A God's Impatience

Andrea Handsfall was a young college student in the world of Htrae and the very first mortal not from the world of Torus that Althos ever interacted with. In a part of the Htrae that Althos had yet to visit she awoke minutes before he astrally-projected himself into the old and abandoned devilish city of Duvessa.

Althos' actions and the pair's interactions during the dream in which she met him had forever changed her life. She awoke on a bed she purchased using her own money, in an apartment that she could only afford because of how the strange god had altered her appearance and the decisions she made after he did that.

She was a top-tier student at an expensive institution but her rent now cost several times her tuition and she was able to afford both without any difficulties. The young woman, who had once been beautiful and was now more fairly described as sexy, opened her eyes and sat up in her bed. She looked around and admired her ostentatiously expensive mattress, shortly before she let out a sleepy yawn.

She wasn't wearing anything at the moment, preferring to sleep in the nude even before her transformation at Althos' hands. Every day she awoke and admired all that she had acquired, be her own glamorous looks, her incredible apartment, or the audience she had built online in the wake of her Althonian transformation.

The young woman would spend the first few minutes of her day getting ready for the day. She did this by showering and putting on the outfit she planned to wear for the day. In today's case that consisted of dark jeans and a dark t-shirt. She also put on a bra today, though on days when she planned to post pictures to her social media accounts she usually didn't do that.

Her appearance was eye-catching, that was the whole point of her transformation after all, but oftentimes she wore clothing that minimized that unless she intended to leverage it to her advantage. She was greedy, but unlike the creature who had transformed her she wasn't lustful and didn't especially enjoy unwanted attention from anyone unless it came with money or the opportunity to make money.

The quiet woman found herself in her kitchen eating a small breakfast consisting of oatmeal, water, and a banana, shortly after putting on her outfit for the day. Her kitchen was a grand room, spaciously designed to include cutting edge technology and plenty of storage space for all sorts of foods. It also included space for entertainment and dining, which Andrea had chosen to fill by purchasing a large T.V. that was currently on. At the moment a news program was showing footage of an abandoned ship in the middle of the ocean.

"The N.S. Eire is the latest ship to be afflicted by what experts can only describe as a never-before-seen phenomenon in which a ship's entire crew mysteriously vanishes. It is the fifth such vessel in the last two and a half months to fall victim to such a fate. The footage on everyone's screens was obtained by the National Council on Aquatic Affairs and has declassified to give the public a chance to see one of the ships affected by these presumably tragic events." Uttered a male voice, some news anchor providing a voice-over to the footage Andrea was only paying a bit of attention too.

Andrea wasn't interested in that sort of news. She had actually tried to pay attention to it when the string of disappearances actually began, but the accompanying news coverage weeks ago had fixated on the possibility of the source of the disappearance of the first ship being a hitherto unseen and unidentified aquatic creature and the generic b-role footage many news agencies had played being footage of the deep-sea. This reminded the woman of her almost totally forgotten childhood fear: thalassophobia.

Now the young human woman had begun to ignore that specific story, since as a child the thoughts of the deep sea and the incredibly inhuman life within it deeply terrified her. That said the T.V. was still on, and footage continued to be visible as Andrea slowly ate her breakfast.

"The Murphy Administration has not yet ruled out the possibility that these disappearances are the result of some sort of terror attack, though thus far no terrorist organization has yet to come forward and claim credit for the attacks." The same narrator from earlier said, uncertainty audible in his voice.

Neither Andrea nor the narrator could have suspected the terrible truth behind the odd attacks. The narrator had no idea that there existed a creature like an akkorokamui in the deepest depths of the ocean, and Andrea had no possible way of knowing or even suspecting that the same entity responsible for her beauty was himself a nightmarish god of the horrifying lifeforms found in the darkest corners of the ocean who had permitted one of his pets to freely pillage vessels daring to cross the ocean.

Distantly, Althos was quite proud of the akkorokamui and its family and each night when they fell asleep their dreams were visions of the afterlife they were likely to receive: private homes in an endless ocean where they'd live blissfully for eternity, aside from when their god needed them. In these dreams they were exposed to a sanity-draining version of the god's "Siren song" ability that ensured that their minds were perpetually open to the dark influence of the vicious god they worshiped.

Andrea also never imagined that the same god who was responsible for unleashing a living calamity on the ocean would soon approach her with a business deal of all things. That same god was currently in a distant dimension and he was hard at work reenergizing another robot, a grin on his face as he acquired yet another servant.

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I found myself inside of one of the skyscrapers found throughout the city of Duvessa. I was pretty high up, and "Alpha" stood beside me, his gemstone eyes locked on the slowly reviving robot sprawled on the floor in front of me.

In the few minutes since we had arrived inside of the building we had explored the empty place and found nothing of great value, at least not while the building lacked power. Fortunately, I had a way to fix that.

As I stood over the newest robot to begin to join me, one that a surprisingly colorful bright green and had ruby eyes, I watched my healing energy surge into it. That said, that wasn't all that was happening.

