Olizeo and the goblins who trusted him and had long been his collaborators sped through the undergrowth of the forest. Their knowledge of the forest guided them and enabled them to get by while paying minimal attention to the forest underneath their feet. They dodged and weaved through the shallow undergrowth that surrounded and protected them from detection by larger and more vicious creatures.

Each member of the squad had different questions about the racially diverse group they had just come across. Many of those questions centered around the lone human-looking creature in the group. That creature was very tall and stood out amongst the group. He wasn't a prisoner of the orcs, so it was unclear why he was with them.

The only goblin whose questions weren't largely centered around the human-like creature who had been traveling with the orcs was Olizeo. He was instead focused on the large creature who had been content to wallow in the mud behind the orcs and their two allies. He ducked underneath a low-hanging branch on a tiny tree and waited for his allies to gather behind him before he resumed their swift retreat back through their half of the forest.

Ranthor studied the water he stood in carefully. He had positioned himself to create the largest possible barrier for the fish who were peacefully swimming through the shallow river.

He wasn't a combat archer so he wasn't particularly well-suited for this kind of close-quarters archery. That said he still possessed excellent kinetic vision and he was still a careful and steady shot.

He rose his bow when he saw a particularly fat trout. The creature was slowly swimming through the water in his direction, and he aimed his bow in its direction. The creature's multicolored scales made it stand-out in the clear water the two of them were in and they drew someone's eyes towards it.

"Blame Mother Illume for your rotten luck, my fishy friend." He quietly said, invoking the name of the ancient and long gone orcish deity of nature and motherhood. The act was almost like offering a prayer to whatever lord of the hunt a particular hunter praised.

The orcish hunter skillfully and swiftly grabbed an arrow and notched it to his thick bow. His practiced fingers were holding the weapon relaxedly and at a moment's notice, the hunter would be able to release the arrow he was aiming.

His amber-colored eyes focused on the creature and he was almost completely still for a moment. The movements he made were tiny ones that adjusted his aim so that his arrow remained wherever the fish was moving towards.

As a skilled hunter, even one at a slight disadvantage in close-quarters archery, he had long since learned the first rule of archery: aim where your prey will be, not where they are. Once he was certain his aim would be true, he took a deep breath and then released the arrow he had been containing.

The distance between the hunter and his prey was a few meters, yet the arrow sailed through the air and eventually sliced into the water. It flew through the water, despite not being made for that purpose, and penetrated its target.

The force of the arrow sent the fish sprawling to the river's floor before its death caused the creature to float to the surface.

Ranthor smiled as he waited for the current to drag the fish's body in his direction. He had positioned himself so that any of his prey would eventually be pushed into his loving hands, and as he waited for the fish to approach him, he reflected on the unexpected direction yesterday had taken.

He wasn't particularly opposed to being someone's servant if he was being completely honest. It was mostly his all too human conception of pride that clashed with the idea of serving a master.

Whenever he thought back to what old-man Ragnison, one of the people responsible for training him, would think if Ranthor told him that he had become someone's servant it annoyed the orc. He got a bit mad at the thought of that blasted old-man trying unsuccessfully to stifle a laugh at the orc's expense.

He had long accepted servitude as a reasonable consequence for weakness. That was traditional orcish thinking, after all. The thing was, that he had never viewed himself as weak which in all fairness was also a very orcish line of thought. Meeting Althos demonstrated that he wasn't as strong as he had believed himself to be. It was a humbling experience and one that required introspection.

After a few moments of careful introspection, the fishy corpse was within grabbing distance. He stopped his quiet and annoying thoughts and skillfully snatched the fish out of the water. He spent a few moments examining the fish.

He was happy to note that it was a clean kill, and there were no external signs of sickness plaguing the creature. Its scales were clean and its eyes didn't display any telltale symptoms of diseases that sometimes weakened fish.

His arrow had penetrated the trout's lateral line, and the force of the arrow seemed to have killed the creature nearly instantly.

The orc casually tossed the kill into a gradually increasing pile of deceased fish not too far from the river itself.

Two wolves laired near the river and in the relatively warm, autumn day had approached the water source early in the morning. The two creatures were lazily drinking from the river, not yet out to hunt, when off in the distance the deity began to move in their direction.

