RE: Deity - The Breath of Creation

Rising Wind, Crashing Waves listened to Nyxteria whine, half annoyed and half amused at its pouting.

"Nyxteria is upset that Alexander did not give Nyxteria a scale. Is Nyxteria that untrustworthy?" the great bird asked, clacking its beak and blinking its starry eyes in a way he was sure it thought was meant to be pitiful. Rising Wind felt no pity for the bird. Having a hobby was one thing, asking foreign beings for body parts to be preserved in Timeless Crystal was quite another.

"You shouldn't ask such a stupid question in the first place." The Primeval Dragon growled, narrowing her eyes at the bird. Nyxteria clacked its beak once, seeming uncomprehending of the Dragon's meaning. Rising Wind sighed and turned his head to Statera, who was currently swapping out her dragon-child for another one altogether – hence the reason for Nyxteria's small tantrum.

A few of the other gods had taken the opportunity to swap out their own plus-ones, Reilly putting his one away and going it alone, but they were mostly expected changes. MR-10 produced another drone. Sylphina swapped her rose out for another butterfly. Yueya kept her plus one the same. But Rising Wind was most interested in who Statera was going to choose for his realm.

After all, from what he'd been able to glean from his conversations with the Progenitor, it was most likely rare for a universe as young as theirs to have so many impressive souls within.

"But Nyxteria –"

"You'll have another chance to meet him when you come to my realm. If you do." Statera said, pulling away from her portal. Beside her emerged a dark-skinned, black-robed young man with bat-like wings and a thick, leathery tail. His eyes had bags under them, and Rising Wind felt the all-too-familiar aura of karma radiating from him. It was young and underdeveloped, but still Karma. What an impressive domain. "Keilan, meet everyone. Everyone, meet Keilan." She introduced. The young man bowed his head slightly, folding his hands into the sleeves of his robes.

Once or twice he shot a quick glance at Statera, still in her muscular, toga-clad form as she was. Even if she was feminine now, Keilan seemed at a loss for words looking at his creator – though that might have in part been due to the presence of so many origin deities keeping him silent. Rising Wind did not, and felt no need to, read his mind to find out the truth.

Statera and his eyes met as he rose to his feet. Hers still sparkled with mischief as she hugged her 'son,' the young man stiffly returning the gesture before pulling away, smoothing out his robes. Clearly she was feeling much better about herself, but it did beg a question about her choice of plus one.

Bringing a god of karma into the god of wisdom's domain? What could Keilan possibly require from such a meeting? And how can I benefit from it?

"Are we ready, then?" Rising Wind said more than asked. A chorus of agreements rippled out through those present – fewer than he had expected were going to join them, but he supposed that was alright. Many of the origin deities present felt the need to digest what they were learning, and his was not for everyone.

That left only Statera, Shin, Yueya, Sylphina and Nyxteria to enter his Realm. A solid group. And, truthfully, guiding many more sounded like a hassle to deal with. He preferred small groups, to give time for more and deeper questions to be asked.

With a quick stomp of his hooves his portal opened, Arche, his centaur plus one, leading the way into his Realm. The other gods filtered through first, Shin speaking to Statera in hushed tones as they passed him by.

As soon as Statera entered the portal, the Dragon stirred. She lifted her great head with a rumbling growl, gaze fixated upon MR-10. The inverted pyramid flashed its lights twice in what Rising Wind read as sudden panic, and calculated calm. It's playing to the Dragon's emotions.

"Now that the other dragons are gone, little robot, it is time you pay up for trespassing upon my domain." The Dragon growled. MR-10 beeped, but the Dragon interrupted with a sinister chuckle. "Oh, I am sure you are going to share part of whatever treasure you got from the foolish gods. But first, you are going to pay for your transgression." She snarled. Rising Wind considered watching what was about to happen for all of half a second. Then, with a shake of his head, he followed the last of the visiting origin deities into his Realm.

MR-10 would pay his due, and it was not wise to get involved. Now it was time to start a tour.

Keilan was not entirely sure what he was looking at, if he was being honest. He knew intellectually that there were other universes besides the Four Realms, but knowing and seeing were two entirely different things. This world, this Realm, was laid out…differently, even if bits and pieces were similar.

There was a protective shell of Primordial Chaos surrounding the Realm, for example, and he could feel the chaotic churning of the Abyss, where Chaos met Void, even from his current position above the central realm itself. He could also sense the flow of karma, though it somehow had a different flavor than what he was used to. But that was about it for similarities.

