The scene unfolding in front of the entrance to the cave in which the goblin scouts were detained was an odd one.

Two groups stoically starred at each other. No one present spoke, and instead of something as primitive as audible speech one of the groups communicated within itself using telepathy. That group had two almost equal leaders and both of them needed to agree on a plan before acting.

The other group was a loose dictatorship. Only one opinion mattered in it, though the leader of that the group would have listened to any counsel his followers provided. Much like the dark-elves, the youthful overlord who stood across from them had the ability to communicate silently through the usage of telepathy. He chose not to make use of this power, at least at that moment.

The silence that engulfed the two groups, one of which was a racially diverse group led by a deity, and the other of which was made up of four striking dark-elves, created an atmosphere of palpable tension. The dark-elves were meters away from the hulking sentinel demon who went by the name Raverangos and they quietly examined the mighty but dim-witted creature.

Behind that demon was a majestic dark unicorn, who stood beside the demon's master, an incredibly young and immature deity. Behind the two of them were the rest of the creatures who served the deity after experiencing the deity's magic, power, mercy, or in many cases all three, firsthand.

The dark-elves knew nothing of the context behind the formation and diversity of the odd creatures who had joined Althos's retinue. Though in their haughtiness they all doubted they would have have had much interest in the story of a creature who looked human.

The small squad of dark-elves impassionately studied the sentinel demon. The demon, in turn, observed them but its brutish and simple mind couldn't make the same sort of detailed observations theirs regularly did.

The demon noticed their armor, much like its master had, but it paid no mind to the designs that adorned the masterfully crafted material that protected the dark-elves. On the other hand, the dark-elves not only noticed the blood that stained the demon's teeth, but their sensitive senses also detected the smell of plants and dirt that followed the demon as fondly as a fly followed the scent of dung.

The dark elves carefully studied the anatomy of the sentinel demon that stood as a barrier between them and its master and noticed one of the demon's few secrets. By studiously examining the creature's body for a few moments they determined that its muscles and organs did not match those of mortal humanoids.

Their crowning achievement at that moment was also due to their careful examination of the beast-like creature. Their study of it led them to notice a place on the creature's left arm that was covered in thick muscles and sinister scales while also being a darker color than the rest of the skin around it. When the demon was in motion it probably would have been difficult to spot this anomaly but since the creature was still, spotting such a thing was easy.

They didn't know it and couldn't find out without experimentation but the area they were looking at was where the heart of the monster was hidden. Underneath that densely armored body-part was the center of the creature's circulatory system where each heartbeat pumped a shocking amount of tar-like fluid through its body.

The demon's crowning achievement in the sport of observation and study at that moment was to notice that the dark-elves themselves carried a scent it didn't associate with them: the scent of trees.

The demon's limited intellect and less than stellar memory were tiny in comparison to those of the dark-elves yet they were still capable of correctly remembering that the dark-elves of old weren't fond of trees and the surface world, yet this particular group didn't contain the deep and calming stench of the dark chambers of the world underneath the surface.

This fascinating revelation stood out keenly in the mind of the demon who was moved to share this knowledge. Like an overlarge and mighty bloodhound, the demon quickly felt compelled to report to its master.

[Master, the dark-elves do not smell like dark-elves. They smell... like surface walkers.]

As the demon sent its master a useful message its face erupted in the demonic version of a grin. This ghoulish sight evoked a sort of instinctual, primal even, fear in the prideful elves who studied demons and they wisely decided to take a step back out of a wise fear of whatever causes demons delight.

The demon reacted to that by examining them more carefully, an ultimately fruitless move because it lacked the faculties to understand what had made the elves feel fear. After failing to grasp what caused the creatures before it to back away from its muscular frame it thought about why it had made the choice to move between its master and the dark-elves.

The demon's purpose in moving forward was to capture the attention of the dark elves, which it had done spectacularly. If the creature had the intellect necessary to inform its master of this the creature would have been commended by Althos, who despite his immaturity knew to reward ingenuity and displays of loyalty.

