The notification was intriguing and I kept the window open in my mind for longer than I normally would. I read, then reread it. And on my third reread I went ahead and closed it, causing the icons that had filled the corners of my vision almost my entire life to lose their color and begin to blend into whatever they would have otherwise obscured from view.

"How... strange." I remarked while I watched the icons lose their solidity and fade into the background. I sighed and closed my eyes. I had to get to work and some of it would involve usage of my abilities, old ones and new ones alike.

I found myself in an unused corner of the Blackened Boscage, the strange, totally dark forest I had managed to make a part of my gradually expanding empire. Even in the few clearings that existed in this odd forest, no light penetrated the canopy of pitch-black leaves. There were no trees close to me, though it wouldn't have mattered if there were.

The clearing I was in was hundreds of meters wide and long. It was a convenient place for me to get to work making what I planned to become my sanctum. The heart of my holdings within the Heart of Darkness. I got up off of my knees and I studied my surroundings. The clearing I was in had plenty of soft grass for someone to tread on and it was also a good place to place plenty of different sorts of buildings, which would surely be what happened once some time had passed and worshipers began to learn about this place.

I rose a hand and stretched it straight out in front of me. A split second later a deep hole appeared one that went down hundreds of meters. Gazing into it revealed layers of dirt and stone, and for me, the beginning of the lair I sought to create. I kept my hand in the air and I continued to gaze down into the hole.

All I had to do was think and then suddenly the dirt and stone that surrounded the hole I had created in the ground vanished as if it had never existed in the first place. It was instantly replaced by worked stone, and other artificial building materials created by my powers over creation that allowed me to give it the appearance of a decrepit temple's interior. Vast, sweeping hallways were created, and my plan was to bring my servants here first and then truly decorate and furnish the temple, aside from a handful of things that appeared over the course of the next few moments.

I was in the middle of using my powers as an elemental overlord, a spirit of supreme power who had power over the four classical elements, fire, water (liquids), earth, and air (gases), to outfit my secret lair. I didn't commonly utilize my powers over the classical elements, but they were an extremely powerful weapon I had at my disposal. With them, if I wanted to I could destroy entire countries... No, entire planets.

As a true elemental overlord, I had the ability to trigger planet-altering natural disasters or to reshape continents with but a thought. It was an incredible level of power that I wasn't entirely sure how to use properly. That said, it was handy at the moment.

I kept my hand outstretched over the hole I had created and with but a thought I flooded the lowest levels of my sanctum. The deepest pits of my new lair, thousands of meters below my current location were suddenly and abruptly filled with both freshwater and saltwater. I was a creature of both earth and water, and this temple I was building by hand would reflect that.

Other aspects of faiths devoted to me that were reflected in the temple's initial design were the fact that it was underground, and that at the moment I was placing statues on some of the floors. The statues were of several different designs, but they were uniformly monstrous. Some were of small dragons, ones like Ygaynth, others were of creatures like minotaurs and orcs, fierce, monstrous races.

In addition to that I also wordlessly summoned the Dragonspear clan, one of the many clans of dark elves I had gathered under my banner and made into my worshipers. They appeared and immediately began to look around at their surroundings in confusion. I still stood at the top of the hole and began to speak into it.

"Dragonspear clan! I have called you here today to give you a holy task. You are going to migrate from the city of Aronms and make this place your new home. This is my sanctum, a secret place deep in the Blackened Boscage, one where only my most fervent worshipers will dwell. You have consistently proven yourselves to be among my most loyal servants, and I am ready to reward you for that." I told them, chuckling inwardly when I sensed their confusion become immense pride in themselves.

"I am going to grant you all immortality, true, unending immortality and you are going to live here and be among this place's priests, priestesses, and guardians." I told them, sensing their pride swell even further. The Dragonspears, including Jezebel, were truly among the most pious dark elves among the collective populations that worshiped me. They were a militaristic, violent bunch and I knew that having them among my worshipers here in this temple would allow me to have greater control over them. 

The temple was already being outfitted with private rooms for the dozens of dark elves who made up the Dragonspear clan. That said, they weren't the only dark elves I called here. I closed my eyes and I reached across the cosmos my mind peering into my own private dimension, my divine realm, where among many other places lurked a copy of the city of Aronms. In that city lived one especially pious worshiper of mine, Milene. 

Milene was the first of the Ardor family to become an Althonian, someone whose sanity I had stolen in what was at this point the distant past. She had once been a cruel alchemist whose skill with alchemy was something of an urban legend among her own people, particularly among her family, an infamous and brutal clan who had owned many slaves before I forcefully liberated their slaves and took control of the family. Now Milene was an obsessive, secretive woman who had become a powerful rogue and priestess who worshiped me as a god of alchemy, secrets, and madness. And it was time for her to come home. 

At the moment Milene was silently praying to me, on her knees in front of a small block of obsidian, one she had made herself using alchemy in much the same way as human alchemists sought to make lead into gold. She was quite beautiful and at the moment she looked perfectly serene. I studied her, silently admiring her inspiringly beautiful features, but after a moment I opened up a portal in front of her. She heard it come into existence, but kept her eyes shut and continued her prayer, unbothered by it. 

The portal lead from her room in her family's holdings to the lowest, dry floor of my temple. It was to be her home, where she and those she saw fit to join her would dwell. It was only a few floors above where I would spend time whenever I dwelt in the temple, a floor that was flooded from top to bottom. I reached out across the vast, cosmic distance that separated us and began to speak into Milene's mind. 

"Milene... Come home. Come into my sanctum, where you may spend eternity in the home of your god." I whispered, delicately, into the utterly insane dark elf's mind. She didn't stop praying, but as she heard my words she did serenely stand up and smile. And then she took a single step forward, crossing the portal with a single elegant step and reaching my home effortlessly. Milene was home, and there was a simplicity to her joy that made me chuckle and feel quite divine. 

I continued to reach into Milene's mind and even as she kept her eyes shut and continued to pray to me furniture began to appear around her as I created a private chamber for her. She was worth equipping with material goods right away, as she was a potent alchemist and if I commanded her too she would work tirelessly on producing any sort of alchemical good I wanted her too. 

I also granted her true immortality. She was a young dark elf, and safe here, but I still had no plans for her to die anytime soon. She could become an extremely useful tool of mine if I just kept her close and happy. The fact that she was easy to look at definitely helped. 

At this point I chuckled and stepped into the hole I had created. As I began to fall down the hole and towards the lowest lairs of my "sanctum" I activated one of my newest powers, one that allowed me to commune with the Heart of Darkness itself. As I did, I heard a new voice whisper into my mind for the very first time. 

"Hello Althos... Congratulations on your recent victory, and your long-awaited emergence as a true demon-lord." The strange, apathetic voice whispered into my mind, entire minutes passing between each word as I continued my fall deeper and deeper into my sanctum. The second it mentally uttered the words "demon-lord" was when I reached the bottom of my newest home, as I sunk into the cushion of water I had created with considerable but harmless, for me anyway, force.