won.

All it all it was boring compared to the one-sided fight on the submarine, the attack on the water filtration station and the ready entrance to the one Floating City which had been prepared for their eventual arrival. That would be the big deal and those who would either carry on or quit would be noticed.

As long as he didn’t over-communicate with her too much directly then she’d be safe. Even with the dangers she faced his scenario builds were one of the few places on the planet that he could truly use his divine powers to assist her.

Sensing a presence behind him the figure chose not to turn his head but a gust of wind pushed into him and rebounded off the screens as drops of water began to flow down the screen with the woman with the reddish-hair. The extremely arid air inside the room began to change as a large amount of moisture appeared and created a humid environment.

‘Having another look are we at least? Standing on the beach messing up my memory construct with her teenage friend not enough for you? I had to remove her from there when you interfered, no point having a brain-dead player-candidate with soul damage was there.’ said the Ocean God who had called himself Apalku.

He didn’t expect a reaction given that the Ocean God he addressed had never talked or directly communicated with him before or any of the others as far as he knew. Gods were strange creatures at the best of times.

A notification from his constructed Ocean Gateway System of the fact that she had decided to form a group name kicked in. He liked it. Fear of the Ocean was a good name for a group that would eventually fulfil at least part of his plans. At the least they would cause enough damage and chaos for him to take advantage of the situation. Or they would die and he’d die along with them when the Ocean Gods made their final decision.

And when they decided to leave him behind or devour him for either boosting the system he built or share his divinity with themselves or with the few demi-gods in existence then he’d need to unleash his one final weapon in direct revenge.

Maybe I should check out the screen on that one and his floating brother. Draw his attention a little.

No. I’ll let Carissa and Matthias experience him and his luggage.

Why not have a little fun?

If they annoyed him the level of power that he would react with would depend entirely on the mood of the man and his brother. He had limits though but the problem was that they were on an entirely different scale and depended on the current situation and the own popularity of the Drowned World at this time.

It’d likely lead to everything dying, a mass deletion, turned into a tourist attraction or being reset on a loop depending on what the being stronger than the gods felt at the time.

Better for him to work with all the tools at his disposal and ensure his own survival and control than unleash the chaos of the unknown upon them all.

No. I’m going to pretend that he hasn’t taken over a room inside my Deep-Water Facility scenario out of boredom. Not just yet.

Refocusing his attention on Carissa he turned around in his wheeled, leather covered black office chair and faced the Ocean God who had entered his personal observation centre.

The figure was grim in his face but dressed in worn grey rags, his feet were bare and his head was entirely bald. His body had a degree of muscle but the rest of his flesh was thinner as though he had been hungry and lean for a long time.

His eyes were pure dark blue a wind drew around him as the sound of waves echoed around him. There was a distance sound of thunder as he raised a foot and stamped it on the dirt floor.

They each had their own observation room custom built to their personal tastes and design and the only reason for the Storm God to enter his was to either make a point or intimidate him. Or he was also bored. Always hard to tell with the silent ones. Yanh wanted what he wanted.

‘A decent variable at least. Choosing not to overly communicate with her was a smart choice. Don’t you think so your stormy bastard? You could at least make an effort not to let in the rain and echoes of thunder inside my room. Makes for a gloomy atmosphere. You liked what you saw inside her personalised memory construct did you? I wish you talked back instead of standing there staring. You know what people associate an ocean storm with? Death and destruction even though it’s a vital function of nature. You can watch but if you start flooding this place I’m kicking you out. Bad enough I have to deal with the ancient living fossil taking his own interest in her. Likely, she’ll be dead. They’ll all be dead and we get to end up with the whole mess of the first tutorial all over again and I have to clean it up and recruit all over again. I’ve got better things to with my time than be locked up inside this central control centre staring at mortals.’ said the figure in the chair as his mock gold-fish man costume head wobbled and the large eyes bulged outwards.

He flicked his golden scale gloves towards the Storm God before he shook them off and let them fall off his hand onto the dirt floor that had dried out despite the increased moisture in the air.

The air pressure inside the room began to increase as a swirl of water appeared about the man dressed in rags. Then he raised an arm and pointed at one of the screens behind the goldfish masked figure sitting in the chair.

‘I’m sure you can talk. Or at least communicate your emotions with the storms you create but I honestly don’t have a direct clue which one you’re talking about. How about this once you just nod and I don’t have to force you out of this place. I mean, you turn up and the fish-head eater showed his personal interest as well. You think I want that living fossil in here? He’d be so thirsty and hungry that he’d bite my arm off as a snack and apologise for it.’ said the goldfish masked figure.

The wind increased in speed as air pressure began to rise and drop rapidly as a voice echoed in the room.

‘…. Oannes….be careful.’ said the ragged man before he collapsed into a pool of water which rapidly evaporated as the arid room temperature increased once more.