Unbeknownst to Althos, his magic was already taking on its own distinctive flavor, a flavor that would soon touch the dark elves. Though his first usage of magic was offensive, back when he sent magic through Samyaza and into the ground so that it would lash out against Ranthor, the majority of his usages of magic were mutative or restorative or both.

Althos had used restorative magic multiple times, first to heal his servant Gallow, and then to restore vestigial traits in Salifinos, and in the dark elf Milene. He had also used mutative magic to awaken Silander and the soul orbs who at that moment floated over to him and provided illumination of the cave as they drifted towards him.

Because of this and because of his inexperience with magic, those were magically touched by the young deity in non-aggressive ways felt strange but good sensations assail their mind. It lowered their resistance to Althos' magical touch, and also empowered his abilities that were restorative or mutative.

If he knew this, this probably would have been delighted, especially if it was explained to him that this could convince people to more readily accept his mystical embrace or used as a means to tempt the weaker willed into divulging secrets and other knowledge.

Seconds after speaking to the small party of dark elves with the offer of immediate improvement Althos did something that could have been considered a bit reckless. He silently established a mental connection with Qu'Ren, reaching out with his mind while he activated the spell that would allow for the two of them to chat unnoticed.

[Qu'Ren, why do you hesitate? What can I do, to sweeten this deal?]

Althos waited for a second to make sure his connection was well established and hadn't somehow been rejected by the witch. She showed no obvious, outward signs of having suddenly gotten a mental message which was impressive given that Althos had messaged her when she was lost in thought.

Instead, she maintained a stoic expression as she internally debated how to respond to Althos' quiet mental query and whether or not to take Althos' deal. After a few seconds, she sighed and mentally messaged Althos back.

[If you empower us, how specifically will we be empowered? Or is this some weird sort of alteration magic that boosts us randomly?]

Qu'Ren revealed her hand at that moment. She betrayed herself by making it clear that she was legitimately interested in what Althos had to offer. She hungered for power and, in her own way at least, Althos saw a hunger for knowledge within her. She was most likely a powerful magician, and Althos could feel the ambition radiating off of her.

It appealed to him. But in a way similar to how blood appealed to a shark. He sensed it and wanted to feed on it. And so the deity made his play, and in doing so forever changed the lives of the goblins, the elves, and to a lesser extent the unicorn too.

Qu'Ren's every movement, and even her thoughts betrayed her desire for power and her belief in herself. To Althos, who desired knowledge and had power, including power he could share, there was a certain compatibility there.

Althos put up a stoic expression of his own and silently responded to the question in a way that would be immensely exciting to the dark elf he was mentally trying to tempt.

[I will tell you and only you of the true nature of this power because it is quite apparent that you are the leader here. You see, I have a powerful magical ability that is restorative in nature which reveals to me vestigial traits that creatures lost access to over the course of generations. I can then pour a considerable amount of magical energy into someone and revive those abilities.]

Althos sent that message to the dark elf, who had to work to maintain her poker face in that moment, and greedily declined to share this information with her peers. That was when Althos sent her a message that changed the weight of this negotiation.

Despite her poker face, Althos could easily hear the beating of her heart intensify as he spoke. It made him grin, cruelly, as he set out more bait for her.

[All of you but Mianthus have unique vestigial abilities I can revive in you. Yours is a strange ability called "Ichor veins" which is an ability that gives you a... second type of blood. When forced by an enemy to bleed you can try to strike them with fiendish ichor that will stream out of you and if it hits them will slow them down. It will also strengthen your body. I can also revive thermal vision in all of you and telekinesis in you, Milene, and Mianthus.]

Althos wasn't expecting his repetition of what the system had told him to be the final thing that tipped this brief round of negotiations in his favor but hearing that knocked the stoic expression out of the elf's face and the deity could have sworn he saw her palms begin to drip a tiny amount of sweat. This decision coupled with what Althos did next changed the tone of the discussion in the dark unicorn's cave.

The next step of the deity's plot was rapidly formed and relied on the fact that Qu'Ren was visibly shaken by what he had told her.

Originally the deity's next target was the dark elven male who had yet to speak. But then he noticed something.

