Althos and Gallow took the lead in approaching the bear. As they did, both men were utterly silent and relaxed, as if they had worked together thousands of times over the past few years despite the fact that Althos had never actively collaborated with anyone before. There were two reasons for this.

The first reason was Gallow's devotion to his master. The orc, who owed his life to his master, had completely given himself to the young deity when the orc was among the founding members of the deity's knowledge-centered faith. In the clearing they had spent over an hour in, he had done away with the last of his hesitation, due to the powers of the deity he had seen first hand and his master's mercy towards him if no one else.

The second reason for their skilled work was that Gallow gave his master a copy of his mind. Because of this Althos had an advantage none of Gallow's other partners had ever had; knowing the entirety of the orc's life, his style, and the sort of partner he'd like to have while engaging in roguish activities. This allowed the deity, brand new to the world of stealth and roguish work, to make up for his lack of experience.

The two of them inched nearer and nearer to the bear, and in doing so Althos observed more evidence that there was something deeply wrong with this particular bear.

As Althos inched closer and closer to the bear, he noticed that the bear smelled of blood and carrion. The second smell was a smell he became familiar with thanks to the variety of memories he had absorbed and made his own over the course of the past few hours.

He also noticed very thin, nearly imperceptible holes, on the bear's skin. These holes, much like the creature's maw, leaked some sort of weird slime. Althos shook his head and began to creep forward, planning to be behind the beast when his allies moved to engage it in battle.

Within seconds he was on top of the bear's den, his hands raised and where his fingers had previously been were sharp, tiny blades the creature could use to slice through anyone who dared oppose his will.

He nodded at the rest of his followers, and they began to quietly move into the positions that they knew would best optimize their ability to fight against a creature as large as a bear. His silence rendered him unnoticeable to the sleeping creature and there was a certain dramatic flair to the image of the deity standing on top of the den the beast was asleep inside of.

Gallow snuck towards his master until he was standing close to the deity. The rogue's purpose was to deal critical damage and damage that harmed the abilities of the bear, making it less of a threat to the other attackers. He would be ready when the fight began.

The elven women stood near the back of the party, furthest away from the deity, the bear, and the rogue. They readied themselves. Qu'Ren casually swung her dagger, an instrument through which she could channel potent magical energy.

She readied her magic, calling out to the place wherein she could most easily feel its ebb and flow, like a heart of sorts but for magic, not for blood. She tapped into this place within herself, coaxing the magic to come closer to her brain and fingertips, swirling around what magic she could readily tap into like one might swirl a hot beverage and waiting for it to answer her call.

Soon enough it began to respond, lazily spreading from her chest around her heart to the rest of her body. She grinned when this began to happen, and hoped she'd have a chance to show off for her master by using her powerful and destructive magic.

Milene grabbed her dagger and waited to see what would happen next, with the young woman preparing herself for the bear to breakthrough, just in case. She had decided that she would wait, and watch the battle rather than participate actively. Althos had already mentally okayed this, of course, otherwise, the young alchemist would have readied herself for battle as well.

The three orcish brawlers and Raverangos moved into places directly in front of the bear, separated by a distance of a few meters where any one of them could easily have been the first creature that the bear would see when it awoke. Behind them walked the warriors named Drow and Mianthus. The two elves' macuahuitl's felt light in their hands and both men were ready, even raring, for violence.

Silander, Tristan, and Salifinos stood in the back, though Salifinos was just waiting for a chance to commit violence. The tiny imp still hadn't gotten a chance to make use of his resurrected poison, and he hoped he'd be able to correct that as he looked out at the bear.

Althos made eye contact with Bazur and subtly nodded. The orc respectfully nodded back and waited for the deity's command.

Althos looked at the bear and focused. His eyes narrowed and he tried to consciously activate one of his few fairly unreliable powers: the ability to identify and learn about living creatures. Within a few seconds, the ability began to activate, and the following information lazily materialized right over the head of the gigantic bear.

[Name: Shredder Ole'Bloodhorn

Class: Berserker

Species: Forest-Bear (Corrupted)

Faction: Maddened Minion Of Mor'Dark'Heart]

Althos read over the text that appeared over the bear's head and then looked over at his allies. He visually assessed where they had placed themselves, and then smirked at them. He nodded, before sending out a mass mental message.

