The air was blowing through my hair and the loose clothes I wore billowed softly as I flew toward the town. I had spoken some more to SmolBoy, after topping up my score. He was in the northern region and was currently fighting a pack of massive wolves to gain the favour village of a hunting village in some woods or another. He was very surprised to hear of my new circumstances and he said he would be sure to visit after gaining a larger following.

The village approaches.

It was a small collection of mud rooves, around a hundred or so in total. When I came closer the people seemed to scatter into their houses, running like scared ants at my approach. I landed in the town centre and walked around for several seconds. I have no clue what to do here. My whole power was a result of my inability to speak as a deity, I was unsure of how to approach this dialogue.

"Alright, the fuck are you doing here?" Said a voice from behind me, wheeling around I found myself face to face with a strange looking being. He looked to be a construct, formed of sand and rock, the objects that gave him material form constantly shifting and flowing around his form like liquid.

"Um, I assume you're the god of these people?" I said somewhat awkwardly, rubbing the back of my neck, I was very unsure of how this interaction was meant to go. Alright, come on Bart, time to alpha up.

"Yeah, got a problem with that." The Rock Being said from somewhere within his mass. it was really unnerving how there was no expression to be shown.

"Yeah, I do actually." Turning to the houses and adding an inflection of magical power to my voice I continued. "People of the desert, you need no longer scrape a living out of sand and dust, come home with me and the desert will weep rivers into being and all will have enough to eat and drink." They gave no response, it was a little disheartening. Don't know what I was expecting, they had a god. Keyword had.

"Alright, time to go." He walked up and put a hand on my shoulder, the rocks feeling surprisingly warm to the touch. As he did so though he came into contact with my shield A skintight, invisible bubble of raw mana, encompassing my whole form. The mana flew up into his form. I assumed he was a primal spirit, so the mana didn't do as much to him as expected but it still tore his arm apart in a haze of electric blue fire.

What happened next was a haze, like when you are in a room and you have no idea how you got out. Adrenaline flooded my body, this was the first fight I had been in since high school. Next time my conscious thought returned I was hovering above the village, and the rock boy? He was moulded with the ground, ripping rocks out of it and forming a small tornado of stone around him. I reached my hand toward the air and the clouds began to swirl, becoming more and more violent and, for the first time in forever, it rained in the desert.

The people heard the soft pitter patter of rain on thatch and poked their heads out to look, they found me standing in the sky, legs together, one hand by my side and one pointed toward the sky. My clothes billowing around me furiously due to the storm, it was a divine pose. I had my audience.

"People of this village," I didn't know the name, a fact I was regretting. "You have fallen before the feet of a false god. Know that I am not mad, I am instead happy, for it will help me show you the power of the true king of the sands. The lord of the eternal fire, your god. Partholon." The guy flinched when he heard the name, the game had a policy of showing no indication of someone being a player, as it may break the immersion of some others. It seemed both that I was famous, and something was about to be a lot more broken than his immersion.

I reached up higher into the sky, my fingers scraping the wisps of cloud that surged about me. I plunged my hand deep into the roiling mass and from within tore out a tongue of dragon fire. A bolt of lightning that crackled furiously and bucked in my grip like a wild horse. At this moment I was strong, I was powerful. I was, for the first time in my life, in control. I fucking liked it. I through the spear down into the town, onto the opposing god. He tried to jump away but the bolt followed him through the air and connected with a tempest of sparks, bright and blinding. When the light show ended and the fires were put out all that was left of the other god was the hovering blue flame, the indicator, his death marker. A place where he could regain his former power. For when you died all of the worship you had accumulated was drawn into those fires, fires anyone could access.

I flew down, my toes lightly scraping the ground as if caressing the body of a lover, a sweet kiss of contact resulted in me walking stately for the remainder of the distance. I took the fire in my hand and ordered the people to come before me.

One and all they came, old and young, men and women. They came before me frightened and scared, hungry and lost. I looked at their wide eyes and smiled. My fist enclosed upon the fire, extinguishing it. They knelt before me in a wave, going down to their knees and crying in worship and begging for my mercy. I smiled. Niccolo Machiavelli had once said that "It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both." I agreed, what he had never written of, however, never put into words was the truly intoxicating feeling it is to be feared. How it smothers a man in a hunger for more and a need to assert his will. How it twists the minds of the great and makes great, twisted minds of the weak. 'Yes, it is a good thing to be feared' I thought. Try and guess into which category I fell.