Good to know. I rounded up the statues into a teleport spell as I prepared to go into the deepest part of my temple. I hadn't spent much time there, but my map knew where to go. I could never get lost in something I owned. I plotted my course before making a mimic and binding it to the stone under my feet. "Send the volunteers after me."
I ported into the darkness and was startled to find that even my ability to see in complete black, thank you Dark Elf race bonus, wasn't able to allow me to see. I set a fireball to float over my hand as a light source, but even that was far darker than it should have been. This place resisted light. Actively.
I only had to take five steps forward to know why. I'd teleported into the warning area, a space of total and complete darkness. Now I was in the chapel of some dark god. My light was unnecessary, so I deactivated the spell, allowing the unnatural violet light to illuminate the space as it was meant to.
I felt a shiver go up my spine as I saw the visages of screaming souls everywhere. In the fire-light they'd appeared as simple rocks, but now they revealed their true nature, souls bound in torment to stone. Mist that moved more like a raging sea than vapor seeped into the room, but stopped at ankle deep. When the waves crashed into each other geysers of the vapor shot into the air. As the geysers lost their energy, their true nature was revealed. The tufts of mist split into screaming souls that clawed desperately at the sky as they fell back into the pool of souls. The silence was eerie. I'd thought I had a thick skin for fear, but it was so thick here I couldn't help but be intimidated.
Directly across from the entrance was a statue of Ryne crafted from what looked like blood in all her naked glory. She stood on a hill of bleeding corpses, vital fluids dripping from her claws. It was so lifelike I would have thought her present if it wasn't thirty times her size and unmoving. Even the colors were realistic. Like she'd made a one hundred fifty foot version of herself. Was this the only temple with such a chapel in the basement? "Welcome to our home, Chosen of the Devil." The speaker was a transparent Dark Elf floating a few inches off the ground. I'd have thought him one of my kind, but there was no smoke and he emitted light. A dark violet light, the same light that made the walls scream. "The Realm assured us you would be the first to find the Dark Chapel, we see that she was right." Had WWO chosen a sex? I assumed the Realm was a reference to WWO. Maybe he meant Ryne. Since he'd called me Chosen of the Devil, I assumed he knew her in some way, shape, or form. "Have you come for the secrets of species creation?"
"Are there other secrets to be gained from coming here?" I was about to laugh at the idea, but then I recognized his cursor. His eye was black, but it was unmistakably the same as what Ryne wore. The only class sigil that revealed itself over all the others. Except the Oracle. That one didn't change either. Could I learn to become both down here? "What class are you?"
"There are many secrets in the Dark Chapel. All things that are hidden from those the Devil breathed life into are within these halls." So this was Ryne's church. Made sense that she'd have the ambiance of screaming souls. The statue gave it away, too. "We hold the secrets of all this world. Even that which is hidden from the Realm is known in these dark corners." So this was a pet of Ryne's, one that knew more than WWO. Why was I not surprised? "You have made great progress, with as little resources as you have been given. We are impressed." He bowed slightly.
"So how do I make a species?" maybe he'd just give me the spell. That would be very convenient. He was Ryne's, though, so there had to be some sort of price or qualification. I doubted it was being the first one to wander down here. "Is there a dance and a chant to do, or something?"
"We shall get to that when you have your sacrifices." Sacrifices? Was that what would happen to my volunteers? I'd thought it was more of a transformation, but maybe it was more complicated. "They are on their way here, now."
"For now, we would like to discuss another piece of magic. Our soul is split, scattered throughout the world to remain fair. We would like to return to a single simultaneous existence." His habit of using the royal "we" was beginning to annoy me. Even if his soul was scattered around the world, he was a single being.
I hadn't forgotten his refusal to answer about what his class was. Now he was asking me for a favor? "What other magic could I learn from being down here? And what is your class?"
"Creation, mostly. Altering the rules of creation and destruction. Combining things and taking them apart. The fabric of the Realm is woven of souls, and the pattern creates the power used by her children. The Dark Chapel is where the pattern is made." He was still refusing to tell me what his class was. Or maybe he was a simple creature, incapable of keeping track of two trains of thought at the same time. "We desire to be combined into a single being once again. Will you aid us in our endeavor?" he was acting like a half-programmed npc from the beta. One with a quest for me. I glanced at his cursor, but it still wasn't an exclamation point.