For one, the Realm itself was larger than the Four Realms. If he stretched his divine sense to the very limit he could encompass the entire universe, but it took all his concentration to do so – unlike the Four Realms, which he could cover completely with his divine senses without too much trouble. It was also structurally different.

Roots grew outward from a central bramble at the very center of the realm, twisting and turning into five distinct lines that grew outward like grasping limbs. Between the five central roots was contained pure, concentrated essences. One realm contained holy energy, pure and timeless, while another held an aura of evil and hatred. Another could only be described as elemental chaos, all different kinds of elements swirling and mixing together in a mass of constant change. The fourth realm held life within it while still feeling timeless, while the fifth was one of death, and stagnant. Each of them were bound together by the roots, yet simultaneously held separate. The entire realm was surrounded by two opposing forces that kept it all from flying away from the roots, as well; one positive, one negative, like a magnet.

It was in the positive realm that he and the others had appeared, standing over the central root ball and looking down on the oddly-shaped universe.

"Welcome to my Realm. The Cosmic Planes. It is one of the rarer variants of universes, I have been told, due to it combining two different universal structures. The Outer Planes and the Cosmic Tree. Feel free to explore as you wish. I will guide you all as necessary, but will not presume to know everything you might wish to see, especially in our limited time here. My incarnations can accompany you to answer your questions." The great stag, whom Mother had identified as Rising Wind, Crashing Waves, said, stepping forth from the portal to gaze down upon its creations.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Keilan looked at it, glanced at Mother – her transformation was more than just physical, he could see the karmic strings that bound her becoming clearer and less tangled, which confused him as to why the change? – then looked back at the Realms themselves. Through it all, one thing in particular caught his attention. There was a force out there, encompassing the entire universe, that set his divine power to shaking, wishing to reach out and touch it.

What was this strange…connection, he felt to this force? To his eyes it looked like little wisps of white smoke, drifting up from the inhabitants of the Cosmic Planes up to both Rising Wind, Crashing Waves and his godly companion, the centaur Arche.

Keilan frowned and reached out to touch one of those strands, the mist dancing between his fingers as it flowed to the two deities.

It felt…godly, in nature. Not as in it was holy, but in that it was of the gods. Keilan hesitated for just a moment, his desire to chase these threads rising rapidly, and looked back at Mother once again. She was riveted to conversation with the true body of Rising Wind, Crashing Waves, the great stag patiently explaining something to the strange butterfly that had asked a question. Sensing his gaze, however, She turned Her attention to him for but a moment, flashing him an encouraging smile before returning to Her conversation.

He hesitated for only a moment, looking down at the rising mist, then did something he considered sensible. He turned to the nearest incarnation of Rising Wind, Crashing Waves, who was talking with this godly companion, Arche, and approached him.

"Lord Rising Wind, Crashing Waves," he said, bowing to the great stag.

"Don't stroke his ego by calling him Lord, I beg of you," Arche said, the centaur stomping his hooves and plucking the string of a relatively impressive bow. It was made of some kind of horn, and from the divine aura it radiated, Keilan was doubtful that he would be able to pull it back. Not that it should have been surprising, he was not a physical brute like his sister.

"Plenty of people call me Lord or God, Arche. I hardly believe another will inflate my ego." Rising Wind, Crashing Waves turned his attention to Keilan, blinking his eyes. White mist swirled about the great stag, sinking into his flesh and soul – as far as Keilan could tell at least, as he was not Mother and could not see everything – seeming to…enhance his might by a great degree. His divine aura was bolder. Stronger. More pronounced. Arche was similar in that regard, though the white mist was less concentrated about him. "Now, Keilan, correct? I must insist that you call me Rising Wind, or even Crashing Waves. I am not a Lord to you."

"Then Rising Wind," Keilan adjusted, bowing formally. "I would ask your permission to roam your Realm. I will not interfere with your designs, I merely wish to observe. On this I swear." His words bound him, strings of karma reaching out hesitantly to touch Rising Wind, asking for permission to bind Keilan to this temporary oath. A brief silence met his request, though Keilan did not dare to raise his head until Rising Wind accepted the karmic strings.

"So there are some polite ones." Rising Wind mused, moving to loom over Keilan. "You are free to roam as you please, but would it not be more prudent to simply ask the one who knows the answer to your question, since he is here? Observing and figuring it out on your own is admirable, but stubbornness will do you no favors when such resources are available to you." Keilan raised his head as he considered the question, his wings pulling tight against his back and tail curling about his leg. Slowly he folded his hands into the sleeves of his robes, and met Rising Wind's eyes.

