"Apologies for the delay!" I announced my final return to Noctis Reach with a resounding shout, sending the newly christened Captains into a hastened frenzy of cheers and applause that morphed into shocked gasps and confirmatory jeers once I came to a halt with an illusory display of Telin's Blessings and the Eternal Path orbiting around me.
"I am a devil of my word." I bowed in mid-air above the writhing mass of bodies before starting my slow descent to the central dais. "I met the creator of this universe just before I was born into this universe and received his blessings. He is the source of mana and the reason behind the portals' appearance. His name is Telin. I am his Champion.
"I am his Cleric, but a Cleric unlike any other. I walk the Eternal Path. The path to that leads past godhood. Thus I do not pray to or worship him. But." I dismissed the path in favor of making the blessings large enough for all of them to read. "That's not the important part right now. These are."
"So that's why we got so lucky with our affinities." Jaimess laughed wryly from his place on my left. "Though, I suppose it wasn't luck, but divine intervention."
"A bit of both perhaps." I shrugged, then pointed first at the illusion before turning my finger towards Jaimess. "The second blessing, however, Telin's Sight, is the most important. It allows me to see your paths to the end. Or, in other words." I smirked. "I know that your game of tag set you down the path of a Master Ranger Class of legendary proportions. The Divine Beast Tamer.
"And you two." I turned to face Roheisa's steel-hued eyes before turning to study the likeness of her knight. "You, Roheisa, are on the path of the Vulcan Berserker. But you can multi-class as well, and, like her." I gestured to Lucia. "You can become a Valkyrie.
"I- I can?" Roheisa's eyes faltered as she stammered. Down they fell, in confusion, before rising up in sudden disbelief. "You're a Valkyrie?" She asked her knight softly. And Lucia only nodded proudly.
Meanwhile, I turned to my knight. "From what I can see, you have the most options, Toril. You can either go the undead servant route or continue down the path of the Storm Thief. Or, you can mix them up and take up this… Oath of the Undying Tempest. But, as always, it's up to you.
"And the same goes for the lot of you," I shouted, turning to the waiting crowd. "By the end of this night, I will share with you your paths, but I will not give you the knowledge of how to level up in them. That is already within your capabilities. Thus instead, I will give you guidance. Or rather, your orders will show you the way down your paths.
"But that comes later. First, we raise our towers. And after I take care of a few more things, we'll celebrate the month away. So, uh." I turned my awkward gaze over the others. "Just give me a minute."
Few, if any, understood what was truly in store for them. But all of them gained enough trust in me over the last six months to just go along with it, giving me the peace I needed to peruse through the immense database of knowledge that came with godhood.
It wasn't long into that endeavor when I spotted one of the items on my list of things to take care of, making its way to the tower. A pair of them, traveling in tandem under the light of the moon, thus I split the task between my separate minds and waited patiently for Doyle and Olga to descend into the Foyer.
While Doyle declared his reasoning behind his appearance with the full zeal of a devoted cleric, Olga remained behind him, sunken into herself like a crab seeking solace within its shell. He, of course, intended to sell his soul for a truth he would have received upon completing his training. So, while he scoured his mind for another dream, I scoured his spirit for any hidden paths.
But alas, the only one to be seen was the one he told me about. Fighter, a Battle Mage of a relatively high level. However, his next words and a mention of something called a proxy gave me the perfect idea for his placement.
He wanted to walk under the light of the moon for the rest of his days. And so, I decided he would and, agreeing to his terms, infused moonlight into my words as I uttered my compliance. Then turned my attention to Olga.
Still, she seemed apprehensive. I knew of what she dreamed of, and I knew, for fear of the unlikely truth, that she was hesitant to say it. "I just want to live." She muttered at last. "Do I have to sell my soul to do that?"
"No." I quickly shook my head and smiled as I gazed upon the moon, imagining what it would soon become. "This tower will be changing soon," I said, not moving my gaze. "You can live in what it's to become. Just give me a few hours to make it.
"As for you." I turned, motioning silent details of Doyle's fate to my subordinates while I said to Doyle, "you'll be with me until your training begins."
"I am in your care." He bowed low, hardly concealing the great smile spread across his face.
"It'll be a while though," I assured him with a low chortle. "So consider the time until then as a vacation. Now, uh…. Just give me a minute." I turned an awkward gaze over the others while I drifted into the air. "I need to evolve."
Not the wisest choice of words, in retrospect, as the crowd surged forward as I drifted out of reach. Each set of eyes, desperate to get the first glimpse of any changes brought to my body, fought over the next pair for the best view in the house. If there even was one.
Turning my attention away from them, I killed my relative velocity after drifting a few dozen meters above the crowd and turned my thoughts inwards to provoke the ever-present wall of energy before me into reforming into words and glyphs and symbols I could make sense of.
"Well, that's interesting," I muttered to myself after a few moments. Though I supposed the more apt word was amazing.
It was… complex to say the least. A deity's very existence influenced everything in their portfolio, which itself was powered by faith. In this way, a deity couldn't alter their profile just by willing it so, but in return, they were able to affect mortals in ways that ranged from blessings that touched entire races to class abilities and, as I saw with a few of my Captains, create new subclasses altogether.
As vast and complex as it was, however, there were four essential aspects to divine profiles: My alignment, related races or creatures, interests, and Domains.
Alignment aside, the races or creatures within my portfolio consisted of those that either revered me, as the devils would, were I not a rogue, or my favorite creatures, now considered as physical manifestations of my divine essence. Like spiders to the Spider Queen, shadow dragons, wolves, orcas, owls, and a couple of other animals would be exalted in my theologies and thus were tagged to be tracked and 'recruited' at once.
On the other hand, my interests and actions directly influenced my domains. I- and every other deity- had the potential to have an almost endless number of them within our profiles, though they were limited to our interests and abilities. In essence, the interests were ways my followers could worship me and simultaneously actions that would become buffed with divine mana while inside my divine realm. Even then, however, the four most aligned with our natures were the domains able to chosen by our clerics.
My four wound up being the Moon, Twilight, Engineering, and Mana. And each of those encompassed a wide range of things.
The Moons light, for instance, had begun to affect animals and the tides since it came into existence, thus nature and the seas were part of my Moon Domain alongside freedom and change and much more. The same applied to harvests, leisure, exploration, and other things for Twilight. Spells, rituals, mana wells, and the many aspects of creation as well. Allowing me to, in one sense or another, grant abilities that even I didn't have to my followers.
Or, in some cases, gain new abilities entirely. Abilities that my blessings gave me no hint in discerning. So, without waiting any longer, I gave everything a final look-through before I mentally finalized the options.
Then, I started preparing for the return of that immense pressure I felt just a short while ago.
It was time to become divine.