The artists around me made me laugh when I saw their eyes widen. I wasn't shocked that they were surprised to learn I was a god, after all, gods were very nearly forgotten even in other worlds and this magic-less world had even less of a reason than other worlds did to remember gods. Gods were the embodiment of power, creation, destruction, and magic.

I looked at them, including Lyla, and grinned. I didn't say anything, at least not physically, but I did prepare words of a sort. I compiled a notification and then transmitted it directly into their minds. These humans would at least understand the system since Htraeians were capable of using the system as well as any other sapient race, even if they weren't naturally capable of using magic.

I watched as the blue textboxes filled their eyes. I could see them read through the notifications they had just received, and as they did their actual eyes widened in shock. As they did I quietly reached out and touched Lyla's face.

The human had soft skin and I felt her shiver in response to my touch. My fingers touched her cheek, and I grinned at her. I activated a power of mine as I touched her. "Beauty manipulation", which gave me the power to alter someone's or something's physical beauty. I stared at Lyla as I allowed my power to make her prettier than she had been before.

Before my very eyes, the young woman's lips expanded in size. They didn't balloon or anything, but they grew noticeably bigger than before. Her eyelashes extended, and her cheekbones rose higher than before. She grew taller, and her chest expanded outward. She also grew proportionately longer limbs, her arms and legs lengthening to match her new height. I considered changing her hair color, but after looking at it for a bit I decided that I liked it the way it was.

I studied her for a moment and then smiled. At that point I created a handheld mirror for her to use and I placed it in her hand. When she was done reading the notification I watched the textbox vanish from her eyes and I saw her gaze into the mirror for the first time. She immediately began to blush, and I smiled at her. For the not first time, I contemplated using my most dreadful power on a mortal: "True Love's Kiss", which would permanently ensnare their heart. I resisted the dark urge, for now, and instead quietly bestowed Lyla with the "Cleric" class.

The first time in my life someone had become a cleric of mine it was through their own devotion. That was the optimum way for people to become clerics, and I had clerics of that type all over my native solar system, but many of my clerics were individuals I had chosen and invested my power in.

One of the reasons why clerics had become a lost class in the wake of the demise of the gods appears to have been that they relied on the power of the gods to actually use their abilities. Not to mention that gods possessed the power to cause people to become clerics.

I felt a portion of my power imprint itself on her soul, and before my very eyes she began to momentarily radiate a splendid and incredible holy energy. It was quite pleasant and reflected her lawful good alignment. It was also a sort of energy that seeped out of her and infected others with a faint fragment of the pleasure and joy she was feeling at the moment.

In the eyes of demonkind Althos was a dreadful god of shadows and lust. This idiosyncratic, and considerable intense belief in him was the cause of one particularly eerie phenomenon in the shadowy community he was the dark lord of.

In the week since the dreaded lord of darkness created a residence deep within the first layer of the Heart of Darkness which he had ever entered, his forces were hard at work. The settlement they created had come alive even in his absence, and in small ways they had come to know the signs of his approval. One such way involved one of the buildings they had constructed since their nightmarish lord of shadows had left.

The building stood at the outskirts of the tiny town his forces had created. It wasn't especially big on the surface, but underground it extended throughout the entirety of the town. It was a sinister place, and had the demons who unknowingly lived over it knew what laid underneath their homes, who knows how they might have reacted? Many would have been likely to willingly offer themselves as tributes to the cruel god that they worshiped, even though this wasn't directly his doing.

Beneath the small building stretched a number of tunnels, which formed what would have been seen by mortals as prison cells. In actuality the strange cells that stretched out underneath the tiny community the Althonian demons had built were more like confessional booths from the churches of the mythic age, private spaces for worshipers of gods of law and order to confess their sins. But these booths served an altogether different purpose.

The moment someone, demon or not, walked into a booth it would close behind them and lock automatically. And then the floor at the feet of the person in the booth would begin to darken and a variety of unholy objects would begin to appear. These objects served to test and tempt those who dared enter this place.

The building above the entrance to this strange and unholy site was the home of the Althonian priests and priestesses who worshiped their god as a demonic lord of lust and darkness. And Althos' unholy power had begun to mutate the area right around and underneath the town he had built, thanks to the morphic and flexible nature of the Heart of Darkness.

Each time someone entered a booth, they would be presented with objects made from shadow-stuff that represented the seven deadly sins. Surprisingly, someone wasn't punished for choosing a sin other than lust. Instead, so long as they were honest and chose the sin that most represented how they felt at that moment they would be able to experience something new and darkly pleasant.

Those who chose the sin of pride were swallowed by darkness and subjected to a vision in which they served a grand demon and were its most vicious pet. The most proud demons were able to experience the joys of leading a successful coup against whatever demon they served, while less proud demons delighted in their service to their greater masters.

Those who chose the sin of lust were swallowed by darkness and then subjected to a vision in which they spent days slavoring over a specific object, lusting for an artifact of great power. The most lustful demons were able to acquire the artifacts, and the demons whose lusts were shallow weren't able to do so. In the cases of the strongest lustful feelings, the desires for the items were also often tied to specific sexual desires and needs as well.

Those who feeling rather slothful were leisurely swallowed by darkness and subjected to unusual visions. In some cases they witnessed visions that felt centuries long and in those visions they were perpetually surrounded by darkness, laying in it like a mortal might lay in a bed. In these visions they were effectively in a coma, and other demons used them for a plethora of resources such as demonic blood, or even amputed and then regenerated their limbs for use in proesthetics and to corrupt mortals by grafting demonic skin onto mortal bodies.

The demons who underwent these visions would awaken from them moments later, no matter which sin they chose, feeling refreshed and extra devoted to their dreaded lord of sin. Thus far this had universally been clergy who had sacrificed their vision to their evil god as a part of a test to prove their devotion to their supremely wicked lord. But some Althonian priests sought to capture sacrifices to offer to their sinful deity. They would soon have a chance to act out and to attempt to make their sinful desires a reality, though not in the ways they were after.

Demons, ones opposed to Althos, were on their way to the community Althos had founded.