‘Tier three, hm?’ I murmured to myself once the euphoria of Ascension had subsided. Three was still a low number, but it was another step on the road to power – and hopefully gaining enough of it to eventually escape my damnable gem, and become a being of flesh and blood once more.

What new ability have I gained this time? I wondered. Am I now a master of the elements? Earth? Wind?

I glanced toward the settlement where Gneil’s detractors still went about their daily business in complete ignorance.

Fire? I thought hopefully.

Before I could check, though, the green triangle – my ‘Faith triangle’ – caught my attention. Something didn’t add up.

‘Hang on,’ I said to Ket. ‘Since the triangle is inverted, that should mean each new tier needs more Faith to fill it than the tiers before. If Gneil alone got me to tier two, how come it only took Granny to get me to tier three? Shouldn’t I have needed more?’

‘Good question, Corey,’ the sprite complimented me. ‘In theory, that’s correct. Each tier requires an increasingly large amount of Faith to attain it. However,’ she gestured at Gneil’s faint green aura, ‘an individual denizen’s Faith levels can fluctuate. By demonstrating your powers on that mushroom – and then saving Gneil and Granny’s lives – you inspired Gneil to even greater heights of worship, which – along with Granny’s new Faith – provided enough to push you into tier three.’

Huh. So it wasn’t just about converting new worshipers. I could also increase my power – and hasten my path to escaping this ridiculous new life of mine – by impressing those who were already Faithful. That’s handy.

‘Are you planning to bask in the glory of your Ascension all day, or are you going to look at your new abilities?’ Ket prompted teasingly.

Shaking off the distraction of yet more new information, I summoned the Augmentary – that silvery repository of knowledge – with a mental blink and honed in on the newest addition to my list of augments.

‘Creation,’ I read aloud. ‘Tier three ability; mana-based. Create god-born creatures by splicing the blueprints of identified life forms.’

Ket watched me, waiting for my reaction. ‘What do you think? Sound good?’

Hmm.

I had to say, ‘splicing’ sounded pretty sinister. But… the power to create new creatures? Living creatures? The chance to literally ‘play god’? Damn right I liked the sound of that.

‘When can we start?’ I asked.

Say one thing about me, say I’d learned from my mistakes. The Growth debacle was fresh in my memory, and no way was I about to jump into new territory again without first consulting Ket. Thankfully, she seemed as keen to get started as I was.

‘Creation is really quite simple,’ she began. ‘Essentially, you choose two blueprints—’

‘Any two?’

‘Yes. You select the blueprints from your Augmentary, drag them together to combine them, and voila! You’ve got yourself a god-born creature.’

‘Well, that seems easy enough,’ I said.

‘Well… it is a bit more complicated than that. Ideally, you’ll want to spend some time choosing which aspects of each creature to combine, for a start. When it’s done properly, the whole process is actually quite time consuming, and you’ll no doubt have plenty of experimenting ahead of you. But the first step is choosing a combination, so let’s begin with that.’

I located my memorized blueprints and cycled through the options.

Cave spider.

Fern.

Bolete mushroom.

Squirrel.

Earthworm.

Fox.

Moss.

Bat.

All the while, Ket continued to dispense advice.

‘It’s always best if you choose practical, logical combinations,’ she cautioned. ‘Something you can use to populate the outer tunnels of your Sphere of Influence and effectively protect this cavern from enemy incursions.’

My attention drifted away from Ket’s instructions and back to my Augmentary, distracted by all the possibilities. In my mind, I toyed with several variations. Ket had said it should be practical, so how about… a mush-bat? A combination of a mushroom and a bat, able to fly from soil patch to soil patch and put down roots wherever it liked. Or perhaps a moss-spider, camouflaged against the cavern’s green walls and just waiting to drop down onto anything that happened to wander in and threaten my diminutive denizens.

But I couldn’t quite bring myself to actually choose any of them. Mushroom-bats? Moss-spiders? What was I thinking? This would be my first ever creation. It should be something fierce; something special. Something impressive.

Basically, the opposite of a gnome.

I tuned out Ket’s blather about ‘practicality’ and ‘logic’ and looked again at my options. They were frustratingly limited – and worse, mundane.

I’ve had to make do with less, I reminded myself, thinking of Gneil the mushroom-whispering pariah. It’s not about what you’ve got; it’s what you choose to do with it.

Still, size mattered, and the largest of my available blueprints was by far the fox. I took a moment to admire its complex web of blue threads, millions of them. So much life beneath the surface; so many incredible connections beneath that sheath of muscle and skin and fur.

I selected the fox blueprint and considered my remaining choice. How about a cave spider? A spider-fox would be downright terrifying to an unsuspecting intruder, sure to deter anyone – or anything – that might happen to be heading our way with trouble in mind.

I hovered over the cave spider blueprint, almost certain of my decision. It didn’t quite fit with what Ket had been talking about, but it would (hopefully) provide a great line of defense in the event of an—

‘Attack!’ Ket cried.

