The young farmer named Othello made his way out of his room. He was handsome, in the way that farmers tended to be, surprisingly well-muscled and tanned from a life of constant physical labor in the sun. His hands, in particular, were the rough hands of someone whose life revolved around his ability to maintain a farm. 

The farmhouse he lived in was small, though it was still bigger than most of the houses in Spree. And it was a thing that Othello had made by himself, over the course of a few years, his pride and joy. When he stepped up to the door that led someone in and out of his home, Othello paused for a moment and studied the door.

The door was made from dark brown wood, and the darkness of the thing was what was giving Othello pause. The human man noticed that somehow the darkness of the door was more intense than it ought to have been. The darkness of the door seemed to have been… supernaturally enhanced, and Othello was able to notice that because as a child he had been afraid of the dark. His sensitive vision caused his heartbeat to quicken, but the young man was no longer a boy. He took a breath and then opened the door, only to come face to face with an eerie figure clad in ornate, dark armor. 

Othello was not a learned man, but he was aware of Spree’s history. He had been raised on tales of the hateful might of the Third Overlord and his dreaded son, the Fourth Overlord. He knew what their armor looked like, and about the army of gremlin-like creatures they commanded, though that last one did not seem to apply here since the creatures behind the armor-clad figure were more like orcs or ogres than gremlins or goblins. 

That was why, had Othello not been immediately paralyzed by the overlord’s immensely powerful psychic energy, the farmer would have slammed the door shut in the tyrant’s face. Tragically, Othello was not able to resist the potent psychic influence of the cruel figure clad in dark armor, as not only was The Dark One a potent psychic on his own, a literal divinity of the mind, but each person who he infected with the Blacklight Virus also devoted the potency of their mind to his psychic power. 

“Hello Othello.” The figure whispered, before using subtle mind control to get the farmer to step out of the farmhouse and close the door, while The Dark One himself stepped back. There was a smile on the overlord’s face.

I studied Othello while the man stepped forward. He was tall, for his age, standing perhaps six feet tall when he stood up straight. He was also deceptively strong, possessing a sort of strength that many underestimated due to his lack of grace, a strength which itself was owed to his nature as a farmer, a job which required strength and endurance. 

The man gritted his teeth, his mind railing against mine, but unable to do anything more than frowning, and even that was only because I allowed it. My psychic talent, something no other overlord had ever possessed, was difficult to overcome and in time it’d only grow. Hells, it was actively growing at this very moment, through usage.

I smiled and activated a single ability of mine, an especially odd one. The ability I activated was one known as “Friendly World”. And in activating it, the fearful look on Othello’s face, the very one that mixed hate and fear, changed subtly as he felt another set of emotions take route in his heart: a certain, unspoken, fondness and admiration every bit as equal in potency as the hate and fear he felt towards me. A part of him, every bit equal in size to the part of him that hated and feared me, as either the next overlord or some sort of dark impersonator of the overlords of yesterday, was created in the depths of his heart. 

“Hello Othello.” I said, greeting him warmly. My words caused him to smile, as my charisma was amplified by several potent sources, perks, and abilities alike which greatly amplified my charm and persuasiveness. Even though he hated and feared me, my innate levels of charisma, my abilities, and the potent power of “Friendly World” were able to make him want to be in my presence.

“How’d… How do you know my name, stranger?” Othello asked, fearfully. I chuckled and studied the man before next replying.

“I can read your mind.” I explained, honestly. The second I uttered this the man stared at me in disbelief, but a mere few seconds later I felt the potency of one of my perks take hold as his face fell and he began to believe me. One of my perks allowed me to, so long as I told the truth, be believed. It was a potent power, for one such as myself, with so much power. 

“Oh. I… I don’t have any money! Would you and your ilk settle for some… crops, instead?” The farmer asked, meekly. He hated and feared me, and was smart enough to not try and cross swords, or fists with me. I chuckled. 

“I do not desire money.” I said honestly, causing his face to fall as he believed me more quickly than he had before. 

“What I desire is… Your success as a farmer.” I told him, not lying, and thereby causing his face to brighten as he relaxed. What’s more is that those words soothed his soul, causing him to like me more, since I was behaving as though I was acting in his best interests. 

“Oh, uh… Thank you, my lord.” He said, calling me that in an attempt to ingratiate himself to me. I ignored the flattery in his words, in his address to me. 

“Think nothing of it, little one,” I began, with a smile on my face, as I heard the sounds of soft footfalls in the distance. “You see, I believe that your crops deserve to be eaten. That they deserve to be treated exactly how this,” I uttered as I utilized my own potent will-magic to conjure a simple red apple. “Ought to be treated.” I finished, the smile on my face now sinister. 

