Throughout my life I had steadily acquired countless abilities by earning tiers of influence over countless domains and subdomains. One of the latest subdomains I had just finished acquiring power over was the subdomain of technology.
This subdomain was an amazingly powerful one that gave me several, incredibly powerful abilities. Among other things, with it I could create any sort of technology that would be accessible to a civilization that mastered the planet of their birth, which was an astoundingly broad amount of technology. So far though, the best technology I had unlocked was in all likelihood robots.
Robots were my personal favorite bit of technology that I had utilized because they could have a real personality, and they could also have such a wide variety of forms. If I wanted too I could make a robot that had the form of a spider and the artificial intelligence of one too. I could also create things like androids that had the forms of dragons, driders, and giants. This subdomain was an amazingly creative one, and to date I hadn't really utilized it all that creatively. That said I was working on changing that.
In front of me sat an amazed Andrea, her eyes carefully studying the watch I had given her. And the watch wasn't even especially impressive. The most surprising thing about the watch was that I had created it from nothing. And it was nothing compared to what I had the power to sit down and create.
"The watch is not the most impressive thing I can create. If I wanted too I could sit down and create technologies beyond the capabilities of this world's most advanced civilizations and most brilliant scientists." I explained speaking to Andrea quite grandly. There was a confident smirk on my face. Her eyes widened when she heard my words and she turned to face me.
"What sort of technologies can you create?" She asked me, speaking in the rather bold tone I had long grown used to her using with me. She was a direct speaker, a straight shooter. I considered her question for a moment. Sombra didn't like the rather direct way that Andrea spoke but I silenced the shadow demoness with a telepathic surge of emotion, transmiitting calmness to my pet with my mind.
"I already have a place wherein I can show you what I can create." I told Andrea, lying the second I said it but also more than capable of acting on my lie and making the place that a reality. One of the handier aspects of being a god of technology was that things like automated factories were places you could create very easily. I went ahead and set about making the place I had just described a reality.
I was a creature of vast power. I was also a creature that possessed a frightening number of powers. I knew that in creating the place that I was going to show and then give to Andrea I was going to utilize a number of the powers I had acquired over the course of my life.
Perhaps the hardest part of creating the place that I was going to give to my servant, though she'd surely balk at being called my servant, was actually the process of deciding where it'd be located. I had so many options as far as location went that it wasn't easy for me to make a choice.
At the moment I was well and truly in my mind and because of that time was slowed to a crawl. This wasn't that far from when I had entered my sort of "speed of light" mode for the first time a few days ago. That said I wasn't about to go out and dash someplace, I didn't need too. My mind was more than enough for me to capable of transforming the entire world if I wanted too and I didn't even need all that much to enact my will here. All I need was a second to determine where I was going.
This world was filled with unused islands and with all manner of places that were perfect for my purposes. Some of the options I had included things like trenches deep under the sea, unused islands off of the coast of small countries, and the depths of ancient jungles. The humans here had spread across this world, but they hadn't mastered it by any means. There were plenty of places that someone like me could easily use for a purpose such as the one I had in mind, especially if they possessed the power to create things instantly.
One of the more creative places I could utilize was a trench deep in the ocean. I could effortlessly create a factory deep beneath the waves and then outfit it with portals that lead throughout the world or elsewhere. I could even make it safe for people to visit, or I could keep it a dangerous place that only technology such as robots or androids could endure.
Another place I could easily create and store factories in were deep in the world's oldest jungles. It would be easy for me to make factories that are difficult to detect that are solar powered or are powered by magic that are located deep in jungles throughout the planet and then outfit them with something like portals that facilitate instantaneous travel.
I was silent, even in my mind, for a moment while I considered what options would better fit my needs. After a second, in my mind anyway, I made my choice.
One of the more ancient and unconquerable jungles in the world of Htrae was a largely pristine place. It was a gigantic jungle that was difficult for people to even settle, as it was filled with hostile wildlife, was almost impossibly hot year round, and the few people who did live there were not friendly towards outsiders. However for a god it was a playground.
