216 Learning And Power Creation

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[Alert: Transference of Power

The actions of the deity Althos have resulted in the reactivation of Gamma - 0329, the dungeon-master of this city. The dungeon master has retrieved the dungeon-core and is making his way back aboveground. His intentions are clear: he plans to give the core, and power over the city, to Althos.]

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I grinned when I read through the notification. It meant that I had won, or rather earned at least a significant victory. One of the things I needed to do to learn about the history of Infernius was take over three dungeons, and with this, I had basically taken over the first of the city-dungeons and thus earned the first notch on my belt.

I took a moment to admire the city, relaxing for the first time since I had arrived here. The city, even covered in ash was quite pretty. It was also quite quiet and a not small part of me wondered how I'd be able to permanently rid the streets of ash. I had the ability to manipulate ash, but even I was unsure of how to prevent further ash from falling on the city.

I could easily gather all of the ash into a single massive sphere and then deposit it outside of the city, but I had no ability to create barriers that would actually keep out all future ash. It was annoying. But for now, I stayed patient. And I began to think about something. Life.

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One of the things I well and truly wanted to lord over was life. I had always had an affinity for life in its myriad forms and this affected me as a deity in various ways.

The first way that it affected me was my particular brand of relative nonviolence. I had a strange attitude towards violence: I wasn't fond of it. I was willing to commit acts of violence, in exchange for acquiring more power, if it meant freeing slaves, to see how my powers affected lifeforms, and if I needed too to protect my own servants, but I tended to not commit acts of violence randomly. This was because of the value I placed on life.

I suspected that some of my more unusual abilities were due to my general fondness for life. One of the biggest ones I suspected this was the case for was my "False Resurrection" power, an extremely handy resurrection ability I possessed that allowed me to bring the dead back to life but with a subtle alteration: they come back changed. People I resurrected in this fashion were brought back to life but they returned to life as evil creatures.

This was a potent power of mine that I had already used to significant effect in the past. After thinking about it for a moment, I closed my eyes and created a number of powerful resurrection-based abilities.

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[New Power(s) Creation:

Changed Resurrection: You can modify someone's total alignment when resurrecting them. This means that you can do more than just change their good or evil, or lawful or chaotic alignment you can now change both.

Virtuous Resurrection: You can infuse someone with a shard of holy energy when you resurrect them. This energy makes them loyal to you and alters their souls so as to be suitable for a religious class.

Ordered Resurrection: This power twists a soul by infusing it with order energy. When someone is resurrected in this manner they become lawful worshipers of yours who acknowledge you as the ultimate law-giver. This power, at your current level of influence, cannot turn chaotic extraplanar entities lawful.

Spontaneous Resurrection: This power infuses a soul with chaotic energy as it is resurrected. This resurrection transforms those who are resurrected by it into chaotic worshipers of yours. This power, at your current level of influence, cannot turn lawful extraplanar entities chaotic.

Maddening Resurrection: This power brings someone back from the dead, but at the cost of their sanity. They become insane cultists of yours, fit to be used as fodder for transformation into abominations, or for other plots and schemes.

Fungal Resurrection: With this power you can resurrect people by infusing them with your parasitic spores. This comes with the other effects of infecting someone with parasitic spores.

Loving Resurrection: By using this you can resurrect someone and upon returning to life they fall in love intensely with you.

Ambient Soul Detection: You can detect the souls of deceased extraplanar entities. This allows you to target extraplanar entities and resurrect them more easily.]

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I now possessed far more resurrection based abilities than I had previously. And I intended to use that power. While I waited for the robotic dungeon master of the city to appear with my prize I closed my eyes, felt my not-so-mini-map fill my vision, and activated "Ambient Soul Detection". I was going to bring this city back to life as soon as I was the dungeon master.

From behind closed eyes I focused on my immediate surroundings and grinned as I began to detect the souls left behind by the devils who once lived here. This was a devilish city after all, and any corpses left behind by the devils had long rotted away but their souls hadn't. I silently took mental notes on the sorts of devilish sorts I detected.

Unsurprisingly a wide variety of devils once occupied the city. I could detect every kind of devil from the lowliest soul-orbs, creatures so weak they might as well not have been creatures at all, to a particularly powerful trio of devils, one of who was a vizier devil, and two of whom were blitzkrieg devils. I had a basic awareness of the infernal hierarchy, the social structure that governed devilish society and I knew that vizier and blitzkrieg devils were especially powerful and high-ranking devils.

The city had an equal population of lesser and intermediate devils and a small population of greater devils who in all likelihood served as an upper class. I didn't sense any souls of the strange "true-devils", a ranking that apparently existed between the so-called infernal hierarchy and the most powerful devils of all: arch-devils. In all honesty, I was a bit disappointed to not sense of them, I would have liked to resurrect such a powerful or at least unique creature.

