The victorious rush of elation at seeing the growth myself and Kori had managed to achieve in a relative hour faded quite quickly. I turned my head to look at the intruder but didn’t speak. My mind too heavy with the experiences I’d just gone through.

“I see you’ve learned one of the lessons of divinity.” Sas’seshkaneth said, speaking in a soft manner. I let Kori know Sas’seshkaneth was a friend mentally while I rubbed back her raised hackles. The hound having managed to get to my side and bared the fangs of her three-way maw at the goddess.

Sas’seshkaneth looked at Kori and I saw the amusement in her eyes. “Cute dog.”

“Hound.” I replied, correcting her automatically without thought. Though my voice sounded dull and flat.

Sas’seshkaneth’s eyes flashed with something but it had been too quick and indecipherable to put my finger on it. The elder goddess then looked around and I saw a glint come into her eyes as she scrutinized my work on the domain so far.

“When we fist met I thought I’d only see you very rarely… given the circumstances you’ve described you are currently in. Why the frequent visits?” I asked before she could comment on my domain.

The look she gave me told me she realized I wasn’t in much in the mood for hospitality at the moment. She smiled at me and held up gaudy ring, my senses telling me it was a spatial ring though a very inferior one, it wouldn’t last for a decade at most and that was putting it generously.

“A house-warming present. Isn’t that was one does for someone that’s just gotten a new house?” She said playfully pointing at the house I’d raised. I simply scoffed a bit in reply.

After she tossed me the ring, a ring I found was filled with what I expected a low-ranking noble to consider basic furniture, her face turned to a frown. “I think something is happening.”

“How so?” I asked her. Her sudden change of atmosphere had my own curiosity piqued if only marginally.

Sas’seshkaneth’s expression turned constrained. “Some of the lower ranked servants have been suspiciously missing as of late. Nothing beyond a lesser or middling demi-god but it is… suspicious. It is beyond the low cunning I’ve come to expect from the invaders, this feels different somehow. It is also the reason I’ve been able to visit so often.”

At my raised eyebrow she clearly intuited the question and answered it. “For the first two centuries after they took over, they were more involved back then before falling into this state of incompetent rule they now have. Were they send out a revelation or command every so often but are more hands off than gods normally are, leaving it to their “Forces of light” to do their bidding at their leisure. Now they seem more active but nothing I’ve noticed on Imerith.”

The derision when the name for their forces came I was a little shocked she was capable such emotions towards mortals. How she’d carried herself before had shown she thought herself well above mortals but the name I heard her utter was it dripping with such scorn and disdain I almost felt she’d slapped me with the word.

“They seem to think theirs is all of creation.” Sas’seshkaneth continued which didn’t give me a chance to ask what these supposed forces of light were and why the disdain. “Perhaps they’ve started to send out agents to explore and prepare other realms? Might be why I didn’t notice their moves before it was too late? That incompetent bitch Cerridwen seems much more focused on obscuring fate than anything. As I said low cunning.” Sas’seshkaneth seemed deep in thought as she muttered while pacing around a bit.

I simply stayed silent and listened, figuring I might learn more about the invaders from her muttering. It certainly was informative. Nabathi had been known as the formation witch for two distinct reasons, she’d mastered formations to such a degree that even the greatest formations of her world were near child's play to her which leant her quite a heavy breath of knowledge when it came to the other usual professions of cultivating worlds. The second was the more important for this particular train of thought though and that was she’d had knowledge of karma and fate based sorcery but hadn’t had the talent for it to work for her.

If Cerridwen was a concealer of fate and it’s ripples it might explain how they’d managed to defeat the original generation of Imerith’s gods the way they did. Using fate that way to nudge events towards their aims was something a goddess of fate should be capable of but it didn’t feel right somehow. Sas’seshkaneth was one such goddess and if she was calling Cerridwen incompetent there had to be a point to it. The spider, at least to myself, seemed too proud to put her “profession” down for the sake of insulting another. I was sure there were several angles I was missing of the full picture and Sas’seshkaneth while nominally an ally also didn’t have the whole picture nor the time to fully divulge it to in detail.

