The forest path in front of me began to narrow as I walked down it, my companions right beside and behind me. Of the two creatures accompanying me, my more intelligent companion took up a bit more room than I did though which was doubly unfortunate since we were on a narrow path, as it was a massive spider and on a purely physical level I was little more than a regular-sized human.

The sounds of its footfalls thundered and echoed through the otherwise still forest. All around us the forest hushed and grew quiet in the wake of our passing. It was interesting because as I was growing stronger and stronger my senses were slowly interesting their range and overall quality, so I was even more sensitive to their gradual vanishment then I would have been a few minutes ago.

As we wandered deeper and deeper into the forest, I learned more and more about my wiser friend companion. "What do spiders normally eat?" I asked the thing, though I could guess at least a bit of the answer to my question just from looking at my friend's maw. Sharp fangs protruded from my friend's mouth, so large that they were visible even when its lips were as closed as the creature could force them.

"I am a predator. A carnivore." Chizi replied, its voice entering my mind easily and naturally like it made perfect sense for us to engage in mind to mind communication. I wasn't surprised to hear the thing declare that it was a carnivore. My next question wasn't asked audibly, but instead was aimed at the system and was a physically silent one.

"What sort of domains and subdomains are there for animals and nature?" I asked, my mental voice speaking in the "direction" the system's own voice always seemed to come from in my mind. I was met with silence for a moment before I heard a reply begin to come from that same spot in my mind.

[There are all sorts honestly. Nature is the domain that governs them all but animals and plants have a considerable number of subdomains. Some of them are ones like the subdomains of radiation, liquid, air, and earth. Serpents have a subdomain, reptiles have one, insects have one, fungi have one, fish have one, anthropods have one, and many more have one.] My incorporeal companion whispered.

[Fungi have a subdomain, as you well know agriculture has one, trees have one, vines have one, flowers have one, and more have one.] The system explained, expanding my overall knowledge while also revealing a bit of the scope of the work I have to do to become all-powerful. I sighed but also smiled. I was now more knowledgeable than before and that mattered.

My companions and I began to close in on the corpse I was moving us towards.

As we zeroed in on the body I was hunting down the forest ahead of us stopped tightening and instead began to grow wider. We had spent several minutes, close to half an hour, leisurely strolling through a tight forest path, and so I was excited to see us all get more wiggle-room.

Ahead of us the trees began to thin out. I noticed it before we reached the area where it began to become visibly noticeable, thanks to my tremorsense power. It brought a smile to my face, as my pair of allies first stepped into the widening area beside and behind me.

I was the first of the three of us to see the rays of sunlight that began to more easily penetrate the thinning canopy of the trees ahead of us. I stared at the area they brightly lit, and urged my companions onward with more speed than ever. The three of us hustled and moved with greater urgency than before.

We broke out of the forest proper before reaching the corpse I had set out to find. We were now walking through an opening in the forest where no treeline intercepted sunlight. And so we felt the warm rays of the sun heat our skin. And off in the distance, I saw it: the third corpse I had set out to find.

It laid peacefully on some rocks. Blood had pooled around it and begun to dry under the constant heat of the sun. There were insects hovering around it, only visible as tiny dots to me and even that was only thanks to my slowly improving vision. I watched them whiz around the body, right before a notification buzzed into view in my mind.

[Alert: The system has seen fit to award you access to your vermin subdomain powers. Unlocking those, or at least those of them are unlocked at the moment, right now.

Details about the vermin subdomain:

Though the subdomain of vermin is known as the subdomain of vermin an equally accurate label would be the subdomain of parasites. Vermin are all manner of creatures that are harmful or a nuisance to humanoids, and that includes parasites.

To gain more influence over this subdomain, work hard to expand your swarm to include such creatures and when they begin to worship you, especially as you cause them to become sapient, steadily work to better the lives of the vermin and parasites who worship you.

Vermin subdomain passive power:

Vermin command: This power grants you the ability to command and control even entire swarms of vermin at once. This intersects with your 'Sovereign of the Swarm' power and adds vermin and parasites under your control into the swarm unless they are sapient.

