My party of scholars, theologians, and in more than a few cases seemingly random creatures, and I crept through the gallery. We had already been here for a few minutes, exploring this place at our own pace.

While doing so I heard a series of remarks about the artwork my worshipers and servants saw, as several of them got messages from the dungeon about the artwork they were looking at. Some of them were in front of me, and some were behind me. We all felt safe here, something which my senses helped me confirm because both my radar and my tremor-sense failed to detect anything more than the pieces of art around us.

Over the course of the last few minutes, I had also picked up assorted names and devoted them to memory. Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Pan, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Dionysus, Hermes, and more. I thought, pronouncing their names carefully, almost reverentially, as I remembered them. The members of an ancient and long gone pantheon. I mused, at least somewhat aware of the potency of the knowledge I now possessed, knowledge of more gods than I had been aware of even an hour ago.

"So that's a god of stealth and theft?" Remarked Gallow as he studied a painting depicting a youthful-looking figure with winged boots. He carefully studied it, his eyes narrowing as he took in the form of a figure he knew was named Hermes, at least according to the dungeon. He was paying particular attention to the fact that the figure was nearly nude. His eyes were drawn to the statue's anatomically correct bits.

"Would I be more stealthy if I were naked?" The orc wondered. At that mostly idle remark, I stepped in and spoke into the mind of my follower.

[No. You wouldn't be more stealthy if you were naked. You are green, and a light shade of green at that. Only in a forest, at night, might you be more stealthy if you were naked. Hermes almost certainly had some magical or divine means of stealth that is inaccessible to you.] I told the green-skinned rogue.

I heard the orc click his tongue in realization, and also in annoyance. He was far from the only figure making idle remarks about the figures depicted in the artwork we saw.

"These people had a goddess of marriage? That seems... strange." Hagitha said, thinking aloud as she stared at a statue that according to a message the dungeon communicated to her was a statue of the Olympian named Hera. She studied the statue of the regal queen goddess and seemed truly mystified by it. I walked up behind her and studied her.

She was still, dressed in casual clothing that was carefully ensorcelled to provide her with all the protections of armor. I could tell by studying it, carefully scrutinizing the aura the armor radiated and by scanning it with an Appraisal. I smiled at her, undetected even as I moved very close to her.

"Humans and their fixations with marriage. Such a strange... fetish." She remarked, idly. In doing so she revealed her own casual antipathy towards both monogamy and an institution she viewed as deeply human: marriage. I chuckled at her, revealing my proximity and I saw her muscles flex and tense up in surprise.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." I told her, honestly. I moved out from behind her and walked forward until I was beside her.

"It's odd, isn't it? Especially since this pantheon had a goddess of sex, love, fertility, and lust, and she wasn't the same goddess as their goddess of marriage, childbirth, and family." I exclaimed myself mystified by it. It was one of the odd little things about this pantheon.

"I find it... funny that they seemed to understand that someone being married isn't an indicator of love." The dark elf said, smiling at her own pithy comment. I grinned at her.

"Not a fan of the institution of marriage?" I remarked, rhetorically. She turned to look at me, her own eyes flaring in amusement.

"No. But you knew that. You know everything about me, don't you?" She asked, herself asking a rhetorical question. I made my face a neutral mask, before instantaneously shifting it into a replica of the first dark-elf to lay with the spell-singing oracle, and looked at her for a single second, long enough for her to see my face and react to it with a soft gasp. And then I changed my face back to that of my devilish form.

"Yes, I do. I know your every secret." I told her, confidently. She shook her head at me, sighing at what she no doubt viewed as me being a mischevious little scamp. And then she began to speak again.

"It is... odd that worshipers of this pantheon had two separate gods for something as linked as the idea of love and the idea of marriage." She said, again harping on this point. I thought about it for a second before sharing my own hypothesis, a rough and mostly instinctual one, with her.

"Maybe it's because marriage is a lawful institution related to family-building and love and lust are chaotic emotions? I wonder if Hera was a lawful deity and Aphrodite was a chaotic one... that'd certainly explain it to me." I told her, making a rough point that I was only able to make thanks to the memories of humans I had swirling within me, memories that showed me a human society, the society of Reconquista, wherein marriage was a political and lawful institution that tied together families. Hagitha considered my response for a moment before nodding her head in faint agreement with at least my general point.

