Aide was happy with his Paths, and at the end of the day, that was what mattered. They had to fit him, not Serenity.

Serenity’s Paths had to fit Serenity. On that note, it was finally time to look at his next Path, and he was worried about it. Would it be Tier Five or Tier Eight? Would it be a Species Path? That was the pattern he was used to, but was Dungeon Deity even a species? It didn’t sound like one.

Putting it off wouldn’t help; he was simply nervous. This wasn’t like a new Core Tier; this was a new Path and Serenity knew how Paths worked. Taking one in a dungeon was fine. Really.

Serenity took a few minutes to work up his nerve before he reached out to the Voice. When he did, the answer wasn’t exactly what he expected, but it was less of a surprise than he’d worried.

There was no long list of available Paths. That was normal for his first Path in a Tier as Serenity; he’d gotten used to it. There wasn’t a lower-Tier Path available, either, but again that was pretty normal for his first Path in a Tier after he’d advanced his Core. It wasn’t the way it worked for normal Pathed, but none of this was.

It wasn’t even all that unusual that there was only one option for his next Path. Some Species only had one Path, even if he did seem to have gotten a small number of choices on several of his Paths.

No, what was unusual was what his choice was. When there was only one choice, it generally matched the Species name; this one didn’t. Or maybe it did and his Core Tier was more specialized?

No, definitely not. Serenity didn’t think “deity” was a Species. If it wasn’t but was similarly locked to a limited selection of Paths that taught how to be a deity, however, that might explain everything. Serenity grinned to himself and selected the only option.

Tier Five - Deity (Unique/New)

Serenity didn’t feel anything as he gained the Path, but he hadn’t really expected to. The only reason the thought even crossed his mind was that it seemed like a different sort of Path. When he checked them, the abilities weren’t exactly normal, though they weren’t as weird as Aide’s.

Level 0 - Gather Faith - Energy, even magic, has to come from somewhere. Those who follow you can send you some of theirs. This faith naturally adds to your available power, allowing you to advance more easily, but it may be directed into specific tasks or simply accumulated with practice.

Value and amount received depends on level of faith, willingness to sacrifice, power of the believer, and distance from origin. Other factors may apply depending on the specific beliefs and actions taken to show faith.

This ability is a prerequisite for the Deity Path and is simply recorded here.

Serenity didn’t know what he’d do with that. More power was good, but the description implied he was already getting it. If that was the case, where was it going? Had he been using it without realizing it?

He was going to have to figure out how it worked then figure out how to direct it. Maybe he could use it to empower the people around him? It wasn’t like he really needed more power at the moment. He was already so far past what anyone would believe possible ten years after the Tutorial on a Tier Zero world that his own strength wouldn’t be the problem when the Voice’s protection fell. The fact that he couldn’t be in more than … well, four … places at the same time was more likely to be an issue.

Perhaps he could also use it to reinforce Gaia’s core? He still didn’t know what destroyed her in the previous timeline, but the existing damage to her core was definitely a possibility. It was a very scary possibility, especially since his presence as a Tier Eight might accelerate whatever triggered her to crack.

Serenity wasn’t looking forward to returning to Earth as a Tier Eight. It was going to hurt and hurt badly. At least, it should … but he knew there were Gods on Earth. Gods who didn’t seem to be in pain. Sure, Psyche and Helios were both weakened, but they were both gods which had to mean a certain level of power, didn’t it?

Not to mention Tek, Coyote, and even Death; they weren’t weakened. Tek was new and didn’t radiate her power, but Serenity was confident she was more powerful than he was; the other two were far out of his league. Even Tranquil Conviction came to Earth without any issues. Maybe the fact that they were gods somehow protected them and it had something to do with faith?

If so, that was a skill Serenity definitely wanted to learn. He had the feeling that Gather Faith was a Skill that didn’t really help you; it simply recorded what you could do, rather than the other way around. It reminded him of Aide’s Skills.

Were all of his Skills from this Path going to be that generic and flexible? If they were, it would certainly explain the (Unique/New) note on the Path.

Level 10 - Detect Believer - Gods and those who believe in them are linked. While this link is the most active during prayer, it can be felt at other times.

That was the most useless skill Serenity had ever heard of. Why would he need to know who believed in a god of dungeons? He didn’t believe in a god of dungeons and he apparently was one!

Well, to be fair to the skill, it was probably somewhat useful for a normal god, especially if they wanted to favor their followers somehow. That would probably be important for a god of agriculture, for example; they could direct better harvests at their followers’ fields or something. The thing was, Serenity’s only followers were going to be people who dealt with dungeons, and Serenity couldn’t exactly do much from there. Telling dungeons to give extra away or go easy on people just because people worshiped him felt squicky.