He learned the elf's name twice, once by virtue of his ability to examine vestigial traits and then again focusing on his environment around the elf, and seeing the following information:

[Name: Drow Banethal

Class: Ranger

Species: Dark Elf

Faction: The Dark Elven City Of Undermoon]

This was exactly what happened with Tristan back before Tristan, Salifinos, and himself had ventured into the tomb of Agowraith the Kingwhisper, and as Althos looked around him and focused not just on the creatures he was surrounded by, but the actual atmosphere he once again saw these text boxes above everyone's heads.

For the elves, both the species and the factions were generally similar. All of the elves aside from Qu'Ren had the same faction, and Mianthus and Milene had the same last name.

Qu'Ren's faction wasn't listed as "The Dark Elven City Of Undermoon" but rather her faction was something called "The Keepers Of Tradition", a name that sounded rather arrogant to Althos, but was also something worth looking into at a later date. The deity quietly stored that information away and went ahead and established a mental connection with Drow.

Althos' message to Drow was filled with falsehoods, but he stated them firmly and boldly hoping to deceive the dark-elf.

[Drow, listen to me. Aid me in persuading Qu'Ren to take my offer. I am planning to endow you each with powerful gifts as a means to convince Qu'Ren to let the goblins live and leave here peacefully. I don't wish to see the goblins die or to see the sort of weak demons their insignificant deaths would summon be a nuisance to you or to me.]

At the moment of receiving the mental message and recognizing Althos' voice, the dark elf looked up and starred at the young deity. In response, Althos began to smile.

Althos had a particular deception in mind for the man who would become clairvoyant. It was inspired by the misconceptions about clairvoyance that Althos had learned about while absorbing the information, secrets, thoughts, and memories of the strange goblin who had been pressured into sharing her entire mind with the knowledge-obsessed deity. A process that was still occurring even at that very moment.

[I am planning to give you the power to peer into the future. All it takes is you aiding me in persuading Qu'Ren to leave here peacefully, without the goblins.]

The quiet warrior didn't respond by using the mental connection Althos had made for the two, but by waiting until he and Althos made eye contact. Then he subtly nodded, and Althos began to grin a bit more openly. Drow on the other was skeptical of the god's claims. This skepticism stemmed from a lifetime of hoping to acquire what Althos had just promised him. A lifetime of failures and disappointments embittered the dark elf.

Drow was one of the youngest members of a family, a family that had spent a long time dealing with the present and the future. Many of his ancestors, including his own parents, had been creatures who could peer into the future. Such a power never awoke within him.

The dark-elf had always wondered why he did not possess the same power as both of his parents. He had spent much of his life seeking to change that.

Drow had even escaped from the underground cities that contained the majority of his kind in pursuit of ways to awaken what he felt must have been hidden with him. Despite the risks he took, and the places he ventured too, he never succeeded in awakening the power he hoped lurked with him.

This strained his relationship with his mother and father, who never found a reason to be proud of their son. Sadly, they also never failed to express their sheer disappointment in him. They let him know how he made them feel, and it was never positive.

And now some stranger says they can awaken within me what I've dreamed my whole life of having? It's suspicious. The dark elf thought, skepticism ruling the day in his mind.

The skepticism quickly mixed with anger at the idea that he had wasted so long doing this, and there was just a stranger out there who decided that the lives of goblins of all creatures weighed more than the power the dark elf had always longed for.

Althos turned to Milene, the younger of the two females who stood in the cave alongside himself and the goblins. He didn't have to initiate contact with her.

Milene was eager to chat with the deity, and the second his gaze fell upon her he received an enthusiastic mental message from the elven alchemist.

[Hello! Thank you for the power-up. Do you mind sharing what it was that you did specifically? If not it's fine... probably.]

Milene had already been made aware of Althos' true nature due to one of the things that happened to her while her telekinesis was being resurrected. This knowledge was sitting within her and she knew that this wasn't the time or place to sit down and think through the cosmic implications of the existence of a new deity.

Like all dark elves, she had an excellent poker face and was relying on it to see what the deity did and was planning to do. She decided not to inform the deity that she knew about its deific status, believing at this point that this was its plan.

The deity himself didn't know this, because so far the only other creature on whom he had used his ability to resurrect vestigial traits was Salifinos, who already knew that the being was a god. The devil most likely would have warned him if he had spoken in the language of the devils or if Althos had informed him that this was his plan, but Althos hadn't.

