Preparations

The prospect of violence and the inevitability of the fall of my foes didn't thrill me. I recognized that the possession of powers like mine, and the capabilities to enact incredible violence on those I deemed my foes would likely please many mortals, but I didn't relish the idea of slaying my foes.

Well... that wasn't entirely true. There was a part of me, a cruel and malignant part of me, that was thrilled by the idea of violence. It was even more thrilled by the idea of witnessing the aftermath of the sort of battle that I recognized was inevitable if I were to clash with the reptilefolks.

A part of me, introspective and inquisitive in equal measure, wondered which of the domains and subdomains in me were responsible for corrupting the portion of myself that was excited by the inevitability of violence and death. I recognized the possibility that the part of me that was excited by this was a portion of myself that wasn't corrupted by external influence but I didn't want it to be. I wanted this black-hearted part of myself to owe its existence to powerful and subtle external voices.

My assumption was that this part of me was being subtly corrupted by the influence of the domain of evil, and the subdomains of corruption and necromancy. That said it was very possible that this was an internal excitement that I innately felt and wasn't due to the influence of any domain or subdomain. And given that gods were creatures of destruction, I didn't doubt the real possibility that violence and death themselves were what motivated the part of me that was black-hearted.

I was born a creature of chaos. Living in human society tempered this aspect of me, but it was there and it was real. It lurked beneath the surface of my humanlike appearance. It motivated me to want to cause change. And as I listened to Dr. Cortes lecture me on the importance of potions, I recognized a vital truth: death was a form of change.

To distract myself from the bloodiness of what I was to do, I turned away from pondering about the portion of my heart that was dark. Instead I opted to focus on something new and beneficial: readying myself and my allies for a conflict.

My mind turned to the endless natural graves of the world beneath the world. Thanks to my mastery over darkness and my incredible necromantic abilities there was something fun I possessed the power to do: construct an army. An army of the dead.

"I can use these creatures." I told myself, as I pondered the fates of the countless legions of the dead that lurked within the island of Puerto Rico. I could sense billions of corpses that were perfectly suitable to my dark needs. And I was quickly reminded that my mind wasn't a perfectly safe, perfectly isolated place when a dark voice spoke to me, urged on by my menacing musings.

"If you want to create an unstoppable army of the dead... you possess the power to do so. And remember that your undead legions are no longer stagnate. Even now the undead servants you've created are powerful, empowered further by the powers you've gained since you created them." A voice told me, the quiet and scheming voice of the subdomain of necromancy.

I heard a smile in its whispers, a cadence that hinted that the speaker felt delighted. I didn't judge it for that, as I myself felt delighted at this moment. I also felt excited. Excited enough to entertain a number of thoughts about alternative methods of handling the reptilefolk. After all, I recognized this for what it was: an opportunity to unleash my powers. A moment where I could act of my own accord, and proceed how I saw fit.

And so I took a moment to contemplate how my ideas might play out.

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I took a moment to envision myself alone against the reptilefolks. I pictured myself arriving in their settlement, hundreds of them within it at any time and the scenes that'd result from me unleashing my powers in full at them. I saw myself alone in their lair, reptilefolk blood soaking the floors of their homes.

I pictured the feeling of countless rays of arcane, divine, and elemental energies shooting out of me. I pictured the fallen reptilefolk immediately rising up to serve me. I pictured the delight I'd feel in taking and defeating countless reptilefolks alone or with the help of their freshly deceased kin.

But that wasn't the only thing I could picture. I had options, as I was no longer the inexperienced god I had been days ago. And another route came to mind.

If I wanted to stage a miraculous escape for those the reptilefolk enslaved I didn't even need to make myself known to them. I could easily turn the very homes of the reptilefolks against them.

It would be an easy act. I felt the earth under my feet, even in the doctor's laboratory, wish to be used. I could feel the thrum of the world under my feet cry out in need of a command. Instantly freeing the slaves the reptilefolk unjustly kept could be done in an instant.

And even then there were other options. The most dramatic option for me was to raise the army of the dead I knew I wanted to raise. Or rather I knew I wanted to continue raising. I commanded countless legions of sapient ant-exoskeletons. They worshipped me, and they clamored for orders.

"What if instead of just giving them orders, I gave them brethren?" I asked myself, a cruel grin on my face.