Althos was silent after receiving the message from his pet demon. He was, of course, grateful that the demon felt like sharing what to Althos, in his ignorance when it came to dark-elves, felt more like trivia than anything useful. To the deity, it was the thought that counted and Althos knew that the demon had a thought in mind when it decided to share what it had shared with them. What thought? Althos would find out later.

Althos wasn't focused on the seemingly random bit of information Raverangos had shared with him but instead on the whole concept of "dark" elves. He was confused by that.

Dark elves... I keep coming across "dark" versions of things. What does that prefix mean?

Althos's thoughts were calm as he examined the attractive creatures who busied themselves studying his pet. His thoughts might have been calm but that didn't make them idly. Instead, they were infected by the creature's odd sense of curiosity.

Assuming the "Dark" in this case is like the "Dark" in the case of dark unicorns does this mean that these creatures are some sort of grim corruption of an otherwise nominally kind and possibly even noble species? How many of these kinds of "dark" creatures exist?

The deity's curiosity was exciting, to himself most of all, but also to the strange pair of oft disembodied voices who dwelled within his mind. Of course, these capable fonts of information had at least some of the knowledge the deity sought, but they found it more fun to wait to see if the deity himself would independently learn to dynamically and aggressively seek out their pearls of wisdom.

The voices, despite possessing the knowledge relevant to what the deity hypothesized about, stayed silent. The deity himself pondered this strange set of affairs for a second longer before turning his mind to the matter unfolding directly in front of him.

Althos stepped forward, taking but an instant to arrive next to the hulking demon. His sudden movement alarmed the dark elves who turned their attention from Althos's pet to the man himself.

He reexamined the dark elves up close and now that the distance between them was reduced so greatly he noticed that the creatures were also tall. The women stood at an intimidating two and a half meters tall, and the men were a good deal shorter coming in at just a bit over 2.3 meters tall. Though the creatures were tall, they were shorter than he was.

This was the first moment that Althos was grateful for his form, as his height granted him the ability to alert the mood of the coming conversation merely by glowering if he felt the need to do so.

Althos was silent for a moment longer, and then he realized and accepted that the creatures before him weren't likely to speak first. So he decided that he'd do it himself.

Althos, aware of his ability to speak to any creature who could speak, knew better than to waste time pondering language too deeply. So the deity opened his mouth and began to speak without any hesitation.

"Who are you? Why are you examining those goblins?"

His voice flowed outward in all directions and thanks to an autonomous intervention by one of Althos's own powers it was understood by each of the people present. Unbeknownst to Althos, his power seemed to sense his awareness of his ability and automatically cause the words the deity spoke to be whispered in the unique tongue of deities that all creatures could understand.

This was unknown only for a second, as Althos quickly received a notification that made him aware of this.

[Alert: Your divine ability to speak to and understand every creature who can speak intercepted your speech and automatically modified it into the unique tongue of the gods. Rather than speaking in the language of the demons, the highly formalized devilish vocabulary, or the words of orcish tribespeople, you just uttered words in the omniglot, the formal name for the language of the gods.

This language tricks people into thinking that the speaker is speaking their preferred language and speaks it with their preferred accent. When this is used cleverly it can contribute to the domains of trickery and deception.]

Althos willed the notification away and upon once again laying his eyes on the Elves the young god detected the sense of shock emanating from them.

The small party of elves were able to maintain their facades of calmness through a lot of shocking things. They were positively nonplussed at the sight of the unexpected party of people who arrived at the cave. They were able to stay calm when a demon approached them.

Even the dark unicorn not betraying the party surprised them but didn't break them. But what they never imagined was a human-like creature speaking to them in the language of their homeland, complete with a shocking mastery of their specific regional accent. This act momentarily caused them to drop their impassive masks, but with impressive speed each of the elves expertly recovered from the shock and they composed themselves.

One of them, the dark-elven witch named Qu'Ren took a single tentatively step forward. She was the dark-elven woman Althos had noticed had chilly eyes.

As she took her step forward to distinguish herself as the group leader she contemplated sending Althos a mental message. But she ultimately decided this would be a moment wherein vocalized communication was necessary. She mentally prepared herself for the unpleasant sensations she associated with verbal communication.