Althos quietly but audibly chuckled. He quickly responded to the girl and kept his word to Qu'Ren by not revealing the true nature of his magic.

[I am a druid but I possess powerful alteration magic. I used it on you to grant you a new power, one which for now is temporary but I can easily make it permanent. That said I won't do that for free.]

As Althos weaved this fabrication he contemplated how to best make use of Milene. Based on these first impressions she was distinctly different from the other elves in the party, both younger than them and also with a different attitude.

Mianthus was a serious, probably dependable sort, Qu'Ren was almost certainly powerful and ambitious, and Drow was a quiet sort. Milene on the other hand... had something to prove. Almost like some sort of failure or series of failures had influenced her and filled her with a need to succeed.

She had a sort of clear and strong ambition that was evident in how she easily and without encouragement tried a second time to use her newly restored powers and a clear drive to succeed as shown by how she actually successfully used her powers on just the second time she tried them.

Althos' impression of Milene was improved further when the girl responded to what Althos had just told her. Althos grinned as in the distance he saw the girl nod her head in understanding. Then she sent another mental message.

[Of course. We dark elves don't like it when people give something for free. There's always a cost to be paid, and we can appreciate honesty and a reciprocal approach to these sorts of things. I also suspect that you and that goblin came to a sort of understanding somehow that is leading you to intervene to protect them. That's fine with me, I'll do what I can to aid you.]

Althos looked at her, his entirely obsidian eyes gazing quite clearly into her oddly human-like eyes, despite the fact that she was a true dark elf and not a half-elf, and smiled.

[That is not the only power-up you will receive and your brother will receive power-ups as well. Aid me and be rewarded for your services.]

Milene looked at Althos for a second, wondering how he knew about Mianthus being her brother and then shrugged her shoulders. Althos was a deity and frankly, there was no real way of knowing what other powers he did or didn't possess, so it was entirely possible he ambiently knew all sorts of details about them all.

She quietly wondered what sorts of things Althos must have known with but a glance at her about Qu'Ren. She was envious of her aunt and would have loved to be able to know even a single thing that Althos knew about her.

Althos hadn't actually known that Milene and Mianthus were siblings, but her reaction confirmed it. He smiled, mentally, at this. It was a trick he had seen Amelie use in one of her memories and he was delighted at its success.

Then there was Mianthus. The deity and the elf made contact at the same time with an almost instantaneous exchange of messages, like two friends who hadn't seen each other in a long time yet were so excited that they began to chat instantly upon reuniting.

Mianthus' message came through first.

[Hello Althos, I know what you're gonna offer. You don't have to do that with me. Though I plan on accepting your offer of empowerment, and I know that it's some sort of alteration magic, I am just happy to have a chance to power-up at the expense of Qu'Ren. I'm with you. Well... I'm with myself anyway. For now, that happens to mean siding with you. In the future... Well who's to say?]

Althos' message came through an instant later, and Mianthus grinned at it. Althos also grinned at Mianthus' message.

[Hello Mianthus. Aiding me right now may mean a quiet and temporary loss, but it's for the sake of the acquisition of greater, permanent power. I want to empower each of you in unique ways, and all I ask is that you aid me in convincing Qu'Ren to take my offer.]

Mianthus was perhaps the one who garnered the least interest from Althos, but his message went a good way towards changing that. Althos peered over at the elf and the two exchanged the sort of friendly smiles normally reserved for old friends.

When he looked at Mianthus he saw his group's Bazur, a skilled leader who quietly held the group together with force of will and skill. Mianthus didn't possess the power or ambition of Qu'Ren, but he possessed a calmness to him and an aura of dependability.

Althos knew in that moment that he had succeeded in this negotiation. He considered how to convey this bit of news to Amelie, and then accepted that it was best to just send her a mental message. Mentally chatting with people was rapidly becoming a favorite tool of Althos'.

[It is done. I have secured your freedom. Just watch.]

Behind him, Amelie smiled and felt tears begin to form in her eyes. They threatened to ruin the tense mood, but she immediately and nearly silently hissed and took a beat to recover from the stress of the situation.

The elves were silent for just a few seconds longer, and then Qu'Ren stepped forward and spoke for the group. For the first time, she spoke in the common tongue of the region, for the sake of being understood by the goblins.