"What class are you?" maybe if I didn't ask another question, he'd reply. He didn't reply, though. He was acting like I hadn't spoken and was still waiting for a response to my last question. Maybe Ryne had stolen his ability to know what he was, or even recognize the question of what he was. "What species are you?" he remained still, pretending to have not heard me. Maybe I needed to change the question. "What does the Egyptian eye mean in a class cursor?"
"The Egyptian eye, otherwise known as the All Seeing Eye, is the cursor of those schooled in Creation Magic." So it was class Creator? Did Ryne have a god complex? If so, I could understand that. She'd never told me if devils were the actual creators of the world or if Heaven came first. "Will you aid us?"
He really was set on the whole combination thing. "What do you want me to do?" I thought he'd respond immediately, given how focused he was on asking the question. Apparently not. He just sat in the air, as if waiting for a response. Maybe he hadn't heard me. "How can I help you become one again?" still no response. He was acting like I was asking about his class again. Maybe he couldn't respond to anything about himself. "How can I put the soul guarding the Dark Chapel back together?"
"All that is required would be giving any piece of gear to a single instance of the soul. Giving it a piece of physical reality to own will force the soul to combine to claim it." Was that it? All I had to do was give it a single piece of gear? I ordered my inventory imp to run up to the city and buy a random bit of gear. The only real problem would be giving an object to a being that couldn't recognize its own existence. "Our soul is shattered, spread across the world. Will you help us become one again?"
Yea, yea. I glanced around for a tome to read or something, but it was just a giant room coated in screaming souls. Maybe Nobody could tell me how to make a new species of player. "What happens to the sacrifices when a new species is created?"
"The souls are torn apart and put back together as a new being." That was very helpful. Thanks. "We are spread across the world, scattered to keep the world balanced. Will you help us return to a single being?"
I was getting used to ignoring him ask to be put back together. It was odd that Ryne allowed him to have that quest line in his dialogue without expecting that he'd consolidate again. Or maybe that was her plan, there could be only one creator. But the…how could Arthur create her species to balance my new ones? If I learned to be a Creator, would she too? Did being a Creator teach you all of the rituals Nobody knew? "If a sacrifice was a vassal or familiar, will they still be a vassal or familiar afterward?"
"No. We are scattered…" I tuned him out as I considered that. If I made them into familiars and told them not to kill anything until they had male and female children…I could create a species of players and npcs. Maybe he knew even more than just what being a Creator was.
"If a familiar has kids, are the offspring also familiars?" I needed to stop asking yes or no questions. Or make them more complicated, at least. "If a familiar breeds with another familiar, but they haven't killed enough not to be npcs, will the offspring be npcs or players?"
"Familiars are created only through a soul contract. These cannot be made in the womb. Only players can create more players, all else make npcs or monsters." Or monsters? How could I make monsters? Who did I have to fuck to make a monster? "We…"
"Who do I have to fuck to make a monster?" I wracked my brain for any other question I could ask before he responded. What did I want to know? "What cursors overlap the others?"
"A monster will spawn monsters." Apparently he decided that wasn't enough, though. "They are the only type of being in the realm that can create hybrids." That was something I really wanted to explore more. "Without a habitat, however, the monsters will be limited to those bred, and they will function nearly identical to npcs except for their uncontrollability and tendency to go on murderous rampages when irked." So I'd just need to tame one. A hybrid species composed entirely of pets would have limitations, but I doubted it would be that large an issue. And having total control on an entire species could have benefits as well. My myth would continue to grow. Especially since hybridizing monsters wasn't an ability I'd have to balance for Arthur. If I could hybridize uber-monsters…nothing would be able to stop me. "The normal classes overlap the npc, player, and monster cursors. The Oracle cursor overlaps those but lies on the same level as the Dream Witch, Zealot, Juggernaut, Arch Angel, and Arch Demon. The only cursors that lie above those are the Creator and Deity classes. We…"
"Explain the higher classes. All of them. Including what can obtain the class, and how." My imp returned, but I didn't want to give Nobody the ax he'd brought me. He might not be as helpful when his soul was returned. I could also feel vassals entering my portal. It was time to move on, but these new classes were intriguing. I'd only ever come across an Oracle.
