In the vast castle of my goddess domain there were no places designed with the size of humans in mind. That is save for the singular suburban home that sat on the floor of the immense bedroom that I called my own. This is where the dread lich Barthenor and vampiress Neske were imprisoned for the time being. They had no need of food or drink and thus keeping them in a place like this was perfectly safe. Its not like a castle scaled to a two-hundred foot tall goddess was very hospitable for living humans.
Though they were perfectly capable of leaving their building prison, as I had placed no actual magical barriers to keep them inside, they remained there of their own free will. Perhaps out of a show of good will towards me. Though that also raised some speculation on their true motives, at least for Barthenor. Its not like liches were known for their lack of scheming over vast amounts of time. Both sides involved were immortal in this incarceration after all.
Over the initial month that I've had the two of them locked up in this inescapable place word of their capture had spread far and wide across the kingdom. In the circles of mages at least as the general public knew little besides the threat had been contained. This widespread knowledge of my death defying prisoners obviously piqued the interest of the magical world at large and begun to be a source of headache for me.
You see one thing mages really want is more power and knowledge used to obtain it is hotly contested among their ranks. Who better is there to reveal the secrets of the arcane world than one who had conquered death itself? Well they thought that anyway, as the life of a lich is not a pleasant one to say the least. Living forever as your natural senses fading with the rotting of your flesh, all the while feeling every bit of it, is something that requires immense willpower to endure without going insane.
That's before the reality sets in that you'll be like this for all intensive purposes forever. With the only way out of this torturous existence being self destruction, something that would make everything you've done up to that point meaningless as you literally accept defeat. Anyone who is willing to put themselves through lichdom and have the required willpower to continue on in it has to have an ego much too inflated to ever accept they made a mistake. Its the sunk cost fallacy on a supernatural level.
These were not things that most mages thought about, or wanted to think about for that matter, in their quest for ever increasing personal gain. Thus did the number of actual genuine prayers I received from mages all around the kingdom increase. An act that was seen as abhorrent by their peers as they were supposedly supposed to stand in direct opposition to the very idea of goddesses. But pray to me they did. About what? Me giving them access to my prisoner of course.
At first I vehemently denied them their requests as the possibility of having more liches on my hands was terrible sounding. Even though most of them would fail the process there would be a significant number that succeeded and that sounded like a nightmare. However in response to my response most of the mages praying to me pledged this was not their intent. I had cause to believe them as there were plenty that stopped praying to me after getting their initial answer.
Eventually I gave in to their requests for an audience as I had figured out a way to use the situation for my own benefit. Maybe that made me a bit of a hypocrite but honestly with the risks involved I'd have to closely involve myself in any case. The benefit was that I could listen in on the conversations they had about arcane secrets and compile the information for myself. After all I was only naturally gifted with what amounts to reality manipulation. I didn't actually fully understand the mechanical nature of magic in this world. This was a chance for me to learn all the details I wanted without rousing suspicions of my less than all knowing nature.
Thus did my inter-dimensional domain become a bit of a tourist destination for mages from all over the kingdom. All coming to my temples to prostrate themselves before me so I would open a portal for them to enter. Then later leave of course as the last thing I wanted was a bunch of nosy magic users wandering around my house. It was actually kind of fun running this goddess tourism business as it gave me all sorts of debts to collect upon and offerings to receive from powerful people. Plus it was great to see these assholes humbled a bit, though not all of them were assholes.
Barthenor for his part was more than happy to oblige these would be students and took to it as if he'd done this sort of thing before. Just from watching him interact with his fellow mages it seemed this activity had awoken a large part of his suppressed humanity once thought lost completely. Having meaningful conversations and even debates with others was food for what was left for his soul it appeared. The results were telling as his attitude slowly but surely became more human over even such a short a time as a single moon.