Above the building, above the entire city actually, a massive storm cloud was being formed by a single usage of my ability to control the weather. I intended to use it to restore power every building in the city at once. I wasn't a human, a mortal, or even a devil or archdevil. I was a being who existed on a scale unimaginable to any lesser being, even other non-deity higher-beings. I had the power to instantly restore power to the city, though admittedly in a quite brute force sort of way.

I glanced out the window and saw the darkened cloud increasing in size. I watched a single bolt of lightning flicker across the sky, and chuckled. A second later I heard the boom of thunder. Alpha had commented on the first thunderclap it had heard, but now was silent and calmly watched its fellow robot.

The robot I was healing finally began to undergo the same process Alpha had undergone when it was first restored to functionality. I continued to heal the thing, even when its eyes scanned me and the robot began to speak.

"Greetings. Commencing shared knowledge check... The pseudo-organic entity this unit just scanned is, according to shared knowledge, the being designated as 'Lord-God Althos'. This unit, Gamma-594, extends its gratitude towards you, Lord-God Althos." The robot told me, revealing its name and greeting me similarly to how Alpha had done.

It was at this moment that the robot got out of the synthetic chair that it had deactivated in, nearly half a million years ago. The robot then turned to Alpha and began to speak in the same monotone, robotic voice it had spoken to me in.

"Greetings unit 627-alpha. By accessing our shared knowledge this unit has determined that you accompanied the Lord-God. For that you have this unit's gratitude." The robot told its peer. The two began to converse, and I turned my attention elsewhere.

I glanced outside again, and this time I focused on the cloud I had created. In doing so I took full control of the thing and without uttering a single word I caused the cloud to release an electrostatic discharge, a bolt of lightning, at the building I was in. The electricity arced across the sky before striking a metal corner of the building and sending electricity throughout the building, sending an amount of power unseen on this dimensions' surface, electricity which I immediately took command of.

That said, this caused the robots in the building to fall silent as the building shook around us. They merely gazed at each other, largely unthinkingly, and waited for the next few seconds while I wrestled to control the electricity the lightning produced. The problem wasn't the electricity itself, the problem was that the building was too large. I was trying to spread the electricity throughout the building so that I could power the whole thing, as otherwise it'd stay largely where the bolt of lightning struck the building.

After a few seconds of this struggle I gave up, and rose my hand. I sighed in annoyance. A long time ago I had gained a synergistic ability to control electricity, one I hadn't used all that often. Today I supposed I'd be changing that. The robots stopped watching each other and turned to face me.

I bit my lip, annoyed that my attempt to power the building had failed, and I activated my mastery over electricity. I felt an aura of electricity begin to spark into being around me, and I grinned. I also felt electricity suffused my astral body, and I knew immediately that I'd be able to direct as much electricity as I wanted in any direction. This made me begin to laugh and had I been surrounded by mortals or even devils I suspected that the sound would have elicited reactions of fear but the robots looked at me impassively. I ignored their blank stares and I began to act.

I moved forward and phased through the window that I had looked out earlier. I found myself floating freely in the air, almost a hundred meters up. I could look through the window and see the two robots still watching me passively. I grinned and pointed a single finger at the building. I then began to direct electricity through my finger and into the building. And this time I succeeded.

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Within the abandoned, devilish city of Duvessa a miracle occurred. This miracle was due to impatience, but it was nevertheless a miracle. One of the many skyscrapers that lined the skyline of the city, just one of hundreds that had long ago lost power, was brought back to life.

The skyscraper, like many of its neighbors, was an efficiently built building with no real personality or features that made it any different from the other buildings that surrounded it. It was made of dark material, designed to withstand even trillions of year of exposure, and until second ago had gone hundreds of thousands of years without any power. And then the building gained power, not once but twice!

The first time was when a single, brilliant bolt of lightning struck the building and power surged through a tiny portion of it. Tragically, devilish buildings both produce and demand considerable more energy than most mortal buildings and the electricity produced by the bolt of lightning was insufficient to power it. However the infusion of more energy than the building had ever needed suddenly surged into the building, thankfully in a controlled manner, and saved the building from its long, powerless sleep.

The electrical god responsible for the building coming back to life watched with a delighted expression on his face as the building began to shine again. Now it differed from other buildings around it because each of its countless floors was suddenly illuminated again, and the computers within the building began to come to life again. For a moment the building was incredibly loud as a maddening cacophony of noises resounded throughout the building.

All at once the building's P.A. system, security system, computers, and countless other smaller bits of technology were resurrected and they all came to life at the same instant. That said the almost eldritch noise was over in an instant. The god watched this all play out and was grinning the entire time. After having confirmed that his method of restoring power to the building was a successful one, the god zipped to the skies above even the tallest of the skyscrapers.

His grin hadn't left his face. He had an idea for how to be maximally efficient, and it was one that he liked. When he reached the zenith of his flight, he turned in mid-air and found himself staring at the city. He was high enough that he could see the entire thing, and he was astounded at its size. The city stretched on for kilometers, and it was only because he was hundreds of meters in the air that he could see the outskirts of the place. Its scale shocked him for a moment, but it also made him want to take control of it even more. And first he intended to restore it to life.