"Althos... we accept your offer. Once you have performed your odd magic, we will depart from here. Will you share what ways in which you're planning to empower us?"

Qu'Ren's decision to speak in the common tongue was an act of deeply uncharacteristic kindness, but it was because the elf felt that the moment represented something that would in the long-run be categorized as a neat win, even if at the moment she felt a bit annoyed. That caused her to feel charitable.

Althos took a breath upon hearing the elf confirm that they would accept the terms Althos had given them. He felt surprisingly excited to move forward and speak.

"Sure! Well, my ability allows me to empower people. The way it works is... that when I select targets I am given options and in your cases what I'll be doing is using it on you and selecting the assorted options that appear. Take, for example, thermal vision. I've already used the first part of my power to discover what I can empower you with, and thermal vision is something that is common completely across the board.

When I activate my power the same sort of pillar that surrounded her,"

At this point, Althos nodded in the direction of Milene.

"Will engulf all of you, including her, once again. I temporarily empowered her before but now it will be permanent. The pillar will surround you, while you acclimate to the new powers and traits you're being given. Once the pillars vanish, as far as I know, your new powers and traits should be fully operational."

Althos then stopped talking. He brought his hands together and closed his eyes. He was considering the oddity of the final power he had seen listed, the power that was called "True shape-shifting". His intuition warned him that it represented something significant outside of his own knowledge, unlike the other powers, even though its description, to the deity, felt less impressive than the descriptions of the others.

He recalled the notification he had received that informed him of its nature.

[Ability explanation: True shape-shifting.

Ability type: natural

Ability properties: Shape-shifting grants those who possess it either limited or full control over their appearance. True shape-shifting is the penultimate form of this, and the most powerful form available to mortals. This grants mortals total control over their appearance and physical properties they possess.

Mortals with true shape-shifting are among the only creatures who can transform into copies of other living creatures and perfectly mimic their voices. Once this power is sufficiently upgraded they can even use magical energy to replicate the natural or supernatural abilities possessed by other mortals, even creating a lesser version of the supernatural breath abilities possessed by creatures like dragons.

Note: Though to some creatures this ability is perfectly natural and innate, it's possible for people who are the right combination of classes and races to recover it if it was lost to their race. In some cases it can be recovered with genetic experimentation.]

Though Althos recognized that this was a powerful ability it was also deeply innate to Althos whose form was subject to his whims. His own familiarity with his version of this ability blinded him to its power to mortals. Upon rereading the description of the ability Althos quietly decided to consult with his advisors before doing anything else.

[Samyaza, M.A., can you tell me what you know about the ability called "True shape-shifting"? It's one of the things I can restore in the elves. I have a... feeling about it that I can't quite put into words, but it's making me unsure of if I should give them access to it. I never told them about it, so they wouldn't know about it unless I restored it in them.]

Upon hearing the request Samyaza and M.A. both immediately did their best to remember what they could about the ability. Both of them had heard of it before, but neither one immediately knew why it was filling their often somewhat reckless friend with concern.

After spending a few seconds in silence, Samyaza spoke up.

[Honeslty? I don't know why that's what's going on Althos. But since they don't know about the ability just don't restore it in them for now. Your instincts are good, they are very literally divine. Listen to them. Find a way to learn more about this, later, and for now, focus on restoring their abilities that don't evoke this feeling in you. It's possible that for them this ability is an evolutionary requirement, and the second they get it they'll evolve like Silander did when you awoke her. If dark elves can evolve... whatever they become will be terrifyingly powerful.]

Seconds after Samyaza spoke up M.A. did as well. Her advice wasn't dissimilar.

[There are safer ways to go about discovering why this ability evokes the feelings it evokes in you than resurrecting it and seeing what happens. Especially if you didn't feel that way when you read it initially, versus now that you're actually considering resurrecting it in the elves. That means that it's likely tied to them as a species. Samyaza's advice is good. I recommend listening to it.]

Althos considered what they said and after a few seconds of careful consideration decided that their advice was wise. He decided to follow it, for now.

The deity then wordlessly cast his spell, targeting all four elves with the spell as he selected all of their abilities aside from True shape-shifting for resurrection.

The cave darkened as four pillars of obsidian darkness descended on the four elves. The dark unicorn, the goblins, and Althos' allies all quietly watched the theatrics in action.