I put the spiders muttering to a halt as I finally asked a question. “Where did they come from originally?”

Sas’seshkaneth halted and stated at me while frowning. “I don’t know… perhaps you can get in contact with Mut?” She said and gestured towards the archway leading to the first world I had accessed.

“Mut?” I asked curiously.

“She’s the Ancient mother goddess of that universe. Though through the emanations I can sense she slumbers now…” She trailed off and looked at me with a curious look in her eyes. Something had occurred to her but the glint of mischief in her eyes told me she wouldn’t be sharing that something with me.

“Well I have to leave now but do keep my words in mind. They are on the move and planning something so please keep yourself safe and hidden from their sight.”

I nodded as I saw her evaporate into shadows.

I turned once more and gave the dungeon avatar that had manifested behind me a cold stare. He had the decency to look bashful and nervous at least. I waited, while Kori moved up to him and sniffed the avatar before moving over to the side to curl up when she didn’t find him interesting. I continued to wait, allowing the silence to become crushing if the Avatars slowly growing anxious expression was anything to go by.

“I have rules set for the trials of the gods. I have no control over what you will face during each trial. All I could really do was feed your hound the occasional minion I could summon!” The Avatar started to ramble beyond that point and I let him for almost four more minutes. Only speaking when the Avatar was looking hysterical.

“Who is Maara.” I asked calmly and apparently softly enough to make the Avatar just stare at me for a few long moments. Then he seemed to break down before me and I saw the avatar for what he truly was properly for perhaps the first time. If it hadn’t been for the first stage of the trial and what I’d learned through it he might be nothing more than flakes of core dust floating in my domain’s waters.

Now I saw a grieving man locked in a cage he couldn’t escape even if he wished. He as the dungeon and the dungeon was him, he couldn’t leave it. The only reason I suspected he could manifest inside my domain was because his core had become integrated with the realm core which might allow him to cheat a bit on the manifestation rules.

I put all the furniture from the gift into my first ring and had the domain dismantle the one I’d gotten. It would give me a bit of energy for later. I then placed two chairs down and sat down for a long conversation with the avatar.

Maara had been the original goddess of life, music and the arts for Imerith. During the golden age she’d showered the artists with inspiration and elevated the greatest of them to minor gods of her household. The Dungeon’s Avatar had been one of those elevated artists.

A Painter, Architect, Painter and Musician in life, being a high elf had given him the time to master his crafts, known as Ilphas Inaros The master of grandeur. A name Ilphas had loathed more than anything even before he’d ascended. The name given to him by the foppish king of the high elves after he’d designed and overseen the construction of his palace.

When he’d ascended he’d been the Seraphim of Maara and loved every moment of the centuries he stayed by her side and the other gods.

He told me that Sas’seshkaneth had been the playful trickster of the bunch though more reclusive than the others, playing harmless pranks on the other deities or the occasional mortal that deserved it. The gods interference was simply that of benevolence or in line with their present rules for one another he hadn’t been made privy of.

He’d sat at Maara’s side as they played around a giant world map, guiding pawns and followers to advance their own spheres of influence. The Elder gods often willingly taking the roles of the opposition that was needed for some of the outcomes to work for the worlds future benefit. It sounded to me a little like some godly civilization card game.

Ilphas broke down more than once when he spoke of the old days and I listened in companionable silence. At the end he’d volunteered to take up the mantle of Dungeon avatar in the Autarch’s divine realm. Their leader had shared my title but his had simply been [The Autarch] and he’d been a god of creation and magic. When he came to the end I spoke softly and calmly.

“Ilphas, the gods are dead save Sas’seshkaneth. Slain by invading gods that have taken Imerith for their own.” I spoke calmly as I met his gaze and before the questions started to bubble forth from his lips I raised a hand to silence him.

“I am a new-born elder god belonging to Imerith as my mortal realm and one of my titles is [The Autarch of the twin Cycles]. I don’t think that is a coincidence. Perhaps the former Autarch used some sort of divination magic to see what was to come or not, but I am certain I’ll die trying to end the invaders and their collaborators or I’ll succeed and bathe Imerith in their blood.” My voice turned darker and harder at the end and I saw Ilphas swallow.

