167 Dastardly Deal Making

In the wake of hearing the words of Morehammer, the very first thing I did was begin to search through my plethora of law domain powers. Something I immediately noticed as I searched through the domain's abilities was that there were not only a considerable number of powers, these powers felt a step above the other powers I had acquired over the course of my life to date, particularly with regards to alignment abilities. It was impressive honestly, though the sheer number of mind-altering abilities was a bit disconcerting.

[Law domain passive powers:

Ascension: This is a synergistic power that utilizes the faith domain and the law domain as well as the truth subdomain. With it you can cause creatures who worship you to recognize you as the being they worship no matter which of your guises they worship you as, and you can also cause creatures to recognize you as a god even if they don't already worship you.

Authority Aura: You are capable of exuding an aura of supremacy that causes all creatures to recognize you as an authority figure of supreme power. This aura is especially powerful on lawful neutral or lawful evil extraplanar beings, where it is likely to cause them to submit to you and to vow to serve you outright unless they have extremely powerful wills. Submissive beings submit to your will. Among mortals members of noble families are most vulnerable to this power. Your aura also has other powerful effects.

Magic cast near you from schools of magic you possess influence over fails unless you say otherwise. Creatures of any species that are attracted to males become incredibly attracted to you. Lawful creatures who submit to you as a consequence of this power gain a tattoo that isn't unlike the brand you give witches, warlocks, and wards, that ties them to you and allows you to send sensations to them, as well as cast magic through them. This ability also upgrades over time.

Advanced Contract Creation: You can create contracts with a wider assortment of beings, even other divinities, and higher beings. These contracts are binding and if you create a contract with a being more powerful than yourself you gain copies of some of their powers or domains, if they are gods.

Neither you nor the other party in the contract can break the rules of the contract. This power is so powerful that even if the other party is stronger than you it cannot break the contract. The agreed-upon terms must be mutually agreeable, otherwise, they will not be in the final contract. Lie-based powers do not trick this power.

Organization Creation: You can create organizations and induct lawful beings into them. These can be cults, armies, or even nations. You can also grant creatures various levels of authority over the organization in question though all will be subservient to you and ultimately recognize you, in some form, as the true leader of whatever you create using this power. This is a synergistic power that combines the law domain with a number of other domains most especially the civilization domain.

Order Mastery: You gain mastery over the concept of order. If there is an underlying structure or purpose to something you can detect it. As an example, if on a massive battlefield enemy forces are launching probing strikes that may seem unorganized and opportunistic you can detect the underlying purpose behind the attacks. You can also cause these attacks to fail to achieve their purpose.

This power instills you with great authority and causes you to be seen as the source of order when you use it, at least by mortals. Lawful creatures who are in your presence as you use this power actively may begin to worship you. You can also induce order, transforming a chaotic moment into an orderly one merely by wishing it to be so. How this manifests is context-sensitive.

Seal Mastery: You can create and apply seals to both living creatures and inanimate objects. Seals can have various effects on people and things. One example that would fit you well is a lust seal, which is a secret tool that you can use to punish the chaste or empower the lustful.

One way to use a seal would be to plant a lust seal on someone that makes them more charismatic if they indulge in lustful acts. Or to place an anti-violence seal on someone that eats at their life-force if they so much as raise a hand at someone.

Subordinate Empowerment: You can now exert more direct and indirect control over creatures who worship and serve you. This synergistic power grants you greater influence over your minions and allows you to perform a number of acts, not the least of which include: creating quests for your subordinates, granting experience multipliers to minions that allow them to speed up their level-ups, and also speed up things like their natural health or stamina regeneration.

The sort of powers I had acquired related to law, order, structure, and authority were... truly incredible. Domination and Organization Creation in particular were especially powerful. I looked at Morehammer and began to speak.]

"So... You're willing to leave me and my followers alone if we just leave?" I ask, beginning with a probing "clarifying question" to ensure that I understood his position. He chuckled at me, possibly believing me to be ignorant and not have listened to him but he nodded.

