Guided by the memories of the elves who had joined his party, Althos wordlessly led them through the dark forest. His party members were as silent as he was, and the deity found himself enjoying the silence. He suspected that various members of the mixed party were communicating amongst themselves, but personally, the deity liked the quiet.

After exploring for nearly 45 minutes the party found themselves steadily approaching a light, off in the distance. The closer they got to the light the less dense the trees around them felt, and some of the orcs breathed a sigh of relief when they realized this. They suspected this meant they were nearing the edge of the forest, or at least another clearing.

Althos knew that this clearing was where they were heading. And when they finally reached it, his party members realized why. Aside from the elves who had already known why they were heading in this direction. This was the way for them to get back home, the area that led to the tunnel through which people could enter or leave the world beneath the world.

Althos grinned as they entered the clearing, and found themselves starring at the entrance into the subterranean super-continent from which dark elves, lizard-people, and many other manners of fascinating monsters for Althos to gain control of, dwelt.

The party didn't stop moving even as they made it all the way into the clearing and were steps away from the actual entrance into the underground.

The tunnel's mouth was facing away from them, but as those new to the world beneath the world approached they noticed some odd things about the tunnel.

First and foremost they noticed the small river that flowed out of it, barely visible in the dark due to its thin size. They also noticed that as they neared the tunnel, and once they had gained the ability to peer within it, that there was some sort of natural lighting within it that cast a very dim glow on the whole area even when its source was invisible to the people peering at the tunnel from the outside.

It took them a little over seven minutes to get to the entrance to the tunnel mouth, and without a shred of hesitation, the party entered the tunnel. Althos had quite enjoyed this journey so far, so the deity felt like continuing it. For now at least.

Once inside the tunnel, the party continued their trek to a location close to the dark elven city of Undermoon. Althos was enjoying the new sights before him, and his curious gaze explored everything, even though the memories he had absorbed from the elves made him feel distantly familiar with this place.

The tunnel they were in was abuzz with activity. Althos could sense the presence of a variety of lifeforms thanks to his radar power, his tremorsense, and his powerful senses.

Not only could he feel that creatures who burrowed through the earth were active within the earthy walls of the tunnel, but he could also feel countless small creatures below his party and creatures on the floor beneath him and his party that were so small that even if one looked at their own feet they'd be hard-pressed to detect them.

Althos could hear the swimming of fish in the tiny river that had, over the course of countless years eroded the stone floor of the tunnel and eventually escaped into the forest that surrounded the natural cavern. The river was to their right, and they walked along the stone floor that bordered it. If a fish near them got overzealous and splashed around, the resulting splashes could easily get them wet due to the relative narrowness of the tunnel.

The tunnel was barely 6 meters wide, though it was more than tall enough to easily accommodate their tallest party members. The water beside them took up perhaps a full meter of the width of the tunnel, so upon entering the tunnel Althos had made his form more narrow and had allowed someone, which ended up being Silander, to walk beside him.

In the forest, the deity had chosen to take the lead, and no one had been right beside him after the short clash with the bear. Now the party was basically operating on the buddy system to more easily navigate the tight confines they'd have to go through to reach their destination.

After perhaps a quarter of an hour of walking through the tunnel, which got increasingly bright the deeper they delved, Althos and his party finally discovered the source of the odd illumination. Althos was the first one to spot the source itself, thanks to his powerful vision.

Several dozen meters ahead of the party a single, positively gigantic mushroom was growing out of the wall right above the river. This strange mushroom was radiating intensely bright light, and Althos wondered about it as they gradually got closer and closer to it. Althos scanned the memories and knowledge within his brain for information on the odd thing but found fairly little.

What little he could find generally identified the mushroom as a somewhat common type of flora within the world beneath the world that provided useful and necessary illumination for the surface dwellers who braved the dangers of this world to visit civilized spaces beneath the world's surface for goods that tended to be illegal on the surface.

Eventually, the party got close enough to the mushroom to be able to identify it for what it was themselves without Althos' assistance. What they noticed and what he noticed were different. Althos could make out the color of the mushroom through the light it was radiating, a light which intensified to near blinding levels if one looked right at the fungus and from time to time he saw individual, particularly tiny, milk-white spores softly fall off of the cap of the gigantic mushroom and into the river several meters below the source of the tunnel's light.

