My golems and I wordlessly and silently crept through the network of tunnels that existed underneath the surprisingly large island. Each step took us deeper and deeper into a subterranean maze in which the odd, otherworldly scientists known as the Mi-Go called their home.

The first few minutes we explored the tunnels, led by me, we were in natural caverns. The walls around us were made of natural stone, and unaltered aside from the ones that had been moved or mined to make the passageway. They were black, but not all the same shade of black, and my eyes were keen enough to allow me to notice the different shades that were present.

I placed a gentle hand on them and smiled as I felt their complicated history flow into me. I felt a plethora of only somewhat true information flood my consciousness and chuckled as I stored it away. The stones were real enough, the problem is that they were copies of truly natural stone that existed on the actual world of Torus. This place was a cop[y of that place. My divine realm was a real place but ultimately as it existed right now it was almost entirely a copy of Torus.

My powers over knowledge were growing ever stronger and I delighted in knowing that. My ability to learn things through touch was strong enough that I recently learned that I could touch plants and learn about their lives. They were the first living creatures over which I had such strong powers, and though I had only used it a few times, it was truly extraordinary to be able to do so.

I allowed my hand to glide along the stone as my creations and I wandered deeper and deeper into the maze of tunnels that existed under the island. As I did so I allowed my mind to wander and I turned my most active thoughts to two separate but interconnected areas: the galaxy in which I had begun my life, and the dreams of mortals.

While I was active on Htrae and in the Heart of Darkness, my avatar had been busy. The entity I had created a few weeks ago and tasked with mapping the universe had been doing just that. Every few hours my mind would expand and I'd gain greater and greater awareness of the cosmos. That said, even though I was making the slightest bit of progress in mapping the universe it was almost inconceivably grand in scale.

My avatar had traveled to hundreds of stars by now and I was enjoying the feeling of my awareness of even a fraction of my birth-galaxy increasing over the course of the last few days. The lesser version of myself had done nothing but travel from solar system to solar system, having no particularly note-worthy adventures of its own. I was still grateful to the creature though, as now I was just now beginning to grasp the unbelievable scale of the universe I called my home.

I had learned one thing of note through the travels my avatar had undergone: this universe was astoundingly diverse. Each time my "Stellar awareness" power allowed me to glimpse, even imprecisely, at the worlds in yet another solar system this lesson was reinforced. I had come across solar systems with three planets, all of which were fairly large and housed complex civilizations. I had also come across lifeless solar systems, and even a few without planets at all.

I had even encountered interplanetary empires, and also entire solar systems plagued by war. Both of these things were of some slight interest to me, though thus far I had been content to allow events to play out in even the fiercest wars without influencing the results. A part of me was quietly ready to begin to change things, but I tempered that part of myself. I wanted to change things slowly and through deliberate manipulation, not through overt and cataclysmic displays of power. I wanted to test myself.

I allowed the most active part of my mind to begin to explore the solar systems I had never been too yet but in an indirect way. As I did when I first came here to Htrae, I quietly and insidiously crept into the minds of those who were fast asleep.

I swiftly began to plague the dreams of those visited. I snuck into hundreds of dreams in several different solar systems but in all of them I began my insidious work. I started things off with a simple vision.

In the very first vision I would plague hundreds of dreamers with I quietly showed them a number of nightmarish worlds. Some worlds were lorded over by the Swarm, entire planets conquered by my massive Hymenopteric worshipers. Some planets were entirely dead. Others were entirely undead.

In a few I allowed demons to drag the world of the dreamer into the Heart of Darkness. In others I took over the world of the dreamer by utilizing devils. In a number of especially creative cases, usually ones that actually involved dragons, I created an entirely non-existent empire of dragons and it was them who conquered the world of the dreamer.

To my surprise, while I was leading my entourage towards the actual homes of the Mi-Gos who ruled the strange, subterranean settlement, I had fun with one specific type of vision. In the visions in which I showed dreamers dead or undead worlds I would occasionally manifest as a handsome yet frightening god of death.

I would make myself incredibly tall and powerful looking, usually with a weapon in one hand and a shield in the other, with eyes as black as a starless night. Oftentimes those who witnessed me in that form found me attractive, which the smartest of them instantly recognized as odd but they couldn't help it nor could they keep secret their feelings.

In a few cases, I pulled those who found me attractive into my arms and, thanks to the physical contact with them I was able to quicken the rate at which I stole their sanity from them. Not to mention I begin to exert influence over their fragile minds. It was a delightful way to kill time.

Eventually though, it came time for me to focus. My physical form had finally reached the true entrance to the Mi-Go colony.

It took my minions and I a few minutes to traverse from the hole's entrance all the way to the actual entrance to the colony. When we did we found ourselves facing a strange wall at the end of the tunnel. The wall appeared to be made from flesh, human flesh. It was the color of long rotted human skin, but thanks to my sensory abilities I knew what laid beyond the wall: my destination.

As my minions and I drew closer and closer to the door I considered how best to handle it. I mentally mulled over which of my abilities would be the best to utilize here, before realizing that the answer was simple. "Dermal manipulation", one of my biology domain powers, was the best one to use to open the wall in front of me.