He certainly wasn’t going to tell delvers not to enter dungeons, though he might tell them how to manage them properly. Abandoning them or not clearing them out would hurt everyone. Taking control of a dungeon generally helped the Dungeon Master and those he supported but wasn’t fair to the dungeon. Sure, dungeons were dangerous, but that was part of the bargain. They rewarded you and managed the planet’s manaflow in exchange for you spending time inside in a dangerous environment.

Wait. The title was Dungeon Deity. He wasn’t the God of Delvers; he was the God of Dungeons. It was entirely likely that delvers would worship him; some delvers would worship anyone they thought might help them get through the day. That wasn’t who he represented; he represented the dungeons.

Serenity wondered how many of them would worship him once they knew about him. He wasn’t sure if he really wanted it or not but it didn’t seem like there were that many options, really … and it might be useful. If nothing else, Detect Believer might work to help Serenity find dungeons; that would actually be useful, especially if it could detect all dungeons and not just the ones that knew about and actively worshiped.

It wasn’t the best Skill he’d ever seen but it wasn’t as useless as he’d first thought.

Level 25 - Appoint Intercessors - Priest, Shaman, or Shameless, almost all deities have mortals who act as the interface between the God and the Believer.

Shameless?

Why hadn’t he pushed back harder on that when Ita declared herself his Shameless? It probably wouldn’t have worked, but maybe he could have avoided this whole Path.

Level 50 - God’s Wrath - One should not anger a god.

Effects vary depending on deity and focus. May be focused internally or externally depending on Faith.

Serenity had a sinking feeling as he read the Skill. It was little more than a starting point; he wasn’t even certain what it meant.

Internally or externally sounded a lot like it was either good at dealing with heretics or at dealing with infidels - that is, people of the faith who angered their deity or people outside the faith who angered the deity. He probably had to choose one or the other. Serenity had no idea which he would choose; did that even apply to a god that didn’t really want followers?

He certainly wasn’t going to be a jealous god. That was foolish; he’d be perfectly happy if most of the people who “followed” him worshiped another deity and simply treated dungeons well and/or behaved properly if they were a dungeon.

He couldn’t even be too upset at people, including dungeons, who didn’t know better; there absolutely were reasons to not know any better. As far as he could tell, most people didn’t know how to behave in a dungeon. Dungeons were generally a bit better, but Serenity could remember the long series of outreach missions he’d done to reach the dungeons of Earth. It wasn’t innate knowledge; dungeons just lived longer and could talk to each other if they were on their planet’s ley line network.

Spreading the knowledge of what dungeons did and how to deal with them … actually, that might be a very good thing for his clergy to do. Once he had clergy.

Serenity glanced back at the Skill before he moved on, only to find out that it had changed while he was thinking about it.

Level 50 - Wrath of Dungeons - Those who follow the Dungeons’ Way are supported in their efforts against those who would act against it by their Faith in the Dungeon Deity.

Applies to both direct action and attempted persuasion of nonbelievers.

Seeing an ability change while he was first learning about it, before he even had it wasn’t creepy at all.

Also, he was lying to himself.

Serenity shivered and moved on.

Level 75 - Blessings and Curses - One of the primary uses of Faith energy outside of the deity’s personal power is to Bless or Curse.

Blessings and Curses vary. All Blessings and Curses must align with the deity.

Blessings would be nice; they might be that way to help his followers that he’d been thinking about. Though … were all of his people even going to follow him as a god? Serenity had his doubts; more than that, he didn’t want Rissa to worship him. They were supposed to be equal, at least more or less, and a god wasn’t equal with a follower.

That meant Blessings was probably only a piece of what he needed or wanted. It might be a big piece, since delvers were likely to be among the stronger people in combat if there were a conflict, but it wasn’t exactly what he wanted.

Curses, on the other hand, was terrible. Serenity despised curses. No matter how angry he was, he didn’t want to curse anyone. He’d deliberately never pursued it, even though Death magic could be used for curses. It wasn’t the best, but it worked for some people. He didn’t want the temptation.

Serenity stared at the entry, hoping it would also change, and was relieved when it did.

Level 75 - Cursebreaker - Faith energy may be used to assist when breaking a curse.

That wasn’t what he’d expected the ability to change into, but it was so much better. It was especially good if he could figure out how to give his Faith energy to someone who actually knew how to break curses.

Maybe they’d actually be able to finally completely break the partial curse that still hung over Phoebe and take care of her family?

Level 100 - Miracle - Broad, powerful, and rare.

There is no one Miracle. All miracles must align with the deity whose Faith they use.

There wasn’t much to say about that one. Serenity was sure it would have some serious restrictions, but they would probably come down mostly to how much the miracle cost. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be cheap and Serenity doubted that it could do anything small.

He might be wrong about that, though. Weren’t all sorts of small things sometimes called miracles because they had an outsized impact? Maybe some of them actually were.