A Solitary God In A Dark Multiverse - 183 Day Two

Over the course of the next seven days I would steadily build up the community I had created. As night fell on the community, the very day I had created it, I acted in my role as a god of caverns and other subterranean places.

I went beneath the earth of the community and set about doing a number of things. The first thing I did was create ways into the earth within each of the houses I had built. I created small caverns by carefully hollowing out the earth beneath the houses and O also built tunnels that connected them to each other, while also building stairwells in each of the seven houses I had built so that humans could go underground and so that the things living underground could go aboveground.

I was fond of building things underground, and frankly, even on my first day of constructing things in the at that point unnamed community, I built far more underground than I did aboveground. Under the houses and in the caverns I built a number of golems, making use of perhaps the most powerful ability I had gained from the domain of creation. My first golems were simple things made of stone and their whole purpose was to serve as living decoration and protect the underground world from unwanted intrusion. I would later build more complex and beautiful golems than that.

On the first day the only cavern of any real importance I created was a gigantic one that was actually not underneath any of the houses but was a distance away from them. In this cavern I built a tremendous garden, using powers over flowers, life, and light, and I also built an enormous hive before filling it with bees and wasps. At the heart of the cavern was a deep lake, which was where I’d build an underwater temple to myself. In the moments when I wasn’t doing anything, I’d come to this temple and rest.

I evolved a number of both types of insects, and thus finally began to expand the swarm again. The garden cavern was the only place I illuminated beneath the earth. I preferred the darkness myself, but I didn’t feel like modifying the flowers to be able to survive in the dark. That was a bit too much, even for me.

I also went ahead and carved out a single tunnel connecting the garden to the other caverns, but I also built powerful stone golems to ward off anyone, even humans I built, from the place. This cavern was mine and it was where I liked to rest and lurk. I didn’t want any humans coming here and disturbing that.

While idly in my temple I silently observed the dreams of many humans throughout Htrae. I didn’t intervene, and the only way in which I made my presence known was by being visible in the dreams as a silent, unearthly observer. I wasn’t hostile, or benevolent, I was merely there. I investigated the dreams of children, adults, businessmen, homeless people, and even presidents and doctors.

I learned much from that and had fun conjuring nightmarish forms to visit the dreams in. In some, I was a moon with an evil face. In others, I was a gigantic entity, a true horror that stood menacingly off in the distance. In others, I was a massive serpent who audibly hissed whenever I couldn’t be seen but was silent when I was in view. It was fun.

________________________________________________

As my second day in Htrae began I left my submerged temple as soon as it was five in the morning in the lands above me. As I did I saw my insect-worshipers and their evolved and more zealous cousins, hard at work. I saw hundreds of them as I made my way out of the tunnel. I ignored them, but I still felt their reverence pour into me as I left my home, and it brought a smile to my face.

I made myself incorporeal and flew through the earth until I was back on the surface of Htrae again. Doing so took less than a second since I was capable of traveling at the speed of light. When I was back above the surface I set about going to work once more.

The first thing I did was make a phantom copy of myself and teleport it to Glendale. The copy had simple instructions: it was to learn about technology and in doing so give me new toys with which to play. I had a number of powers that were useful for this, especially from the knowledge domain. I had also instructed the creature to be stealthy, which both it and I, and therefore both of me, knew it could be. Even as I teleported the thing it turned invisible and activated a suite of powers designed to ensure it went undetected. I didn’t doubt that it’d soon give me lots of knowledge with which to play.

The second thing I did was expand the town I had created. I expanded it several meters, and then immediately created a simple temple to myself in the now empty space. I did this before any of the humans I had created were awake, and it was done silently.

This temple was a small one. It wasn’t supposed to be a huge or ornate place of worship, it was meant to be humble and welcoming. I didn’t even enter the temple to decorate it, and instead I filled it with the things a temple needed like pews, an altar, and even a simple text that instructed worshipers to breed and to worship me as a fertility and life god.

This text contained the teachings involved in my worship, including that I was the source of their lives and thus was the figure responsible for their pleasure. I instructed them to devote each pleasurable sensation they experienced, be it for procreation or not, to me. I planned to teach this temple’s faithful that lust was good and should be indulged in.

I created a new human specifically to serve as a priestess here. I didn’t leave her as an organic human though. I immediately bestowed her with a diamond form, and I afflicted her with lust. Her whole purpose was to be this temple’s guardian and the preacher who spoke here daily. Her beautiful, diamond-form, was appealing even to me but I didn’t dally here. I had other temples I needed to create and populate, some of which would be filled with more than one person.

I went to another portion of the wall, one far from the one I had just modified and repeated the process I had done when building the first temple. I expanded the wall, I built the temple, and I decorated it. This temple’s text was all about the importance of patience and kindness. I used this temple to finally begin to build a cult that worshipped me as a god of purity and the seven virtues.

This time I made the cleric in the temple a male, and I also bestowed him with a non-organic form. His skin was soon replaced by gold, giving him an ornate and gleaming appearance. I made him a kind and saintly fellow whose alignment was lawful good, and I instructed him to be kind above all things, even though I never set foot in the temple.

I had two more temples to build and so this time I made both of them at once. I first expanded the wall once more, just in both places at once, and used my powers to immediately construct the temples in a matter of seconds. Doing so was easy and fun, and I enjoyed it. Both temples were useful to me, and served different purposes.

The first temple I focused on was a simple one. It was a temple that was devoted to me as a god of goodness, a thought which still amused me greatly. I decorated it humbly, filling it with the usual items I had filled the other temples with, including its own unique text that emphasized goodness in all things. The priestess here was a woman whose skin was soon made into beautiful, gleaming copper.