“I’m going to give you another chance Ilphas.” I then said after letting my statement hang in the air between us for a few moments. He looked at me surprised, I simply chuckled at his surprise. “Now normally I only give people the same number of chances as they have lives, a single one, but I am self-aware enough to realize when perhaps something is preventing me from seeing who the person before me truly is. Grief for example, rage for another, isn’t indicative of a person’s identity but it is the inherent nature and subsequent following of that nature that I see and judge.”

“I am in need of a competent and…” I paused and chuckled good-naturedly. “Talented seneschal. My realm can function with you as its caretaker and I’m certain you could give it the eye for detail that it sorely lacks. You’ve seen the design direction my realm follows so I’m sure you can bring it to life with the talents you posses that you’ve shared with me.

Know one thing though Ilphas, this is only a single second chance to impress me and build a monument to the fallen.” My last words made it look as if I’d struck Ilphas, his eyes wide and mouth agape.

“A wise man once said, those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I may not be considered wise or sane for that matter by mortal standards but I have learned… a form of caution if you will. Even if I die and this realm is left abandoned I still think even a small monument to the original generation of Imerith’s gods is something they deserve at the very least.” My tone had turned melancholic as I spoke and suspected Ilphas picked up on my own grief over those I’d lost.

Without much thought I raised a hand and had the two dais’s I’d raised move so that the central dais with its connecting pathways formed a sort of plus sign. Then the sea drained down quite a bit. So that a full seventy meters bellow the daises a mound of white grey sand broke through the grey waves and spread out so that it appeared like the daises rose from an island in my grey waters. I would build a city bellow the raised colossal columns to expand but for now I needed to set up stairs down and place the last two cores on their respective daises.

Ilphas had stood up and gone to the edge to see what I was doing and he just stared slack jawed at the display. “W-what is this?” He asked with awe in his voice and he turned quickly as my laughter boomed out from me.

“I am the Elder God of Life and Death! Creation and Oblivion!” I laughed as I pointed up into the sky. “This is my realm, I’d be a poor deity if I wasn’t able manipulated it to this extend. Though it does take quite a bit of power to accomplish, you can feel it can’t you?” I asked.

Ilphas looked around I could feel the dungeon core push out its feelers to take in the thinned air of energy that now filled my realm. “I… I think so…” He said as he looked around. “The air feels… thinner somehow… why?” He asked as he turned to look at me.

“I funnel the energy my realm naturally generates into the domain core, same principles apply as to your dungeon as to my domain… in broad strokes at least.” I said amusedly as I watched the possibilities of such a grand project being dangled in front of the starving artists face shine through Ilphas’s eyes.

Once I’d gotten him to open up a bit he seemed much more pleasant than the shrieking arrogant shit most high elves apparently were. According to Ilphas and given he’d been one I thought that was saying something about the race.

I connected to the domain core and went through its options and settings that I could control over it. Going at my own leisure as I watched Ilphas have a what I could only describe as a starving artist’s aneurysm brought on by happiness.

His face shooting over the risen sands bellow, to the outside of each column to the tops of each dais. Inspiration and… jealousy? clear on his face.

I found I could give him the Seneschal position and I could even put it on that I could see every action he took and when they weren’t minor actions I had to approve them. Something I found would open as a notification wherever I was. I put the decision on hold as I glanced over to the bag on top of the chest that had appeared at my feet when I’d finished the quests.

“Can you recreate materials?” I asked when Ilphas seemed to have calmed down a little.

“Wha-? Oh… uh yes though I wasn’t given any materials so all I can really make is stone at the moment.

“So you need a sample of the material before you can create it?” I asked, I hadn’t really gone much into the domain’s controls and wasn’t really sure I could recreate materials like a dungeon could. It made me think that a dungeon might have more potential than a domain core but perhaps to reach it’s full potential a dungeon needed to be tied to a domain?