I sensed the robot I was waiting for, the so-called "Gamma - 0329" enter the very edge of the space I could detect and began to smile. I opened my eyes and while I was waiting on the robot I quietly designed a pair of new powers, two I particularly liked.

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[New Power(s) Creation:

Heart-Snatcher: While this power is active, so much as gazing at you is enough for someone to fall in love, in some form or another, with you.

Lust-Vision: This power causes those who gaze upon you to be filled with an incredible amount of lust.]

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Minutes passed each time I designed new abilities. It was mere moments after I designed the second power that the robot I had been awaiting finally reached me. The tiny robot was smaller than its companions and it held a palm-sized orb in both of its hands.

The creature was dashing towards me, its tiny legs speeding it across a vast distance. It only stopped when it was right in front of me, and before it said a single word it knelt humbly and offered me the orb it clutched in its hands.

"Hello, Oh Grand Restorer! In the name of the city of Duvessa, I humbly offer you our core." The creature said, emotion seeping into its robotic voice. I could hear hope, joy, and awe in its words.

"This core shall allow you to lord over our city, and make it your city. I speak for both the robots that call this city home, and for the city itself when I say that we are all eager for there to be a lord over this city. There hasn't been a true lord over this city in a very long time. Lord-God Althos, the city senses your ambition and it is pleased by it. Take this core, and become the lord the city deserves." The robot beseeched me.

Upon hearing the words spoken by the tiny robot, I was concerned. I stared at the orb in its hands, and I began to sense the power it radiated. It faintly radiated mystical energy that even my eyes couldn't precisely identify. It also vibrated softly.

I silently steeled myself, my will, and then I went and clutched the orb. And when I did, my mind was positively assailed by memories that weren't mine.

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The visions that plagued my mind began by showing me a completely different vision of the surface. A long time ago, perhaps even before the cataclysm that ended the mythic age, I saw a surface that was efficiently run by machines and devils working in tandem, cooperating effectively and intelligently. This version, or rather memory, of the surface wasn't a post-apocalyptic wasteland covered in ash but rather a diverse place with a number of different natural features, a true day and night cycle, and other things one might expect of a true, full world.

I saw grand cities and grander machines dot the surface of the world. Legions of devils and mechanical armies patrolled the surface of a diverse, verdant planet. And the skies were patrolled by a gleaming bird made of metal and fire. This creature was unique in that it was alone. It patrolled solitary skies, skies that no devil or machine was foolish enough to go into.

These visions showed me a long period of relative stability. I watched cities rise and fall, but the population of both devils and their technology never waned too significantly. This vision lasted for an unknown amount of time before it changed.

One day, the surface of the planet went completely dark. This was clearly an unnatural change. I had a chance to watch those who guarded the entrance to Infernius wonder what the chaos of this was, before everything changed forever. Abruptly, at least in the context of the vision, a creature appeared at the edge of the entrance into Infernius, and in its hand it held a spear made of swirling, chaotic miasma. This creature was a swirling, chaotic mess of an entity, with no apparent true form. It had the shape of a humanoid but no real identifying features, looking almost like a starry sky in the shape of a person than a person.

The creature immediately sprung into action, attacking devils and machines alike with its spear and with all sorts of energy beams, which immediately dissembled machines whenever they got touched by them. My vision came to an end, with this figure still dashing about, stabbing things with its spear and hurling chaotic energy at machines.

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[The History of Infernius' Surface:

Once, in the distant past, Infernius' had a surface that was like the surface of regular planets. That surface was guarded by a legion made up of both devils and robots. The overseer of the layer was a minor deity of technology and creation named Technos who was a servant of the Dark Saint, the mythic overgod of law, evil, and devils, who in the unspeakably ancient past created Infernius.

Technos was slain in battle in the years leading up to the end of the Mythic Era, by the sworn enemy of the Dark Saint, the overgod of chaos, a god known as Rok. Prior to the end of the Mythic Era, Rok appeared in Infernius for the first time ever and launched a one-man invasion. In doing so he ushered in the beginning of the apocalypse that would ravage the surface, and by the time his chaotic crusade was done he slew many millions of devils by himself.

More details are currently unavailable to you at this time. To learn more, please acquire control over more cities. New information acquired for gaining control over the surface of Infernius. Processing this information into an appropriate quest.]

[New Quest Acquisition: Infernius Invasion

The final step you must accomplish to become an archdevil, the first seen in countless eons, is to complete the invasion of Infernius. Once you have acquired enough dungeon cores, you'll be able to combat the overseer of the surface layer of Infernius: the vestige of Technos.

Track down and slay Technos' vestige, and you will earn multiple rewards, including the second tier of influence over the domain of death, the right to rule the surface of Infernius, and other, hidden rewards.]