Gods were beings on a different scale of power and a different sort of existence compared to humanity. Humans were capable of breeding quickly and were just smart enough to be able to modfy their environments to better suit their needs. Gods didn't need to breed and they were more than capable of altering their environments to suit their needs and desires.
Althos, as a god of nature and more importantly as a god of subterranean places, did not need to change the location of his first factory to make it useable for his purposes. The god merely selected the place that he wanted the factory to appear in, and willed it into existence, his powers effortlessly mixing together in such a way for the express and explicit purpose of altering reality.
The god had chosen an area deep in the jungle, inside of a massive and naturally occurring cavern. The area he had chosen to house his factory was the lowest, flattest, and widest point of said cavern.
Where once there had been nothing, all at once an impossibly massive structure sprang into being. The effect was dramatic, but there was no one around to see it, aside from a handful of animals who had been wandering around at the bottom of the cavern and were frightened by the massive structure that was suddenly willed into existence.
The factory came into existence instantly, created and powered by the god's own infinite supply of mystical power. As soon as it became real it began to turn on, creating a cacophony of noises such as metal grinding on metal, and the sound of countless lights coming to life all at once.
Althos, many thousands of miles away was quite content with the gigantic factory he had just built.
"But before we do that... I have a gift for you." I said, the instant I stopped focusing so intently on the factory I had just built. I opened my hand and showed it to Andrea, and for an instant it was empty. An instant later a thin silver ring popped into existence in the middle of my hand.
"This ring is the first of many things I will give you. This ring will grant you immortality and eternal youth so long as you follow a few conditions." I informed Andrea, using my powers over alteration to actually make it a ring that did what I was saying it would do.
"So long as you obey me, stay on my good side, and don't take it off, this ring will keep you from dying of natural causes, and it will ensure you remain beautiful forever." I told the human even as she slowly moved her hand towards the ring. When I explained what it did she looked at me and there was curiosity in her gaze.
"That's not something technology can do..." She remarked, even as she grabbed the ring. I chuckled.
"The instant this ring was created it was just a normal ring. That said I am telling you the truth. I used my divine powers to make the ring and to make it a ring that grants you immortality and eternal youth. As a god, that much is easy for me." I told her, offering an explanation that managed to be both vague and true.
Andrea listened to my words and was silent for a moment. She was considering what I had told her so far. And then she sighed and put on the ring, putting it on her ring finger, with a look of mixed emotions on her face.
"I never thought the first time I'd accept jewelry it'd be jewelry given to me by a god." She remarked idly. I audibly laughed at her remark.
"If it makes you feel any better this was the first time I've ever offered someone jewelry." I replied, a smile on my face as I spoke.
"The whole point of this. and other things I will offer you, is to make it worth your while to serve me. I don't particularly care if you worship me as mortals in the ancient past often did, in your particular case I merely want you to be my servant." I added, speaking seriously for a moment. She looked at me, and she looked at Sombra. There were mixed emotions in her gaze.
"Servant huh...?" She asked, a sound of almost anger in her voice. This was the first thing she said that provoked a reaction from my pet.
"Yes, human. Servant. I am a demoness and I am but a pet. So to you, our master, will indeed be a master. Not a partner or an equal, or whatever other thing your mortal mind is arrogantly thinking you could be to him, a literal god." The praereptor remarked, speaking calmly but there was an audible edge in her voice. Andrea turned for a moment and glared at Sombra, but I rose a hand in a gesture meant to make the human face me again.
"Ignore her remarks Andrea. Sombra, don't rankle our new friend. Yes, you would be a servant but Andrea is that distinction really worth throwing away a chance to get everything you've ever wanted?" I asked the human.
"I know everything there is to know about you. I know every word you've ever uttered. Every thought you've ever had. And now I am offering you everything you've ever wanted. And more. I am offering you the chance to be the most important person in this world. Perhaps the one person who matters." I told her, speaking cryptically.