"I suppose that would make sense... Dark elven society, at least in Undermoon, isn't strongly lawfully aligned so we don't like such institutions. Plus for elves, as long-lived as we are, marriages that are monogamous are often unthinkable." She said, mostly thinking aloud. I nodded at her in sympathetic understanding, having long learned what she felt and that many of my dark-elven worshipers agreed with her.

"Honestly? I can understand that. To an extent anyway. I'm only a few months old, but I've never experienced those sorts of feelings. At least directly. I've only experienced shades of love, lust, and attraction through the memories of my worshipers but I've never felt those things myself." I said, twisting the truth just a little bit.

A small part of me remembered the events of just hours ago. Events that stirred a part of me I hadn't known existed, a small fire that could had felt perverse enjoyment out of controlling my first witch, Qu'Ren. I had also felt a twinge of desire looking at Aphrodite. So I could relate a bit more to the elven passions than I had just let on.

Hagitha was unaware of that and just laughed at my remarks. "I'm a bit jealous." She confessed.

"I sometimes wish I didn't feel that sort of desire. It makes me feel... undemonic." She told me. I looked at her in confusion for a second. I was aware of this aspect of her, but she only rarely vocalized it. I went ahead and took advantage of this chance to probe her conscious mind and see how aware she was of her own unconsciousness. I began to act a bit, injecting confusion into my facial expression and voice.

"Are you saying that demons don't experience sexual desire?" I asked her, overtly expressing my feigned confusion. "Succubi experience tons of sexual desire. So do incubi. I can only imagine that other demons experience sexual desire as well." I told her, keenly aware of her extensive knowledge of succubi and incubi, demons of sex and sexuality. She chuckled at me.

"You aren't wrong. But when I feel lust... it makes me feel unconnected from my ultimate desires. My lust distracts me from inching towards my ultimate goal." She said an edge of fanaticism in her voice. A quiet but not imperceptible edge of fear in it as well. I sighed and shook my head at her.

"That's just wrong. Giving into lust and surrendering to other desires, especially if doing so results in harm happening to others, keeps your soul firmly evil. That's something that I would imagine is important for eventually becoming a demon." I told her, having fairly little knowledge of the processes by which souls became demons.

She nodded at me, her beliefs matching up with my knowledge. She opened her mouth to speak, seemingly uplifted. a little bit anyway, by our conversation. "That's true. That matches what I know, anyway." She said, shortly before correcting herself.

Our conversation continued for a bit, before drifting off. In a matter of minutes, I proceeded to walk over to some of my other servants, having heard their remarks as they studied the artwork surrounding us as well.

"A god of the underworld is also a god of wealth? That sounds... oddly devillike." Tristan said, to her father. The two of them were studying a statue of a gigantic figure who held a bident, a sword-like weapon with two prongs.

The figure was darkly handsome, with chiseled, muscular features, and stood atop a chariot that was crafted to look as if it were drawn by still, skeletal horses. The figure, Hades, had a scowl etched onto his face.

I walked over to the pair of devils, father, and daughter, and listened to their remarks about the Olympian who was considered their lord of the dead, a figure who also lorded over the bounty of the earth itself. Tristan's minotaur bodyguard was off in the distance, studying a piece of pottery that depicted a minotaur, and not with her at the moment.

"It does, doesn't it? I wonder if this Hades' fellow once had some alliances with our kind..." Nefarious remarked, his regal voice commenting smoothly on the god he was looking at. "The fellow is very melancholy though." The noble devil said, commenting on the apparent mood of the god depicted in the artwork. I got up beside Tristan and began to study the same piece of art as the family of devils. Tristan smiled when I stood beside her, stepping to me and then placing her head on my shoulder.

"Hey Althos. What do you think of Hades?" She asked, relaxing next to me. Nefarious also glanced at me, his countless eyes zeroing in on me. They starred at me curiously. I smiled at the moth-devil and glanced at him, my eyes lingering just long enough for him to notice, before flicking back to the statue.

