The odor of the mushrooms in bloom pungently carried across the subterranean field. The scent, a distinct and nauseating one, mixed with other equally unpleasant smells: the smells of sweat, blood, and other bodily fluids, as well as the everpresent scent of bat manure.

If one stopped and let their senses explore the field, then they'd hear a variety of noises. Some of the noises they'd hear would be the sounds of stone hoes slamming into the stone and dirt that lined the field, as well as the sounds of ragged breathing. Another noise they'd hear would be the sounds of coughing, most often a virulent and painful sounding peel of coughing.

The sights one would see on the field would be a painful one to visualize. They'd see creatures of a number of races plowing the field and tending to the enormous mushrooms that grew here. The fittest of the creatures here would absentmindedly plow the fields, doing as they were told and generally attempting to avoid the ire of the guards who watched over them.

Others, the more stubborn creatures who gave their jailors and oppressors a harder time, were more haggard looking. They were treated roughly, being subjected to even more brutal conditions than their compliant fellow-captives. They were sickened, usually deliberately exposed to the alchemical runoff from the experiments conducted by the mad dark-elf whose name was whispered by those who jailed the slaves: Milene.

Both groups of slaves included a number of different creatures. Some, the elite in both camps, were dark elves themselves. The dark elven prisoners were the members of both camps who were treated the most harshly. They wore tattered remnants of clothing and had the eyes of the other slaves been capable of piercing the darkness then the beautiful bodies of the dark elves would have been a visual feast for the other slaves to leer at and fantasize about.

Even the most compliant dark elven slaves were treated with what could only be called savage cruelty by their fellow dark elves who happened to be a bit luckier, and who used and tormented their enslaved brethren at every chance. There was something almost mad about the cruel glimmer of excitement that shone in the eyes of the dark elven guards who got to interact with a dark elven slave. And indeed, much of the blood that colored the floor of the field was dark elven blood.

The other slaves were members of an assortment of races. The most common types of non-dark-elven slaves were humans. This made sense, as the world above the city of Aronms, the mysterious island the humans knew as Puerto-Rico, was populated primarily by humans. The next most common kind of slaves were dwarves.

The smallfolk were not only talented smiths and inventors but they were also hardy and could see in the dark. The dark-elves had enjoyed conquering virtually every dwarven settlement underneath Puerto Rico and capturing thousands of dwarves to torment. The Ardor family had their own fair share of dwarven slaves and enjoyed both the battles that resulted in them acquiring the slaves and the time it took to break such valuable chattel.

One of the slaves carefully eyed her hoe. Her eyes, long-adjusted to the darkness of the world beneath Puerto Rico, were able to thoroughly assess the condition of the instrument her jailors had given her. She easily studied her tool, and she familiarized herself with each chip and crack in it.

She sighed after studying her instrument and lifted it high above her head. And then with a soft grunt, she brought the object down hard aiming the thing at the floor at her feet. The dirt she was tasked with tending too was hidden underneath a thin layer of stone. She was using her hoe as a mallet to locate the dirt she needed to till.

It wasn't logical, but then again neither were her captors. They were inefficient and favored to subject her and her fellow dwarves to humiliating acts that wore them down and eventually broke their spirits. That said, there was a certain effectiveness in their tactics. She had resisted their inhumane treatment, but not all of her fellow dwarves were as resilient as she was.

All around her, her keen vision allowed her to see dwarves who had succumbed to hopelessness. They wore better clothing, had better tools, and weren't standing on top of the stone floor in search of rare patches of arable dirt hidden within the ground. A part of her envied them. But it was a small part of her.

The dwarves who had given up, who had surrendered themselves to their oppressors in body and spirit were sullen creatures. They were angry, bitter men and women with hate-filled eyes who subserviently appeased their dark elven masters with all manner of weapons, armor, and performed sinister rituals to please their cruel overlords.

While Aoife focused on completing her unpleasant task, one of the dwarves who had submitted to the dark elves turned her grim gaze on the dwarven warrior. The embittered dwarf had opal-like eyes, and in those eyes, there was an incredible amount of hatred for the dwarf she was staring daggers at.

The dwarf in question had begun taking on the features of her masters, her skin darkening and her eyes becoming colorless white orbs like the eyes of some of her tormentors. This eerie phenomenon happened only to a few of the dwarves who accepted their lots in life as whipping posts for the dark elves, and those to whom this happened were universally feared dwarves, who were every bit as pitiless as those they served.