"I have plans for this world. Benevolent plans, but plans nonetheless. And right now you have a once in a lifetime chance to join me and to become what you've always wanted to be: someone who matters. Someone whose knowledge changes the world." I told her, speaking in such a way that I knew my words would pierce her pride and allow her to more fully realize what I was offering her.
"You are being offered a chance to become so much more than you could ever become on your own. Right now it is as if you are in front of a locked door and you have a key that you know for sure opens that door. Behind the door lies more knowledge and more power than you could even imagine. You have to choose between your pride and the key. I think I know what you will pick, but if you need more time fine, just know that this is a one-time choice." I told her, speaking frankly. She hissed in response to my words, hearing the truth in them but also disliking that I was making her choose.
I could hear her thoughts and I knew she wanted to ask what would happen if she said no. I could also feel the very real fear in her heart if she opted to reject my offer. I knew she was wondering what I'd do. I silently opened a portal behind me that caused the room to darken significantly. The portal itself led to a nearly pitch black area, the cave where the factory was located.
"Andrea... You still haven't seen the power I have over technology itself. Allow me to demonstrate it. Join me beyond the portal, and see what powers I possess." I told her, even as I got up from my seat and walked into the portal.
Once through it I turned so that I was looking in the general direction of the human, but more precisely so that I was looking at the factory which was itself behind the portal. I did that to keep it mysterious.
Sombra also got up and joined me on this side of the portal and as she did she rested her head on my chest. She was relaxing now. She didn't care for the political games and machinations of gods and mortals. She had no patience for it, now that she was my pet.
Andrea hesitated, but only for a moment. She got up a heartbeat later, and walked towards and then through the portal. When she was on the other side of it, where Sombra and I stood, I closed the portal. Now we were in the darkness of the cave. Before the human could mutter a single word I blessed her and gave her the power to see in the dark. Her mouth was open and there was a word on her tongue even as her eyes adapted to the darkness of the cave we were in.
"A... A cave? Where are we Althos?" She asked me, but instead of replying I merely motioned for her to turn around. She had a look of concern in her eyes as she did what I told her to do, and when she saw the factory her eyes widened even more.
"Is that... a factory?" She asked, confusion audible in her voice. I didn't reply with words, but instead I took a step forward, towards the factory, and then I offered the human my hand. This time there was no hestiation in her response: she took my hand. She knew now that she was firmly in my territory and I sensed her commitment to knowledge steel itself into resolve for her to follow me, for now, and learn the truth behind the strange sight in front of her.
We were located a good few minutes away from the factory, but because it was a milk-like shade of white it stood out in the darkness of the cavern. As we began to walk towards it I made one remark.
"Now that you're here, the questions you have will soon be answered. Your commitment to knowledge is good. It will be the thing that allows you to change the world one day." I told Andrea, impressed at how her love of knowledge, her greed for it, was the thing that allowed her to begin to move forward with no hesitation. She was silent.
It only took us about seven minutes worth of walking to make it to the factory. The building stood out against the otherwise total darkness that was all around us this deep in the cave. That said darkness wasn't an obstacle to any of us, now that I had blessed Andrea.
When we made it Andrea stopped walking. She merely stared at the massive, rectangular facility. We could only see one side of it. It was a looming, ominous facility, and where we were standing we could only see one entrance to it. The entrance was a simple, relatively small, glass door.
I doubted that Andrea could hear what I could, but from here I could already hear the factory hard at work. It had existed for a few minutes now and it was already producing what I had wanted it to start off producing: robots and androids.
To me the sound of the factory was incredibly loud, though it wasn't capable of actually bothering me. To Andrea, and even to Sombra, odds are the rumblings of the factory weren't quite audible, though I bet they could feel a tremor underneath them.
I let go of Andrea's hand and I walked over to the factory itself. I opened the door and beckoned for my pet and servant to come to me. They did and when they reached me they stepped through the door, into the factory.
