Her mind was also racing because of Althos" own vague instructions, given to her telepathically shortly after the creature appeared in front of her: "Do not interfere, merely house this creature until I arrive. If she were running around freely others might think she was you, and that would be no good for anyone. This creature is part of a plan I have in place to protect you and placate your sister at the same time."

He informed her of painfully little. Only a bit more than he told the creature seated across from her. It greatly frustrated the dwarf who now knew that her sister was apparently still bent on revenge.

The woman and her pseudo-clone were seated across from each other. They were inside of the house that the mysterious G.o.d Althos had divinely constructed for her when adding buildings to the town so that its first inhabitants had places to live. Her house was a small one, perfect for her since she didn"t need or want much.

A strange creature was seated across from her. The ent.i.ty appeared to be a dwarf. On a purely physical level, it was impossible to tell the two apart. That said, all it took for someone who knew Aoife to be able to differentiate between the dwarf and her doppelganger was a chance to see the pseudo-clone walk. She lacked Aoife"s belief in herself and her body-language whenever she moved revealed as much to any astute observer.

The strange dwarf-like creature was Althos" mysterious creation. Aoife had heard her repeat her commands and found herself at a loss for words. So for now the two sat in awkward silence.

The room they found themselves in was a simple one. It was supposed to serve as a combination kitchen and living room that was split precisely down the middle. The two occupants of the room were facing each other from across a kitchen island made of divinely generated metal. After several minutes, Aoife"s almost-clone looked at her and spoke.

"Listen... are you going to tell me what"s going on?" The creature asked, in a voice that was a hauntingly perfect replica of Aoife"s own. It was unsettling for the dwarf to hear someone mimic her voice so perfectly. Aoife considered the question, then shook her head.

"No. Althos spoke to me, and he told me not to interfere. You are here because if you were elsewhere people might think you were me." The dwarf explained. This caused the creature to grimace. That grimace elicited a small smile from Aoife, who sympathized with the creature who wore her face.

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In the tower, the smell of sweat and blood mixed together to create a nauseating miasma. That said, I didn"t doubt that the demons and the ants who could smell it loved it. It was the perfect sort of toxic miasma for them.

Ava was in motion. She was dashing towards her chosen victim, the first of the creatures who would fall to her blade. Her target was a powerfully built myremekes warrior who stood nearly three-meters tall. The creature grinned, a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic smile on its face as it waited for the sting of the blade that would soon penetrate its body.

Ava"s feet smacked the floor beneath her several times before she finished closing in on her enemy. The sound of her footsteps was a quiet one, thanks to her diminutive stature as well as her small weight. When she closed in on her foe she smiled and leaped into the air.

I watched this, studying how her muscles pushed against her clothing and immediately realized she wouldn"t be able to reach where she wanted to go unaided. Ava was staring at the unprotected skin of the ma.s.sive ant-human hybrid. She wasn"t trying to penetrate the insectoid"s scales, she was trying to stab deep into its flesh. This was a smart choice but it was not one she was capable of making alone. At least not successfully. I chuckled and quietly intervened.

Silently, I directed the air beneath Ava to give her a boost. The air instinctively obeyed me and uplifted Ava in mid-air. With it, she received the boost she needed to successfully reach the place she was aiming at, the unarmored torso of her foe. Her foe had a distinctly human torso and upper body. He had a pale, muscular chest, and a handsome face that was wracked with antic.i.p.ation. He was eagerly awaiting

"Heeyah!" She shouted, as she shot her blade forward at and into her opponent. The blade, composed of shadow-stuff, effortlessly sank into her enemy who welcomed Ava with a smile and reached out with his bladed arms. He wrapped them around her and pulled her into his chest even as he began to feel the exquisite pain she was inflicting with her savage weapon.

He sighed, a strange smile on his humanlike face, as he helped her push the blade deeper and deeper and into himself. His eyes were alight with joy and pleasure, even as he felt his life-force seeping out of his body. The creature looked at Ava and studied her. I studied him, finding this whole thing amusing in a dark and macabre way.

I had never fully seen the dreadful impact of my powers over pain in play before. Watching them in action was fascinating to me, and affirmed that I made the right choice in doing this. The ant-monster who was dying was in eerie and unsettling ecstasy as he perished, the life leaving his eyes but not the light. There was a sinister, s.e.xual satisfaction visible in his gaze.

His heart was beating rapidly and thus was accelerating his demise. I watched as scarlet fluid began to be spat out of the s.p.a.ce where Ava had lodged her blade into him, and I could hear him gently laugh, the sound an innocent and delighted one. Ava grunted and gripped her sword tightly. Without moving I quietly buffed her strength and watched as she violently tore the blade from his chest.

"Ahh..." The ant gasped, his eyes more lit than ever, as he felt new and unexpected pain from Ava"s violent and unskilled movements and motions. I audibly chuckled, as the ant staggered and fell, his legs no longer containing the strength needed to support his ma.s.sive weight. His face was now on the floor, within reach of Ava even when she wasn"t in mid-air. I turned my attention to my servant, Ava, and spoke.