The creatures were at a distinct disadvantage in detecting the odd creature. The wind was moving in the wrong direction for them to smell him, and they weren't paying attention to their surroundings. Their one real natural enemy in the forest were the bears that lumbered on the other side of the river, and any bears that approached would lack the stealth needed to be able to sneak towards them.

Althos was naturally quiet whenever he wasn't talking and so he was able to steadily get closer and closer to the creatures he had been admiring from a distance. It was only when the godling had traversed half of the vast distance between the orcs and the wolves that he was noticed by the orcs. And he still wasn't noticed by the wolves. And he wasn't even trying to sneak up on them.

As Althos approached the wolves, he recalled a bit of the long conversation he had with both M.A. and Samyaza, the two creatures who dwell in the godling's vast mind.

Earlier that night:

Althos was seated, with his back propped up against a tree. His servants were all asleep, and his demonic pet was out on a hunt. The godling was silent, at least physically, but his mind was alert and active. In it he could hear and occasionally participate in a long chat between the two alien voices that lived in his mind.

[So can someone explain to me what "faith-power" and "divine energy" are? Because M.A. mentioned that a few hours ago, and Samyaza has told me that "I gain power from my worshippers and servants" but no one has actually explained how.]

Samyaza the orb angel was the first of the two to respond to Althos's mental question.

[Sure! So those are two of the varied types of energy you can gain as a god. I suppose we, M.A. and I, should give you a basic breakdown of this huh?]

At this remark M.A. quietly giggled and quickly chimed in.

[ABSOLUTELY! KNOWING THIS WILL MOST LIKELY HELP YOU DEVELOP REALISTIC GOALS AS WELL AS SERVE AS A PRIME MOTIVATOR MOVING FORWARD.]

Althos rolled his eyes. He hadn't expected the two voices in his mind to get along so well, and to hear them constantly chat would probably get annoying very quickly.

Samyaza quickly took charge of the conversation by explaining what divine energy was.

[Divine energy is the energy you radiate. You are a god, where you go you radiate divine energy. Creatures can absorb divine energy and grow in strength. Some creatures are better at absorbing than others though.]

Althos understood this explanation and found it satisfactory. He waited for someone to talk about the mysterious "faith-power" that M.A. had mentioned hours ago. The mental assistant quietly took over the conversation after Althos was silent for a few seconds, sensing his satisfaction with the explanation he heard and his desire to hear about "faith-power". This time the explanation was longer and a bit more detailed.

["FAITH-POWER" IS THE TENTATIVE TITLE GIVEN BY THE OLD GODS TO THE MYSTERIOUS POWER GIVEN TO THE GODS BY THEIR WORSHIPPERS. GODS GROW IN POWER, OR AT LEAST GAIN MORE SPECIFIC AND ADVANCED SKILLS AS THEY GAIN "FAITH-POWER". THERE ARE MULTIPLE SOURCES OF DIVINE POWER THAT GODS CAN GAIN AND "FAITH-POWER" IS JUST ONE SOURCE. IT'S NOT THE ONLY SOURCE AND THOUGH THE INFORMATION I HAVE ON THIS IS INCOMPLETE, IT APPEARS THAT SOME DOMAINS AND SUBDOMAINS GROW FASTER THROUGH OTHER SOURCES OF POWER THAN FAITH. IF I HAD TO MAKE A GUESS, I'D SAY THAT DOMAINS AND SUBDOMAINS RELATED TO THE CREATION OF TYPES OF ITEMS PROBABLY PREFER "EXPERIENTIAL" POWER OVER "FAITH" POWER. SO IF YOU WANTED TO ADVANCE IN THE BLACKSMITHING SUBDOMAIN OR IN THE POTION-CRAFT SUBDOMAIN I'D RECOMMEND EXPERIMENTING WITH GAINING WORSHIPPERS VS ACTUALLY CREATING THINGS.]

Althos winched at his assistant's voice exploding in his mind for nearly a full two minutes, uninterrupted. But he did feel more knowledgable after hearing her explanation once he mentally replayed it.