All four of the elves felt the darkness land on top of them. They were immediately buffeted by potent magical energy and each of them reacted differently to it.

At this point in time, Althos had no way of knowing that the honesty of the system itself would be what undid his attempts to be deceptive.

Qu'Ren was the embodiment of ambition and pride. These emotions, along with a cold-blooded sense of wrath guided her and gave her her sense of self. And at that moment, as the pillar descended around her and made her only see darkness, she felt like she was on the cusp of a grand victory. And in a sense, she was right.

Qu'Ren relaxed and felt at ease within the coldness of the pillar. Her ambition had won out over her pride and her anger, and to her, this was the perfect reward for that. She felt not only her mind but also her body becoming stronger.

Her anatomy itself was being changed by Althos' power. She felt her veins widening and increasing in strength and number as her heart began to beat faster than ever. She felt her new veins be flooded with the same sort of vile ichor that filled Raverangos' veins.

Her new veins crisscrossed her body. They extended forth from her heart like tendrils and her reaction was to try and suppress the shivers of pleasure this caused her. Her whole body felt more sensitive as a result of the new blood type that within seconds reached every centimeter of her body.

She quietly, and only for a fleeting moment wondered if this was what Althos' caress would feel like on her skin. If his fingers, used to the magic involving restoration, would chill or inflame her senses. But then she snapped out of it. He was no dark elf after all. Though she was about to learn what he actually was.

She also felt her mind's power increase and all of a sudden she felt the range of things she could reach out and grab increase significantly. Her new physical strength, supplied to her through the ichor she was now filled with, and her new mental strength filled her with even more confidence, bolstering her belief in herself to new heights.

Even her eyes changed, going from their normal color to ruby-red for a split second as she tried out her thermal vision. Much to her surprise, it peered past the pillar of darkness she was in and allowed her to see the creatures she was with. Where her allies were, was a strange and empty space but she suspected that was because the pillars were supernaturally cold.

That was when the system reached out and dropped a mind-blowing notification on her.

[Alert: The following vestigial traits have been resurrected within you, by the young deity known as Althos.

Spear mastery, thermal vision, telekinesis, and ichor veins.

All of these abilities can level up and can be trained in distinct ways. Careful usage of them empowers them and thusly empowers you.]

This revelation stunned the dark elven witch. Indeed it shook her to her very core. When she read it her heart actually skipped a beat.

That meant that Qu'Ren had never been closer to death than when she was dealing with Althos, and that at any moment Althos could have done... well it was impossible for her, a mere mortal to guess the multitude of things Althos could have done to her if he had been displeased.

The last few seconds she was in the pillar of darkness she carefully considered what to do next. She was truly unsure of what it meant that the deity had interacted with her without harming her, and without revealing his true nature.

After thinking about it for a second she quietly realized that it must not have meant that much to Althos to keep his true nature a secret since he had activated a spell that would reveal his identity to them and since he was familiar with the spell which made it clear, to the dark elf anyway that he had used it before.

She never, for a second, considered that Althos, as a young deity, was inexperienced with magic. This was made even less of a possibility in her mind by the fact that the spell he used was one with properties she had never heard of.

As the pillar of darkness around her dissipated and light once again touched the edges of her vision she felt her ambition reignite, ambitions which had caused her to always be perceived as a bit out there, even by other dark elves including ones who respected her power and skill. She saw in Althos' divinity an opportunity to restore her people to greatness.

She saw, in him and in his whims, the sort of mysterious blessings that had once led her people to greatness within their deep subterranean metropolises and to an underground empire that once stretched throughout the whole of the mysterious region hidden deep underground.

Althos' lightest mutative touch had not only empowered Qu'Ren, but it also made her hungry for more. Gifting someone so ambitious with even bits and pieces of power had influenced her perception of him once she was inside the dark pillar, but the revelation that the provider of that power was a god had an unusual effect on her psyche.

As the pillar vanished she smiled and sultrily walked out of the area where she had been temporarily cocooned.

At that moment Althos' gained a bit of influence over the faith domain without even activating it, and also unintentionally began to walk down the road to influence the insanity domain.

Milene had several moments to herself to stand in the dark and safely explore her hypotheses about Althos.

As she felt the rapid changes her body was undergoing she tried to assess what she knew about the strange deity named Althos.