"Hades was one of the primary three gods of the Olympian pantheon. He was a god of wealth, death, and the very earth itself. I can't say I dislike him based on what little I know about him. He was also associated with monsters, which makes me view him more highly a lot more. I find monsters pretty interesting." I told the pair. They nodded at my assessment of him, seemingly unsurprised by it.

"I hope to one day mirror his power over his domains. Being a god of death sounds really neat. As does being a true god of the earth." I told them, indirectly revealing my interest in and appreciation of my earth-based powers. Every step I took in the gallery was one that was empowered by my ability to control the ground at my feet, and to gain knowledge from each subtle movement.

"I may not be particularly interested in wealth for the sake of wealth, but thanks to the memories of my worshippers I can understand how it is that mortals feel about wealth. Gaining power over greed and over wealth are two things that would suit me well. and Hades had power over wealth even if he didn't have power over greed." I told my devilish companions. Nefarious nodded in interested agreement with what I had just said.

"It seems like you are quite fond of Hades' power if nothing else." He said, assessing my statement carefully. I nodded back at him and began to articulate my agreement with his remarks.

"I am. I think his domains and subdomains are strong ones, all of which would be useful for aiding tyrants and other lawful evil people." I explained, honestly, to my noble servant.

"Althos as a grim-faced god of death, tyrants, and wealth, would be an imposing sight. Imagine it, father, as a sight seen by the enemies of Infernius? Wise foes of ours would be scared of it, that's for sure." Tristan told me and her father, her moving lips as her head rested on my shoulder causing her head to vibrate slightly, something I noticed and felt. Her speech pattern around her father was one which was formal, but also possessed an exuberant joy she struggled to hide underneath noble language, even months after Nefarious' resurrection. I grinned.

"I don't know if I can match Hades' stoic demeanor though. I don't know if I have it in me to be as imposing-looking as he must have been in life." I told the father and daughter duo. They chuckled at me, and both admitted that when it came to that I was correct. Neither of them could truly imagine me, a deity they had often seen smiling or chuckling, could be as frighteningly upset looking as the statue of Hades was.

A few moments later, I began to walk again, this time towards my creations: the dwarves and the Mi-Go.

Rebecca, Lisabeth, and the Mi-Go stood in a group. They were examining a painting of Zeus on a cloud above a series of burning buildings. Their eyes were carefully studying the thing, taking in every detail. I watched them silently for a moment.

They were still as if waiting for something. I could tell they were shocked about something and it had rendered them inert after a few moments of careful examination of my creations.

"Hey, what's going on?" I said to them, as I approached the unlikely trio, united by the fact that I was the closest thing any of them had to a parent. Surprisingly, of the three of them, the Mi-Go was the first to speak.

"Althos... what is that god doing?" Its eerie, insectoid voice filling my mind and the minds of the other creatures I had created and brought with me. I studied the painting for a second, my eyes taking in its details.

The painting depicted an indifferent seeming Zeus, a god with a golden body and golden hair, quite literally looking down on a burning settlement. His hands crackled with the residue of some energy, possibly leftover power from the attack that had caused the settlement to begin to burn. I opened my mouth to speak to the creatures who considered themselves my children.

"Well, it looks as though he's resting after destroying a village." I explained to scientifically minded Mi-Go. It considered my remarks for a second. Rebecca, the first dwarf I ever created, didn't. Instead she reacted to them right away.

"But why?" She asked, disbelief filling her voice. I looked at her, a bit surprised at this display of innocence and naivety.

"I don't know Rebecca." I told her honestly. "Why? Are you surprised at this act of what might be cruelty?" I asked, curiously. She nodded at me and I sighed.

"Rebecca..." I said, a sigh audible in my words, as I began to consider how to speak to her, how to assuage whatever she was feeling. I had never lied to her, so this was a bit surprising. Nor was there anything in her fairly short life that led me to believe she had cause to think this innocently.

I should talk to her. And figure out why she's feeling this way. This shock and disbelief. I realized, immediately. The first thing I said to her was simple.

"We don't know enough about the context of this piece of art to know what it is depicting. Nor do we know if it's meant to be based on something that actually happened." I told her, speaking softly and comfortingly to the woman I had created to guard and help manage one of my lairs but who had become something else, something more, to me at least, over the course of her life.