She smiled sadistically and obscenely at Aoife, but her lewd grin went unnoticed. The truth was that the savage little creature was imagining the nude form of the mentally unyieldly dwarf writhing underneath the taller and more powerful naked body of a male dark elf.

The subservient dwarf wanted nothing more than to see Aoife, infamous for her tenacity, be brought low. And when Ava's handler came over to get her to move again, he stopped for a moment and followed the general direction of Ava's gaze. His eyes eventually settled on Aoife, who was mid-swing and whose voice was one of many that could be heard in the field hard at work.

He studied her for a moment, admiring something about her. It was difficult to tell what attracted his attention, perhaps it was her pale skin, her finely muscled body, or the way sweat clung to her. He spent a few moments studying the dwarf before turning his gaze back to the one he was in charge of. And then he opened his mouth to speak, to spit and hiss venomous words like a snake.

"Ava, what are you doing!?" He hissed, his voice quiet and embarrassed. She was a source of shame for him, as she was constantly misbehaving and getting him in trouble. His voice was harsh and filled with impatience. Ava was finally snapped out of her lewd daydreams and the dwarf was quickly snapped back to the reality of her situation.

The dwarf suddenly shook her head and turned to look at her master, the dark elf she had personally been given over too once she had submitted to her dark elven wardens. He stood considerably taller than her, and was clad in the finest silk clothing money could buy. He glared disapprovingly at Ava, his colorless eyes burning holes through the creature he considered his property.

"Master, no I apologize! I was just wishing for... you to meet my sister." The dwarf said, speaking quickly and making up something that could be interpreted as partially true on the spot. Normally she lied in these situations so for her to mention anything even remotely true was a welcome surprise.

Ava's handler's face contorted in curiosity as he envisioned a meeting with Ava Silverhammer's sister, Aoife Silverhammer. The dark elf, named Gladerial, considered what such a meeting would entail. A part of him was interested in approaching the strangely pretty dwarf. But he knew better than to feed such impulses. He clicked his tongue in annoyance and began to move towards her, his hands reaching out towards her and promising cruelty.

Despair filled her eyes, as she knew that what awaited her later on in the day would be a vicious punishment. That said, the dwarf was so thoroughly indoctrinated that she didn't even try to resist her master. When he reached her, she simply submitted to his vicious manhandling. She didn't even cry out.

Her sister didn't even notice her, as Aoife was busy doing her best to complete the task she had been given. The poor dwarf's stomach was rumbling, and hunger softened each of the warrior's strikes, and so she didn't feel like unnecessarily incurring the wrath of her captors. Not yet anyway.

The dwarf recalled the presence of the strange and self-proclaimed god that had healed her and all of the other slaves a day ago. She wanted to confide in it. And she wanted to avoid unnecessary conflicts. So, for now, Aoife was doing something she found challenging: she was keeping her head down and not starting any unnecessary problems or fights.

Underneath the Rodan forest, a pair of goblins were having a quiet conversation. They were both seated on the floor and they were the two most devoted followers of the strange nature god who identified itself as Cosecha.

"Why don't you pray? Cosecha itself told me that prayer is the path to get to know it." One of the two goblins said to her neighbor. She had bright yellow skin and was dressed in roughly fashioned animal armor.

Her companion and the person she was politely chiding was the first cleric of the master of the Rodan forest. Xiax looked at her and sighed. When he didn't articulate a response, his neighbor looked up at him sympathetically.

"Xiax... Cosecha is an accepting god. It is a kind god. It healed us. It healed you most of all. What are you afraid will happen?" Mawby asked, curiously and sincerely. She found the goblin's behavior beyond strange and somewhat maddening.

Mawby was a pious follower of Cosecha. She believed in the god whole-heartedly. In her mind, she fed the savior of her people daily. This belief hailed from a conversation the two of them had had when they first met, wherein the god told her that it fed on belief. Admittedly, she received regular responses from the strange deity but in her mind, Xiax had received the real reward.

Mawby was the only person aside from Althos that knew that Xiax had been awarded a class. Xiax had approached her when night fell over the encampment and told her of the award the system had bestowed upon him. The system was vague, but it told him that he was now a cleric, a devoted follower of a god who was gifted magical power by either the system or the god itself.

Xiax's gaze met Mawby's. He studied her for a moment and he was able to detect what she felt. He detected the corruption in her heart that twisted how she felt about him. Mawby was envious that either the system or Cosecha itself recognized the piety that the odd god had inspired in Xiax and saw fit to reward him for this powerful emotion.