Though the godling swore he felt Samyaza quietly laughing at him.

Althos was walking slowly and calmly towards the animals. He knew that wolves tended to not be friendly towards humans, but he knew that wasn't a human or even a humanoid. He felt that his godly powers would protect him.

After all, that's what M.A. had told him last night.

[So I awoke Silander and that boosted her intelligence significantly, as well as powered her up. What if I want to approach animals that aren't awakened? Or other non-sapient lifeforms?]

This seemingly random thought interrupted the two other voices the godling could mentally hear. Samyaza was unsure of how to answer that because the angel didn't know. Even when it thought about its ancient former master, the god of serpents, poisons, and illusions named Serpiente, it couldn't recall instances of non-sapient animals interacting with its master.

The one who responded to this question was M.A. who had an answer that would excite Althos.

[WELL ALTHOS, AFTER SEARCHING THROUGH SOME OF YOUR POWERS I HAVE AN ANSWER. YOU HAVE A HANDY POWER. IT'S CALLED "FRIEND OF NATURE" AND IT RENDERS WILD ANIMALS AND PLANT-MONSTERS DOCILE TOWARDS YOU. YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO APPROACH WILD ANIMALS AND PLANT MONSTERS, THE MOST COMMON NON-SAPIENT LIFEFORMS FREELY. I DON'T KNOW IF THAT POWER APPLIES TO CREATURES LIKE SLIMES, ANOTHER COMMON NON-SAPIENT CREATURE BUT WE WILL MOST LIKELY FIND OUT THROUGH EXPERIMENTATION IF WE ENCOUNTER ONE SOON. AND IN A FOREST SLIMES CAN DEFINITELY BE FOUND.]

Her loud voice rang out in Althos's mind, but he attentively listened and was in fact excited by her response. It emboldened him and he knew that he'd most likely leap at the next chance to encounter a wild animal that he came across.

But the godling, after learning this, did have another question. This time directed at Samyaza.

[If I have this power... why didn't it do anything when I was looking for the mice earlier? You know... the mice I killed?]

The angel did the mental equivalent of shrugging at him.

[Honestly, I don't know. I suppose they were either too scared of the distant noises of the attacking orcs to come out to you, or they just didn't detect you. If someone forced me to pick, I'd say that most likely didn't detect you. That's my best guess at least. I had no idea that that power was a thing! How am I supposed to know this stuff?]

Hours later, in the present:

Althos quietly completed the walk over to the wolves, nearly reaching them by the time they noticed his approach. The two creatures were calm and unbothered by his closeness to them, demonstrating the power of his power to be perceived as a friend of nature.

Althos himself was quietly surprised at how powerful the skill was. When the wolves noticed the deity they were utterly unbothered by his casual walk in their direction. They looked at him like he was a friend or maybe even a member of their pack if these two wolves were members of any such social unit.

When he completed his approach the wolves lazily looked at him and as he looked back at them he could see the faintest signs of a question in their gaze. He wondered what they could be thinking when Samyaza offered a quiet suggestion.

[Check out what happens when you drink some water. Maybe they are just wondering why you haven't drunk anything yet despite approaching the river.]

Althos quietly walked towards the river and scooped up some of the water. He lifted it to his mouth and downed it in a few quick gulps, before the wolves looked away, having lost interest in Althos.

Althos stood near the water for a bit, wondering what to do next when Samyaza came in with another question. This time Althos could hear a bit of mischievousness in the angel's mental voice.

[Hey Althos... want to try something?]

The trio of orcish brawlers had been quietly watching Althos for the past few minutes. They had watched him walk over to the wolves, and were moderately concerned with what might happen when he was near the creatures.

The wolves weren't small, even from a distance, the trio was keenly aware of the large size of the creatures, who were impressively built. But Althos approached them fearlessly, and so the orcs exhaled a shared held breath in relief when the animals seemed to idly accept the presence of their master.

They watched as their master drank a bit of water from the river, and then stood still for a bit. From a distance, the orcish siblings quietly guessed that he was thinking about what to do next. That was when they saw something that surprised them, and would greatly influence their opinion of their master.

Samyaza had somewhat jokingly decided to suggest that Althos should shapeshift.