She looked at Althos and was annoyed to find herself looking up at the creature. But the closer she got to the creature the more she sensed something amiss. She couldn't quite place her finger on it though, at least not yet. For now, her senses were warning her to be caution in how she treated this being.

"Hello, my name is Qu'Ren. I am the leader of this group of Ebony Elves and might I ask who are you?"

The dark elf's voice was soft and alluring, an enjoyable thing many would have liked to just listen too. She was confident and that confidence was clearly detectable in her voice. Her words were soft but her tone suggested she believed she merited respect.

Althos nodded politely at her and then began to speak himself.

"I am Althos. These are my servants and pets. I am a druid who is new to the area. I am merely exploring the forest and familiarizing myself with the flora and fauna of the region. I happened to meet that fellow,"

At that point, Althos motioned towards Qut, who was impassively watching the events unfolding before it.

"And it offered to introduce me to its neighbors, those goblins."

And at the end of that sentence, Althos pointed at the goblins just within the entrance to the nearby cave, while using the motion to lay his eyes on the goblins again. Upon a somewhat closer examination of the creatures, Althos was surprised to notice that they appeared to be unconscious.

During the visual once-over, he gave them he could have sworn that they were awake, but their being unconscious explained their passivity to the strangeness of the scene before them. This annoyed the deity but was a small matter in the grand scheme of things.

At most, it meant a small diversion that the deity could use to try and call forth his allies who were still in Infernius and at last be reunited with all of the minions he had gained over the course of his short life.

Qu'Ren had followed Althos's gestures with polite grace and now turned back to face the deity. Then she spoke softly but with a sort of authority Althos would eventually learn came from people who expected things to go their way.

"Well you see Althos that's quite odd. Because I and your dark unicorn friend had a verbal agreement. You see I came here to purchase those goblins from the magical beast."

Althos made no attempt to hide his shock at this. His shocked expression made it seem as if his jaw had dropped to the floor and his eyes didn't hide his shocked expression. That was when the dark unicorn itself began to move, quietly moving to where Althos and Raverangos stood. Then it began to speak.

"Qu'Ren, I apologize but there has been a slight change of plans."

The dark unicorn's mouth opened and closed but Althos noticed that the words that he heard didn't seem to match the mouth movements the creature was making. Althos quickly surmised that the beast was using some sort of magic to aid it's speech.

The dark elves responded to the statement made by the dark unicorn by quietly moving to ready their weapons and by trying to place themselves close to their ally, but both Qut and Althos noticed their smooth movements. Qut responded to the creatures quickly, moving to try and prevent Althos from readying any sort of magic he may have had at his disposal.

"Now, now, now my Unseelie peers, there is no need for violence. I understand that this is disappointing to you and I accept responsibility for that. I will make it up to you, but if you commit an act you can't take back here there may be consequences none of us can foresee."

The statement uttered by the unicorn was polite but it served as a clear warning to the group of dark elves. Unfortunately, since it was spoken in the language of the dark elves one important figure close by didn't understand it; Raverangos. The hulking demon moved closer to the action and balled its thick fists, ready to move with but a single command. Althos, understanding the words of the elves and the unicorn stopped his pet by moving his hand in such a way that it was clear he wanted the creature to back off for a second.

The demon nodded and stopped moving, but it kept its fists balled up and in a gesture that contained a significant amount of menace opened its maw wide and pantomimed throwing something into it. One of the elven males looked at the demon and his eyes contained no small amount of fear, but the elf continued watching the creature. He knew that anything could cause the creature to erupt into violence.

Behind Althos and Raverangos the rest of the party approached the conversation and readied themselves, drawing their various weapons, while Silander moved to her master's side and did her best to look small. In comparison to the elegant elves, she looked small without much effort on her part.

At this point Althos began to speak again, speaking in the same supernatural tongue he was speaking in earlier. His voice contained a hitherto unheard level of power, and the creature moved forward, inching closer than ever to the dark elf before him.

"Qut mentioned you 'buying' those goblins... Qu'Ren, are you planning to leave before I question them? If you are... you'll find that I won't sit idly by."