This power also renders unintelligent vermin utterly uninterested in attacking you unless you attack first. You can use this power infinitely, and it applies to a range of creatures. You activate it by targeting the vermin you wish to command, and if they are susceptible to the power they automatically fall utterly under your influence.

Vermin aura: This power is an auric ability that affects foes. Whenever a foe approaches you a phantasmal swarm of vermin and parasites phases into being a few meters around you and harries them.

This swarm causes them to become nauseated and forces them to slow down or else risk tripping. An enemy of human size or smaller who trips is immediately and mercilessly devoured by your swarm. As you gain greater influence over the vermin subdomain and become a more powerful god, the range and strength of your aura will increase.

Vermin subdomain active power:

Vermin creation: This power allows you to create real vermin. Once every three hours, you can create up to five vermin. These vermin are unintelligent and exist to serve you. So far you can only create mosquitos, giant mosquitos, coyotes, rats, and giant rats. Meet more vermin and parasites to expand the sorts of vermin and parasites you can create.

Followers and allies of yours can catch and eat these creatures and have their nutritional needs met and their hunger sated for a full twenty-four hours, as well as fall considerably under your influence. These creatures will fade into nothingness in a day, though they provide experience and physically exist. Any food they eat, or liquids they drink fill your stomach, especially at this unupgraded version of this power.

This is a significant power and as your influence over the vermin subdomain increases and as you grow as a god the more you'll be able to do with this power such as the application of templates and mutations to the vermin you create, make them more often, make them intelligent, and even make them stop fading from existing after a day has passed.

Vermin subdomain blessing and curse details:

Blessing someone with a vermin subdomain blessing will either significantly increase their resistance to vermin and parasites, or greatly increases their stats if they are a vermin or parasite themselves. This power can also be used to awaken sufficiently powerful vermin and parasites, such as giant vermin and parasites whom you create with your powers.

If you curse someone with this subdomain then they go from being nauseated when interacting with a number of vermin and parasites to being sickened automatically and they become fearful of swarms of the creatures.]

After the notification vanished from view, I grinned and decided to test my newfound powers.

I ordered my companions to stay behind me and began to walk over to the deer's corpse. As I did so, I rose my hand in the direction of the deer's body and quietly began to visually scan the area around the corpse. I could see dozens of tiny insects flying around my future companion's body.

A quick usage of appraisal told me that there were over two dozen flies and two dozen mosquitos I grinned. I suspected they would be easy enough to transform into my minions and so I focused on them, mentally targeting each of them. Once I was satisfied that they were all being targeted by me, I sent out a single mental, forceful command.

"Obey." I thought, pouring as much power and radiance into the word as possible before I shipped it out of my mind and into the minds of the creatures I had targeted. And then one by one the creatures stopped buzzing around the corpse of the deer in front of me. Instead, they began to hover around it and turned to look at me.

"Come." I commanded them, speaking to my newest minions. I again began to walk, as a tiny cloud of variously colored insects began to lazily drift towards me. As I did so I laid my eyes on the corpse on the ground.

Its flesh was rather disgusting, filled with puncture holes and partially melted by assorted digestive juices. It also looked to be turning a sickening shade of grey. I frowned at it, even as the cloud of servants I had just acquired reached me and began to surround me.

The sound of their buzzing wings filled my ears now that they were all around me and the sight of their fat, swollen bodies filled my vision. I sighed at them, annoyed that they were responsible for this but grateful to have new servants, living ones, and also that I could tell that they were full.

I examined them, my eyes focused on their anatomies, while I idly targeted the dead deer with my "Create undead" spell. I focused on their bizarre appendages and looked at their peculiar body parts which stuck out to me, from their surprisingly pretty wings to their long and fascinating legs. While I did this, I was going through the motions of applying a template to the deer.

When I was asked by the "Create Undead" spell what type of undead I wanted it to be, I had to stop. I actually wasn't sure myself.