“I’ll need at least around….” Ilphas started measuring a size with both his hands but I pulled out the 1 kilogram piece of iron ore into my hand and raised an eyebrow, looking like a thin line of stars, in question. Ilphas snapped his finger and pointed at the ore.

“Yes right about that much mass of the material.” He said before I noted the frown on his lips as I stored the ore in my ring.

“That’s good to know. What about this?” I asked as I took out one of the strange seeds I’d gotten.

Ilphas stared hard at the seed, narrowing his eyes while I felt the storm of his senses roiling and penetrating the seed as he tried to understand it. He then looked contemplative for a few long moments.

“I might be able to recreate these… yes, I would be able to but it would cost energy, it isn’t just making things from nothing there is a cost.” He said looking uncertain at first before firming up.

“All right then.” I said as I pulled the bag into my ring along with everything expect the seeds and soil from the chest. “I’m going to give you access to the seneschal features of the domain and using the materials within this chest you will bring the abode dais to life. As for the abode itself.” I said turning my gaze to the house.

“Make it a manor using this same design aesthetics. As for the surroundings… surprise me.” I said jovially as I saw Ilphas’s eyes light up. I worked through the domain core and allowed Ilphas to do as I asked but no more. His would be a limited tenure as my seneschal if he couldn’t at least prove himself with this task.

“Why?” He suddenly asked, noting the curious cocking of my head he continued. “I mean… we didn’t really have the best of introductions and the trial…” He trailed off as I started to laugh.

“Did I give you a good first impression?” I asked and seeing the hesitant shaking of his head continued. “Then we are even. While I do give individuals only a single chance to prove they are worth my time it doesn’t mean I should decide that by our first meeting. Granted if during our first meeting you’d tried to kill me or harm Kori I’d have no qualms of ending you right then and there but did you?” I further explained and asked at the end.

“No..” Ilphas said hesitantly.

“There is also the lessons I learned in the trial I have to consider. I’ll admit I’ve been… angry in the past. All of my lives before as individual aspects have ended through some betrayal in one way or another.” I paused gathering my thoughts.

“The aspect of life, an Archdruid named Thennele, died from the humans she’d allowed to live on the outskirts of her forest. A community she’d given clear boundaries to that grew to be a city state.” I paused as I looked Ilphas in the eyes then and allowed him to see the pure unadulterated hate I had for the human species. He flinched.

“They grew greedy and wanted more lands, demanded more of her forest in fact and when she denied them… They burned the forest to the ground with her in it.”

I saw Ilphas grow paler at the revelation but I continued. “My aspect of Oblivion was a cultivated named Nabathi. Human herself but because of her talent and path the sects in control, ironically calling themselves the just faction wanted her in their ranks.” I made sure to lace the word just with venom this time.

“She wanted to be unbound and to simply live in peace, they didn’t like that and since she wouldn’t join them, they hounded her. Destroyed her reputation and made everyone think she was some demonic or fallen cultivator all the while sending assassins and hunting parties after her. It wasn’t those self-sanctimonious bastards that killed no… It was her own two disciples that had been swayed to join the just faction that did it.”

I smirked then. “She left them a present though. Every were she’d been hounded and hunted and in every major city they just faction ruled she’d placed her last gift to them. All tied to her life force so that when she died, her body along with everything she’d placed around the lands exploded, spreading a poison so malignant it killed three fourths of the entire population and the survivors.” I chuckled darkly as I remembered her cackling as a spirit as all the people who’d once looked up to the just faction devoured them for the hypocrites that they were when the message she’d left in the sky with the explosions telling everyone of her fate and treatment and that this was all because they wouldn’t allow her to be free.

I also remembered how she’d torn the souls of her apprentices who’d been like her own children to shreds once all three of them died together. She’d let their whimpering, begging and mewling fall on def ears, after all they’d made sure she viewed them as enemies instead of her children through their actions. I’d started to ignore Ilphas now as I reminisced, feeling Kori come up to my and lay her head on my lap in commiseration.

“The aspect of creation was named Arguran the primordial craftsman. He was a titan that had found an island within a caldera out in the middle of the sea and used it as his home and workshop. He had many apprentices that left and became renowned throughout the world he lived on, spreading his fame and name in the process.