The first thing she knew was that he had powerful magic. His only displays of magic thus far had been his telepathic abilities, and this spell, but they were both potent abilities.

The second thing she knew was that he was lying about his identity. She wasn't sure who all he was lying too, but he was lying. She suspected that the goblins didn't know and that the unicorn didn't know, but it was well within the realm of possibility that she was partially wrong about that one and that one or more of the goblins knew the truth. Althos had moved to save them after all, so who knows what they knew. She also suspected he was probably telling the truth to the orcs and the demon and the devil who followed him around.

The third thing she knew was that he was a deity of not insignificant power. She was by no means a historian or a religious sort, but she knew of the conflict that had at least in the past raged between the devils and the demons and like all dark elves she could identify most demons and some devils by sight alone. Althos had a devil with him, and a demon, and for some reason, they weren't killing each other.

The fourth thing was that he was young. That was it really.

What she wanted to know about the deity was extensive.

She wanted to know if he had given himself a name or if someone else had. She wanted to know if he was a mortal that somehow ascended to divinity. She wanted to know what he wanted. She wanted to know its interest in dark elven kind. And she wanted to know if the creature was interested in evil, good, neutrality, law, or chaos. Or more than one of those things.

Her questions were significant but for now, she knew there was nothing much she could do about them so she focused on what she had control over.

The girl quietly looked at the floor at her feet. Then she closed her eyes and focused her mind on the mental image of the floor. She imagined the floor heating up and then slowing bursting into flames.

She felt a comfortable warmth emerge near her feet and opened her eyes while focusing on the idea of thermal vision. When her eyes opened up she saw orange flames jut out against the darkness of the pillar she was engulfed in, and she grinned in delight.

That was when she received a notification that brought an even wider grin to her face.

[Alert: The following vestigial traits have been resurrected within you, by the young deity known as Althos.

Spear mastery, thermal vision, pyrokinesis, and poison generation.

All of these abilities can level up and can be trained in distinct ways. Careful usage of them empowers them and thusly empowers you.]

In that moment she made a quiet decision. It wasn't a decision she planned to make a big deal out of, but it was an important decision.

Having met Althos, having conversed with him, and having experienced the mutagenic and restorative touch of his magic, as opposed to the destructive pain of the magic of her fellow dark elves deciding to worship him was easy for her.

She was an odd dark elf, one more fascinated by alchemy and by subversion than conquest, magic, and piety, and he was an odd god who in his own way subverted her expectations for what a god was supposed to be. She felt like it was a match made in the Heart of Darkness.

Within his own pillar of darkness Mianthus quietly contemplated his future as he felt the comfortable touch of the darkness Althos generated and had surrounded him with while his magic took effect.

The dark elf was a warrior with a purpose. He was determined to ultimately defeat his enemy, the dark elf witch known as Qu'Ren. To an outsider, the fact that his aunt was his enemy might have seemed shocking but in reality, the woman was a cruel taskmaster who incessantly micromanaged him and his sister, and who lashed out against them at every turn. And frankly, as the elf felt the power of Althos surging through his veins and reaching into his very genetic makeup, the elf felt powerful and courageous.

He felt his brain increase in size slightly and he felt his mind expand. His eyes burned with a mysterious heat as Althos' magic touched his eyes and his sight was seared by the power of the divine magic that had unexpectedly entered him.

It wasn't just the head of the elf that was being affected by Althos' potent magic, it was the creature's whole body. His pores were affected significantly, as the deity's magic seeped into his skin and resurrected an ability long lost to his kind: the ability to generate poison internally that can be used in a variety of ways to poison his foes or those who he is displeased by.

The elf took a deep breath and as he did so he felt the air itself experience the kiss of the poison that was now a part of him and found that it seemed to affect the quality of the air he inhaled. This made the elf smirk, and he thanked Althos for his gift. That was when he received the notification his sister, aunt, and his peer Drow were all receiving at around the same time.

[Alert: The following vestigial traits have been resurrected within you, by the young deity known as Althos.

Thermal vision, telekineses, and poison generation.

All of these abilities can level up and can be trained in distinct ways. Careful usage of them empowers them and thusly empowers you.]

This surprised Mianthus and left him breathless. His abilities didn't affect his mind like how the abilities of his peers did, and Althos' magical touch was pleasant but not euphoric like the sensations had been for his team. He was moved by the revelation that a god had interacted with them in respectful ways, and he was delighted by the fact that the same god had subtly empowered him to fight against his aunt, but the dark elf didn't immediately convert to the worship of the young deity.