"What to do with this one... I suppose I could just transform it into a skeleton. After all, my 'inventory' ability should allow me to collect its fallen flesh, right?" I asked myself, and also the system.

I was referring to what I had learned earlier about what happens a skeleton is created from a creature who has flesh attached to its bones: the flesh falls off. I heard a robotic chuckle in my mind and was immediately responded too by the system.

[Hello Althos. Yes, you'd be able to collect its fallen flesh and stuff it into your inventory.] The system explained, causing me to sigh in relief. I immediately informed the part of the system that asked me to determine what type of undead being I was going to create that I intended to transform this deer into a skeletal deer.

The magic immediately took hold. The corpse began to shake violently, pushing itself off the ground, as bones ripped through flesh and began to labor to get up and stand upright. This was a much faster, much more bloody process than the other two times I had created undead creatures, and it was also much more satisfying to watch.

Bones sundered flesh, causing even more blood to fall to the ground underneath and around the deer's corpse. Organs and muscles were shredded apart, into little more than fine paste. A visceral sound filled the air as sharpened bone began grossly visible, covered in sanguine fluid and made me smirk.

As I watched it unfold, I was immediately delighted to receive another notification. One that I felt powerfully empower me, even as the skeletal deer's mind awoke and filled me with similarly powerful sensations as when I reanimated Chizi and transformed it into a ghoul.

[Alert: You have upheld your end of the bargain the system struck with you. It is upholding its end. You have unlocked the 'Shapeless One' wild trait. Congratulations!

The 'Shapeless One' wild trait is a particularly potent wild trait that allows you to shapeshift at will, into any form. This includes doing away with a physical form altogether if you wish, something that the old gods only could have done after decades of practice otherwise. You are now free to change your form as you see fit as well as create new forms altogether.

Usage of this power helps you gain influence over the domains of chaos, and creativity and the subdomains of shapeshifting, lies, freedom, mutations, imagination, and falsehoods. It's powerful and should be treated as such.]

Reading the notification made me smile. I felt both far more powerful and far more free at once, even as the notification vanished into the recesses of my mind.

My skeletal stag companion walked unsteadily over to me moments after escaping from its fleshy prison. When it reached me it nuzzled its head against my chest, and I smiled at the thing, before lightly stroking its horns. I was unphased when I received a new notification.

[Creature analysis complete:

Creature name: Comet

Creature type: Red Stag

Template: Skeleton

Abilities & Traits: Skeletal form (Spells that require flesh to work, fail to affect the skeletal stag)

Vicious Charge

Gore

Unstoppable Charge

Haunting Tracker (The skeletal stag is a tireless, and terrifying tracker. If ordered to track someone it will do so relentlessly and fearlessly.)

Sleepless Sentry (The skeletal stag excels at being a guard, especially since it no longer needs to sleep. Putting it and other skeletons on guard duty allows for living creatures to get some shut-eye.)

Corpse Stats:

11 strength

18 dexterity

22 constitution

10 intelligence

12 wisdom

8 charisma]

I studied my newest servant even as the notification faded out of view. The thing's bones were an odd shade of yellow and its horns were jet black. It had a lithe skeleton and one that was tall enough that its horns were taller than I was. I studied them for a second, before attempting to "will" my form to change, specifically my head.

I envisioned a pair of gigantic stag-like horns emerging from my head. I imagined their thickness and weight and opted to include that my neck and my head ought to grow thicker and larger as well to properly support them and not cause me to feel an annoying sense of discomfort.

I took a deep breath and then attempted to "will" the horns into being, in the same way, that I "willed" magic out of me. Nothing happened. I chuckled and closed my eyes, before trying again. And once again nothing happened. I groaned in annoyance and mentally composed a quick message to the system.

"Hey, I'm trying to activate 'Shapeless One' and nothing is happening. What am I not doing correctly?" I asked, annoyed that even though I had access to a power I still wasn't able to use it. I heard a mechanical sigh and almost chuckled as the system began to reply to me.