"Finish the creature. Touch its head with your fingers." I told the dark-dwarf as I reached out and began to modify her. I swiftly made use of one of my more potent abilities and began to alter Ava herself.

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[h.e.l.lo! Welcome to the "Alter" menu. This menu allows you to glimpse at the traits possessed by a creature and select new traits to paste onto them.

Ava is your current target. Here are her traits.

Corruption: Ava is a dark-dwarf. This is an unusual and dangerous state of being for dwarves in which their hearts are corrupted and they physically take on darker and bleaker traits.

Divinely empowered: Ava was already surprisingly powerful before you began to pour some of your divine, magical, and otherworldly power into her. Now she is even stronger and possesses the "Divinely empowered" trait which increases her potent power considerably.

s.a.d.i.s.t: Ava is a s.a.d.i.s.t. She relishes the pain she inflicts on her victims.

What alterations would you like to make to her? Here are some possibilities:

Acidic: This powerful alteration causes Ava to gain immunity to acid and to gain a natural attack in which even her touch transfers devastatingly powerful acid to a target and begins to break it or them down.

Abomination: This alteration causes abomination to view a non-abomination as like them. Abominations who would normally be hostile towards recipients of this alteration instead leave them alone unless attacked first.

Cold: This power stems from the liquid subdomain and it functions like "Acidic" in that it grants immunity to the cold and also bestows the altered individuals with a new natural attack. This one is a strange attack that chills or even outright freezes enemies in place.

Empowered, necromantically: This alteration makes someone into a more potent necromancer. It increases how rapidly they gain levels as a necromancer, empowers the undead creations they animate, and even increases the raw, destructive power of their powers.

Fungal: This fundamentally alters targets and turns them into potent fungal monstrosities. This power alters their appearance as much as you wish or will allow, and grants them hyphae and other useful fungal appendages. They gain the power to speak to fungi. They can also root themselves into the ground and begin to ambiently heal while rooted in soil.

Parasitic: This allows for the altered individual to drain life from their victims and use it to power themselves.

Plant-like: Similar to fungal, but with the power to exude a calming fragrance, natural regeneration while in the light of the sun, and the ability to gain control over victims if they are either persuaded or forced to ingest a seed created by the altered individual. They gain the power to speak to plants.

Poisonous: This functions similarly to acidic but with poison instead of acid.]

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I smiled and altered Ava to make her poisonous and I empowered her necromancy with the "Empowered, necromantically" alteration. The dwarf froze at my suggestion but considered it for a moment. And then she opted to obey me and placed a single, finger on the monster"s human-like head with surprising gentleness. She placed her index-finger squarely on the monster"s forehead. As she did so her entire body radiated a gentle, silver-light. My alteration was taking hold.

The moment the dark-dwarf placed her finger on the humanlike face of her victim, he emanated a noise that was a mixture of pain and pleasure. The utterance was a guttural half-moan, half-agonized shout. It was loud, and with it the creature perished almost frighteningly quickly. Mere moments after Ava touched his head.

I watched as his breathing sped up for a moment, and then slowed down considerably. Moments later he stopped breathing and his heart stopped beating. Ava noticed this too, and her face contorted itself. There was a look of cruel satisfaction in her eyes and on her lips in the form of twisted lips that were half smiling, half smirking. She began to speak as she moved her hands until they were positioned just over the creature.

"Finally... With this, I can begin my revenge in full." She said, aware of her own powers and the spell she was mentally preparing to cast. An instant after she finished speaking rays of dark green energy shot out of her fingers and into the corpse at her feet.

The still corpse began to radiate an eerie and dark greenish glow as Ava"s imprecise and untrained necromantic magics filled it with an unholy and homicidal unlife. I watched as the body began to vibrate as if someone were attempting to restart its heart, and I chuckled. I felt the unlife energy that Ava had just conjured begin to settle in the strange body of the monster.

After a few seconds of waiting, Ava began to tap her feet onto the stone floor of my tower. It was a rapid tapping, one that increased in frequency the more she had to wait. Her inexperienced, imprecise spellcasting was more than enough to reanimate the corpse, but it wasn"t enough to do it immediately as I could. Her mortality and her weak soul made it impossible for her to have the same innate, inborn mastery over unlife energy that I possessed. That said, I knew that she succeeded.

"Patience." I told her, smiling as the corpse"s vibrations finally began to slow down. Ava"s tapping slowed as the vibrations did, the impressive creature keenly aware of the speed of the vibration of her first undead creation.

Nearly two minutes after she cast the spell she cast on the ghoulified ant-monster, the creature finally stopped vibrating. And began to move. Ava smiled at the thing and helped it up, while turning her eyes towards the rest of the myremekes ants. It wouldn"t take her even fifteen minutes to finish slaughtering and reanimating them. Each time she had to reanimate a corpse it was a quicker process than the last time.

When Ava and her squadron of undead ant-monsters were fully prepared and ready to go, I rose a hand to my right and opened up a single, moderately large portal. We could see beyond it, and were peering into Oscuridad" mine, a place I created to give the residents of the small community a way to pa.s.s time and to arm themselves without too much work on my part.