Notification: Yithians, Make A Choice

Oh lost travelers from the world of Yith, that which you have long desired is now available to you if you just make a choice. Althos, a god of chaos, change, and shapeshifting, is interested in acquiring your service and worship and he has an offer for you.

Althos is a powerful god and he is served by a multitude of races. He knows of your ability to transfer your minds into new bodies and he finds it fascinating. He would like for you to worship and serve him and in exchange, he shall give you any sort of bodies you could imagine and want for you to control and use.

Althos is the Eternal Emperor, the head of the fairly new Althonite Empire, and he wishes for you to serve him and join his empire. He knows the hardship you've endured and he knows how hard you've worked to survive. He can appreciate that tenacity, and as citizens of his empire, you'll be afforded tremendous respect and given resources to help with your survival. All it takes is a decision to become followers of the Emperor, and he'll immediately begin to construct powerful, handsome, adaptable bodies for your usage.

You have long struggled and endured hardship. If you choose wisely, then that may end today. You could gain protection from your enemies, a future that doesn't involve shifting from body to body and race to race, and resources to guarantee your survival.

Choose wisely and secure a future. Choose wisely and become part of an intergalactic empire. Choose wisely and gain the patronage of a god who supports you. Turn to Althos and you shall receive the bodies of your dreams.

The last notification I needed to make wasn't a hard one. The Great Race of Yith was an unusual race that I had had no prior interactions with but they possessed strange and intriguing powers that I liked and could make use of. They had the ability to forcibly transfer their minds into the bodies of others, and cause the minds of others to have to inhabit their bodies.

This power was fascinating and I wanted to monopolize it. And I could if I just gained their service. I was ready and willing to give the Yithians what they wanted if in exchange they served me. I was being sincere, especially since I could easily create all manner of bodies for them to dominate, and allow them to abandon the multitudes of bodies they've had to take on since they began to exist in this universe. All it would take for them to have all the power they wanted was for them to chose to take a chance and join a god.

And in the wake of creating that notification and transmitting it to the minds of every Yithian in this universe I was still with Ashlen and the other demons in the world of Htrae. I smiled at her as she and I wandered the entertainment and house theater section of the electronics store. She was busy staring at the T.V.'s on display throughout the area.

Some of the T.V.'s were massive things that took up entire portions of the wall on which they were placed. They were impressive things with extremely high-quality images and great audio, and looking at them made me chuckle and wonder if I should have an apartment of my own somewhere in this city. I entertained the thought for a moment before rejecting it and chalking it up to a moment of silliness. I didn't want something as mundane as an apartment in this city, not really.

From time to time I almost imagined having something akin to a mundane life in this world. I mean obviously, it wouldn't be entirely mundane, I am still a god after all, but I do occasionally entertain the notion of living on Htrae sincerely and having meaningful relationships with this world's population. I don't think I could actually do that, unless I had already achieved true omnipotent and omniscience and opted to inhabit this world after having acquired everything I had ever wanted. And not for any reason related to my powers, but because I myself don't really enjoy not working.

I had goals in mind and to achieve those goals it was necessary for me to constantly work. I needed to move forward, and it's true that I could entertain small distractions, here and there, having a life on Htrae that is mundane, or as close to mundane as I could manage, is a bigger distraction than any I could seriously picture myself entertaining. Even with regards to the Coeus Company, my company, my methods were very hands-off.

Whenever I wanted to begin to introduce more technology into the world I utilized powers over creativity and technology to "inspire", or rather implant, a design into Andrea's mind, or rarely the mind of another high-level employee and inventor. I was the president of the company but Andrea handled the day-to-day operations and she was the face of the company, as well as one of its lead inventors.

She did a lot of the work, though she did have help. I gave her android assistants who helped with much of the work she did, and I also made sure she was an extraordinarily wealthy woman to compensate her for her work.

I was, with regards to the world, just a name on some website, one that even lacked a picture. Countless articles have been written about me and my mysteriousness, but I didn't mind that. People were curious about me, but largely chalked up my reclusive nature up to me being an actual eccentric scientist, a rare example of a trope in real life.

Outside of my mind, in the material world around me, Ashlen was almost done picking out a T.V., even as I thought of ways that I could pretend to be a normal human. I gazed at her and studied her curves, even though her robes did a good job of concealing them.

She was conversing with an employee and occasionally I imagined enjoying myself with her. Ever since I had undergone my latest increase in power I felt far more lust than before. That said, even before now I had occasionally struggled with bursts of sudden desire, and throughout the past three years I had taken many people to bed. I was especially fond of achieving satisfaction with succubi, incubi, and pleasure devils, all of whom had come to know and be fascinated with me for my sexual desires.