It was…hard, to read his emotions from his expression alone.

"What is the white mist about you?" he asked finally.

"Prayers." Arche answered for Rising Wind, rolling his eyes. "For one descended of Statera, you are not as observant, are you?"

"Arche," Rising Wind snapped, glaring at the centaur. Keilan merely raised an eyebrow at the god of the hunt, not taking the bait.

"Prayers and worship alone do not do what I am seeing. This is divine in nature, and nourishes both you and Rising Wind. I can see that it comes from some sort of prayer, but the specifics are lost on me." Keilan clarified. It seemed to function differently from prayer and worship in the Four Realms – at home, he too grew in power from those worshiping him. It was mere drops of water in a vast ocean compared to what he could do on his own, however, and not nearly as intense as what was happening here.

Rising Wind and Arche were not just slowly absorbing the energy about them, but actively being strengthened by that which they could not absorb, floating about them like an extension of their very being.

"Good. Excellent observation. And both of you are correct. The gods in my Realm do gain power based on the worship of their followers. As I am the creator god, much of what I gain from them is also taken from worship towards other gods. Excess flows to me. But it is not just prayer, as you have noticed." Rising Wind paused. "What is Karma, to you?"

"I'm sorry?" Keilan asked, startled by the sudden change in topic. This power, this force, didn't feel like karma to him, though?

"Allow me to elaborate. Am I wrong in saying that karma, at its most basic level, is a connection? You do something to someone or something and thereby forge or break a connection with it – whether the nature of this is negative or positive is circumstantial."

"That sounds correct," Keilan said, nodding. He had never quite thought of it in those terms, but that was more accurate than many other metaphors and such he'd thought up. Maybe if he explained it to Randus that way, the younger god would finally begin to understand the workings of Karma.

"This is much the same. We are connected to our creations, and the power that bolsters us is granted not through a thread of karma, but of belief. The power of belief is a real thing, and that, combined with mental energy, allows us to freely grow in strength and be bolstered by those who worship us – so long as they continually do so." Rising Wind stomped his hoof once, pawing into the air beneath his feet. The white mist moved alongside him, cleaving a great hole in the fabric of reality far bigger than his simple motion would have implied, that quickly mended itself, powered by the same white mist. Keilan interlaced his fingers, mind racing as he observed the simplicity of it all. "Unfortunately, this means our natures can be influenced by this power. Such is why Arche tries to hunt me. This is only true, however, if you are not powerful enough or are uncertain of who you are. I, for example, remain largely untouched by the more unsavory aspects of this process."

"I am not influenced by my worshippers." Arche protested. Rising Wind did not dignify this with a response, instead simply watching Keilan.

"I believe you had an inkling about this already, did you not?" Rising Wind sounded satisfied as he said this and Keilan nodded slowly, turning his attention back to the greater Cosmic Planes in search of a being he had noticed but not paid much heed to. His Karmic Realm was tied to mental energy and psychic power as much as it was tied to the notion of karma; and especially since he'd started really paying attention to it had he noticed that it was not as…inflexible as he had believed.

Now where was…there!

A young god. A nascent soul. Floating above the realm of death, absorbing power from all across the Cosmic Planes. It was a god, but unlike any he had ever seen – its entire existence was created and sustained by the power of belief in death. Its entire soul seemed formed of the greater collective imaginations of what death is like; and therefore appeared as a swirling mass of blackness and rotted flesh. Keilan shuddered. He could not imagine what an existence like that would be like.

"Thank you." Keilan said, bowing once again to the stag god. "You have given me much to think about and observe. It truly is a fascinating realm you have made." The god snorted, nostrils flaring as he held his head up pridefully.

"It is, is it not? Now go. Explore. And be free of your mother's influence for a while; if need be, I will run interference for you." He said. Keilan cracked a rare smile a his words, taking them as a joke even as he floated down to the Realm below.

He would start with the gods born of belief.

They scared and fascinated him in equal measure.

Rising Wind, Crashing Waves watched Keilan go, satisfied with his work.

"Why did you help him?" Arche asked, and he shook his head at his oldest friend.

"Never underestimate the value of sowing good karma. Especially when it costs me nothing." He told him. Arche let the matter drop, plucking at his bowstring silently. And Rising Wind, Crashing Waves allowed this incarnation of his to simply rest and watch the turning of his universe.

And he wondered how much further his roots would grow, before the tree began to bloom.