[Why don't you shapeshift? M.A. mentioned that your form is dependent on what your desires so why don't you desire to be a wolf? Or perhaps wolflike?]

Althos took the suggestion and ran with it. His mistake was that he desired to be wolflike, as opposed to desiring to be a wolf. His power took his conception of wolflike and ran with it. He immediately got down on all fours and willed himself to change. The results were immediate and oddly disconcerting to watch.

He felt his body expanding in mass and in length and width causing all of his extremities to stretch in odd ways. Fur began to emerge from his previously hairless arms, chest, and legs, swiftly covering his now nude form in thick and warm protection.

His fingernails expanded into thick and dense claws as his fingers and toes fused into solid and inflexible paws. His human face seemed to melt and then abruptly reform into that of a powerful and pitiless canine.

The whole transformation was over in an instant, and the form was fairly uncreative. The once humanlike Althos was now a beastly creature, resembling a child's conception of a wolf amped up to ridiculous proportions as opposed to looking like an actual, natural, wolf albeit of gigantic size.

He measured just over 3 meters in length and was a solid 2 meters tall before he stood up on two legs. If Althos in his new form stood on two legs as opposed to using his ludicrously unwieldy form to hunt on all fours he'd probably reach Raverangos in height now due to the imperfect nature of his transformation.

That said, the actual weapons the creature had were as dangerous as those of any other wolf or werewolf.

The fur that covered his body was a dark red, not unlike the color of blood. He had a thick snout filled with sharp fangs that promised to cruelly shred any creature who dared oppose his will. He gained a thick and long tail made up of particularly sharp hairs that the creature could use as a weapon if he needed too, to bludgeon foes.

His eyes retained their incredible darkness, and the creature himself felt an eerie and new power coming from his eyes. He made it a mental priority to try and experiment with this power soon, knowing that one of his allies may know a bit about it.

The first thing the wolf did in his new form was experiment with his paws. In his desire to be wolflike and fueled by his incorrect visualization of a wolf's body he had crafted a form that was straight out of a child's nightmares of wolves.

His new form originally had fused digits, but the creature himself swiftly realized that wasn't useful. He willed away that part of his anatomy and gave himself separate digits that were more useful, and also reflective of what wolves actually possessed.

After taking a few steps in its new form for a few seconds, Althos quietly shifted back to the form he had when he first strolled over to the wolves.

[That was... weird.]

He said in a mental message to his allies.

[I didn't hate it, and I'll likely try it again, but it was weird.]

Samyaza mentally nodded at him. The angel initially thought about commenting on how childish the form was, but then thought better. So instead it made its comment constructive. Mostly.

[Maybe you should focus on becoming a wolf next time you shift. It seems as though you focused on your own envisionment of something like wolfishness. Until you meet a werewolf or another animalistic shapeshifter and see how they transform it might be better to not go for weird hybrid forms. But that definitely wasn't a terrible first try. Just a... weird one.]

Althos groaned in response to that offhanded remark at the end of an otherwise constructive statement.

The wolves idly watched the godling, not particularly reacting to its shifted form, nor particularly reacting to the godling shifting back into its more human form. Althos noticed this and got annoyed at it.

Though he wasn't expecting a response, the deity asked a question to the wolves.

"What are you thinking wolves?"

The wolves reacted to this by turning to look at each other, and then back at the godling. Then one of them, the female wolf who had a less clean coat of fur than her mate, spoke.

"We're thinking that you're an odd, powerful, and little wolf."

This unexpected development made the godling stare, wide-eyed at the wolf.

"But it's not like you can understand us."

This remark came from behind the wolf, spoken by her mate. As he spoke the statement he looked at the godling with an indifferent gaze. The godling was silent for a few seconds before responding directly to the male wolf.

"Yes, I can. I can totally understand you."

In the background, the orcs were unsure of what to do, or what the creature they were serving was. But after seeing him transform into a massive, vaguely wolf-like creature they were utterly unsurprised to hear him appear to respond to what sounded like loud and deep barks from the wolves.

Eventually, Anthus spoke, mostly to clear the silence. But his question was a good one.

"Is he... a druid?"