There was a tone of curiosity and a whisper of quiet menace in his voice. The dark power he possessed began to softly leak out of him at the moment he ceased speaking, and began to seep into the earth beneath him. This unearthly display was detectable by the elves and it made them look at each other in fear, cold sweat beginning to appear on their brows.

His face had changed as well. The deity normally had a soft, flexible face with expressions that changed easily but now his facial expression had hardened and he had was looking at the strange creatures before him with the eyes of a predator and not the warm, weak gaze dark elves associated humanity with.

The dark elf witch who spoke earlier found herself beginning to feel a bit of fear as the creature before her reacted unexpectedly fiercely in response to her statement.

Her mind raced as she mentally tried her best to come up with an excuse that would get her and her allies out of this situation. She knew that this situation had a simple answer, yet for some reason, she couldn't think of it.

The ebony elf witch was too close to the deity to be able to react effectively to its air of quiet menace. But one of her allies, the male dark-elf warrior who was behind her wasn't.

The elf warrior quickly opened his mouth and began to speak, and in doing so assuming a position of leadership in a move that ran contrary to the culture he was raised in out of fear of the unknown in the form of the strange power leaking out of the self-proclaimed druid.

"Though it's unplanned we can certainly wait until such honored and powerful guests of our friend are satisfied with our newfound... companions before we leave with them."

Althos heard this and considered it for a moment. Then he relaxed and allowed his power to stop leaking outward. Within a matter of seconds, his face regressed to its normal state of mutability and emotional openness, though the air around him took longer to return to normalcy.

The young deity grinned at the elves and spoke with the certainty of a child whose mind was known for producing sure, hard opinions.

"That's acceptable. For now... stay close."

Then he turned to the demonic pet who stood close by and had been dutifully prepared to inflict violence on the creatures who were now humiliated.

He commanded the creature to watch over the elves with but a single word in the language of the demon's homeland and then motioned for Silander to join him on a walk.

He and his mortal pet passed by the orcs and he gave them all the same mental command.

[I am going to go and summon my minions from Infernius. Stay here and aid Raverangos if the elves try anything tricky.]

It was at that precise moment that Althos received two fascinating notifications.

[System Alert:

Due to having met a fair amount of different types of creatures, and having gained a considerable amount of knowledge notifications your overall "knowledge" level is now level 2! This means that the various sorts of "knowledge" notifications will contain more information! This also means you're a quarter of the way towards gaining the ability to exert influence over the second tier of the "knowledge" domain. Both of these things are neat and significant updates that shouldn't be downplayed. Congratulations!

Also, if you review older "knowledge" updates you'll find that they contain more information than they did before now.]

[New Species Knowledge Gained: Dark Elves

Dark Elves are corrupt and powerful Elves who live in underground cities and in the ancient past worshiped powerful lords of darkness.

In the ancient past, Dark Elves lived in communities with institutions that upheld sinister matriarchies where women had absolute control. Now, even without the backing of mighty lords of darkness women continue to be the more dominant sex but things are considerably more egalitarian and it is possible for men to be deemed equals in smaller communities of the hedonistic creatures.

Dark Elven communities are built on the backs of other, physically mightier creatures who the Dark Elves lord over, through usages of their impressive magic. Their willing allies include gigantic and darkly beautiful arthropods and a variety of species they created through orgiastic breeding experiments that included forcing humanoids and animals alike to breed with demons.

Given Dark Elves' proclivity to worship and serve lords of darkness it's possible there is an Althos shaped hole in Dark Elven society that might be worth attempting to fill. But if that is an objective you decide to pursue it's important to remember that as a species Dark Elves are ambitious, bloodthirsty, and zealous beings who equate power and violence. Their worship would be dark, violent, and sinful, and gaining their worship would likely require many acts of darkness.

Known Dark Elves: Qu'Ren, Mianthus.]

Althos learned a lot with this fairly detailed knowledge update, but he was also surprised to see a knowledge notification seem to be "written" so casually and directly. It was an odd experience to the deity who had long since grown accustomed to dealing with, until now at least, fairly formal tone of the system itself.

