Though a portion of myself had joked about creating a reptile cult, I did have a few servants and worshipers who were reptiles. One of them was an ebony-scaled Sobek who was clad in onyx-armor and carried a dark Warhammer. The creature, the very same Black-Caiman I met on my second day of life and had recently made evolve, was now a powerful dark paladin. She walked beside me with discipline and while doing a surprisingly good job of holding back her innate aggression towards others.
I turned my head and began to examine her. She was huge now that she was a Sobek, a creature that was, at its core, a bipedal crocodile. All of her equipment was equipment I had crafted for her, and she was visibly proud of that fact. I liked it too. Ever since I used my Crocodilian powers on her she had wanted nothing more than to serve me.
This wasn"t just because of my powers either. This was because I had interacted with her earlier before I gained the ability to awaken and then enthrall her. It was nice to see that I was capable of invoking such earnest feelings in my followers. While I kept my gaze locked on her, I began to test her.
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"What is your name?" I asked her, my eyes locked onto hers. They retained their amber-color and snake-like slits even through her evolution.
"My name is Jezebel." She told me, having asked me to name her in the days since I caused her to evolve. I nodded at her, grinning.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, intending to make sure she remembered everything I had told her earlier.
"I"ve come to go to the Dragonstone family and both witness and receive their training." She repeated, telling me exactly what I was hoping to hear. I nodded at her.
"Who is your master?" I asked, intent on hammering this home and ensuring she remembers it perfectly. The truth was I was doing little more than dropping her off. As she readied herself to answer this question I saw a flash of pride in her reptilian gaze.
"Althos is my master. And I am his faithful servant." She told me, adding that last part herself. I grinned at her.
We were trodding down a largely empty road at the edge of the city. At this point, we were just minutes away from the edge of the property that was known to be owned by the Dragonstone family.
I could have warped us there right away, but I wanted this chance to test my servant and I wanted her to adjust to one of my gifts: the ability to see in the dark. It was one of several gifts I had given Jezebel.
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Jezebel was unlike any of my other servants. I had plans for her that were unlike any plans I had for them. When I made her evolve it wasn"t to create a pet or a companion, it was to create a crusader. And the Jezebel that stood beside me knew that. She knew her purpose.
I was planning to create an empire of sorts. My empire would, by my own admission, be rather strange but it was still an empire. And empires weren"t usually built peacefully. I intended to create soldiers, and in making Jezebel into a Sobek, one of the different types of evolutions that a Crocodilian could undergo, I was making a soldier.
I had given her gifts fitting for a soldier. Blessings that increased her strength and her adaptability, and bolstered her with mutations that would make her a more efficient soldier. Not that I wanted her to be a mere soldier... I wanted her to be like Drow: to be a general. One of many I"d command in the future.
When I envisioned Jezebel"s future I envisioned something I could make real. A life filled with enemies to bring to heel, warriors to command, and temples to raise to my glory. And I told her that. I told her what I wanted, which was for her to lead armies in my name. And she was inspired by that.
When I recounted the day I went to battle against the reptilefolk she had listened attentively. When I told her of my powers over the dead she was delighted to know that not even the dead deny my power. When I explained to her what I wanted, worlds to worship me, she began to share that desire. And together we began to plot, to scheme.
In many ways Jezebel was already my foremost military commander, but only because she wanted to help me build a military. I didn"t consider what I had to be a military. Not yet. I had soldiers, disorganized but powerful and skilled, but nowhere near the infrastructure to be considered a military. Though the more I thought about it the more I liked what I did have.
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Militaries were organized structures. They had hierarchies and leadership. They had resources and budgets. What I had was a mess.
I had soldiers aplenty and I could acquire more without much difficulty. Both thanks to my odd powers as a G.o.d and my skill as a necromancer, I could easily create or acquire soldiers. What I couldn"t so easily acquire was a military. And that was unfortunate.
Over the past few days I had acquired the ability to complete numerous quests related to subdomains and domains. Some of them were fascinating.
One of them was the quest for the domain of war. The final domain I hadn"t yet earned influence over that was part of the apparently infamous "Apocalypse Quadrangle", a collection of domains and one subdomain with utterly devastating powers.