[I'm gonna lift my hand,]

As he told them this he did as he said, raising his hand higher than before.

[When I bring it down, it's the signal to attack. This bear is an enemy. It's a corrupted bear, and it is a servant of someone called Mor'Dark'Heart, which is a really on the nose name.]

After that snide remark, Althos once again looked at his followers and worshipers. He made careful eye contact with each of them, nodding and getting a nod back in return. Then the deity brought his hand down.

And then his followers began to move.

The first person to act was Bazur, the orcish brawler who was the first person to join Althos' service. The orc stepped forward and inhaled. Then that breathe that the orc had just inhaled was expelled in the form of an explosive roar, a sound that shocked not only the newcomers to his master's indiscriminate party but even his brothers.

The bear awoke with a start and was stunned for a second, but even in its stunned state, its eyes zeroed in on Bazur, the source of the explosive roar that shook it from its slumber. And the orcs charged. There was perhaps a single instant wherein the bear was cleanly stunned and unable to move, but that was enough.

That instant was all it took for the brawlers to cross nearly the entire distance between themselves and the bear and for them to launch their first strikes. But the bear wasn't slow and recovered in the moments before it would have taken the hits cleanly.

In the space of a second, the bear rocketed up off of its stomach and lunged forward to escape the confines of its lair. Its forward movement threw it at the attacking orcs and though the attacks managed to connect with its body, prevented the attacks from having the force they otherwise would have, its thick fur easily absorbing the not insignificant attacks. Then the bear itself roared and the sound it produced was truly incredible in its volume, easily stunning the orcs around it.

Althos watched this and had to struggle not to get involved. He considered this first exchange a bit of a disappointment, but he contained himself and waited to see what happened next.

The bear readied itself to unleash a titanic storm of claws and fangs and turned its titanic mass on the orc who had shouted at it: Bazur. As it turned it rose onto its back legs and swung its mighty frontal paws, its thick claws covered with dried blood and getting close to the orc at dangerously high speeds.

An instant before the claws would have shredded through the metal armor the orc wore, Drow, the elven warrior with the power to receive visions from Althos, closed the distance between himself and Bazur and pulled the orc out of the way of the claws. He also put himself in front of the bear, right between where he had pulled Bazur to and the quite insane beast, and where the beast's claws had torn through empty air moments before.

The bear's eyes zeroed in on Drow, and the creature glared at him for daring to intrude on the clash the beast was having. It lunged at him, only to be interrupted yet again by another orc, Ragnor, jumping from where he had been stunned earlier in the fight to right next to the bear's face and successfully slashing at the creature's eye with a powerful, metal-clad elbow strike.

The orc was incredibly fast, even in metal armor, and closed the distance separating him from his brother at a speed that was difficult to follow if one relied on their eyes. His elbow strike viciously pummeled the bear's face and managed to precisely hit the bear's eye with tremendous force because it was carefully aimed to maximally harm the bear's ability to fight.

The bear's head rocked back in response to the blow, but at the same time, the bear brutally swatted Ragnor away with a backhanded counter from one of its heavily muscled paws. The orc was thrown backward but landed on his feet several meters away. Althos saw him struggle to stay up, and so the deity reached out a hand and wordlessly cast a healing spell on the brave orc. Relief lit up Ragnor's face as he felt his wounds begin to mend and the pain began to subside.

Drow lunged at the bear who had hurt his ally, throwing himself at the beast. The bear was still rearing from that vicious blow, and blood was starting to pool in the beast's eye, so Drow moved towards the creature from the direction that the blow had hit from and a direction the bear couldn't accurately see in. He even followed the creature's rearing head for the sake of landing a certain-kill strike.

The warrior moved to end the fight quickly now that he was in the bear's blindspot with a single decisive strike. Once he was close enough to the bear to reach out and grab the creature's snout in his hands, he struck.

He threw himself at his foe with renewed energy, and he lashed out at his enemy with his unusual weapon. He extended the hand of his that held his weapon and secured it in his grip quite tightly as the weapon flashed towards the bear's face and thick snout.