“Othello, why don’t you go on and take a bite of this apple?” I asked the figure, my smile impossible to repress. The young farmer looked at me, frightenedly, and stepped back, as if attempting to get away from me. Nevertheless, I continued to smile at him. 

“My lord, I am… Not worthy.” He began before I cut him off with a single, stern look. 

“Nonsense. You are perfectly worthy, deserving of this delicious apple. I know you know of the people who have looked like me in the past, and of their schemes, but I mean you no harm.” I informed the man, perfectly honestly. I did not intend to harm him. Indeed I had no malice towards him. He knew that, which caused him to deflate a little bit, to soften, but not so visibly that anyone with lesser vision than mine would not have been able to notice. However, even as he began to approach me, I could hear distant footsteps stumbling closer and closer. The distant feet of halflings.

To a halfling, food meant a lot of things. Even in the wake of the death of Melvin Underbelly, a legendary hero who went on to become a potent villain and local overlord of gluttony and to a much lesser extent, sloth, food carried a significant number of meanings. And so did the time-honored tradition of raiding farmsteads. 

The tiny squad of halflings who were speedily, for their diminutive species anyway, approaching the farmstead so far from their main village, were potent swordsmen and speedy rangers. They wore handcrafted leather armor and held swords that for them were quite lengthy but for anyone else, anyone from a taller species, would have been almost daggers. They were also drooling over themselves as they imagined a veritable feast waiting for them. They were fated to be disappointed. 

When they reached the crest of the hill that overlooked the tiny farmhouse, they were able to lay their eyes on the fierce, new, self-proclaimed lord of the region, the armor-clad goliath, and his orc-like minions. They saw him gazing at the farmer whose back was turned to them. 

In the hand of the dark lord sat a single, vibrant, bright-red apple. And then they began to drool. And, almost as one, they let out a series of grunts, communicating in the guttural language of their kind, grunts which their enemy could hear and understand, and they began to charge down the hill.

I listened to the excited, distant utterances of the halflings dashing towards me and sighed as I willed the apple in my hand out of existence and turned said hand into a long, black, battle-ready blade made of biomass, an ability I had due to my nature as a walking, talking, embodiment of the Blacklight Virus. 

Othello gasped and backed away from me in fear, even as I felt his heart turn both towards and away from me as one. I chuckled and whispered a single word. 

“Relax.” I told the man, even as I turned my fierce, divine eyes towards the tiny creatures racing towards me. I used my free hand to pull Othello towards me, and then behind me, causing the man to inhale the spores wafting off of me. 

I ordered said spores to infect him, subtly, and then felt our minds link, while my virus kept him unaware of the link we now shared. Meanwhile, the halflings were now about a quarter of the way towards me, close enough that, if I ordered it, my reds could hurl deadly fireballs at them.

The reds were also upgraded and evolved and were now far more powerful than they had previously been. A single fireball from them could explode upon impact with the ground, or some sort of target, and would deal incredible harm to my enemies. I did not issue an order though, and my minions revealed their discipline and stood their ground. 

I stepped to the edge of the farmhouse and waited for the halflings. It would take them a few minutes to reach me, but when they did they pointed at me and yelled crude insults. While they did that, I pointed my sword-hand at them, a smirk on my face. They gazed at it, even as they roared in anger and hurled themselves at me. 

The halflings were fast, for their species, and were quite coordinated. As they flew at me I noticed that had I been slower, had I been a mortal man, it might have been challenging for me to dodge them. But I was not a mortal man. I was a divinity, a skilled, powerful spirit. 

I was fast, faster than fast in fact, and so I sidestepped their attacks. I was able to move out of the way with ease, and did so at such a speed that I left behind an after-image which the creatures actually did manage to do, their dagger-length-weapons vanishing into the afterimage.

Their faces contorted in confusion as they gazed at the illusionary image they had just pierced. I only chuckled, silently, and wiped my sword-arm into the chest of one of the tiny creatures. His leather armor did nothing as my blade sunk into him, causing him to cry out in pain and become as readily infected by the Blacklight Virus, by me, as fully as any of the minions in my retinue were. I retracted my blade and stepped back, as my mind and the halfling’s mind were suddenly and fully linked. 

“Oh, that’s fun.” I uttered, excitedly, as I immediately learned everything that the halfling knew, and as I gained total and utter control over the creature, which I first asserted by causing the wound I had inflicted to speedily heal, his flesh mending and stitching together over the course of a few moments. He turned his gaze on his allies, even as he suddenly spat on his blade, ready to use it to inflict grievous, dangerous wounds on his former friends.