The first room in the place, or at least the first room that we reached from this entrance, was a simple area. It was a square room and on one end of it there was a wall that was covered in massive monitors revealing what was going on elsewhere in the factory. The monitors were live video-feeds that were streaming in real-time the other rooms and chambers of the factory.
"Welcome to my first Htraen factory Andrea." I told the human, speaking quiet simply. Andrea walked over to the monitors and began to take in what they revealed. She watched as the automated, almost but not quite living factory fulfilled it's purpose.
The first monitor Andrea stood at revealed how the factory got the resources it needed to create the technology it was creating. When I made the factory I hadn't felt like having it mine into the ground endlessly, so I just created an infinite supply of resources for it to use, of every metal it would need. The first monitor revealed this never-ending treasure trove, and even as metals were taken for use elsewhere in the factory more metals sprang up endlessly.
"Amazing..." She remarked after watching this for a few moments and confirming it with her own two eyes. After a few more moments passed she went to the next monitor. She was going from left to right, like she was reading a book.
The next monitor showed a seemingly endless number of conveyor belts, deep inside of the factory. These conveyor belts were where many of the creations of the factory would actually be built. No human hands were needed for this process, indeed the entire factory was built to be a self-sustaining place that never needed any level of human interaction. The conveyor belts were attended too by dexterous, robotic hands which were admittedly, to a human, probably a bit creepy to look at.
The robotic hands carefully and skillfully built the parts each robot, android, or other creation would need. Andrea watched this process, both awed and frightened by it, for a few more moments before moving on.
The next monitor revealed a massive garage. Inside of this garage were a wide number of completed vehicles. Everything from spaceships designed to house in some cases one person and in other cases up to fifteen people, to self-piloting hover-tanks were on display here. This gargage was actually being fed vehicles from another part of the factory, another massive conveyor belt area. To Andrea, who had only a little bit of knowledge concerning machinery and robots this area was quite mysterious.
The fourth monitor Andrea looked at was a place that housed a variety of robots. These robots were generally humanoid in shape, but they were not androids; they were not supposed to fool anyone. They had gleaming metal exoskeletons and were clearly some sort of technology. The fifth monitor on the other hand...
Andrea turned to stare at the fifth monitor right as a metalic claw holding onto a robotic, humanoid-shaped frame, appeared at the edge of the display. The claw and its cargo were heading towards a bubbling vat square in the middle of the display. When they were right on top of the vat, the claw descended and so too did the frame it was holding, until the frame disappeared inside of the vat. The exoskeleton was held there for a few seconds, before the claw started to drag it back up, and when the "face" of the exoskeleton was revealed Andrea spoke, or rather she shrieked.
"What the fuck?!" She said, her fear and revulsion overwhelming her for a second. The cause of her shock was that the exoskeleton of the robot from earlier was now covered in smooth, seemingly well-maintained pseudo-skin. The claw was holding what, at a glance, appeared to be a human man, one who was naked, and who was anatomically correct.
Andrea was looking at an android, one that had just been completed. She was afraid, for the first time, of the powers I had. It was quite funny, to me anyway, that what caused her to be afraid was an android. I looked at her and began to speak.
"What you just saw was an android. They are some of the more complex technologies I can create right now. Not quite the most complex, but up there, and also extremely useful. They are far from the only means I have of espionage or infiltration, but as you can imagine... If I opted to use one for such a purpose it'd be frighteningly good at it." I remarked, before beginning to approach Andrea and the monitor she was at.
"Androids that I create are capable of great things. So far I haven't really had a reason to use them, but now I figured I ought to let you have fun with this technology." I told Andrea.
"If you chose to serve me, this factory and others I create will be among the toys you can play with. I'll even let you use this specific factory however you wish, and you should know that here it is possible and easy to create technology, such as the androids, that is simply beyond anything Htraens are capable of at this moment." I offered, confident in the appeal of my offer.