That said the deity didn't mind this, in fact, he liked it and was excited to read the other notifications he had gained before now. The deity quickly willed the two large notifications out of his sight. He and his pet wandered towards a deeper part of the forest where they'd be out of the sight of the rest of his party.

It took them nearly five minutes of pacing at an impressive speed before they reached a place Althos felt comfortable attempting to call out to his allies in Infernius.

The area before them was a place of dense growth and they were surrounded on every side by the floral inhabitants of the forest. Althos felt comfortable surrounded by plants as he was, and he began to mentally call out to the mystical energies that made up his very being. He gently asked the energies in his veins to come to him and to aid him in reaching his servants.

He whispered to his veins and took hold of the energies that flowed towards his brain and his palms. He began the slow process of molding the energies so that they may power what he was planning to do.

As a deity, Althos possessed limitless mystical energy and it was thanks to that mystical energy that many of the things he did were possible. He was growing increasingly accustomed to wielding his unique energy with each usage of magic that he successfully pulled off, though how significant the effect of each spell was on his overall comfort level with magic depended on how strenuous each spell was.

As part of his preparation for this particular and mighty spell, the deity tapped into the part of his brain that "stored" the mental links he had established with the various creatures he had mentally connected to in the past. At this moment he searched the connections he had made until he found and "grabbed" the connections belonging to Tristan and Salifinos.

When he had those connections in his psychic "hands" he tapped them and sent a message to his minions. He sent both of them the same message and allowed a bit of impatience to seep into the message as to get them to prioritize his command.

[Send me a mental image of what you see before you.]

Within seconds he received what he had asked for. In both cases, he received a mostly black image with the sole dots of light coming from his soul orb pets. He grinned at the image and sent his servants a command to hold onto the soul orbs.

The two creatures quickly obeyed him and sent him quiet updates informing him of their obedience. At that moment the deity closed his eyes and channeled the energy pooling in his palms and in his brain.

The energy reacted to his force of will as he began to visualize the mental pictures he had been sent by his minions. He willed himself out of the forest and towards the place pictured in his mind.

The stored and reactive energies transported the fierce deity across a vast distance, taking him there thanks to the gigantic amount of magical energy being used and the potency of Althos's visualization giving him a specific location to reach.

After a few seconds Althos's mental vision showed him the dark hallway he had left his servants in and indeed the servants themselves.

A few moments after Tristan and Salifinos clutched a soul-orb each the darkness of the hallway they were in, in the ominous tomb of Agowraith the Kingwhisper, was replaced by something wholly unexpected: a bright, verdant green, light radiating off of the vaguely translucent humanlike form Althos was using in the mortal plane.

They knew the manifestation in front of them was Althos, but they had never seen Althos's human form, so it took them a second to process that it was truly the creature they had decided to side with, in an attempt to overthrow a powerful devilish overlord.

The grinning creature in front of them looked impressively human, even as he radiated the vibrant and intensely alive aura of a mortal forest. After a few seconds, the intruder silently extended his hands towards them, one towards each of them and waited for them to place their hands in his.

Tristan didn't hesitate to give the creature her hand, Althos responded by pulling her close which was unexpected but also quite pleasant to the half-devil. Salifinos followed her example mere moments later, and the five creatures vanished. Upon their disappearance, the hallway regained its former darkness, now completely filling the passageway with lightlessness.

The spell Althos had cast on them quickly drew them through space and across planes before safely returning them to the forest Althos from which Althos used the hefty magic.

Althos looked around and saw that Silander was still where she had been before he cast the spell, but now he was holding the small hand of the devilish imp, which was safely attached to the rest of the creature, and the half-devil priestess Tristan was clutching the shirt he wore, a red flush across her cheeks and breathing quite quickly due to crossing an unimaginable distance, magically and instantaneously.

"Silander... say hello to Salifinos the imp, and Tristian the priestess. They are the allies I made during my unplanned excursion to Infernius."

The great-frog smiled at her master and the strange creatures he brought with him. His excitement was palpable and was infecting her as well.