The memories and knowledge that Althos had acquired over the course of his life, including from other people, did not mention anything about spores. This filled the deity with a level of curiosity which would later prove insatiable, and he saw in the mushroom and its spores a chance to gain some real knowledge of his own and on his own. His mind was alight with activity as he neared the strange spores.

Most of his followers, on the other hand, could only see the light it was radiating, and though they could barely make out a strange shadow from deep within the light, they couldn't identify its shape at a glance. They found the light source somewhat blinding and turned away from its source as they neared it. Aside from Raverangos and Salifinos, who were as nonplussed by the light as Althos was, but lacked the deity's curiosity.

The deity's curiosity compelled him to do the strange thing he did next.

As they were passing the mushroom, the deity took a slight detour. Instead of passing by the mushroom and ignoring it, the deity walked into the water below the organism and leaped towards it.

His followers noticed that he had vanished, but didn't know where to look to see him. So they began to call out to him, both physically and mentally.

The deity ignored them and focused on feeding his curiosity. His leap easily reached a space just below the gills of the thick mushroom, and as a result of this the entity he was right underneath was powered up immediately and intensely by his empowering aura. The creature reacted to his presence by shaking happily.

The action was surprising to the deity, who didn't get hit by the body of the creature but did get a face-full of tiny, milk-white, powdery spores the mushroom unintentionally released in the wake of its excitement.

Normally such direct exposure to the spores would cause unpleasant reactions in anyone unlucky enough to be touched by them directly, but the deity was an immortal being with a variety of powers and immunities. He could not be negatively affected by naturally occurring substances, including the unintentionally released spores.

Instead of harming the deity, the spores made him interested in the mushroom and whatever other abilities it may have had. His curiosity would have had a chance to be immediately displayed quite prominently if it wasn't for the notification the deity was about to receive.

Fungi were odd creatures. Whether they were found on the surface, or in the world beneath the world, they were remarkably alive entities and creatures who actively interacted with the world around them.

The massive fungus in the tunnel had a long white stem and a bright red cap colored in blue scales, measured over an entire meter long from its mycelial roots to its cap. It was a particularly excitable individual in general but at that moment it was excited specifically because it was the first of its species to detect the deity.

It saw the young god and immediately reacted to his unique and empowering aura. It reacted by energetically shaking and accidentally releasing spores from within its gills.

It also reacted by spontaneously maturing in response to his proximity, his aura inadvertently providing it with the energy needed for it to gain a new method of communication.

In a space with relatively little airflow in any direction, the end result of its premature releasing of spores was that they fell directly on Althos. The deity was unbothered by them and merely looked at the fungi in confusion. It was seconds after the spores fell on his face that he first "heard" the mushroom.

"I can't believe this! A deity came to me! What a joyous day! Is this the day that fungi finally gain a deity?"

The mushroom was still shaking, and as far as Althos could tell the voice he "heard" actually belonged to the odd organism. The voice was incredibly happy, filled with euphoric joy the likes of which neither Althos nor the mushroom had never felt before, due to the fungi's closeness to a young deity with growing powers and as much a history of altering his surroundings as any other noteworthy feat he had accomplished in his short life.

Althos' very aura itself was now capable of boosting lifeforms in his presence, and the mushroom was definitely a lifeform, a lifeform less unlike humanoids and other mobile lifeforms than many of them may have suspected.

Althos was stunned into silence, and his shock caused him to fall to the surface a few meters below him and the mushroom. He landed harmlessly on the watery floor beneath him, disturbing the river and causing a splash large enough for the displaced water to touch his party members who were further away from the river than he had been.

It was when he landed in the thin river that the deity recovered his wits, and looked back up at the mushroom. He was in the middle of composing a mental message to send to it when he received an odd notification informing him of a multitude of new things and presenting him with a choice.

[Multi-part alert:

Oh boy, where do we start with this one? So, Althos, you've got a choice, but to get to that choice we've say to do a lot. So take a second and listen to what we've got to say.