The ever prostrating minion of the lich however, the vampire Neske, was less than pleased with all these humans running around in her prison cell. She had clearly been quite happy to be locked up alone with her idol and hated that sycophantic solitude being interrupted. It wasn't a choice she got make however and though she didn't dare interject herself into her master's pursuits it was clear she was suffering.
It was pity perhaps I felt for this inhuman monster, the soul she still carried with her clearly tainted by some traumatic pain in her past. She was a woman and was not beyond the usual trappings of her sex. So to help her get more adjusted to interacting with others I invited her to do various activities with me around the castle. Nothing really too special, just various crafts or decoration plans. There were also the odd forays into cooking the two of us did together as well, though of course neither of us needed to eat.
Though it may seem silly to consider redemption possible for both Neske and her master it was something I wished to see done if possible. They both were highly powerful individuals that it would be a shame to waste completely as well. Their contributions to society at large would be far reaching. This hatred of humans the vampire had was the biggest obstacle to overcome in her case and over time I learned she had a pretty typical tragic backstory of vampire tales. So I hoped that interacting with me and perhaps later some of my close humans might help show her that not all were terrible murderers of helpless ladies in high society.
Thus over the initial month did things go on until a particularly life changing day. It was on this relatively uneventful day late into winter that a pair of mages of quite high standing came to pray to goddess gaoler. My requirements for access to my domain were always the same: no leaving the designated area, disclose the subject matter you wished to disuses with the prisoner to me beforehand, and no bringing anything in but your clothes. They agreed to all this and their topic of choice was one that immediately got my attention. The hidden world is what they called it.
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Being the nosy goddess I am this was a conversation I wasn't missing out on for anything. It was also imperative I learned as much as possible from them about it without revealing my lack of knowledge on it. So to hopefully pull off both objectives I actually invited myself to this conversation, all under the guise of testing them on their knowledge of the subject. Thankfully that age old psychological trick worked out perfectly and throughout the entire visit no one suspected a thing. I even had Neske there to help throw up a smokescreen as though she had some knowledge of the subject she didn't know much. I'd say “explain it for the kid in the room” and point to her.
“The Hidden World” or in some cases “The Root of Fantasy” referred to a location that was apparently just the concept of “the hallow earth” from the world I came from. Apparently this planet had an entire other surface below the surface that housed its very own functional biosphere. Basically it was a huge network of immeasurably massive caverns that had flora, fauna, limited oceans, weather, and even light like the sun and starts.
This place is where the fey come from such as elves, fairies, and the like. In addition the various monsters I'd been seeing also came from here as the place is absolutely seeped in mana. Basically the entire planet's mana supply courses through the place in the air and sky in massive leylines like it did underground up here on the surface. This creates an environment that facilitates all manner of fantastical species and its through the many natural cave systems that such creatures can sometimes breach the surface.
As for the reason this topic was being discussed with Barthenor at all these visiting mages were cagey about around me. Thus I left the little house in my room and turned invisible, moving far enough away and reeling in my aura enough that I remained undetected. My hearing was good enough that I could listen to their conversion even from a mile away, which in my castle's terms was only the next room over.
It turns out this Hidden World was where the goddesses originate from, something that made a lot of sense considering how magic crazy it was. As sort of expected goddesses seem to, at least according to the knowledge of humans and elves, act as a sort of stabilization system for the world's mana supply. They both managed the flow of magic and used their powers to regulate the natural world. This would be why goddesses all have specializations in particular portfolios.
However with the events of the past causing the disappearance of the goddesses from the above world the flow of mana slowed down considerably. This was both a good and bad thing as it meant the surface just was less, magical, so to speak. My reappearance either is the result of or instigator of this flow starting to increase in speed again. The long term effects of this were unforeseeable but would generally be considered a bad time for anyone who liked stability in their natural surroundings.
Mages had taken up the role the goddesses had in the past, that being wardens of the magical realm, and their job was getting exponentially more difficult the faster the leylines began flowing underneath the ground. Thus they had come to Barthenor for wisdom on their future courses of action as he had been alive at the tail end of the age of goddesses. What were they to do about their changing world? What could they do? What should they do?