"Yes. If you and your followers leave, then I shall in fact be willing to leave you alone. If you and your ilk perform a... dark exodus, then you would be free to live in another world, undisturbed by my followers and I." The vestige explained. He was lying again, and I didn't doubt that he had some strange goal in mind. One that required time to fulfill. That said if I had to bet which of the two of us could grow in power faster I didn't doubt that I had him beat.

I studied him, curiously considering his words for a few moments. Perhaps five seconds of silence passed between the two of us before I finally spoke.

"I possess a potent power that allows us to make a binding contract. If we are to actually do this I would require that a contract be made. Is that acceptable to you?" I asked the creature standing in front of me. He looked at me and was silent for a few moments before he began to smile.

"Do you possess the 'Advanced Contract Creation' power? At your age? You are perhaps less than half a year old, aren't you? That is... an impressive feat unless you born a lawful god. And something tells me you weren't." The god observed, a smile on his face as he spoke to me.

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Internally I was mulling over a few of my never-before-used powers. I was in a precarious situation and a part of me wanted to try and build some distance between Morehammer and I. I knew of two powers that if used in conjunction would allow me to do that. The first of them was my power to make an avatar. This power would allow me to scout other solar systems thanks to the other power on my mind.

The second power I was mulling over was one of my favorites. It was called "Stellar Awareness" and was a truly potent power. With it I had access to an older map of the cosmos, but if I wanted it to be truly powerful beyond my current solar system I needed to add other stars to my awareness. And to do so I needed to visit other stars. Which I could do with an avatar.

In a moment of potent decisiveness, after thinking about my powers for perhaps half a minute, I quietly made a choice. For the first time in my life I created an avatar. And far from me, the eldritch and divine processes needed to construct one began for the first time in half a million years.

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Deep in the heart of a volcano located far beneath the waves, something miraculous was occurring. Something... divine.

The hottest part of the underwater volcano flared to life. Magma surged towards one point in particular and began to solidify and harden, forming an eerie shell in the vague shape of a man. This shell was still for a few moments as more and more magma hardened around it to form the outlines of all four of its humanoid limbs.

This volcano was the holy site closest to the strange god who had exerted his will over Torus time and time again. It was here, from dried magma, that the dark god's avatar would spring to life. The creature, an imitation, and servitor of the god it was molded after, would soon spring to life and dash to enact the god's exploratory agenda.

It spent well over two minutes being formed in the heart of the submarine volcano before it opened its eyes for the first time. And then it spent another thirty seconds luxuriating in the heat of its birthplace before looking upward and out of the undersea vent in which it was formed. It came to life with a fully formed mind, and an innate understanding of its purpose: to serve Althos and to act as a potent representative of his. And it already knew the first mission it was to fulfill: aid Althos by going out and exploring the cosmos, journeying from star to star, to allow Althos to better map the universe.

The creature would reside in the magma for less than five minutes before closing its eyes and hurling itself out of the tiny vent in which it was born. Its body rocketed out of the sole opening the vent had and then looked directly upwards, its eyes quickly and quietly moving towards the faintest bits of light. The creature could see for entire kilometers and was able to notice the faintest bits of light way up above it. With a satisfied smile, the creature focused on the light and took off towards it, moving at a speed equal to the speed of light without breaking a sweat.

It took the entity less than a few seconds to triumphantly escape from the ocean of its birth and speed off towards outer space. The minion was on a mission and it was sure it would bring joy to its master and creator, Althos.

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In the ten minutes it took for my avatar to come to life and then rocket itself out of the ocean I had conversed with Morehammer. In that time he revealed something which actually excited me. He told me what I would gain if I formed an advanced contract with him.

Morehammer was an innately lawful deity and he possessed powers over a number of domains even as a vestige. But the others that most resonated with his soul, even in his current state as a vestige, were the domains of creation, emotion, and the subdomains of blacksmithing and art.

By signing a contract with him, I would gain powers over creation, emotion, and either the subdomain of blacksmithing or of art, in the form of the first tiers of influence over the aforementioned domains and subdomains. Without my powers over the subdomains of truth and lies I wouldn't have believed this, but as soon as he spoke I received a notification alerting me that his words were the truth. This made me want to form a contract with the annoying vestige, as I suspected that I'd gain all sorts of handy powers if I gained influence over those domains and subdomains.