The other demons had acquired all of their goods and were purchasing them as Ashlen picked out her second purchase. She was attempting to understand the distinctions between different types of T.V.'s and it simply wasn't clicking in her mind so I pulled her close and kissed her forehead. As I did I bestowed her with the knowledge she needed and also made her blush. I wasn't making her fall in love with me or anything, I was just blessing her intelligence and imparting wisdom so that she knew what she was talking about.

She turned to me, annoyed at my sudden action even as she struggled not to smile. Even now, years after I met Sombra and learned that demons could be tame and weren't always living engines of destruction and cruelty it still felt weird to see one be so awestruck and lovestruck, even if it was a direct consequence of my own powers.

"What was that for?" She asked, trying not to smile, and instead focusing on fussing. I chuckled and silently shrugged at her.

"You're cute when you're curious. I was just reacting to that." I told her, opting to continue the facade that she and I were a couple, an image which was handy in this instance. The employee rolled his eyes when he thought we weren't capable of seeing him. Both of us were, and when Ashlen's anger spiked I used powers over anger to smother her fury, causing her to calm down, and when she turned back it to face the employee there was a smile on her face.

"Sorry about that. My boyfriend can be overly affectionate." She said, feigning that she was chiding me. I allowed the lie which was why she could lie about me, even though my powers over deception would have allowed me to prevent her from calling me that had I not wanted her too. I audibly chuckled even as she looked around and selected the T.V. that I knew was the best one for her specific room, knowledge which I effectively beamed into her mind with my earlier display of affection.

The employee made an effort to not look annoyed at our actions. It wasn't a good effort, he was obviously still tired of us, but it was an effort nonetheless. I could appreciate that he tried it. And then he visibly tried to speak, but he found that he was unable to. I chuckled as I watched him stand in total confusion, not at all able to understand why he couldn't speak. It was because he was going to lie.

A look of immediate concern appeared on his face, and for a moment he tried to say variations of the lie, that wouldn't come out either. It amused me so I watched him continue to trip over himself, unable to speak. After another few seconds I mentally suggested, cloaking my voice as his, that he skip the lie he was going to say, and instead focus on getting Ashlen what she needed. He was confused for a second, as he was unsure if the thought was his, but a split second later he accepted it and spoke, able to speak now that he wasn't lying.

"I'll go retrieve the tag you'll need to submit to the cashier to be able to purchase your new T.V." The employee told Ashlen and I, and as he left I began to smile. It was quite funny to watch him walk away, relieved that he could speak now. My powers were odd so I could understand his confusion since even magic struggled to prevent someone from lying unless the magic in question was intentionally crafted to prevent lies.

As a deity of both truth and lies, I had various means to manipulate both. I could also prevent both since I was a level 20 deity, which was one of the reasons why my powers had become so much more dramatically powerful over the last few years.

Ashlen and I would spend the next few minutes gradually finding more goodies for her to purchase for her room. It'd take us almost half an hour before we finished exploring the store and retrieving everything she wanted to purchase today. When we found everything she wanted we made our way to the cashier who was nice to both of us and made casual conversation with us. When it was time to pay Ashlen proudly handed the woman attending to us her card, and beamed at me. I could tell she was quite pleased with herself, even without using my empathetic powers.

When we were done in the store Ashlen and I met up with the others, and retrieved the last of our goods. When all of the demons were gathered in one place, with all of their goods, I used a portal to send them to their rooms and allow them to begin to decorate their spaces. They'd be living in their rooms for the next four years, so they might as well get used to them.

When the last of the demons, Ashlen rather unsurprisingly, was gone and I found myself alone I sighed. I was alone, at last and for the last few minutes I had been feeling the potent powers of the eldritch domain well up within me as I acquired more and more worshipers who were abominations. They made me shiver and I wanted to use them and my other, more apocalyptic, powers soon.

I also knew that if I wanted my plans for the university to be able to proceed without a hitch I'd need the service and worship of at least one highly placed employee within the university. I could easily acquire it in a number of ways, but I wanted to acquire it myself.

I had spent most of the last three years supporting my servants from a distance, blessing people, altering people, utilizing technology, and generally not out and about in the mortal universe. I was also planning to return to the dimensions I had more direct control over soon. I'd need to return to Infernius to begin to organize everything there in the next few hours. So I had time for one more fun excursion before I went ahead and made my way back to the Final Factory.

I teleported into the office of the head of resident life at Lavern University and upon doing so I found myself sitting in a chair facing an old man who was studying a computer screen. His back was turned and he was clearly invested in the email he was reading.

As I studied him I wondered what method of making him my servant would be the most fun for me, since I'd surely be spending the rest of today after this doing organizational and bureaucratic work, which tended not to be fun. As I wracked my mind the number of ways I could make him my servant all struck me as quite amusing. I had a tough choice to make.