It raked across the bear's snout, the obsidian blades more than sharp enough to slice through the fur and skin of the bear's face, drawing and scattering blood across the blades, the warrior's hand, and onto the ground as the bear bellowed in agony.

That was only the start of the strike. Once he had extended his arm as far as he could have, he hit the flat part of his weapon with his palm to cause the weapon to enter the slashing wound he had just created with it and then he forcibly dragged his blade back towards himself. The vicious, sawlike motion of the weapon's multiple blades as he pulled it closer to himself, drew further blood and deepened the already innumerable slashing cuts that the bear had sustained.

By the time the blades had cut across the whole of the creature's snout and face, the beast was already unconscious due to blood loss. In a single, fluid and forceful motion Drow pulled his blade out of the beast's head and then turned to look at the creature. He immediately noticed that the creature was still alive, and he huffed in annoyance at how its hefty endurance had prevented it from dying in a single attack.

Behind the creature, Althos was passing the time his minions were fighting by looking through his now hefty codex of spells. He could tell that his followers were going to win, and after having healed Ragnor had decided this would make an opportune time to gain practical experience with actual magic, used on a living creature.

It was when he was in the section of his codex that covered necromancy that the god found the perfect spell to use. The deity was quite excited to note that the spell had usages related to other schools of magic as well, making it his very first truly interdisciplinary spell.

[Spell type: Necromancy

Spell name: Harvest Soul

Effect: When used on a dying living creature it immediately kills them and steals their soul, giving the caster a powerful material component that is a necessary component in some conjuration spells, some dark spells, and some necromantic spells.

Base cost: 350 magical energy per cast.

Notes: An empowered version of this spell exists that you will obtain when you gain higher levels of knowledge, that can instantly kill living creatures and steal their souls, or worse automatically turn them into powerful forms of undead creatures while also granting you their souls.]

The deity looked up and noticed Drow glaring at the dying bear. He grinned at his worshiper and lifted his hand in the direction of the bear. He decided to be dramatic, and instead of casting "Harvest Soul" he opted to cast "Darkness" on his hand as to telegraph his dark powers to those who worshipped and followed him.

Dark shadows began to gather in his hand, transforming his divine extremity into what appeared to be a weapon of darkness. When he felt that the effect was appropriately dramatic, he willed the darkness out of his hand and in the direction of the bear. The darkness peeled itself off of his limb and became an orb of darkness that flew through the space between the bear and the god.

The god's minions and worshippers watched as the orb crossed the distance between where the deity stood, and where the bear laid, heavily injured, unconscious and waiting to die. The deity cast his "Harvest Soul" spell, targeting the bear, right as the orb made contact with the creature's unconscious body.

The creature's death itself was fairly undramatic. The bear stopped breathing and its heart stopped beating. Seconds later Althos confirmed that it had died, as he felt something immaterial, yet heavy flow from the bear's corpse and into himself.

Out of curiosity he turned to look at his allies and noticed that they were still watching the corpse, so whatever thing he had absorbed from it, probably its soul, hadn't been something they could see that was somehow invisible to him.

The beast died right as the orb covered its body in darkness, and Althos was delighted to receive two notifications at the same time, as well as a message from the eerie voice he had heard when he first used necromantic power in the clearing. Hearing that many voices in his head at once, and seeing that much text was dizzying and annoying, but the strange voice from before had a message that was incredibly appealing to the young god.

[Quest update: Successfully exterminated one of the twelve hyper-aggressive bears. Congratulations! Keep it up!]

[Hey Althos I see that you're using necromantic power and stealing souls... wanna taste it? Souls can be consumed by gods you know. If you eat it, it'll grant you a boost comparable to if you had gained a worshiper. Fast, easy, instant power & knowledge. If that's something that interests you, maybe you should try it out.]

Althos could almost hear the smile in the mysterious and eerie voice. But he also didn't sense any deception coming from the creature. He thought about it for a second and then realized that that was not a bad deal, assuming the voice was being honest. And if it wasn't, Althos knew that he'd have learned not to trust the voice in a situation wherein there were opportunities to get other bear souls.

[Alert: You've acquired a bear soul. You can use it to fuel the creation of powerful, unintelligent undead creatures, you can absorb it which is an act of considerable evil, or you can use it to power powerful dark magic. There's no need to make a... oh you've already absorbed it. Why?]