This was partially due to Althos' relative disinterest in Mianthus. He was grateful to the elf and was happy to empower him, but the elf didn't have any unique abilities. His abilities were strong, and so was he, but the dark elf's dependability made him stand out in Althos' eyes as a dependable figure who would be difficult to change right away.

Althos quietly thought of him in the same way as he thought of Bazur, a powerful ally who one day might make an incredible worshiper but who at the present moment had a heart that would be difficult to sway.

The final dark elf had perhaps the most unique ability amongst the rest of his peers. As he looked around himself in the pillar of darkness, Drow began to experience something odd.

He could feel a sort of second sight manifesting itself into his brain. At that moment it was totally dark, no color, no shape, and no other sort of sensory input, but Drow had a suspicion of what it was. A suspicion that made his heart flutter, but he quickly stopped the organ from becoming overly excited without any real cause.

If I'm wrong... it would be crushing. He thought. He couldn't dare risk being wrong here. The thought of his heart experiencing this sort of childish joy, just to be crushed was unthinkable. He crushed the inkling of hope his heart was too quick to produce before it could become a wave of excitement or a surge of disappointment.

This strange second sight didn't inconvenience him at all. It was odd, sure, but it wasn't harmful, nor did it do anything unusual aside from giving him a strange black space to "look" at, internally without closing his eyes. He wondered what it was for, and hoped to find out soon.

His eyes physically heated up for a second as his thermal vision was focused on by Althos' magic and then the heat stopped as quickly as it had started. It was an odd sensation.

Surprisingly, the least pleasant experience the elf went through in the pillar of darkness was the emergence of his natural armor. The elf's natural armor came in the form of scales that emerged over the course of a few seconds in weak and sensitive spots all over the elf's body.

They emerged rapidly, and came out of the young warrior's skin, bloodily cutting up the flesh they were replacing. This made the elf hiss in pain, but it was all over fairly quickly and once it was done the pain was quickly replaced by a pleasant sensation that sent almost sensual tingles up and down the areas that were affected by his natural armor.

Then the elf received a notification that confirmed his earlier suspicions.

[Alert: The following vestigial traits have been resurrected within you, by the young deity known as Althos.

Natural armor and clairvoyance.

All of these abilities can level up and can be trained in distinct ways. Careful usage of them empowers them and thusly empowers you.]

The elf hailed from a family with a long line of far-seers, a colloquial term for oracles. He had a suspicion about the nature of Althos' ability from the moment the deity tapped into his mind, and to know that his fate was to deal with the strands of time and with deity-defined visions evoked awe within his cold heart.

It was true... Drow realized, recognizing the name of the ability that his system informed him had been "resurrected" within him. Drow was still as he processed what the young god had just done.

Among many other things the god had told the dark elf the truth earlier, something many dark elves don't have much experience with. He told the truth... Drow thought, his mind-warping at that moment. Althos... Althos just gave me my family's power. The dark elf realized, absorbing the weight of the moment.

A god came to me and did away with the worst part of my life. How can I ever repay him? The dark elf realized and then thought, as the pillar around him began to vibrate slightly. What can I do for a literal god? What service could I ever possibly provide? Especially one that comes into my life and just... irrevocably transforms it.

If I can't repay this god... maybe I should serve him? Maybe I should... praise him? The dark elf thought, his mind racing with possibilities. Is that... what I should do?

Would that please this god? Would such an act of service... be something that enriches that god's life? I suppose... there's only one way to find out. Althos, in exchange for this power, my life and my soul are in your hands. Take them. Use them. Use me. Use me however you wish.

Althos suddenly received a notification, while the elves were in the pillars that made his eyes go wide in shock.

[Alert: You have gained three worshippers. One of them is the spellcaster named Qu'Ren who seeks to serve you in exchange for power. Another is the new oracle, Drow the dark elven surface-scout.

If you so desire you may form a pact with this spellcaster which will allow you to copy her knowledge and mastery over dark powers and give her access to spells you know which she does not currently have. You will be her master and can give her tasks and command, summon, or even possess her, and through serving you she will gain access to new feats and powers. Her class will also be modified.