In the end the religion of the god of the forge in that world came to envy him and his apprentices for their skill surpassing theirs and began a crusade. Then the rest joined in when they realized they could plunder his mythical workshop which none save his apprentices had even been allowed to enter. It was simple jealousy and greed that ended the last titan and the greatest craftsman of that world. He watched as all he’d wrought was pillaged or burned, his apprentices murdered before his eyes.”

“The god of the forge came to his soul and asked him to join his household as an apology but the titan spat at his face and told him that his people were the ones to end him and his works. If I can find that world I’m slaughtering it entirely to be honest, mortal and gods alike. Same with the people who killed Thennele. It is the aspect of death that lived through two lives as a human, the first dying in the mind numbing monotony of indentured slavery that his world seemed built upon. Then his soul was dragged though the void to another world, here he was hailed as a hero and thought he held the love of a goddess before that same goddess and all his companions tried to destroy his soul once his purpose was done.” I heard Ilphas swallow hard as I continued to speak.

“He was saved and resurrected by that worlds pantheon of death, their high lord having been slain by the treachery of that same goddess. He was raised as a dark elf vampire and it was then that his power over death manifested. In the end though… Sas’seshkaneth retrieved him before that lesser world died as it had been doing long before he arrived but she left his three adopted children and all he’d made behind.”

I paused then looking out towards the horizon of my realm. “It is why I call her my murderer and adoptive mother at the same time. Death feels betrayed and wronged by her actions, rightfully so, but the other aspects were asked and offered as they were collected after their deaths to rest in the egg while I grew complete.”

I pointed at the gate I’d first gone through, the only gate I’d gone through now that I really thought of it, and laughed jovially. “Then imagine my surprise to see an entire civilization of humanity acting as the bastion, the bulwark against the horrors of the galaxy for the other races.”

“It baffles me, I know of humanity’s potential. Their unceasing curiosity, adaptability, empathy and drive that can make them so great as seen through that one world but in all others… All I see in humans is a disease, a virulent cancer eating away at everyone and everything on their worlds until there is nothing left to consume and corrupt save themselves.

To see them stumble and fall and wallow in the muck as they do sickens me to my very core. Their society's built on nothing more than the flimsy and self-destructive pursuits of wealth and power. Even if it is to the detriment of the very world beneath their feet. The extinctions they cause by their mindless pollution and avaricious greed has cemented in my mind that most of them have to die. For humans are a flower in a garden that can either turn to a weed or the most beautiful of roses with endless potential but once they turn to become a weed they need to be ripped from the garden root and all so they don’t proliferate and choke the life from the garden.”

As I finished my eyes moved to Ilphas once more and I saw him looking saddened but I also saw understanding in his eyes as he spoke softly once more. “You’re going to cause the extinction of every race that embraced the invaders aren’t you?”

“Wouldn't’ you? They’ve already shown themselves for the ungrateful, unthinking little weeds that they are and they need to learn the consequences of such an act.” I said my tone soft, almost understanding but firm. “Even if it means those consequences are extinction. They need to die so that those that have suffered under their rule can live. So that those that held firm to their loyalty to their parent deities can prosper once more as they once did only this time without the weeds and serpents in their mist.”

“But aren’t you a serpent?” Ilphas piped up in confusion.

I laughed jovially. “I am… but a serpent has its use. If I am the serpent that devours the wicked and the malicious yet nurtures the good and just I will not mind it. I can be the devil they require to help keep them on the path if I have to. A Mingshe is a guardian entity in a way, most often in mountains were they act like dragons sitting on a hoard of precious ore veins or the like but I am… I guess a celestial variant of the species, I guard and tend to my world as a whole for that is my treasure… at least so I suspect my function is to be.”

Ilphas stared at me for long moments as I simply enjoyed the new view while he digested what I’d said.

I then chuckled out loud and answered the looks of confusion from the hound and avatar. “At least my singing voice improved by the change to a Minghse.” I laughed, there always had to be a silver lining.

