227 God Of Might & Magic

Eldritch Domain: Create a nation made up and led by eldritch abominations, or help your followers in destroying a nation made up of mortals.

Poison Subdomain: Utilize poison or acid to inflict massive damage during a key battle.

Art Subdomain: Have a follower create a masterpiece entirely unaided by your powers.

Creation Domain: Have a follower create something that has never existed and dedicate it, publicly, to you.

Physics Domain: Utilize your powers over physics to cause devastation such as by making two planets collide with each other.

Spore Subdomain: Transform over 10,000 of your parasitized spore servants into true spore-monsters.

Disease Domain: Have your followers create a new disease.

Time Domain: Discover and begin to utilize an artifact related to time.

Truth Subdomain: Have a vestige recognize an eldritch truth about your particular nature as a deity.

Light Domain: Illuminate an entirely darkened area, the size of a new moon.

Trickery Domain: Convince a vestige of something about you that isn't true.

Corruption Subdomain: Become a demon lord or an arch-devil of one of the seven deadly sins.

Lies Domain: Convince an entire nation to believe in something entirely untrue.

Evil Domain: Become both a demon-lord and an arch-devil.]

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I stepped through the portal and went from a peaceful, newly established city, into another city that was currently being beseiged. That said, I had never been more powerful than I was at this exact moment, and so I was beyond fear or hesitation.

The instant I stepped through the portal I closed it behind me and began to smile. I had brought myself to a battlefield, one where I could freely test my powers. I was still as I studied my surroundings.

I stood atop a building that was slowly sinking into a stinking swampland. In front of me a small group of demons were panickedly trying to plan how to deflect a fleet of drones that were speeding towards my current location. This strange, sinking city was under attack by my mechanical legions. I chuckled, using my powers over sound to render the noise inaudible and began to walk towards the demons. They stood a fair distance away from me and were focused on figuring out a viable strategy to defeat the odd airborne machines.

As I walked towards them I gripped my artifact-staff tighter than I ever had. The staff was stronger than it had ever been. And I was sure I'd get the chance to utilize it to it's full potential today.

The demon cried out a command, determined to strike down at least some of the drones that were approaching the beseiged city. Its companions were still frightened, but nevertheless they obeyed their stronger-willed companion and placed hands on its shoulders. I sensed them begin to transfer magical energy into their companion and I couldn't help but smile at that. It was almost cute.

The demonic "commander" or rather the demon who was the strongest of the group of five felt mystical power flow into him. I heard the soft sound of his eyelids closing as he attempted to cast a spell that he felt might just take out a drone or two. I approached him slowly, still undetected by his allies.

When the demon lifted a finger and pointed it in the direction of the drones I felt the magical energy he had gathered within himself begin to race towards his finger. I chuckled. The second it left his body it took on the rough shape of a spear of sickly looking green flames.

"Nope." I whispered, nearly silently, as I rose my staff and commanded the spell to stop. The magic that had managed to depart from the demon suddenly froze in mid-air, causing the demon to gasp in shock. That brought a smile to my face.

With that I quietly activated the true power of my new artifact-staff. It began to take hold almost immediately, and the spell that the demon had cast began to scream.

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The demon felt a variety of emotions wash over him at once. But the most primal of the emotions he felt as the magical energy that stirred within him began to not obey him was fear.

The demon had just been paralyzed by shock when the flaming magical energy he had intended to unleash failed to obey him properly. That was one thing, as demons were creatures of chaos and thus their mastery over the chaotic powers of magic were impressive but sometimes their chaotic natures mixing with the chaotic nature of magic caused mishaps like this. However, the demon was not ready for what happened next.

The demon sensed something strange a split second before something strange began to happen. The sickly green flaming spear expanded in size, and began to exude a heat hot enough that the demon began to sweat. And then it began to scream, the sound identical to that a grown human being tortured would make.

For a moment even the demon felt fear. This was beyond anything he had ever experienced. And then it got worse. The spear of sickly green fire began to shift and change before the demon's very eyes. A scowling mouth and set of harsh blue eyes began to appear on the portion of the spear furthest from the demon.

It was at this point that the demons next to the demonic commander froze up. This was something none of them had ever seen. And that was before the eldritch spell began to emit a blood-curdling scream.

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[Artifact Information:

Name: Staff of the Life-Bringer

Artifact Type: Personal, True

Wielder: Althos

Creator: Althos

Staff Abilities:

Parasitic: Capable of absorbing properties from other artifacts. Also capable of preventing artifacts from vanishing upon the slaying of vestiges, thus allowing its wielder to acquire artifacts.

Vita: Can bring things to life. Can also create life.