"Oracles focus on anticipation of physical movement. They can predict every motion as soon as there is knowledge that the motion will be carried out. Most of the time, this gives them a few seconds in a battle against a player. Npcs and monsters attack in learned patterns, so it is almost impossible to kill a devoted Oracle with them. Uber-monsters and specific npcs can be taught to be Oracles by Oracles, players cannot learn to be Oracles unless they have the Deity class. Dream Witches focus on controlling others. They focus on hypnotism and puppeteer magic, allowing them to strike without ever dirtying their hands. Those that can become Dream Witches have the same prerequisites as Oracles." A very useful ability. One that I wouldn't mind having. "Zealots focus on their faith. The only real difference about them is that they fight better, in all forms of the word better, when surrounded by those that follow their faith. They can't fight as well with those that don't believe as they do. The prerequisites are the same as the Oracle." Good for an army, but not a class I was seeking with as much fervor as the others. "Juggernauts can focus their power throughout their body, sacrificing vitality or mp to power stronger blows, as well as sapping those very resources from others to fill the void. Essentially, they never run out of any resource. Same prerequisites as the Oracle. Arch Angel and Arch Demon are powered by vassals and pets respectively. The more they have, the stronger they become. They are achieved by reaching level two hundred fifty while suffering the racial modifiers of angel and demon. You already know what Creators do. Creators can only be created in the Dark Chapel, and anyone can become one. Deities are similar, but it is much more difficult to become a Deity than a Creator, they are created by using a ritual known only in the Dark Chapel, held secret even from Creators without access to a Dark Chapel. They are powered by faith, and everyone that worships them gains power as well as increasing the power of their Deity." I imagined that the uber-monster gods sprinkled around the world were each Deities. Something that I wanted very badly. "Deities possess every class that their worshippers do, and in this way a player can become any class, even those that they are not allowed to learn. Should a player become a Deity, respawning apart from a temple by those without the Deity class will become impossible outside of wielders of racial Crowns. In addition, vassals will become the subjects of the ruling lord of the area and other vassal contracts will be rendered void. Arch Angel Deities will gain increased power from their devotees as vassals are stripped from their control. Arch Demon Deities will gain massive increases in their power for every pet with more than average levels of soul energy." I needed that last one, but not quite yet. I needed to have the ability to see into the future. I would know all of Arthur's plans as she made them…she would know all of mine in the same way, but that was a price I was willing to pay. Not quite yet, but it would be impossibly valuable. "We…"
I pulled out the crap ax and looked at it like it was the most interesting thing in the world. "Tell me how good this item is." He was about to answer, but I stopped him. "One can only know how good it is by owning it." I held it out to him. Nobody reached out, gripping the handle as the ax vanished. Nothing happened, as far as I could tell.
"It is a shitty ax. Nowhere near as good as the equipment you already have." Shitty. He'd said shitty. That required personality, right? That required him to have gotten his soul back, right? "I appreciate your aid. I will aid you with three things, just like a genie from your mythology. After that, I will claim the Dark Chapel for my mistress. Even you will bow before her altar."
Unless my third favor was him making me into the Deity of the Dark Chapel. Not that I would do it, but it made me feel better that I could. I already knew what my three favors would be. "Teach me to be a Creator, tell me how to get out of this world when I've hit level five hundred, and the third will come when I finish conquering Hell." I didn't want to give Arthur the Deity class while I was off fighting a war somewhere else. She wouldn't know what to do with the Creator. There would probably be a learning curve for Deity as well, but I imagined she'd figure that one out pretty quick. Having a menu that explained your classes was highly convenient, and inconvenient for those that wanted to hoard information to themselves.
The volunteers had finally arrived. They'd even carried the statues with them. Nobody nodded as he looked at the statues and volunteers. "You are lacking the required materials for creating species. Mythic gear is required." The timing was perfect. My skeletons entered, carrying mythic plate. Each set only had one weapon, and the gear itself was the essence of boring, but it was mythic. I could make better gear for the npc I crowned later. Nobody nodded before gliding toward a wall. As he approached, the wall shuddered and ground as it slid aside. I wasn't sure if it was some mechanism, or him moving it with some form of magic I couldn't see. I followed, the trembling volunteers in my wake. Even my skeletons were afraid of this place. This was a place for players and monstrous beings that didn't belong to this world. Partial souls didn't belong.
"Is the spell to create a species part of being a Creator?" Nobody nodded. Now that he was a complete being, he didn't have to speak all the time. That was a good trait. "Teach me."