Since this is the first time you're meeting this type of person, servants of divine powers, allow us, the system, to introduce you to the most basic class-types accessible to fervent worshippers of gods and goddesses. Aside from clerics, obviously.

Oracles: People gifted with visions by deities. Occasionally non-religious oracles appear but typically once someone knows of their oracular abilities, especially if they are affiliated with a particular deity, the people swiftly convert to the worship and service of the gods who give them their visions because the deities control the visions and can punish or torture oracles with a variety of visions. Oracles whisper the wills of the gods to the servants of the gods who go out on quests to honor the lords and ladies they revere.

Dark Nights: Paladin like figures who move in service to gods of darkness and villainy, demon lords and arch-devils. They call themselves "Dark Nights" to distinguish themselves from knights who do villainous things for fun because in their eyes those are fools who play with things they don't understand.

Witches, Warlocks, and Wards: Spellcasters who draw their magical might from pacts they make with a variety of incredible powers. In the age of the old gods, there was a multitude of powers and creatures to make pacts with. After that age, true warlocks, witches, and wards vanished but some clung to the titles and redefined them to mean magic users who specialized in conjuration magic.]

This alert shocked but didn't displease Althos. In fact, the young deity was quite pleased by it. It was an unexpected and lovely reward for the effort the deity put into fulfilling what was basically another quest.

Despite the life-changing nature of Althos' powers and the revelations that the system provided them with, the elves kept their word. Minutes after emerging from their pillars of darkness, as newly empowered creatures and as new members of a strange and growing faith, they left the immediate presence of their new master and god.

They did this at Althos' own prompting, via the mind links he had established with them. He told them to leave the immediate vicinity and that when night fell he would join them. The deity felt that he owed them an explanation, and since three out of four of them now worshiped him he figured he may as well try and lure Mianthus into the religion he was building so that he may gain yet another servant.

Once the elves left the immediate area Althos' party left the cave and ventured away from the lair of the dark unicorn. They were joined by the goblins, and the expanded party wandered until they found an area where they felt safe from either the dark elves or the dark unicorn. They spent hours exploring the forest, and Althos quietly combed the copied knowledge he had gleefully absorbed from Amelie's mind.

By mid-afternoon Althos' knowledge, as in the knowledge that was legitimately his own had multiplied several times over. He gained knowledge of settlements, species, magic, and cultural tales. He even eagerly shared it with his advisors, who reacted to the deity's eager sharing of knowledge as parents might react to a series of firsts done by their children.

A handful of events occurred during the wandering done by the enlarged party.

The dark unicorn was convinced to accept this turn of events by Althos, who shortly after the party left vanished for a quick second using the excuse of needing to take a bathroom break, something he had learned from Amelie's memories, and returning to the lair of the beast. He used magic to empower the creature and enhance its aura through an empowering vestigial trait that was locked away in the horse's genetics.

The unicorn, after learning of Althos' divinity promised not to follow or harm the goblins and gratefully accepted the resurrection of its vestigial trait as more than fair payment for the goblins. Althos smiled at the beast and wished it well before leaving.

Another event that occurred during this lull in the deity's rather action-packed life was that he was reminded by M.A. that she was going to teach him about necromancy. That reminded deeply excited the deity, who was mere hours away from gaining knowledge about one of the darkest schools of magic, and who couldn't wait to be able to gain that power and that might.

Althos had tried to speak to the goblins he had rescued. They expressed profound gratitude to him but told him that they didn't want to share what they knew about the quest both of their parties were undertaking until they were clear of the powerful creatures the goblins believed could easily have been following them. Althos' accepted their reasoning, after attempting to persuade them otherwise for nearly half an hour. He had to admire their stubbornness but they were, in fact, wrong, no one was following them.

When they happened across a natural clearing, a meadow not unlike the one Althos saw in Amelie's mind, the expanded party came to a stop and quietly set up camp. The goblins liked the area, because the goblins felt that sneaking up on them there would be a challenge, and Althos' didn't mind it so his party accepted their reasoning.

At this point, hours had passed since the party saved the goblins from slavery and sacrifice, and the sun was setting down on the third day of Althos' life. Althos's mind was ablaze with activity and he was excited for the night to begin so that he may go converse with his new worshippers, as well as the upcoming conversation he was moments from having with the goblin.