I pictured an unstoppable legion of the walking dead descending upon the reptilefolks. I pictured settlements crushed under a horde of the shambling dead, and I envisioned the slaves of the reptilefolks staring at their unusual saviors in confusion before I appear and declare that the slaves are to be freed.

Those images were hauntingly beautiful. I felt them cause a stir in my soul. I wanted to do that. I wanted to create a true horde of the dead. If I felt like rationalizing it, I could say something poetic like that I wanted to show those who had long been taken from their homes that justice took on a myriad of forms, many unexpected.

That said I wasn't in the business of self-deception. The truth was that I just liked the idea of a horde of the dead obeying my commands. I liked the idea of a horde of servants who worshipped me as their creator and as their master. And the undead did just that.

I knew in my heart that this was the option I wanted to pick. I had no way of knowing that even as I settled on this option that I was about to be handed a brilliant excuse to enact it. And the form that excuse took, was a pair of my servants finally asking for their rewards.

"Master, days ago you informed us that you sought to reward us. You told us that you wanted us to ask for a reward for our assistance in the accomplishment of your goals." Whispered an unexpected voice. It was the voice of Imbrosa, the beautiful drider on whom Sombra's physical body is partially based. Her voice was songlike, but it was a quiet song. One unlike any I had ever heard before.

I was quiet while I waited for her to speak more. She didn't keep me waiting.

"I have an idea for my reward. I wish for you to reanimate my mate." She told me. I was surprised by this, but more surprised by the fact that I didn't detect any sort of love in her voice. She spoke of her mate, flatly revealed that he had perished, and she didn't sound saddened by it. It was odd to hear her make such a request, without sounding emotionally affected by the passing of her mate.

I didn't respond to her. I would do as she wished, and the truth was that I suspected that if I looked internally I'd find a part of me that was relieved that that was her wish. The timing of her wish felt like an indication that I was on the right path, even though I knew that it was no such thing and was just a happy coincidence.

I stayed silent for a moment longer, and right as I was about to reply to Imbrosa she spoke once more. This time she began with a sigh, a careful and measured one. It was a curious thing to hear and made me chuckle.

"If you're gonna be silent, I'm assuming you're waiting for more information. My memories were foggy when I was reanimated. My mate and I clashed with others of our kind, for reasons that escape me, and he died before I did. The fool was always weaker than I was. And he paid for that. And then, later on, so did I." She said, sighing between sentences. Now, this I replied to.

"Imbrosa, I will fulfill your wish. And... you shall soon find many more like you fighting alongside you." I told her, hinting at the darkness of my ambitions. I heard a peal of soft and satisfied laughter emanate from her, as well as quiet feelings of gratitude.

A moment later I received a message from Nivar, the grave giant. Her voice was a powerful one, and very curiously her voice was colored by emotion.

"Master! I have a request I'd like you to consider." She said, excitement audible in her voice. I replied to her, though I had a feeling I knew what she'd ask me.

"Hello Nivar. Yes? What is this request you'd like for me to consider?" I asked, curiously.

"Master, I have told you of the strange qualities of my people. I would like for you to reanimate my kind. I can sense that they are still not reanimated. Which is... intriguing." Nivar said, purposefully leaving out details that were almost certainly important.

For a moment I considered not pressing the giant on this. That said the truth was that her people's physiology was odd and I was curious about her kind's circumstances.

"What are you not telling me Nivar? I have no qualms about reanimating your kin, but if you withhold information from me you will be held accountable for it. And you don't want that. Tell me what you are hiding." I commanded, revealing that I was on board with reanimating her tribe but also promising to punish her if she tried to hide information from me. I heard her hiss in annoyance, probably directed in equal parts towards myself and herself. That caused me to laugh softly.

"Master..." She began. I felt a spark of resistance, or hesitation emanate from her. And that spark provoked a reaction from me, my expression sharpening cruelly for a second. But as quickly as the spark appeared it vanished.

"Master, please accept my sincerest apologies. I did not wish to embrass myself, is all." She started, humbling herself by apologizing. I calmed myself, and waited for her to continue speaking.

"I was part of a group of... runaways from a tribe of grave-giants. When we fled we said that one of us was supposed to survive a ritual we'd perform and ensure that the others were reanimated as intelligent, free-willed undead creatures. I was chosen for that honor, but I was set upon by a massive monster and killed in the wake of ritual sacrifice my peers performed on themselves." Nivar explained, revealing the humiliating circumstances behind her death.