I felt the class appear in my mind. It was a much smaller class than any of the others, there were almost no abilities, and only three spells. All three had unique runes, though, so it wasn't a waste. There wasn't any ritual, though. Nobody had made it sound like there was a ritual. One that explained all of the little parts of being in that species. Then I noticed another tab in my spell book; rituals. I checked that one, and there were more rituals than I had spells. They were also much more complicated. I laid down the framework for one, and a glowing violet circle dropped to the ground in front of me. I knew that to finish the ritual, I'd need to work out the parameters and limiters, and then perform a sacrifice. If the sacrifice wasn't powerful enough, the ritual wouldn't work. And I could understand the whole language of the spell, even though it was as complicated as an enchanting block. I shuffled through the rituals until I found the enchanting block and couldn't believe how complicated the creation of the warded ground was. Creating land that actually generated magic required the sacrificing of multiple players, as well as a few npcs to power the enchanting runes and let people use them, and then two non-subservient monsters to stop anyone from claiming it. And that was just for one block. The ones in the larger cities had as many as a dozen enchanting blocks built onto a larger rune. And the teleportation circles were even pricier than enchanting blocks. They cost an uber-monster sacrifice to connect to the teleportation network. And now I had a decipherable class cursor. One that nobody in the world would match, except Arthur.
Nobody gestured toward the ground and a massive arcane circle appeared, glowing golden to light the expansive dome decorated with weapons of every sort. There were four smaller circles evenly spaced around the outside. One was for the statues, one for the gear, one for the two volunteers, and the last one was for the wizard providing the mp. I studied the ritual, making sure I wouldn't be adversely affected. It would drain me of almost all of my mp, and make sure I didn't regenerate for a day, but I would recover. If I went to the keep, I'd regenerate in a few seconds, so I could make all six at once.
As I studied the formation, I realized what went into it, and couldn't believe it. Fifty thousand souls were required. Paying it with monsters would create a monster species, paying with npcs would make npcs, and so on. Such a miracle of life that monsters could hybridize for free. And very good for me that WWO was providing the juice for this one and Arthur's for free. I wasn't as happy that my race-creating ritual formation would be stuck in the Dark Chapel after I became a Deity, but you could never have everything you wanted. Maybe Nobody wanted to be able to create races on a whim.
The npcs and monsters knew where to go, and I moved the statues of the worm species to their slot and stepped into my circle. The ritual activated instantly, ripping the mp from me. I watched the runes of the ritual and started manipulating them as the circle completed itself. I made sure they didn't need to breathe to allow them subterranean as well as aquatic travel. In the second tier I warped one rune to allow them to camouflage naturally, making stealth helpful but unnecessary for the majority of situations. I studied the ritual, but couldn't find racial bonuses or modifiers. Apparently new races weren't as good as the old. Natural abilities were one thing, but the elf modifier of learning all mage-related skills twice as fast was much more valuable than natural camo that couldn't be dispelled. Maybe they'd gain them when they advanced into multiple sub-races. The closest thing they had was their ability to hold a second set of weapons on their back if they walked with four limbs and resistance to tripping regardless of if they used all four lower limbs or not.
The gold glow grew until it was as bright as day. Then the npcs started screaming. Smoke rose from their skin, and they dropped to their knees. After they ran out of skin, I glanced at the statues. The toneless gray of the stone had turned to a rough gray that glistened with moisture. As the muscle dissolved, I saw the statues relax into casual poses. Since they were boneless, I doubted the bones would be transferred. Then I remembered the teeth. When those changed from stone to bone, the former statues snapped their mouths shut with an audible click. The teeth seemed much bigger on living beings than they had on the statues. Another round of mp drain and the gear vanished from its circle and appeared on the female. The basic appearance of the gear was completely gone, however. The joint-less posture was sharpened a bit as the limbs of the gear were segmented ridges with blades on the outside. The head piece was a cloth hood over a steel mask that only covered the lower face, leaving the upper face in shadow but allowing her to extend her head to the all-devouring appendage it was meant to be. They screeched like metal scratching stone as the ritual finished. The spell had given the species a name, oddly enough. Os'Minog. WWO was even worse at naming stuff than I was. I shifted into their species to get the bonuses, but there was a problem I had wanted to avoid. Even if it wasn't possible. I wasn't sure if I killed the queen here if she would be brought back in Hate, so I'd need to make sure she survived. I knew Hate had a keep, because I owned it. Owned it.