The goblin cleric quietly considered how to proceed from here. He recognized the pain that was eating away at Mawby. And he recognized the fear that gripped his heart. After thinking for a few seconds he figured that speaking honestly to Mawby might help her deal with the jealous that was eating at her.

"Mawby, I... Listen I didn't choose this. And neither did Cosecha. The system did. It was explicit about that. I was told by it that it chose me to be a Cosechian cleric." Xiax explained, telling her the truth. This caught Mawby off guard, and her eyes softened further.

"Oh... Well still, our savior feeds off of belief and faith. It told me so! Your prayers might help sustain it." Mawby told her companion, her voice soft and filled with a renewed hope. It appeared, to Xiax anyway, that learning that Cosecha didn't choose him over her but that the system had made the decision to transform him into a cleric was positive for Mawby.

The tiny yellow goblin had an envious heart. One could even say that that was her greatest flaw.

The idea that Cosecha chose someone who wasn't even Troik over her to be its first cleric was deeply frustrating. Mawby could even accept the presence of Raiz, a creature literally created by Cosecha who was its self-proclaimed high-priestess and had escorted Troik back to the encampment, but the idea that Cosecha had chosen Xiax over her had been too much for her to endure much longer.

Mawby, calmer now than she had felt in days, was able to snap herself back to the restorative and helpful person she wanted to be. She was now truly sympathetic and the next words she said were surprisingly helpful to Xiax.

"Maybe I should pray out loud. So you can hear how someone else does it. Would that help you begin to understand the power of prayer?" Mawby asked, smiling serenely at Xiax. The Cosechian cleric looked at Mawby and smiled. He nodded at her, eager to see how she did it. Mawby smiled back at him, eager to teach him how she approached prayer.

When the cleric nodded at Mawby, the goblin momentarily wondered how to best teach her new student. The truth was that the system had been coaching her over the last few days, teaching her different approaches to prayer.

She had taken notes about the advice that the system had taught her and so far the prayers that were the most likely to receive responses were conversational prayers. In fairness, Cosecha frequently replied to Mawby's prayers and Mawby was grateful for this, it just so happened that the prayers that were the most likely to garner direct responses were conversational prayers.

Mawby grinned after contemplating how to teach Xiax. And then she began to speak.

"Prayer is important to me. Prayer is how I know Cosecha's will. I pray more than once per day, though I don't always get a direct, audible response from Cosecha." Mawby informed her ally, happy to have a chance to spread her own particular beliefs to someone else.

"I pray by directing my thoughts to Cosecha. When I do, the system asks me if I'd like to make my thoughts a prayer. After I inform it that I would, I begin to share my thoughts with Cosecha. From time to time I've gotten direct responses, but otherwise, I get responses from the system that inform me as to how my prayers make Cosecha feel." Mawby revealed, explaining something that was unknown even to Cosecha itself.

This revelation caused Xiax's eyes to go wide. And it pleased the cleric. It gave him the assurance that he had needed to be able to muster the courage required to pray to his divine master.

The source of the goblin's fear had been that after he prayed he wouldn't know what his master wanted, or if the god was pleased by the prayer. It wasn't so much that the goblin wouldn't know precisely how to pray, it was that he would pray and not know how his prayers made his god feel or if his god had some tasks he needed to complete in the name of the master of the forest.

His fears assuaged, the goblin immediately began to pray. He was eager to do so and thankful for Mawby's intentional and unintentional assurances. Mawby herself was unaware of Xiax's newfound courage and continued to attempt to indoctrinate her companion.

The prayer was a detailed accounting of the past few days and contained some sections of interest to the opportunistic deity the goblin served and worshipped.

"Cosecha, I sincerely apologize for taking so long to pray to you. I beg your forgiveness and mercy, as I was too afraid that you may not reply to me if I prayed. It is only because of my fellow goblin, Mawby, that I now know better than to be afraid of that." The prayer began.

The middle of the prayer was little more than accounting for the past few days. It was a detailed and thoughtful accounting, that would inform the deity to whom it was sent of events that would definitely intrigue him, including the arrival of the first lifeform he created: Raiz.

"Cosecha, in order to atone for my hesitation please give me a quest or a task for me to accomplish. I will do my best to make up for the fear I wrongly and ignorantly showed. Allow me to do something that strengthens you in some way." Xiax offered, hoping that this would convince his divine master of his usefulness.