First of all, by now you've figured out that domains are intelligent. Some more so than others. You've already conversed with two domains yourself.

Just like other intelligent things, some domains are more popular than others. Well... when we talk specifically about "popularity" we're discussing it from a specific angle: that of the gods because some of these domains may have been less popular among the gods but were or are popular among mortals.

There are two domains in particular that you've demonstrated some interest in, that were considered unpopular domains by the gods. The domain of vermin and we're pretending that your actions here indicate that you're interested in the domain of fungi. These domains were positively hated in the old age. They were so hated that the only deity-level entities who took an interest in them were demon-lords.

These are useful, potent domains that grant those who exert influence over them a variety of powers and at least the potential for innumerable servants, but the deities who existed during the old age were prideful and wanted to be able to control more directly powerful-looking domains. You on the other hand... well your attitude is different. You are the sort of person whose curiosity and non-discriminatory attitude would make you an excellent overseer for these domains and subdomains.

So we want to offer you a test. We want you to become the new, and first-ever god of fungi. If you accept this, you'll gain a wide variety of powers and if you learn to be a responsible god of fungi then we'll reward you by granting you control over the vermin subdomain.

One of the things that come with this is that you'll be granted total control over the subdomain of fungi. You'll automatically gain full control over it.

Oh and just because you become the "god of fungi" doesn't mean other domains or subdomains are closed off to you, it just means that this is a subdomain you're the master of.

Before you accept, we will be granting you powers related to this domain and giving you a chance to preview the first quest designed to help you transition into becoming a guardian of fungi. For now, take a look at the powers.

New divine power explanation: Spore Production

This power has been created in response to Althos' face-first encounter with spores created by a luminous lurker mushroom, a populous mushroom often found illuminating the world beneath the world. This power allows Althos to create and spread spores in a variety of ways, such as with a flick of his wrist, through new types of limbs such as a proboscis, a Pilobolus like appendage, or through a kiss.

These spores can be absorbed in a variety of ways, such as through inhalation or by contact with skin or soil.

These spores can serve a variety of purposes, such as allowing creatures to enter a dream-world created and controlled by Althos, they can be a poison that kills those who fall victim to them, allow creatures to hear and understand the language of sentient fungi, calm enemies, or reanimate corpses transforming them into spore-critters. Or they could be spores that actually turn into mushrooms and other forms of fungi.

This power can be upgraded both by experience and as a reward for completing quests related to fungi. Upgrades diversify the usages of the spores and reduce the cooldown time needed to recharge the power. Higher-level usages of the spores can induce insanity, evoke a range of emotions beyond calmness, and even heal both fungal and non-fungal lifeforms.

Cooldown time: depends on the spore-type in question, but ones that enable creatures to hear and understand fungi can be produced as often as wanted.

New divine power explanation: Aura of Fungal Superiority

This power creates a constant aura that is invisible to non-fungi but is perpetually visible to fungi. Fungi, no matter their intelligence or attitudes towards other sentient creatures, will always recognize Althos as their god and will refuse to act aggressively towards him. If Althos so desires this aura can automatically cause fungi in his presence to enter into a delirious state of joy and hyper-activity, including normally non-mobile fungi.

Cooldown time: perpetually active. It cannot be turned off.

New divine power explanation: Spore Maturation

This power allows Althos to speed the growth rates of spores, causing them to advance to the next stage of their lifecycles almost immediately.

Cooldown time: one activation per hour, but can affect multiple spores in a small area. It can be reduced as a reward for completing fungi quests.

New divine power explanation: Mycorrhizal Mastery

Althos is granted the ability to meld with mycorrhizal networks, networks that connects fungi and plants. Althos can empower these networks, seize control of them, or weaken them. This network is a network that typical boosts plants and creates positive symbiotic relationships between various sorts of plants and fungi.

Cooldown time: 24 times a day, at the end of each day unexpended usages are lost. It can be upgraded and this cooldown time can be improved, through usage.

New divine power explanation: Hivemind Creation/Mycorrhizal Domination

This power creates a hivemind that infects the minds of selected fungi who Althos has met, which can be as few as two or as many as every fungus Althos has interacted with. This creates a single synergized will and turns all members into creatures who seek to fulfill Althos' will, or any objectives specifically stated during the activation of the power and syncs their minds granting targeted fungi telepathy with other targeted fungi.