Upon hearing that, I could feel a pang of sympathetic understanding for her plight. That didn't stop me from being annoyed that she took so long to tell me this though. Something I made quite clear with my next remark.

"You should have told me sooner. Nothing has happened to the corpses of the grave giants, but if I had known about this earlier I would have reanimated your kin far earlier. Do not repeat this mistake. Keeping secrets like this may deprive me of opportunities to gain more power." I told her, making my displeasure with her selfishness clear. I heard her sigh, disappointed in herself and felt her anger towards her sense of pride. And it resulted in me feeling even more sympathy towards her.

"Hmm... What can I do here?" I asked myself, wondering if I could find a way to use this moment to turn Nivar into a pious adherent of mine. I sensed a vague and ill-defined opportunity, but I wasn't sure how to use it.

The grave giants were an unusual race. They were gigantic humanoids and had a striking physiology that empowered them when they came back from the dead instead of weakening them. As a god of necromancy that made them powerful and ideal servants. I could sense the endless applications of their strange powers and adaptable bodies, and that made me want them.

If I transformed Nivar into a champion of mine, I could easily lure in more grave giants. The real question was how could I do that most effectively?

I spent the next minute or so recalling the list of necromantic subdomain abilities at my disposal, and in doing so came across a detail that had slipped my mind. And it brought a smile to my face. But first I had preparations to make.

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So that I could begin to inch closer to the completion of my dark goals I recalled the finer aspects of a particular ability. "Darkness manipulation", a darkness domain ability that let me manipulate the dark and cast spells on things as if I was in contact with them if they were shrouded in darkness was incredibly valuable.

So far in my life, I had never been more grateful to that ability as I was now. Thanks to it I had access to millions of medium corpses, billions of smaller ones, and hundreds of thousands of larger corpses. I was able to use one other power in particular in tandem to create an endless parade of nightmarish undead. "Fleshcrafter" my ability to restore forms to creates whose bodies had decayed to almost nothingness, came in clutch and granted me access to even more corpses to reanimate.

My magic flooded the world beneath the surface of Puerto Rico. And as corpses began to rise, as an assortment of undead monstrosities, I received the first flood of notifications I had received today. I didn't doubt that it wouldn't be the only flood of notifications I'd get before the day was done.

And I turned my attention in full to my grave giant servant.

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"Nivar, listen to me." I commanded, mentally speaking to my grave giant servant. She fell silent mentally and waited for my next statement.

"Do you wish to redeem yourself in my eyes?" I asked her, curious as to how she'd respond. I was sure she'd say some variation of "Yes", but it was the amount of excitement in her response that I was curious to hear. She didn't keep me in suspense.

"Yes! Yes, I do my master. Do you have an idea of how I may go about doing this?" She asked, pleading with me to give her an answer. I chuckled the sound heavy with excitement.

"I am willing to offer you a test. You are a necromancer. You possess the greatest suitability of all of my servants to lead the undead legions I am even now creating. But I will boost you further. In exchange, you are to lead this unstoppable legion, and convert my enemies into its newest soldiers." I commanded her, speaking with the authority I imagined an older god of necromancy would speak.

"I will make you a powerful warrior of death and despair. You will cut down my enemies, a settlement of reptilefolk who are keeping slaves. You and the army that even now crawls to its feet shall defeat, and reanimate the reptilefolk and them alone. If you do this successfully, bolstered by the powers and soldiers I give you to command, then you shall become a chief lieutenant of mine." I declared to the grave giant.

I heard her silence. It was quite loud in its own very peculiar way. It brought a smile to my face. She was silent for a full minute before she finally replied to my offer.

"Althos... There is nothing more in this world that I want than to be a chief lieutenant of yours. If you believe I am a suitable tool for you to use to strike out against your enemies than please test me to your heart's delight." She responded, speaking eloquently. I grinned at her. And without a word I extracted the spark that was animating her.

"If you truly are to be a chief lieutenant of mine, I suppose I should make you something stronger than a ghoul." I mused, a wide grin on my face. I didn't share that thought with her. And as I mused about what to do to her, I received a message from the system that brought a smile to my face.

[Althos, there's a particular type of creature she's suited to being. Can you remember what the necromancy subdomain once you told you about magicians and insects?] The system asked me.

"I do, actually." I muttered. And so I set about creating a particular type of servant, by remaking one I had already acquired. And to start it all off I had to go and dominate some worms.