I was actually going to complete that quest today, in the next few minutes. All it asked was that I appoint someone a general in my armed forces and I knew exactly who that ought to be.
As Jezebel and I neared the dark-elven compound I reminded myself of the domains and subdomains I could acquire influence over. I also recalled the details of my first real quest.
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[Alert:
You may now complete quests to acquire influence over the following subdomains and domains.
War: Appoint an Althonian general.
Suidae: Heal either a pig or their most common evolution: an orc.
Bovidae: Feed a member of this family.
Fungi: Plant fungi somewhere.
Chiroptera: Cause a bat of some sort to evolve.
Knowledge: In order to acquire the second tier of influence over the knowledge domain you must build an order of monks at least fifteen people strong and provide them with a monastery in which they are to do their work.]
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The other quests were easy. I could, in fact, complete most of them here in Aronms. But the knowledge domain quest... that was going to be a lot harder. It was the first quest in my life that felt like... well like a quest.
I thought about it until I faced the gigantic gates that led in and out of the Dragonstone family"s holdings. They stood well over eleven meters tall and were made from vivid, almost golden-colored, orichalc.u.m and as such, they were eerily bright against the dark backdrop of the subterranean city.
Dark-elven sentries armed with crossbows and their own innate magical prowess patrolled the top of the gates, and Jezebel and I were well within their line of sight. They had never seen me before so when one of them spotted us and began to speak to her superior I was unsurprised.
I looked up and made eye contact with the dark-elf who had spotted me. I smirked at her and I watched her gasp in shock as she realized that I could see her as plainly as she could see me. I wasn"t close enough to talk to her just yet, so after staring at her for a few moments I lowered my gaze, a smile pulling my lips upward.
The dark elf I had studied was a beautiful creature. She had resplendent golden hair, blue orbs for eyes, and silver skin, unlike the other dark elves I had seen. She also radiated magic, and it was a color I had never seen someone radiate before. A soft pink aura surrounded her and to me, with my ability to visibly see magical auras, that made her stand out like a sore thumb.
She was a dark-elf, I regularly inspected the Dragonstone family holdings using my powers and confirmed that much well before now. I even knew her name: Zelda. She was just... unusual.
Jezebel and I walked for another minute or so before we were close enough to the gates leading into the one part of Aronms that was well and truly my territory that we could be approached, magically, by the gate"s guards. They greeted us with what I could only a.s.sume was typical dark-elven hospitality.
"Halt!" A magically amplified voice shouted, speaking in a tone that revealed that this person felt they could speak with authority, and also had no idea who I was. I knew who he was though. I grinned and motioned for my companion to obey the order at the same time as I did.
A few moments later I heard the speaker chuckle, despite the fact that the chuckle wasn"t magically amplified, as he saw us do as he commanded.
"You are entering Dragonstone territory. Identify yourselves." The same voice said, once more magically amplified, seconds after its chuckle. Now it was my turn to chuckle.
This was one of the moments where I enjoyed being worshiped by beings who hadn"t ever seen me physically. It made exchanges like this all the more amusing.
"h.e.l.lo, Merlin Dragonstone. I am Althos. I am quite pleased to see you taking to your job with so much enthusiasm." I told the zealous guard-caption. There was a smirk on my face as I spoke. I heard the captain fall silent for a moment. His heart skipped a beat.
"f.u.c.k." He whispered, a few moments after falling silent. His heart was hammering against his chest. As a member of the Dragonstone family, he was one of my worshippers. And then he spoke, using magical amplification once more, presumably for Jezebel"s sake since he knew that whoever she was she was someone I had brought with me and thus was deserving of respect.
"Lord Althos, please come right in. And do accept my sincerest apologies. If I had known you were coming today I would have been right behind the gate to greet you myself. In fact..." The dark elf turned and leapt off of the wall, casting a spell in mid-air to slow his descent even as the gate in front of me that obstructed my path began to rise out of the way.
I smiled as I waited for the dark elf to land and greet me in a way that he felt would be proper.