Amorphous: Possesses an ability to endure shape-changing without a loss of power.

Magic-Commanding: Can warp or corrupt magic, as well as undo it or replicate its effects as per the "Custom-effect" power.

Chaotic: This staff can be edited by its creator. Only by its creator.]

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I grinned as the demons froze up. I wasn't exactly the sort to empathize with my enemies, but I could understand their confusion at this moment. Chaos never failed to spice up life, but even chaos wasn't likely to bring a spell itself to life in the same way that I just had. I studied the scene before me, before targeting the demons once more.

Demons possessed an enviable set of resistances and immunities to all sorts of sources of harm. But that was nothing before me, and my ability to strip creatures of immunities or resistances. Without a moment's hesitation I stripped the demons of their resistance to fire, and then I looked at the sickly, grotesque, living flame. I gave it a single command.

"Burn them." I ordered it, the sound I made ignoring the distance between myself and the living, spear of flame. The spear began to roar, fury surging into its voice, as I fully took it from the control of the demon who created it. It sped away from them for a moment, surging into the open-air beyond the confines of the building we were standing on top of. And then it turned so that it was fully facing the demons. As this was going on it was becoming bigger and bigger, absorbing both more oxygen and more magical power, thanks to my decision to feed the thing.

The flaming spear roared again, the sound more monstrous this time, and hurled itself at the five demons. It surged into and then through one of them, penetrating the man and then blasting out of him without any hesitation. The demon fell to his knees, shock numbing the pain, as I rose a hand and destroyed his soul, which fully killed him.

The other demons turned so that they could keep their eyes on the spear, and in doing so finally saw me. I chuckled and smiled at them expectantly, while gently waving at them as if they were old friends. Upon seeing me they were able to momentairly shake off the fear they felt, as they now understood the basics of what had happened.

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During the time I had been in Infernius, Agustino had better informed his minions as to my powers. He didn't really understand the full scope of my abilities but he knew that I was capable of reality-bending antics and he informed his servants to be ready to deal with my bullshit to the best of their abilities.

That was smart. Unfortunately it was also out of touch with reality. I was far stronger than he or his servants could possibly fathom.

I immediately rose my hand and destroyed the soul of one of the other demons. This shocked the demons back to reality, and they felt fear wash over them again, even as they scowled at me. As I acted, so too did the fiery spear my enemy had created. It flew back towards the demons, hitting yet another one in the face, drilling through it almost instantly. The demon stumbled back a step, reeling from the force of the blow and then collapsed, dead.

"Hello." I said, smiling at the demons even as the spear flew forward for a bit, after killing its target, before taking a sharp right turn and beginning to fly back. My words seemed to snag the demons out of their fear, and hate began to glisten in their eyes as they all took a step back, as if they were just on the outskirts of my reach. I sighed at their rather silly display and when the fiery spear reached me, I gave it a new command.

"That's enough my friend. You've done well, now return to your original state." I ordered the spear, turning to face the thing. Before my eyes the thing shut its eyes and then winked out of existence altogether, turn back into pure mystical energy. When the thing was done winking out of existence I turned back to the demons and merely stared at them.

The demons fearfully kept their eyes locked on me, now fully aware that all it took for me to kill them was for me to desire to do so. I smiled at them, delighted that they were able to come to this realization at all.

The drones in the distance were fast approaching, and the sounds of bullets beginning to impact demons and demonic buildings could be heard below us. The sounds didn't sound pleasant, nor did any of them suggest that the demons had any sort of critical, victory-acquiring tools that they could use to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

The remaining pair of demons tried to look brave, but neither of them were courageous. That made sense though, it was hardly fair to accuse a demon of being cowardly if one was afraid after having seen three of its friends die at the hands of an actual deity.

The demons were unsure of what to do, and for a noment I wasn't sure what to do with them either. They looked like two differently colored humanoids, whose faces were a mishmash of chaotic, ever-changing features. All five of the demons had been the same "type" of demon and none of them possessed any particularly useful abilities.

I continued to study them as the drones behind them drew ever nearer to the building we stood on top of. The machines were parts of my robotic army, a force which was currently spreading throughout this part of the Heart of Darkness, killing demons who served Agustino and allowing me to inch closer and closer to his headquarters, a palace where he commanded armies of demons.

The robotic army I had dispatched to run rampant throughout this dimension had decimated a few different demonic settlements, and dispassionately worked to accomplish my goals. They were also quite effective, their orderly nature and ability to communicate making them good at disrupting the pathetic excuse for "tactics" that demons called their paltry attempts to collaborate, which almost always included threats of force from the strongest member of any demonic "teams".