Barthenor was of the opinion that whatever was going on is inevitable and would have happened after enough time had passed regardless of anything else. It was the natural state of the world to be filled with energy so far as he knew and the absence of goddesses was in fact the anomaly. He wasn't very happy about what was going on but he figured humanity was powerless to stop it. The fey and other races weren't friends of the humans in any large degree ever since the goddesses helped mankind rise to dominance after all. So the mages of the world were on their own and would have to deal with this crisis the best they could.
It was also the opinion of the lich that having me as their ally was in fact a huge boon and something they should maintain at all costs. For whatever reason I acted very atypical for goddesses and due to my very young age could very well be the first in a new type of goddess. Having me in their side would make the coming awakening of other goddesses less disastrous he speculated.
I found myself unable to argue with such logic as honestly I had worried on occasion about my inevitable confrontation with another goddess. Well there had been that one time I had meet the goddess of dreams inside my head, but that ended quickly and I hadn't seen her since. Physically another goddess would be at best on equal terms with me and at worst older than me. That would put me at a massive disadvantage and throw me into a full blown mythological nightmare of inter-deity conflict.
I've read enough about the mythology of both my own world and this one to know how badly that could go for me. When gods fought among themselves, or heaven forbid waged war, the results on the world at large could be cataclysmic. Obviously my worshipers were my top priority to protect, but put in combat with another goddess I might not even be able to guarantee my own survival. It was something I tried to avoid thinking about and these mages were reminding me of the terrifying possibilities.
The humans having such serious concerns about these possible events, and their wanting me out of the conversation while discussing these topics, was more than understandable. However their secret plans for dealing with both me and other goddesses were not to be as secret as they wished with me listening in. I felt kind of bad about eavesdropping but at the same time I also didn't. This was about the survival of not only myself but of the kingdom as a whole. I was more than deserving to be privy to the discussion. Though I could relate to why they didn't want to involve me it still pissed me off they wouldn't. Maybe I just hate feeling left out but its also pretty frickin serious business too.
While listening to their conversation I got to thinking about this world beneath the world and wondered if I should attempt to make contact with it. There were surely goddesses currently active down there and if there were would I even want to interact with them? It seemed to me these two aspects of the planet are supposed to be separated and the more fantastical elements aren't supposed to mix with the mundane up here. At least they aren't anymore. How they were separated, why they were separated, who did the separation, and other such questions swirled in my mind.
These humans certainly didn't have the answers and honestly going down to ask wouldn't guarantee answers. Even if there were goddesses down there they would have to be friendly as well. Plus even if those two conditions were met its possible they didn't even know themselves. How would I even get down there anyway? Would shitty elf know? Can I even ask him?
No no no. I decided for now I would continue on as I always have and perhaps in the future figure out the answer to this conundrum. If and when other goddesses appear the issue can be dealt with then. For all any of us knew the separation is still in place and only what goddesses were already on the surface are still around. That seems the most likely scenario even to these mages as if there was a way between worlds certainly other goddesses would have appeared by now. With the odd strange creature showing up being explained by them already being lost in the caves beneath the earth.
So did I continue listening in on the conversation Barthenor and his visitors had until they eventually finished their discussion and parted ways. The mages prayed to me for release back into the world and I returned to them pretending to have been gone the whole time. To facilitates this I had ran to another part of the castle, grown to full size, and then walked back to them. Then I simply opened a portal for them and closed it behind them.
After that had been taken care of I retreated to the furthest corner of the castle away from my room and the two prisoners it held. I locked myself in a small broom closet and sat in the darkness with the only light coming from my glowing hair that hung down my back. How frightening I would look to anyone who saw me: a goddess curled up on the floor in terror of what might come. My own prayers to my father going out as I tried my best to form contingencies for the increasingly unknown future that lay ahead.