"All of the technology in the world, at your disposal. Actually... more technology than this world could offer on its own, at your disposal. All it costs is your pride." I remarked, now fully confident that she'd accept my offer.
For a science-driven human like Andrea I was giving her the ultimate offer. Chances to discover new technologies, a life without financially driven fear, and an eternity to discover new things.
"Immortality and eternal youth... A business that is destined to shape the future of the planet... Freedom from a life constrained by finances... The blessing of a god of knowledge. And all it costs is something as small as your pride." I remarked, hauntingly.
All I was asking from her was that she served me. And even in that, I planned for her to be at the head of a business that would become a global conglomerate. She would be one of perhaps 10 or so humans to have some sort of real importance.
Andrea turned to face me and was silent for a moment. I could see that she was making her choice. And I knew what choice it was. After a few moments passed, she began to speak.
"Should... Should I kneel or something?" She asked, a look of uncertainty on her face. I chuckled.
"No... You don't need to kneel. Just tell me that you're mine. That you're willingly serving me, of your own volition." I remarked, a wicked smile on my face as I spoke. Andrea heard her my words and shivered, but she didn't hesitate.
"Althos... I, Andrea, am your willing, eager servant. I serve you of my own volition, and I will see that your will be done." She said, as soon as I was done talking. She even added her own bits to what I said! That made my smile grow even larger. Especially since mortals couldn't lie in my presence. I had successfully made Andrea my servant!
"Andrea... Welcome to the Coeus Company. In the days to come you shall learn more about this business that I seek to create, but for now I am going to give you a few extra gifts." I told the human. I further altered her ring, and the bit of jewelry began to glow brightly. Andrea noticed this bright glow and looked at it with a curious expression on her face.
"Your ring can do extra things now. First of all, it can now teleport you here, and back. You can freely create portals that you can use, that are invisible to others, that let you teleport to the factory and back. You cannot use it to teleport anywhere in the world, though I plan to change that, provided you are a good, faithful, and successful servant of mine." I told Andrea, explaining the first new function of the ring.
"The other thing the ring can do is a lot more special. I am going to create other factories throughout the world, that are mine and that are used for Coeus Company business, but this factory is yours. Your ring is now tied to it, and with but a thought, as long as you keep the ring on, you can control what the factory produces. A full list of what the factory can produce is in the ring, also accessible with but a thought, but I'm gonna go ahead and tell you right now: the factory can produce any bit of Htraen technology. Without exception. If a Htraen can make it, the factory can. And again, all of this is dependent on you being a good servant of mine, just like all of the rings other gifts are." I explained.
I also closed my eyes and gave Andrea one more gift. One that I knew she'd like.
"Since you decided to join me with such intense remarks, more than I asked of you, I'm going to give you one last gift. This one isn't quite as dramatic, but I like it and I know you will too. You now have a bank account with a prestigious bank, and in that bank account you have ten million of your people's currency." I told her, speaking simply even though what I was saying was absolutely life-changing. Andrea's heart skipped a beat, and I had to do my best to not chuckle.
"When you get back home, check your mail. You'll find your debit card in it. You can already use it." I told the human, making my words a reality through a number of powers, even as I spoke. The main power I used was my power over computers, which in a world like Htrae were hyper-powerful if I wanted to be subtle.
Andrea rose her hand, the one with the ring, and pointed it in front of her. I sensed her trying to open a portal, and I telepathically helped her along. A second later a portal appeared between us, revealing the interior of Andrea's kitchen. I heard her begin to laugh, and then she stepped through the portal and back into her kitchen.
Her life had just been irrevocably changed over the course of a few minutes. And she wanted to get her hands on that card. I couldn't blame her, she liked money. It was one way in which her greed manifested itself.
I was also quite happy in this moment. Andrea being my servant meant that I had a truly ambitious servant, and it was one that I made without using my more sinister powers who was a mortal, and who wasn't evil. I was quite content with this.