[I was told that absorbing it will give me power and knowledge. That's enough of a reason for me to do so, independent of whether or not such an act is evil.]

Althos wasn't the sort to hesitate, due to his youth, his obsession with knowledge, and the sort of darkly powerful memories he had swirling around in his mind. When he heard that devouring the soul would grant him power and knowledge he assessed the situation and then made the sort of choice that would have most appealed to creatures of darkness and impatience and chose to devour the soul.

It turned out that to devour a soul, once one was in his possession all it took was for him to will the soul to be devoured. Mere moments after obtaining the strange, immaterial thing, he felt it vanish from his possession and immediately felt lighter. And in the immediate aftermath of that, he once again heard that strange voice speak to him.

[So you decided to consume it? And without any hesitation? I don't dislike people who make bold choices, young one. If you keep it up, who knows where you may end up in the future? You may truly become a deity worthy of dominion over the planes of darkness, yet.]

Althos chuckled at the voice in his head and then received a notification. This one was far more interesting to the deity than mysterious musings from a being who seemed to feel that being mysterious was the same as having a personality.

[Soul absorbed... progress has been made along the route to gain the ability to influence the domain of souls. New divine power created. Creating an explanation of the power in 3... 2... 1...

New divine power explanation: Reconstitution

Some gods devour souls. Those who do are invariably dark, twisted, creatures possessed of horrendous appetites. But soul-consumption is an act which also grants considerable power. Deities who consume souls are given the power to craft physical shells in the shape of souls which they have consumed and invest in them a sort of horrid unlife where they are animate but exist solely to serve the deity who constructed them.

Until experience with alteration magic, mutations, or the appropriate level of influence over domains like the nature domain, the animal subdomain, or the subdomain of necromancy have been gained, it is only possible to form physical bodies for creatures that are molded off of templates gained by consuming the souls of a variety of creatures.

So for now, if you craft any shell it'll automatically form in the shape of a bear of some sort.

Cooldown time: 1 hour per shell.]

Althos read over this entry and found it quite intriguing. He considered activating it, but instead in a moment of rare patience, decided to do something like this in private and not here, next to the corpse whose soul he stole and then promptly absorbed.

He looked to his companions and saw that they were still staring at the corpse of the bear. Althos looked at it as well and was amused to notice that his previous casting of darkness was still affecting the body of the bear.

The deity called out to his companions and gestured that it was time for them to resume their adventure. No one made any complaints or any issued any objections, and within less than a minute the party was on its way back to the trail and back to the caves that would lead travelers to the city of Undermoon.

He knew where to go and he was quite excited. They were perhaps less than an hour from the entrance to the large cave-system that housed the city of Undermoon.

The encounter with the bear took less than a minute. After that Althos spent nearly five minutes in quiet introspection, dealing with the voices that dwelled in his head, and the system itself.

The moment that the soul of the bear named Shredder was taken from its corpse, the demon of filth responsible for the bear's madness felt a mysterious and otherworldly chill. Normally the slimy monstrosity delighted in pain and suffering, but for some reason, it felt the vaguest, alien sense of fear as it shuddered to warm itself up. But a small part of it also felt considerable excitement, an excitement that was as alien as the fear was.

The demon didn't like the alienness of these emotions. It quietly wondered what to do with them. After using its pseudopods to crawl around its lair, in its own version of pacing, it realized that all it could do was wait and see if these emotions left on their own.

At that moment the creature was in what it had declared, to itself and no one else since it couldn't speak, its lair. Its lair was a small outcropping of rocks where none of the blasted bioluminescent mushrooms that offered considerable amounts of illumination to the rest of the tunnel dared shine their light on the demon.

Nearly an hour later as a way to try and rid itself of the alien emotions plaguing it, the demon made the choice to go out to the small underground river that fed into the river in the forest.

It wanted to continue corrupting the source of water, and driving animals mad. It knew that if it sat by the water and spent time corrupting it, it'd naturally rid itself of stress.

It made that choice at the same time that Althos and his party reached the mouth of the very same tunnel it had spent the last few weeks in. In making the choice to go at that time to the small river it unknowingly set off a chain of events that would bring it into contact with another demon and that demon's master, the strange and young deity named Althos.