I finished an unimportant sentence and then I fell silent. Morehammer studied me, his wise eyes filled with the wisdom he was privy too as the vestige of a greater god. He was quiet for a moment before beginning to speak.

"Are you ready to negotiate our contract?" He asked, a smirk on his lips. I smiled back, and nodded, excitement visible on my face and alight in my eyes. He was the first to speak following my nod.

"First and foremost I want you and your followers to leave this world. For as long as I live. There are a plethora of other worlds you can occupy, an infinite number of them really. I just want this world to belong to me and my followers. And I don't want you to use your powers on this world anymore." He told me, speaking seriously.

"Are those terms agreeable to you?" He asked, looking at me seriously. I nodded at him, accepting his conditions. But this was something I had a trick up my sleeve for. Every animal and virtually every plant was an Althonian or a Cosechian. This was a consequence of my widespread powers, and it was one of the ways in which I would punish him for doing what he did to Ava, and to me. After I nodded he waited for me to speak next.

"I want for you and your minions to leave me and my worshippers in peace. That includes dark dwarves." I told the god, speaking seriously for a moment. He looked at me skeptically, and after a few moments began to grin at me.

"How could I possibly accept those terms and conditions?" He asked me, and I could sense that he was working to suppress the urge to roll his eyes at me.

"Althos... That's the entire reason why I left what was in essence my tomb. We both know I cannot possibly accept those terms. At least if you include dark dwarves." The vestige told me. I sighed at him and began to speak to rebut his point.

"How do you plan to harass dark dwarves in other worlds?" I asked him, curiously studying him. My words were spoken with the chilling certainty that I knew something that he hadn't revealed, and I did. I knew he couldn't leave this world, and that was not something he had told me, but nevertheless it was one of the things I knew about him.

"Do you think that my power is contained to one world?" He asked me, looking at me ominously. I chuckled at him and spoke to him relaxedly.

"I don't. Not really. But we both know that this contract can't bind us to terms that aren't mutually agreeable and if I discover that you have followers on other worlds, or if you come to other worlds, then it won't end well for them or for you." I tell him, my eyes flickering with fire.

I hated Morehammer. And I suspected he hated me too. Neither of us intended to let the other live in peace. He was a tyrannical dictator who tried to justify his tyranny by being "benevolent", and I was a chaotic and evil god of freedom who was more than happy to free and be worshiped by dark dwarves.

"So you won't allow my worshipers on other worlds to live in peace?" He asked, and I could tell this was a critical question. I looked at him for a moment and considered what to say next. Eventually, after a few seconds, I opted to offer a trade.

"If you allow dark dwarves to live in peace, even if it's after banishing them to another world, I would be willing to allow your followers to live in peace on other worlds, so long as they aren't plotting against me or being used as tools in some plot of yours." I offered, a sagely grin on my face as I spoke. He looked at me and asked a fair question.

"Would you use dark dwarves in plots against me?" He asked me, studying me for a few moments. I shook my head at him.

"No. I wouldn't. I don't really want to rely on others in the context of plots against you. I feel as though you are too strong for mortals to be effective tools against you." I told the vestige. I was speaking truthfully, but some of my words here were chosen carefully. It was true that mortals wouldn't be effective tools against him, but I had more than mortals at my disposal, including creatures who weren't worshippers of mine.

I wanted to protect dark dwarves. I wasn't a fan of other dark dwarves meeting a fate like Ava, and so I didn't intend to use them against Morehammer. I knew of a number of unpleasant gifts I could leave behind for Morehammer that were more entertaining than using and endangering my own worshipers.

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The next hour would be spent in an oftentimes frustrating negotiation. By the time it came to a close, a potent mystical contract had been signed, one that would forcibly enact in a new peace, and also begin a strange and dark exodus of billions of beings. But several important things happened in the moments before the contract was formally signed and the world's most powerful beings created a new reality for those who would be left behind.