They weren't my vassals. "Swear to serve me." The two of them turned to glare at me. They obviously understood. A black heavy sword rippled into being between me and the queen. The blade curved with a viciously serrated back edge. Another one appeared behind her, clasped by the two rear hand-like appendages. I couldn't kill her permanently if I wanted a full species, so if she was the stubborn sort I'd be shit out of luck. I snarled as I drew my weapons. I couldn't use any of my spells because I'd geared them for combat and didn't have time to make more than the most basic of torture spells that would rebound off of the armor. Assuming it was still generic and weak would be beyond stupid. Not to mention the fact that I didn't have mp to power anything but the weakest of spells if I wanted to keep enough to teleport back to the keep afterward. Maybe the absurd mana cost was to stop people from doing exactly what I was doing.
I slipped the staff to my back and held the sword with both hands. Now that I had their ability, I'd never need to hold the staff again, useful in a minor sort of way but essentially a wasted ability slot. I wasn't sure how powerful this being was, because the armor had completely remade itself. Based on the morphing of the gear, I had no idea what it was capable of. Combat with a boneless foe could become extremely odd. Not to mention the ridiculous flexibility allowing for entirely different combinations and unknown enchantments. I rushed forward and swung the blade under hers, aiming to sever the limb around the wrist. She dropped the blade in a cut no human could ever replicate, bending her arm at a ridiculous angle. I followed through with the cut, expecting my armor to block his reciprocal attack. Our blades hit at the same time. Both glanced off the bracers, though sparks blasted from his edge as it slammed into my arm. I activated a Berserker ground stomp, adding concussive force runes to the eighth circle. The queen was blasted into the wall, sending cracks through the stone. I brought my blade up, activating a Crusader's rush, slamming her harder into the same wall. I dropped my blade and grabbed two of her limbs, one of which held her blade. As my blade puffed into mist, I planted my boot on her chest. She screeched at me as I started pulling. "Submit." Her armor may be as good as mine, but she was only level one. Her other weapon was tied up behind her, and her first blade was mist. Her four lower legs wrapped around my arms, but her strength was insufficient to make them tremble, let alone break. She snarled at me again and I kicked her chest, ripping both arms apart. Since she didn't have joints, they broke at random intervals. "I can keep going until you don't have any limbs left. Should we do that?"
She snarled for a second before she accepted his fate and joined the ranks of vassals. Her mate followed within seconds. I made sure to order her to her new capital and repopulate before reporting back to me. Better to not take any chances of not making any npcs, they could always become familiars later.
Teleporting back to the keep for a few seconds for each species was annoying, but it was as worthy a cause as they came. When I'd finished making and subjugating the other species, I gave the same orders to the other stone species that had the ability to move through stone like I could move through air that WWO named Obsidiates. I left out the orders for the rest of the new species. I gave the bat species an ambient darkness buff that blocked all light for a cubic mile around them while giving them the ability to sense everything they would have been able to see with perfect clarity. WWO named them Chiropterans. The bird ones got near immunity to fire magic and the ability to use it twice as well as anything else while gaining massive weaknesses to cold damage. How WWO thought that ability made them into Direhawks was beyond me. The snake mermaid species got a poisonous bite as well as a sweat-like excretion that was just as deadly as their venom. WWO decided the capital I'd named in my keep was appropriate because she named them the Nagae. WWO didn't let me mess with the frog people, who she dubbed the Tyderun, and made them the counterparts to the Direhawks, upping their ice magic resistance and power while weakening them to fire. When I'd gained the racial bonuses of both the Direhawks and Tyderun I didn't have any resistance or weakness to either ice or fire, but I had double the spell power in both. Convenient.
The only problem was that the avian and aquatic species would need to clear out the native species of monsters, all of which would be too powerful for them to fight for a long time. I told them to wait in Zezhria until I cleared out the indigenous monsters and gave them a safe way to get to their new capitals. I still wasn't sure how I was going to accomplish that. The only way I could think of was creating teleportation circles, but I wasn't about to sacrifice my uber-monsters to connect them to the network of circles. Maybe I could create a sub-network that would function similarly, but not connect to the massive network that spanned the whole world. Maybe I could get away with that with just some normal monsters being sacrificed. If undead could work, it wouldn't even matter how many I'd need.
A random player wandered in as I finished the last species. He looked at the monstrous beings rutting in their various fashions and dropped to his knees in front of me. "Please allow me to join the ranks of your Black Hole Knights."