This power can last as long as Althos' wishes.

Cooldown time: Once per day. This can be upgraded but can only be upgraded through the completion of the fungal subdomain quests.

New title acquired: The Fungal Lord

A note about titles: Titles are divine monikers if a creature worships an entity known as a certain title and doesn't know the specific name of the entity, the creature with that moniker receives the worship and sacrifices to that entity as though they knew the deity's true name. A deity with multiple titles can have a variety of different pseudonyms and still receive every bit of power or respect afforded to the titles with no divine consequence.

New minor note: Upon becoming the "god of" any particular thing, any existing restrictions that would have inhibited your ability to do something related to that "thing" vanish. In the case of fungi, you are never again affected by an inability to hear them. Fungai have a sort of restriction on their speech that makes hearing them difficult even for deities, but as the god of fungi, you will always be able to hear the voices and thoughts of your fungi friends.

New quest: Aid fungi communities

Objective: Help 5 communities of fungi. How they are helped isn't particularly important, so long as they request the aid themselves.

Progress: 0/5 communities aided.

Reward: New titles and powers related to fungi, progress towards the plant and nature domains, and a greater likelihood of becoming the god of vermin.

Note: Fungi are encountered in every plane and universe. This is not a time-sensitive quest. Completion of it is not designed to be a priority. Fungi have existed for trillions of years across every life-bearing universe in existence, without any gods. They are patient. But the completion of this quest will go a long way towards granting Althos more worshippers and exposure to a neat class of lifeforms, lifeforms who in the past were ignored by deities.

Does Althos accept this offer?

Y

N]

Althos read through this positively gigantic notification with a neutral expression on his face. Several minutes passed while he did this, minutes in which he was silent and not moving. The deity was standing and was unharmed from his fall, but his silence and his statue-like stillness made him an eerie sight. His followers stood still while he read the longest notification he'd ever seen.

While he had been reading through it, he had also been thinking. He had been carefully reflecting on the information he had been presented with.

The first thing the deity pondered was about one of the system's first sentences.

So it's not just the domain of knowledge that's intelligent? It's at least another one? And I've talked to TWO domains? I guess that explains the other voice in my head, huh?

Then the deity read more. He read entire chunks of the massive notification without having particularly substantive thoughts or moments of introspection. Plenty of minor thoughts occurred to him though.

Popularity? What's that?

I WOULD like to become the god of vermin! Why would the ability to befriend little critters only be appealing to demon lords? That's unfortunate.

Nondiscriminate sounds like a good thing, but given its usage, in that sentence, I feel as though it's a bit insulting in context...

I wonder if there's a limit to how many domains and subdomains I can control? I doubt there is, but I wonder if maybe they, as intelligent... entities have a personal preference for the number of deities they'd serve? That'd make more sense, to me at least, than deities being limited in the number of domains they could control.

These powers sound pretty great, actually. They alone are a real reason to consider becoming a god of fungi...

So I have a new title huh? I guess that means that if I wanted too I could get fungi to worship me differently than my other worshipers do. That's awesome!

I wonder if there are any actual, substantive downsides to becoming the god of fungi? As far as I can tell this is a free powerup... Well, not quite free, but almost free. And I'm not one to turn down free power, or unexpected opportunities.

Althos asked this question to the system. The system didn't respond. Althos felt suspicious of this, but though the deity didn't know it, there weren't any actual downsides to becoming the god of fungi. That was why the system didn't respond to him.

After spending nearly a minute reflecting on the possibilities laid out before him, and the power of stepping into truly uncharted territory, the deity took the plunge. He informed the system that he'd become the deity of fungi.

[Due to the nature of fungi and the existence of intelligent, sentient fungal creatures, like fungal folks, we, the system, require something from you Althos. A biography, of sorts. Please give us one that we can use to announce your existence to fungi. This is due to the strangeness of the "minds" of fungi, which are capable of worship and are capable of thought-to-thought communication.