[Hello Althos.] The robotic voice whispered into my mind. There was a tone of exhaustion in its mind that I could hear. It made me laugh internally.

[The problem is that you aren't actively targeting yourself. The power needs to know that you're the target.] The system explained, causing me to sigh annoyedly.

"Of course I'm the target. That's just... dumb." I muttered, childishly annoyed at this lackluster explanation. But a second later I shook my head and focused on myself. I explicitly reenvisioned my head growing horns and I centered that image to the extent that I pushed away other thoughts.

"I am targeting myself." I muttered, annoyed that I had to do this. But this time, something did begin to change.

I smiled and felt my head grow heavier, even as my neck grew stronger to accommodate it. I felt a piercing but ignorable pain emanate from my head as the horns made themselves known to the world, but bursting out of my head. I allowed my hands to wander up to my head and was pleasantly surprised to find that the skulls I had wanted were now real.

"So it does work..." I uttered, happily, as I ran my hands over the horns and tactilely memorized that they felt like.

My horns were long things, designed for intimidation and to actually be used as weapons. They were impressively hard, resisting attempts by me to find the upper limit to their strength and ended in thin but sharp points, more than sharp enough for me to pierce someone with them if I felt like it.

My horns weren't ornate, spiraled things. They were instead long objects and outward-pointing extensions of my skull.

Seconds after I did, some of my tiniest minions landed on my horns and settled themselves in a strange spot atop my head. It was hard not to chuckle at their almost cute actions, seeing as they were dozens of tiny insects who had decided to make me, their master, their temporary resting place.

My musings were interrupted when I received a mental message from Chizi my arachnid ghoul pet.

"Sovereign, why have you taken on the appearance of a satyr?" The curious spider asked, referring to me by an unusual title but also my only title at the moment. Its voice filled my mind and startled me. I turned to my companion and cocked my head curiously at the thing.

"You think I've taken on the appearance of a satyr?" I asked, expressing my words physically, while also injecting them into the creature's mind. The creature nodded at me, bobbing its head up and down.

"I see... What are 'satyrs'?" I questioned, having some knowledge of the fey in question, but only limited knowledge of them. The satyr corpse that was present in the healthy chunk of the forest I was in was between my current location and the goblin village, and having an understanding of satyrs would make the next part of my journey a bit easier.

"Satyrs are... big, scary, goat-people. They look mostly human, but they have the legs of goats and genitalia of horses. They also have horns, like yours. They are wild, hedonistic creatures." My spidery friend and worshiper told me.

And it wasn't the only one to speak. I was surprised when my newest servant began to speak, the sound leaking out of the odd entity's bony throat.

"Master... Satyrs are powerful, surprisingly dangerous beings who use music and alcohol to lure mortal women and sometimes mortal men into their clutches. They live to indulge in sensual and sensory delights. They have powerful horns like we do, and wield musical instruments as well as any human wields a bow." The deer said, its voice oozing out of its unusual, fleshless body.

"Well as it turns out, a Satyr is the next friend we are making today." I informed my companions, before removing my hand from the deer skeleton, smoothly collecting the deer's fallen flesh, and turning in the direction of the goblin village.

"Now come. Follow me ever deeper into the forest." I commanded, my voice making it clear that this was indeed an order. My servants nodded at me, behind my back, and then speedily trodded over to where I was. I grinned and chuckled as I heard the distinctive cacophony of noises that came from the small zoo I had magically made into my minions.

I had hoped that I'd be able to reach the satyr's corpse as uneventfully as I had reached the corpses of my new companions. I should have known that I had had it too good for too long.

The clearing I was in was a vast one. It led a vast part of the way towards the goblin village, and I had my next encounter with living creatures at its edge.

As I and my tiny menagerie of followers bounded through the sunlit clearing we grew confident. We grew comfortable. That was why I didn't turn around when my mini-map began to flash and alert me to nearby creatures. I inspected the mini-map, refusing to dismiss it before I gained an awareness of whatever sorts of creatures were approaching me.