After a few moments of carefully studying the demons before me I chuckled at them. And then I began to activate one of my powers. It was one that guaranteed that I made new "friends". As I felt it begin to come to life within me I opened my mouth to speak.

"War isn't pleasant my friends..." I said, as I began to feel parasitic spores begin to stir within me. I felt the demons slightly shudder at my words, even as I opened my mouth and exhaled a burst of mind-warping spores and blew them in the direction of the demons. The demons froze up, confused by my actions and thus the spores were able to easily cross the distance of a few dozen meters that separated us.

Spores too small to be seen by naked eyes, or at least demonic naked eyes, flew into the mouths of the demons. The mouths were only somewhat parted, and the spores lodged themselves deep within the unfortunate creatures. A second later the demons fell to their knees and began to cough as my spores began to infest their bodies in full.

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The parasitic spores were perhaps the most terrifying power the dark god possessed. With it he could create organisms whose entire purposes were to rewrite life to his alien and often malignant whims.

The parasitic spores were an extraordinarily aggressive form of spore that invaded lifeforms, seized control of their brains, and then went from their brains to the rest of their bodies. No non-vestige lifeform was immune to the especially vicious form of attack, and to be infected by them was to lose one's own will to the will of their creator: Althos.

In the case of the demons Althos infected this meant that they second they were infected countless spores invisibly surged from their throats to their brains. Shortly after infecting and rewiring the brains of their victims creeping fungi sped from the brain to every centimeter of the body, only leaving their souls unchanged and even then just for now. Sooner or later all a creature was would be subsumed by the fungi, and given over to the god.

The spores themselves were alive and intelligent. They were an almost eldritch type of lifeform, whose intelligences were devoted to three things: finding food, serving their creator and god, and spreading. The minds of parasitic spores were simple, but dreadfully effective.

The demons themselves were on their knees, and they were coughing up a storm. Their bodies were attempting to expel the spores, but it was ultimately unsuccessful. The display was watched by Althos, who glowered at the pair of demons.

Fear was noticeable within in the pair of enemy demons, at least to the emotionally sensitive Althos. Althos, for his role in this mess, didn't like that the pair of creatures were attempting to flee from him and the gift he had given them in their own, assuredly ineffective way. That said their fear began to melt away after the spores began to complete their conquest of the demons.

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For a moment I considered planting a single kiss on both of the demons. My "True Love's Kiss" power would permanently melt away their hesitation to serve me, and would ensure that they come to thank me for the wonderful gift I had just given them. That said I shook off my desire to use that power on them, and just watched as they stopped coughing.

Before my very eyes the resistance to me that the demons felt began to diminish. I sensed their reluctance shrink and I sensed an alien but very real eagerness begin to radiate out of the creatures. The eagerness belonged to the fungi who were rapidly assimilating all of who the pair of demons had been into their memories so that the infected demons could better serve me.

Both of the demons began to mutter pious prayers to me. I grinned, now amused by the display of zealotry by the fungal-demons. They were mine, and that was a fate that amused me so I didn't mind inflicting it on other demons if they were to be obstacles who were determined to stand between me and greater power.

Behind them the first drones were now officially within the demonic city, the first of a handful I needed to conquer, alongside defeating Agustino, to become a demon-lord and to gain the second tier of influence over the domain of war. In this moment I felt ascendant. I was winning, and I intended to continue my winning streak.

And as I allowed myself to feel ascendant I also made a critical choice. One that further excited me and fueled my sensation of elation. One related to magic.

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[Magic Domain Passive Powers:

Spell Creation: You can create spells.

Spell Editing: You can edit spells, even ones that have been cast.

Spell Denial: You can prevent someone from casting spells.

Spell Absorption: You can absorb spells.

Spell Amplification: You can amplify the effects of spells.

Spell Dampening: You can dampen the effects of spells.

Mystical Vita: You can bring spells to life. This effect doesn't yet work on spells that don't create projectiles of some sort.

Spell Bestowal: You can now grant spells to mortals that they can cast up to ten times before incurring an half an hour cooldown period. This is an immensely upgraded version of your "Magical Granting" power.

Magic Drain: As per the "Magic Drain" active power, but now it is passive, allowing you to use it an unlimited number of times per day.

Magic Aura: Creatures in the range of your aura can only cast magic if you allow it, and you can modify the magical energy cost of any spell cast in your presence.

Magic Domain Special Note:

As a reward for reaching the second tier of influence over the magic domain, would you like to acquire the first tiers of influence over voodoo and abjuration? Voodoo and abjuration are the two intermediate schools of magic. If you choose not to receive the first tiers over these schools of magic then you'll automatically receive the second tier of influence over the basic schools of magic, or rather the ones you don't yet have that tier of influence over.]