For now, rather than try to explain this in-depth, we just want to get a bio from you that you can use whenever you feel like initiating contact with one of your fungal wards. If you use this in place of your normal message it'll help show that you're their guardian and confirm what they begin to sense as you approach: you are divine.]

Althos thought for a few seconds before coming up with something that he felt was suitable, fairly honest, and introduced his priorities to fungi pretty well. It was also, quite short on specific knowledge of fungi, as even Milene, the closest thing he had to a fungus expert given her passion for alchemy didn't know much about fungi. He quickly transmitted it to his system.

[The fungal lord is a deity of curiosity, fungi, and memories. He seeks to protect and guide all fungal creatures and wishes to create places that are safe habitats for them to live and thrive in. He is currently roaming the multiverse and when he comes across fungi he will approach them, aid them, and protect them.]

After Althos transmitted this message to the system, the system began to inflict its changes upon the young deity.

The resulting effects were immediate.

The deity's followers and the strange mushroom with whom Althos had nearly made contact before were buffeted back by the energized torrent of magical energy that exploded out of the deity. Aside from the mushroom anyone in the deity's immediate proximity was knocked off their feet and magically pushed several meters back.

The tunnel was bathed in soft green light, a light that exploded out of the deity along with the energy his body was expelling. This light illuminated every millimeter of the tunnel for over an entire kilometer, and to mushrooms and other fungi in the part of the tunnel exposed to the rays of light, the light caused a sensation of euphoria and tranquility.

The mushroom responsible for all of this was knocked back by the powerful magical energy that exploded out of the deity, but its roots secured its position in the wall of the tunnel. So the only part of it that moved was its cap and stem, before returning to their original position like a sort of bulbous punching-bag.

The mushroom also enjoyed the sensation of the deity's energy and the power of the light that came out of him.

This light covered the mushroom and blinded even its non-visual senses to the world around. That didn't prevent the mushroom from reacting to it though, as the creature reacted to it joyously even as it received its own notification from its own system.

[Alert: The Fungal Lord has risen and is in close proximity to you. The Fungal Lord is the guardian and deity of all fungi, including extraplanar fungi, shambling fungal, and mobile fungal creatures. He is also a new deity, and was initially modeled after a humanoid but has now transformed and become something else.

The Fungal Lord is a deity of fungi, curiosity, and memories. He seeks to protect and guide all fungal creatures and wishes to create places that are safe habitats for them to live and thrive in. He is currently roaming the multiverse in search of those he seeks to protect and when he comes across fungi he will approach them, aid them, and protect them. He seeks to bless and guide not just fungi but also druids and clerics of spores and mycelium.

Do you wish to worship the Fungal Lord?]

For the mushroom responsible for all of this, the one whose spores touched the deity and set off this wild chain of events, the choice was easy. The nameless creature instantly became an adherent of the lord of fungi.

The deity in question grinned when he gained a new worshiper. Even as his body was changing in response to his new powers, and his form was becoming considerably more mushroomy, he grinned when he felt the rush of power that came with the acquisition of a new worshiper flood his veins.

While his body was being transformed due to his acceptance of stewardship over a new domain his mind was being filled with new information.

Althos' mind was flooded with fungal facts, and he felt his knowledge of fungal creatures, things he had some awareness of before due to Amelie's and Milene's memories and knowledge having a home in his mind, explode. His young mind was filled with the knowledge of trillions of sorts of fungi.

He was made aware of the existence of powerful sorts of fungal folks, marine fungi, and even fungi who could survive in the space between the worlds of the mortal plane, the area some creatures knew as "outer space".

He was filled with knowledge about how fungi fed, and about how to safely transfer fungi from one place to another, including ways only accessible to him and to fungal folks.

Several moments after Althos accepted new responsibilities and new powers, the light began to fade and Althos' new form began to be identifiable through the fading but the still intense green light.

From within the light, Althos' mind was filled with affectionate thoughts about not only the mushroom responsible for exposing him to spores and thereby granting the system an opportunity to empower him but also the first mushroom he had ever seen.

Eventually, though, the light fully faded. Althos' followers looked at their master and in many cases their god, and were both amazed and concerned by his new form.