When my entourage and I found ourselves a few steps away from the wall, I manifest my soul-staff in one hand and rose my other. My empty hand began to radiate a fel-green energy before I pointed it at the wall and activated my power. I felt my power wash over the flesh-wall and I chuckled as the wall became commendable.

"Open." I commanded the obstacle, speaking aloud for the first time in several minutes. The wall of flesh obeyed me instantly, seeming to seep into the stone that surrounded it. I grinned and wasn't surprised when beyond the wall the air took on a distinctly red tint and an incredibly loud sound began to emanate from it. I had set off an alarm. This didn't bother or surprise me. Nor did it bother or surprise my obedient constructs.

We kept on walking until we stepped past the place where the wall I had turned into a door was located. As we did I gazed over at the walls that surrounded us. I was unsurprised to see that the walls were also made of flesh. What was a bit surprising was that the walls managed to be odorless, despite being made of long rotted flesh. It didn't take us long to walk from beyond the wall of skin to the end of the tunnel. As we did the red light grew harsher and the alarm that now surrounded me grew louder still.

At the end of the tunnel, there was an abrupt twenty-meter drop. At the bottom of it though was a single building made from flesh as well. Standing on top of it was a single Mi-Go, who gazed at me and my entourage. It had one of their electrical guns pointed at me, which caused me to laugh. As I laughed I targeted the creature with a single usage of "Ascension". The creature's clawed hands on the gun suddenly slackened and the creature's eyes, if they could be called that, changed color from a frightened red, to a pious green, quite swiftly.

The Mi-Go resembled a cross between a shellless crab and a hornet. It had the stinger and wings of a hornet but the actual frame of something oddly crustacean-like. It lacked skin, instead, the creature possessed a pink exoskeleton, and its bulbous head was covered in both multicolored eyes and antennae. It had two hands which were perhaps its most humanlike feature, though the hands had claws, not humanlike nails, and both were wrapped around an alien gun. On its chest sat a strange-looking emblem, which I suspected was a form of technology in and of itself.

The gun itself looked to be made of a material that resembled gold and was a solid-looking object. I could sense the electricity flowing through the object, which I knew the object would fire if someone holding the thing activated it. The object was large, heavy, and rather unwieldy, at least at a glance. It wasn't like the tiny guns humans on Htrae had built. It was clearly the sort of weapon guards would use to at least detain someone, if not kill them outright.

I and my entourage began another descent, stepping out of the tunnel and into the open air without hesitation. We each controlled our descents skillfully and leisurely floated down the open air. It was while we were gliding down to the surface that the Mi-Go regained its senses, and entered the building it had been standing on top of. While it was in there the alarm was suddenly shut off, and the red-tint that had painted the area around me in a somewhat grisly way vanished. Seconds later the creature raced out of the building but on the ground-level this time, not the building's roof.

The creature dashed from just out of the building, to just in front of where I was about to land and then knelt. It was a speedy thing, owed no doubt in part to both the fact that it had an array of centipede-like legs and also an assortment of biological augmentations it wielded.

"Oh great and mighty Althos, healer of the Mi-Go people, forgive my impertinence! I had no idea you were going to visit us, or else I would have never aimed my electro-cannon at you!" The creature proclaimed as I landed. My ability to understand all languages came in handy by immediately divining the meaning of the sounds that escaped its head. The creature had no mouth, but the sounds seemed to come out of holes on the side of its head.

I looked at the thing and activated a few of my mental powers. One of them was my ability to establish mind-links. I tethered our minds together and began to speak to it that way.

"Rise." I commanded the creature, my voice seeping into its very mind. I didn't feel like speaking to it, at least not in a physical sense, so I opted to think to it instead. I approached it, as it rose, and I allowed it to enjoy a burst of pleasurable healing as if to signal that I was pleased with it. I wasn't, not particularly, but as I watched the thing shiver I sensed that its loyalty and piety to me had just increased. I also reached out and blessed the thing with the fungal subdomain, which caused the creature to grow stronger before my very eyes. I sensed a wave of euphoric happiness emanate from the being.

The creature slowly began to stand again, after feeling my powers wash over it. As it did I commanded it once more.

"Take me to your leader." I commanded, speaking into its mind. The creature couldn't resist me, not that it wanted it too. The strange monster turned to face the interior of the colony and began to walk into it. I took off behind it, accompanied by my servants.

As we made our way into the true colony, I began to grin. This place was a laboratory, and it housed humans, dwarves, elves, and Mi-Gos, with Mi-Gos being the most populous group, and elves being the least populous. And here I was worshiped as an eldritch god of biology, life, knowledge, and pain.

I was excited to meet more Mi-Gos and to begin to tie my divine realm with the rest of the universe. Each and every step I took led me closer and closer to the grand scientists who lorded over this strange colony.

Off in the distance, I heard the torturous wails of mortals who were being experimented on, and the beating of wasp-like wings as scientists floated over their test subjects. I also heard the loud noises of an assortment of technology in and around the colony.