The second temple was the only temple I’d build that wasn’t simple. This temple was devoted to me as god of law and order. It was also considerably larger than the other temples, including having a real courtyard and even a backyard. This temple was different and I needed it to serve multiple purposes.

________________________________________________

I was a god. In so far as I was interested in building governments and organizations, I intended everything to be theocratic. Which wasn’t how things worked in this world. In this world there was an antiquated and mostly forgotten concept called the “Separation of Church and State”, which was once used to describe keeping religion and politics separate from each other. It was antiquated and mostly forgotten because religion itself had died in this world, with the last known faithful dying off well over a century ago.

Centuries ago there had still been religions in this world. Judging from what I had gleaned in the dreams of individuals who were knowledgable about history and sociology, these ancient religions hadn’t worshipped anything real and survived so long because of their emphasis on blind faith. That said those religions were still mighty and for a long time tried to interfere with politics.

Over the course of Htraeian history more and more people became secular and rejected these religions, and as they did they came up with concepts that served to separate government and religion. As a god, I wasn’t a fan of that. This society wouldn’t be like that.

The temple of law that I built was above and beyond the largest temple I had built to date. It was an enormous thing that would serve a number of critical functions. First and foremost it would serve as the sole government building in this community. Eventually, Htraean humans would discover this town. When they did they’d find this building to be our government building, our town hall.

The second critical function that it would serve is it that would be where we’d store any lawbreakers and where our law-enforcers would work. I built a portion of the massive temple underground, specifically, the place where law-enforcement, who’d all be non-organic humans, constructs, and eventually maybe even extraplanars, would work. And I also built a prison there too. It was a perfect place to build one since not only was it underground it also led up to where our finest combatants lived and worked.

The third critical function of this place was that it was where people would come to learn valuable skills. This primarily came in the form of the numerous unique metalized humans I’d create here. I created humans who were paladins, monks, warriors, and a number of other classes, and I gave them inorganic bodies as well as rooms within the temple to cement their unique status.

I instilled in them a powerful sense of loyalty to their community and to their peers, as well as fanatical loyalty to me. Their purpose was to oversee the defense of the community, and to train both organic and non-organic humans self-defense, and to test their piety and knowledge.

I created a high priest of law here, and I gave him a text that was filled with lessons and sermons about the importance of the law, and one “simple truth” that was actually a lie: I was the law. The priest accepted this text eagerly, and tearfully, happy to have been chosen by his creator to serve a role as important as the one I was giving him. This priest served as the head of the town, since he was effectively my messenger within the community.

I was the source of all laws that the town would follow. And my laws were simple. “Work hard and you will be able to thrive”, “Treat others with kindness and obey the teachings of the town’s priests and priestesses”, “Do all things to honor your creator”. If I needed too I’d happily make other laws, but for now those were the laws I felt we needed to keep in mind, nothing too complex.

________________________________________________

By the time I was done outfitting the final temple, I was mostly done with the second day of my new life in Htrae. I had actually entered the temple and explored it in person rather than doing what I usually did and outfitting it from the outside. When I was done in the temple I teleported myself back to my submerged home.

I was fond of the temple, and within it I took a look around and smiled. The whole thing was underwater and water suffused even the tiniest and most remote corners of the building. I liked that, and I wallowed in the depths of the river for a time before beginning to do two things at once.

I began to investigate more dreams, and to expand the lake I was in at the same time. I wanted to expand it enough to build a few settlements here, just enough that I’d have zealous company.

________________________________________________

[Liquid subdomain synergistic abilities:

Aquatic creation: You can create bodies of water. This could be oceans, rivers, lakes, or streams.

Aquatic destruction: You can destroy bodies of water, in such a way that the water is permanently erased. This doesn’t evaporate the water, it deletes it.

Aquatic life creation: By mixing the animal and plant subdomains you have, the subdomain of liquid, and the life domain, you have earned this incredible power. It allows you to create all manner of fish and other aquatic life, so long as you are trying to create simple, unevolved lifeforms. You can also evolve aquatic creatures into beings like were-sharks and merfolk, or other, odder entities depending on what you create.

Aquatic life manipulation: You can command all sorts of lifeforms within bodies of water. You can also evolve such creatures.

Boundary creation: You can create and manipulate boundaries within water. The simplest application of this is that you can create areas of water wherein on one side the water is fresh, and on the other side the water is salty. You can also create lifeless areas of deoxygenated water and then create life-filled zones, using this power.

River, lake, and stream lordship: Your fondness for bodies of water and your aquatic worshipers have given you great power over rivers, lakes, and streams. They have now become your holy places in much the same way as volcanoes and caverns are. This potent power means you can manifest in or around rivers, lakes, and streams, as well as gain an instant awareness of them, whenever you walk on a planet for the first time. Until now this power has been turned off, but now it will be turned on. This power is synergistic between the domains of nature, faith, and the subdomain of liquid.

Resource creation: You can create things like pearls, and other valuable resources usually found in or around water. This is synergistic with the creation domain.

Pollute: This synergistic power takes from a number of subdomains, most notably the subdomain of corruption, though it is aided by things like the radiation subdomain and the domain of disease. With it you can pollute rivers, lakes, and streams flawlessly and you can pollute even portions of oceans at will. Polluted areas sicken those who swim in them.

Zone creation: You can create things like whirlpools, hydrothermal vents, and other natural phenomena found within bodies of water.]