Up high the god could see every building in the city. And since he could see every building, he could see into every building. The god possessed the power to target not just every single building with his electrical powers, but also every robot within each building, and of course every robot that had deactivated within the limits of the city but outside of any buildings.

He spent a few moments preparing two of his powers. The first of them was one of his signature powers: the healing burst. The second power was his mastery of electricity. To use the first he had to target every robot in the city, a number that was in the hundreds. To use the second he had to target every building in the city, a number that was in the thousands. When he was ready he closed his eyes and activated both abilities at once.

The result of the god's actions was a miracle on a scale that comically dwarfed the previous miracle. All at once every building in the city brilliantly lit up, and the same maddening eldritch noise rang out of thousands of buildings at once, causing the sound to be audible for entire kilometers beyond the city, but it was also blissfully short-lived, and silence returned to the city a second later.

Throughout the city's streets and in buildings alike, robots began to come to life, restored by a deity of life and restoration. Hundreds of the automatons began to scan their surroundings, and they were all confused when they failed to detect the hero who restored them to life, and fully fixed them. That said, they did share knowledge and the rebooted robots were immediately informed as to the existence of Althos, and his status as their repairer.

One robot was a special being. This particular robot was located in a small building that wasn't even a tiny skyscraper. This robot, aware of Althos' mission as someone who sought the dungeon core of the city and also a newly converted Althonian, knew how to reward its master for saving it and the city.

This advanced robot quickly got out of the seat it had been seated in when it was deactivated and ran towards a special elevator located in the building the robot had lived in for hundreds of thousands of years even before it was deactivated. It was on its way to retrieve the object Althos sought.

As the tiny robot made a mad dash towards the elevator that would lead it underground, it began to think. Its thoughts were simple.

"The grand restorer has arrived! Such a creature obviously deserves the city's core."

"I can't believe the restorer has come AND he was smart enough to seek out information on the core specifically. Surely he must be a good ruler."

"I'll get to meet the grand restorer! What a happy day."

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Though the surroundings of my astral body were fascinating, a portion of my mind was elsewhere. In all honesty, I was scheming.

In the depths of my mind I harnessed my cosmic will to begin to come up with a new plot to advance my own power. Until now I had leveraged my godly abilities in a number of ways, but I hadn't yet become particularly economic with my might. But with the subdomain of technology, and the grander domain of creation, as well as the domain of nature and the subdomains of earth and agriculture I had countless reasons to become a business mogul. And what's more is that I had a perfect person to use for that on the world of Htrae.

The sin of greed was the personal vice of the young human named Andrea Handsfall. It was an incredibly powerful driving force for her, so much so that within days of becoming aware of my power and experiencing it firsthand she had made a considerable amount of money selling pictures of her body, either naked or nearly naked on Htrae's internet. She used that money to pay for a number of things, including her new apartment, a website where she could more easily sell pictures of herself, and better equipment to take the money-making pictures. This ballooned online and she took advantage of it.

Greed drove Andrea more so than any other need or emotion. Greed and pride were easy sins to understand and greedy and proud souls were easy to deal with. I finally had a reason to reach out to Andrea again, and that filled me with excitement.

The plot I came up with wasn't complex. I was going to start a business, and Andrea would be my frontman, or rather my frontwoman. I would utilize my godly powers to great effect and while Andrea was getting famous for the guaranteed quality of my products, all sorts of my creations including my foods, would be spreading throughout the world of Htrae, all without me ever appearing publicly.

The woman was guaranteed to get rich off of my products, as well as become a celebrity in time, all without her spending a dollar of her own money, and I'd be able to utilize all sorts of my new abilities. I'd be able to sell medicines in the forms of potions I could create from nothing and instantly, food I could create due to my newer abilities over agriculture, technology I could create from nothing, and countless other sorts of products.

After I spent a few moments enjoying the deviousness of my own scheme, I reached out to Andrea. As I transmitted a mental message to her, I was amused to find that she was cleaning up after eating her breakfast. I slyly reached into her mind and began to whisper.

"Hello Andrea. I see you've been enjoying the new body and appearance my powers have given you. I think it's time that we have a chat. There is so much more we could offer each other, so much I could offer you and so much fun to be had." I whispered, altering my voice to make it as seductive as possible. I sensed her shiver in response to my words, and I felt her fear.

The girl knew my powers were real, and she had never forgotten my voice. I just didn't communicate with her much, hardly ever really, so I knew she wasn't expecting to hear my mental voice worm its way into her brain. A second after fear surged into her from the surprise of hearing my voice in her head, I felt a small amount of excitement too. All I needed was to sense that, to know that she was at least open to my idea.

"Hello Althos. You know I'm always ready to hear your ideas." She mentally whispered, and I sensed the smile on her lips. I knew she was opportunistic, and though that made her unlike some of my servants I didn't mind it at all. I just had to use different methods with her than I did with many of my other servants.

Speaking with her reminded me of the trinity of mischievous domains and subdomains of falsehoods, lies, and enchantments. And that was something that I quite liked. I allowed there to be a moment of silence between the two of us before I began to explain how I planned to make her quite rich since I knew that framing would do the most to get her to go along with my scheme willingly and without any mystical compulsion.