I tapped on the two figures that were closing in on the location of my party and I and I heard a familiar sound as my mini-map began to inspect the neutrally-colored circles that approached me.

[Nearby neutral creatures detected. Preparing proper notifications... Scanning creatures... Creatures scanned.

The detected creatures are two female ogres.

One is a level five warrior. The other is a level one berserker. Both are currently calm but they are hungry and hungry ogres can become violent quite easily.]

I quietly thanked the system for providing me with that information and decided to dig a bit deeper. I silently invoked my "Appraisal" power and was given even more knowledge about the creatures who appeared to be on a crash course with myself and my allies.

[Alert: Appraisal invoked. Acquiring further information about the creatures in question.

Names: Okig (Level five warrior), Iret (Level one berserker)

Alignment: Neutral evil (This applies to both of them)

Magic Sensing: The school of magic that would most resonate with Okig's soul is healing magic. This is due to the warrior liking to torture her enemies and she would use healing magic to be able to heap more damage on those she tortures before they expire.

The school of magic that would most resonate with Iret's soul is evocation magic. This is because that's the school of magic that is most innately destructive, just like Iret is.]

The system suddenly cut itself off and fell silent for a moment. It was an eerie silence, in part because I couldn't recall an instance like this before, and also because it was so sudden. It didn't last long though.

[Hey Althos, would you like to play a game?] The system asked, somewhat cryptically. I paused to consider what it was asking me for and began to develop a slight suspicion that I wouldn't like whatever was on its mind. But I didn't get the chance to articulate my skepticism before the system, probably sensing my concern, began to speak urgently.

[This won't require you to hurt anyone! We promise. We would like to teach you about sin, and so we're prepared to offer you a deal. If you agree to make those two ogresses your playthings for a few minutes, we won't ask you to hurt them, and we'll even unlock access to the following subdomains and domain: corruption, earth, and minds.] My companion said, urging me to seriously consider it's offer.

"Three subdomains and domains at once... That's a heck of an offer." I thought, a sinister grin on my face. I liked the prospects of gaining some of the powers of three separate things at once, especially that particular trio. But I knew not to jump at this offer.

"If such an offer is on the table... I honestly don't know what I'll be asked to do. Especially corruption. It's in the name that it'll involve some... questionable acts, to say the least." I muttered, secure in the safety of my mind.

"But if I don't take the offer, then the system may seek to retaliate at a later point for my overt rejection of its strange deals." I noted, aware of that possibility. I didn't like the idea of earning the ire of the system.

"There's not much of a choice here, is there?" I asked myself, rhetorically. I sighed, silently, and then refocused on the situation in front of me.

"I don't like the idea of you commanding me even more, especially since I don't know what you want me to do, but I suspect that this is all a pretext and you're just trying to assuage my pride since I highly doubt I actually have the ability to reject you right now. So I'll accept your 'offer'." I told the system, speaking to it mentally while I continued my trek out of the clearing and towards the ogresses.

I heard a soft laugh emanate from the system and then felt my very pores begin to radiate a strange mixture of both earthy and carnal power. My mind was again wracked by potent sensations, as my field of awareness expanded dynamically and quite aggressively. I fell to my knees, which only made the sensation stronger as my hands touched the ground to keep me steady and thus further linked me into the earth at my feet.

My tremorsense was expanding aggressively, extending its reach like unholy, invisible tendrils plowing through the earth and in the instant I was touching the ground I could feel its relentless expansion, which was an odd sensation to say the least. This had the added and altogether positive effect of widening both my visible mini-map and no doubt explosively increasing the range of my not-so-mini-map.

[Alert: As part of a deal struck with you just now the system is unlocking access to the subdomains of corruption and earth and the domain of minds, all of which you innately possess influence over. Powers possessed by these subdomains and domain are quite potent, and they affect your senses so they are doubtlessly significantly overwhelming. That said, you can handle this. Just take a second to breathe.] The system told me, attempting to offer me comfort.