-

The gun was cold, placed against her forehead as Arnei stared at the half madman before her. He was some crazed assassin styling himself as a harvest fiend of her peoples mythic folk lore in the service to a death god. “You know if I hadn’t been hired for such an absurd amount I actually might have never done this on principle alone. Even Zak’thul had a code he went by and you hosted a being that introduced itself as a death god.” He said in whistling high-pitched voice. It blew the entire look for being eerie even though she knew that this man had most likely taken on some extreme rejuvenation treatment to reverse his age that much. How old was this assassin?

“Oh? And how much was it?” She asked, knowing that she should at least know what her head was worth. Her eyes wandered over to the garden she sat in, the same she’d hosted Mors in two weeks ago. There was this unearthly calm that had fallen over the manor that even her father had made three overnight trips already to experience it as a break from governing.

She’d miss it’s calm atmosphere.

“Well actually it was a small paradise moon on the edge of human space. Yeah might be a bit dangerous given the location but hey, I checked it out.” He said shrugging theatrically. “Small price to pay for para….” He trailed off as he craned his neck as if listening for something.

She didn’t hear anything for a little while before she started to hear it. A soft mellifluous yet still a low tenor voice with an otherworldly quality to it. Then she listened in on the song as she and the madman looked towards the soft gardened path it was coming from.

It sounded a little jovial in an odd way. “People suck, people suck, people suck, It's not my fault. They say what goes around comes back around, But sometimes, you get fucked. 'Cause people suck, people suck, people suuuuck.~♪” And there he was, walking out of the garden path humming a tune in his mortal guise still dressed gentlemanly but now in this strangely robed manner.

Still he wore the suit pants and pointy shoes but his underskirt had changed a bit. It now held a hood just over the vest and its sleeves came down to bellow his hips though they opened at his elbows and ended in a twin tail. Underneath there seemed to be very tightly under sleeves wrapped against the skin of his arms showing the outline clearly, appearing almost like intricately woven wraps around his entire arms.

The vest had also changed a bit as it split at his hips coming down to the middle of his thighs in the front but down to his calf's in the back.

Mors came to a halt when he’d entered the veranda area and he seemed to notice what was going on. He’d looked like he’d been daydreaming as he jauntily walked out of the garden path staring up at the trees. Hearing a gasp from one of her maid she looked were she was looking and her eyes widened at seeing the growth come a live as he past it.

“Who’s the wizardly butler?” The madman asked, all the while he’d held the gun to her head.

“The one who’s going to raise from the dead if you don’t pull that weapon from my host, young man.” Mors answered smoothly as he walked towards them like there wasn’t a gun to her head.

She was in utter disbelief at the evolving situation, she’d just been about to psionically toss the madman after she’d sneakily and telekinetically turned the guns safety on without the madman’s knowing.

The Madman snorted. “Unlikely madman.” He chuffed before pulling another pistol from his side and firing it right into Mors’s forehead. She and all the servants held hostage in the veranda froze in horror then in open mouthed astonishment.

Mors had just stood there for a few moments, frozen and unresponsive before suddenly moving one hand from behind his back and dug out the bullet from his forehead in front of everyone.

Once he’d dug the bullet out he’d turned his gaze from the madman, which he’d held the entire time before, and looked at the bullet, clearly unimpressed. Then the bullet burst into black flames that seemed to burn it from existence itself before he looked at the madman with a flat look.

As the madman started to shiver slightly Mors spoke in a flat tone. “Ow.”

Then before the madman could utter so much as a sound Mors was on him. His weapons somehow pushed out of his hands to float behind Mors as he systematically and almost surgically dislocated every joint the man had.

Arnei stared, it hadn’t taken more than two seconds for the madman to be lying on the floor moaning in agony with Mors standing above him. Examining his stolen weapons.

“Interesting design.” Mors muttered unimpressed as he looked the pistols over. They had a clear skull motif similar to the Cervidan skull that the antlered skull over the madman’s face resembled.

“You’re like some delusional teenager or something?” Mors then asked as he turned his gaze to Arnei’s stunned eyes, clearly inviting her to answer for the madman if she wished.