‘What?’ The blueprints and silvery Augmentary symbols dissolved, my concentration shattered. I raised myself higher and stared around wildly. ‘Where?’

The last word was barely spoken when I spotted them: two-legged creatures, pouring from the lone tunnel entrance on the far side of the mushroom patch. Muscular, scaly and vaguely draconic, the monsters wore ragged loincloths and carried primitive spears, roughly-woven nets and curving blades.

‘Kobolds!’ hissed Ket, though I’d already recognized them.

Easily head and shoulders taller than my gnomes – whose village they were now heading toward – the kobolds swarmed across the Grotto, making strange barking noises as they came. Their reddish scales were dull, their narrow eyes black and wicked-looking, and the curved talons on their scaly feet looked sharp enough to easily eviscerate the soft, doughy flesh of my helpless gnomes.

But the kobolds weren’t attacking. Instead, when they reached the settlement, they began darting between the shabby tents, snatching up wandering gnomes and then immediately retreating with their prizes tucked underneath their red-scaled arms.

‘What’s going on, Ket? What do I do?’

To my dismay, the gnomes did not fight back, nor did they even attempt to run away. Some fell to their knees at the sight of the oncoming brutes, but most simply stood still and allowed themselves to be carried off. Not one of them made so much as a noise of protest. It was all happening so quickly.

‘There isn’t much we can do, Corey. Not right now, anyway.’ Ket sounded sad, as resigned to what was going on as the gnomes were to their own fate.

One of the kobolds, taller and burlier than the others, barked out a command. Immediately, the remaining kobolds – those who hadn’t already run away with their gnomish spoils – skulked back out of the settlement and toward the tunnel entrance whence they’d first appeared, some with gnomes slung over their shoulders, others without. They all yipped and growled like dogs as they barreled back across the cavern.

Their commander followed more slowly, staring around arrogantly as though daring any of the remaining gnomes to challenge it. For a moment its gaze seemed to linger on my gem, small and distant though it was, and I felt a flicker of fear. What if it could see me? What if it decided to take the purple shiny for itself?

Finally, though, the kobold commander let out one last bark and darted into the tunnel after its kin.

The faint yipping echoes from the tunnel faded, and for a time there was silence in the cavern. Gradually, the gnomes who’d fallen to the ground began to pick themselves up. They walked back to their tents in a daze, or returned to whatever they’d been doing before the kobolds arrived. At least a dozen of their fellows had just been taken. Their lethargic reactions seemed… wrong. How could they be so damned apathetic?

Ket sensed my incredulity. ‘As you can see, your denizens are accustomed to these sorts of raids,’ she said quietly. ‘Hence their low numbers and lack of morale.’

This wouldn’t do. This wouldn’t do at all. I hadn’t even had chance to convert them to the Church of Corey yet, and now a full fifth of the population was gone. There now looked to be barely eighty gnomes remaining in the Grotto.

‘We have to make sure this doesn’t happen again,’ I said, trying to sound determined rather than unnerved.

‘I agree,’ said Ket. ‘Poor things.’

Poor me, I wanted to say, but a commotion in the mushroom patch caught my attention.

One of the kobolds – a straggler left behind by the main horde – had found Gneil and dragged him out from his hiding spot amongst the mushrooms. My disciple cowered before his captor, who kicked him hard in the ribs. Crocodilian jaws set into a smirk, the kobold easily hefted Gneil and slung him over its shoulder like a sack of flour.

I thought wildly of using Growth, of creating a forest of towering mushrooms that would fall in front of the kobold thug and stop it in its tracks. But there was no way I had enough mana to accomplish anything of the sort. Though I had three available globes now, the third – which had appeared the instant I reached tier three – was still empty, as was most of the second globe, despite the mana I’d regained from Granny and Gneil’s recent worship.

Damn those kobolds for interrupting it!

Down in the mushroom patch, the kobold carrying Gneil had just turned to face the tunnel when Granny lurched out from behind a mushroom. Arms outstretched, a shovel clutched in both hands, she dove toward the enemy’s legs with a hoarse cry.

The shovel connected with the back of the kobold’s left knee with a satisfying crunch. The kobold gave a bloodcurdling yowl and dropped to one knee, Gneil shifting dangerously on its shoulder.

‘Yes!’

Triumph flared inside me. But as Granny straightened up and moved in for another blow, the kobold twisted and grabbed her wrists with its free hand. Its claws sank in and blood welled over her skin, but she did not cry out, not even when the kobold got to its feet, lifting her off the ground by her pinned wrists. It bared knife-sharp teeth in Granny’s face, then with seemingly little effort, flung her at the nearest mushroom.

Granny flew through the air, limbs flailing. She smashed against the mushroom’s stalk and then crumpled to the ground where she lay, unmoving.

Gneil let out a strangled cry, craning his neck to see what had happened to Granny. The kobold gave him a vicious shake, then turned and limped away down the tunnel with its gnomish prize, blood trickling down the back of one leg.