The goblin had no idea how intriguing this would be to the deity he served. Nor did he imagine that the offer would be the cause of a conversation the deity would have a few minutes after the prayer was transmitted to its recipient.

---

A few minutes after Xiax finished and transmitted his prayer to his god, Althos's body was carefully following the instructions of the alchemical expert named Dr. Cortes. He expertly handled ingredients and showcased a natural skill at brewing potions owned more to his infinite dexterity than anything else.

The good doctor was showing him how to brew a handy potion: one that restored magical energy. The particular recipe the young god was being taught was a specialty of Dr. Cortes'.

The god memorized the recipe quickly and the first of the potions he'd finish brewing in the next few minutes would be an excellent one. But his mind was elsewhere. In fact, his mind was partaking in an active conversation with the system.

"So about this prayer..." The deity's mind wondered, directing a question to two separate entities. One of them was the domain of faith, and the other was the system.

The contents of the prayer were all intriguing to the young god to whom the prayer was directed towards. But it was the ending that was the most curious to the god, who sensed an opportunity in it.

Mentally Althos was all smiles as he reread the prayer. He confirmed that it said what he thought it said and chuckled in the confines of his own mind.

[Yes Althos? What about this prayer?] The system asked, curious as to what was on the god's mind.

"Yes, Althos... What about the prayer? It seems pretty straightforward to me." The domain of faith replied, also intrigued by the god's response to it.

"Well, you see... I was just wondering if there was a particular way I could capitalize on it. I still need to complete the quest of the domain of souls. And the life domain. I think there might be a way for me to use Xiax to do just that." Althos replied, transmitting the message to both the domain he was speaking to and the system once more.

The domain of faith listened to the message but didn't reply, though it was intrigued by what Althos had just said. Althos could sense the abject interest and chuckled.

[What do you have in mind Althos? Especially because those quests are very different ones.] The system replied, keenly aware of the differences between devouring three souls and being responsible for three pregnancies. They were very different quests and everyone, Althos included, recognized that. But that didn't stop the wheels in Althos' mind from turning and scheming.

"Well, I was thinking of giving the goblin a quest. And the more I think about it, the more balanced it feels. Because I'd like for him to take three lives and then create three more." Althos explained, a confident grin etched on his mental face.

The two entities that were conversing with him silently considered what he was saying for a moment. After a few moments, a new and sinister voice chimed in with an intelligent counterproposal.

"Althos, your undead servants hunger. Why not use them instead? Because sooner or later their minds will begin to degrade if they are not properly used to either fulfill your will or take lives. They thirst for combat. They want to be unleashed. They are clamoring for it. You can be kind to your goblin and in doing so keep up your image as a kind and loving god, while encouraging him to create new life. And you can use the dead to inflict death." The voice said. It was the smug and powerful voice of the subdomain of necromancy.

Althos mulled over this idea. He was quiet as he did so, as he was reaching out to the minds of his undead minions. He didn't converse with them, instead, he scanned their minds and studied what he found.

Much to his annoyance, the subdomain of necromancy was correct. He was unsurprised by this, but he had hoped it wouldn't be the case. Althos quickly conceded that the subdomain had a point and readjusted his plans. This was a silent process but at the end of it, the god had a new and improved plan. And he eagerly shared it with the entities that resided within his mind.

"I will meet the requirements for the death domain, and use undead creatures to meet the requirements of the soul domain." The deity eagerly explained, beginning the process of mentally readying himself for the labor he'd need to do over the next few hours.

There was a sinister part of him that was quite excited at the prospect of battle. A part of him that looked forward to seeing the blood of his enemies splatter across the floor, and also relished the idea of vanquishing his foes himself. Wielding the weapons that stole their lives away.

Althos did his best to ignore this part of himself. Instead, he focused on the subjective and objective good that could come of this. The subjective good that could come from this was him acquiring more power. The objective good was that in doing this he could free people from the shackles of slavery.

The moment he wisely accepted that it was better for him to use his undead servants to attack his enemies he had begun to recalculate his targets. He had switched from preparing to opportunistically direct Xiax to any injured animals, to instead focusing his desire for souls and a bit of murder on the areas with the most slaves.

A quick analysis of the not-so-mini-map revealed that the place containing the most slaves happened to be an encampment of reptilefolk located underground but not deep underground. Althos felt a wave of certainty wash over him as he began his preparations for what was to come.

And within him, numerous domains began to wait with bated breath to see what would happen next.