“He’s a well known assassin that styles himself as a harvest fiend of our myths. I suspect he’s had a rather extensive rejuvenation treatment which has… compromised his mind a bit.” She answered as she looked down at the whimpering wretch on the ground.

Mors harrumphed and pointed a finger at the man and sent a bolt of cyan electricity straight into his chest. Then man went completely limp after a powerful jolt went through his body.

They were all silent for a bit before Mors raised his hand with his palm over the body. “Well let’s get something out of you shall we?” Mors said sounding a bit more enthused now than the flat bored tone he’d used towards the man so far.

The shadow beneath the corpse spread out and thickened before rising to wrap around the corpse. Then Mors summoned two different arcane circles from his hands to hover underneath and above the now floating corpse. One circle made of blue flames and the other of the cyan electricity that somehow all held themselves as perfect lines so there was no deviation due to crackling or flickering from either.

Arnei swallowed, she knew since she manipulated psionic energy that using them with that much precision and control spoke volumes of someone's mastery over the energies in question. Her mind snapped back when the cracking and snapping of bones began to emanate from the black cocoon hovering in the air between the circles.

“You said harvest fiend?… hmm I’ll go with a Leshin look then.” He said as a tendril golden tinted green energy slipped from his palm and entered the cocoon. It shuddered and started to look as if the corpse within was thrashing about as clear changes were going on within.

When it was all done the being that stood before them towered, standing at two and a half meters and stared them down. Antlers poked out of a tattered hood from which emerged the same Cervidea skull though its muzzle had clear canine features now with its fangs. From the empty eye sockets burned two blue ethereal candle flames that flickered in their otherworldly manner.

The body was lanky and its limbs a bit too long in an uncanny manner as it was draped in ragged clothing with bare semblance to a robe. The thin and long fingers ended in vicious claw tips and it was then that she noticed it. The creature outside the rags was naught but bones with a thin layer of dried leathery skin that the skull and claws were without. Then the same but much smaller flames as it had in its eyes sprung to life at the top of each of the antlers tips.

The candle flames flashed as the creature went down on its knees before Mors. It was otherwise unnaturally still. The silence broken when Mors whistled, an odd whistle which almost seemed like it had a bell like quality behind it.

“That is a reward. Hmm…” Mors spoke then tapped a finger on his chin with one hand as he held out his other hand and created two arcane circles again. Though these were also clearly different ones from before.

Slowly from between the two circles began to grow a blackish grey crystal that slowly but visibly grew until it looked like a slightly transparent yet reliable obsidian dagger.

Once he’d created it he grabbed it and looked it over while humming a little. “This’ll do.” He said as he handed the dagger over to the creature he’d created. “You’ll use this to end those that hired you after you retrieved the promised payment along with any liquid asset you can find and stuff into this.” He continued as a sack like bag appeared in his hands and he handed it over as well. The creature receiving the items like it was receiving them from its god, which it was.

A much deeper and ancient voice that almost sounded like creaking bark alongside the soft crackling of fire answered. “I shall retrieve them with haste.” It fastened the items to its waist with vines that grew out of its palms before it sank into the shadow beneath its feet.

“No harming the innocent.” Mors said warningly when it was halfway into its shadow which made it flinch before it disappeared completely into the shadow beneath.

When it was all done and a bit of time had been given by Mors for them all to digest what they’d just witnessed he then turned to Areni with an indulgent smile as he gestured to the seat ahead of her as she hadn’t gotten out of her seat this entire time. “Do you mind if I join you?” He asked in an almost fatherly manner before Kori, now looking much larger and sleeker as if she’d aged rapidly, came happily bounding out of the path and letting out a happy if deeper bark.

Arnei spluttered a bit, caught rather flat-footed by the events. ”S-sure.”

Before Mors took a seat he turned to one of the three maids to witnessed what had happened. “Marion could you perhaps be a dear and prepare some tea and biscuits? And a little meat for Kori, she’s a growing girl after all..” He spoke kindly to the flustered maid who nodded and turned to run into the kitchen while followed by the others.

Once he had sat down he smiled at Areni again. “So… how’ve things been?”