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In the tower of the eerie god, the giantess suddenly collapsed. She was dead, and not the same kind of dead she had been moments ago. She was well and truly deceased this time. But that was destined to change.

The first worms arrived a number of minutes after the giant keeled over. They were teleported directly onto the corpse, and they were grateful that their master provided them with this delicious meal. They immediately began to eat the corpse's healthy amount of skin.

Every few seconds Althos teleported more and more worms onto the body. Within ten minutes there were enough worms and they had had enough time to eat that the body was visibly losing mass.

By the time half an hour had passed the body was gone, and the worms were satisfied and full. And their master had gained access to two new subdomains. It was when the body was gone that the fun began in full.

The worms, in their dominated state, hadn't thought through the consequences of their actions. Mostly because they lacked the intelligence they'd need to do so. Perhaps surprising some, when Nivar's spirit returned and found her body gone she angrily opted to use the next best thing. Backed by Althos' control over the worms, Nivar quietly began an assault on those who devoured her body.

The worms were swiftly dominated by a singular intelligence that wiped them clean of any memories or feelings they had had. And that angry intelligence used her arcane intelligence to bring the worms together in a very literal sense with a single magically powered and divinely aided attack. Shortly thereafter Nivar's spirt forcibly bound them into a single semi-solid mass in the shape of a massive humanoid.

Althos aided the youthful giant by empowering her spirit and going ahead with his plan to make her into a champion. To do this he silently gave her a blessing she could leverage against her foes. Without a word of warning to anyone, including the giant, Althos blessed her.

At the moment she received the blessing she was struggling to dominate and control the hundreds of worms who'd unwillingly given her their bodies in exchange for hers. And that was the final push that she needed to be able to surge into her new body and seize control of it.

On that day, for the time time, Althos elevated one of his undead servants. In doing so he took an ordinary but cognizant ghoul and transformed her into a powerful worm that walks. As he studied the strange sight of the tomb giant who was no longer an ordinary tomb giant, he was satisfied with the work he had done on her.

He sensed the radiant hatred she had for life. And the not at all contained contempt she had for undead who couldn't use magic. Both of these emotions radiated out of the new and unsettling, writhing body of the undead magician.

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"He is... inscrutable." Remarked one of the domains. It spoke to a gathering of its peers, within the vast mind of the god who was perpetually pursuing power.

"He is not inscrutable. He is young. With youth comes flexibility." Said another, rebutting the silliness of its peer's confusion about the moral flexibility of the young god. To that domain, it was clear how the god was so easily able to accept what it needed to do.

"He is ambitious is what he is. He delights in the acquisition of power. It guides him as surely as any sort of defined moral code could. He doesn't possess a defined moral code. He isn't evil, nor is he good. Though in fairness... applying such terms to a god has always been tricky, long before he came into being." Quipped a subdomain, one of the few that he had had influence over for a while.

This comment generated mutterings of agreement. The subdomain would have smiled if it could since it seemed that the others recognized the wisdom of its comment. It felt that it was correct, that more than anything else what drove Althos at the moment was ambition.

Althos' actions so far were driven more than anything else by a desire to acquire more power. His willingness to feed mortals and to heal them always resulted in him acquiring more servants. While withholding much judgment he forgave a demon who possessed a servant of his and turned it into his servant. He pulled off remarkable deceptions that resulted in him acquiring more servants.

All of that pointed to a simple fact: Althos was ambitious. It was an understated but noticeable ambition that the youthful god himself might not have perceived just yet.

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Deep underneath the surface of the world, dark energies were at work.

The energies that surged through the unlit tunnels beneath Puerto Rico corrupted and corroded that which they couldn't control. They poisoned the poisonable, dissolved the dissolvable, and largely ignored what powerful living entities could endure them without succumbing.

These dark, indiscriminate energies were hard at work. They crept along and through every centimeter of the world beneath the world. The energies were searching for something. They were searching for bodies. And they were finding them, left and right.

Althos grinned as he felt the number of undead under his control swell. And he grinned, even more, when he realized the diversity of the newly risen. It was a healthy group containing members of every type. And that was what Althos loved to see.

Every second his preparation drew nearer and nearer to completion. And the hour to strike down his foes grew ever closer. He found that realization to be quite exciting. Almost as exciting as the two subdomains he read the dual subdomain notification for.