probablyaturnip

CH956

In the mortal realm, Ben watched from the side as the four gods possessed some of their believers to talk to the two, allowing only enough of their divinity out to let them know who they were and got to see as they did their best to comfort a mortal as she cried, having lost her love, her world, and all she’d known all at once before she managed to compose herself enough to continue on with the conversation, Telenen staying down within his apostle while his priestess Woszan kept by his and ...

CH955

There was a lot to process as he tore through their minds, trying to understand what had created that situation, but one thing more than anything else was immediately true. The feeling of evil he’d been detecting had disappeared, with only one explanation. It was clear it hadn’t been coming from either of the two he’d caught and nothing else would have been able to escape with them, leaving only the item itself.

An item that was no longer giving off the feeling either, but that wa...

CH954

“So, this kind of blew up a bit,” Thera whispered beside him as they looked around, Ben unable to disagree.

“Yeah, this is a bit more than I was prepared for when I first thought to give this another try.”

With something sealed away in a mythic item by a god too dead to explain himself, neither the surviving gods of the sirens nor the rest of the gods filling that world were going to take any chances. While the puzzle was arguably left for the mortal worshipers of Eletar t...

CH953

“Alright, and that’s us finished,” Ben said as he stepped out of the last church of the day, his work there complete. “No more awakenings to do, no more people to help, I’m officially free!”

“Considering you used your earlier freedom to try and invent the worst spells you could think of, I’m not sure that’s a good thing,” Thera said from the side, wondering where so much extra time was going to lead him in the months he had left, with Ben doing his best to ease her w...

CH952

Having ended the day seeing what a Ben clone looked like after its outer surface had melted away and enjoying a long conversation that night with Myriad about not intentionally creating plainly unethical or otherwise psychotic spells, the following day had begun as planned, meeting up with Amy, Jake, and Yuzu to go around to the last handful of locations that held people who’d managed to gain their eighth levels of magics, doing what would be his second last awakening event before the next ...

CH951

“... What exactly is going on here?” Thera asked as she and Mora came through a gate, getting to the shop and getting to see Ben lying face down on the floor when they did, even with other Bens still hard at work around him. “Did you really get one of your clones killed and couldn’t even be bothered to clean it up?”

“This is the real one and I’m not dead,” he said, face pressed against the floor. “Just understimulated.”

“Taking the lack of chores that hard st...

CH950 Thera's Perspective

Only a week back from what had seemed like the incredibly dull task of helping carry Ben through his days and days of work and Thera already missed it. Sure, it had been hours of long, boring work constantly with nothing to do other than ferry people around, and it had only felt longer thanks to the circlet she’d worn the entire time, but at the very least it had been different. With it done though, she was back to what felt like had been taking up all of her time since the second wave ende...

CH949

“That was long and terrible, and if anyone up here is still mad about the whole ‘evil god’ thing then I’m going to start living up to the name.”

“Why, hello to you too, Ben,” Myriad greeted him as he and Helori looked up from their work. “What has you so unhappy this time?”

“Oh, you know, the same things I was complaining about before. I did so much work and was paid a pittance for it, so if anyone is still unhappy with my existence despite the monumental achie...

CH948

The moment they stepped through the gate and back to the shop it felt good to be home, even if it hadn’t actually been too long since he’d been there. By virtue of his mini-gate network in the guild itself, Stonewall had been one of the meet-up points for soul modification, even if they’d done their best to make that stop even quicker than most. They flew over the gathered crowd in a flash and left before there was a chance for anyone to focus on them, if only to attempt to preserve wha...

CH947

“Finished!” Ben cheered as he let himself lay back on the ground once everyone who could be awakened was in Elvat’s residence, leaving the world with new awakened mages of all sorts, including giving the planet an aquatic archmage in the process. “Kind of, sort of, maybe finished!”

In a few days, he’d need to go back to a few places he’d only hit at the end to see if any awakenings would be possible for a few remaining individuals but otherwise he was done, freed from thos...

CH946

<UNNATURAL MORTAL REALM ACTUALIZATION ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

From covering the city to skimming across the surface of the ocean, seeing the denizens of the depths sit just beneath the water for the touch of his skills until the space mages down below helped move them away, finishing that one area and letting them move onto the next as day changed to night and the group he was working with was switched out for a new one, the process repeating again and again and again through...

CH945

“Okay, first things first, who’s in charge of managing things here?” he asked, getting a pointed look from everyone when he did, with Amy being the one to answer.

“You.”

“Please tell me that I’m not planning things out with zero notice.”

“You aren’t,” Steph told him. “I and a few others have your flight path. I’ll join you for the first stretch if Thera can carry the rest of us around for it.”

“I’m sorry, flight path?”

“What do...

CH944

Not exactly satisfied, the gods had come to hear him out on his new powers and he’d given them his honest thoughts, bringing things to some sort of resolution with them before the ones Phixth came with left, letting the stone god’s shoulders fall in that moment of privacy.

“You could have stood to be a little friendlier about all of that.”

“Wasn’t I? I thought I’d done an excellent job of minding my manners while discussing my grievances and exactly what put me in a ...

September poll!!!!!

Hey all, hope you’ve had a good month! Not gonna lie, this was a rough one for me. Somehow hurt my dominant hand so I’ve been writing and working mostly with my other. Bit of an inconvenient timing considering that, as per my note last month, I’m going on a small trip to see some friends I haven’t been able to in a long while. 

Still, neither the injury or the trip should affect posting. If for whatever reason it does, I’ll either post a day early or I might post a day la...

Side Story: Nare

Author’s note

Consider this to be shortly after Ben reaches the third tier

As was so often the case since it happened, Nare found himself leaving another meeting over their world’s newest third tier, the coming god of sacrilege demanding discussion, no matter how done to death it felt by that point, and it was all just so pointless. No matter the worries, no matter the fears, there was nothing for any of the naysayers and other worriers to do. Ben was with them, and eve...

CH943

“Ben,” Pixth nodded when he arrived, four more gods at his side, with all of them looking like they were trying to hide the same state Ben had found both Myriad and Helori in when he’d first shown up that night. “You’ve been busy.”

“I always am. Gonna be honest, when I was told I was going to have to talk to others, I was expecting a bigger crowd.”

“For the sake of keeping things smooth, this conversation between us is being projected to the rest of them. They ca...

CH942

Walking up the last flight of stares, Ben found Verbum exactly where he expected, his face buried in a book too deep for him to notice the other’s approach until he joined him at the table, the record holder giving a pronounced sigh.

“What do you want, Ben?”

“How did you know it was me without looking?”

“One, not many people have access to this floor which makes it a great area to get some nice, private work done and two, anyone else who could come up here would ...

CH941

“Mmh,” Thera yawned as she made her way to the kitchen, finding breakfast ready with Mora and Sonya both already there, the soul spirit being obvious in the way he stared at the cook. “Morning.”

“Morning,” Ben called back, sliding her a plate before joining the rest of them at the table. “Sleep well?”

“No, can you guess why?”

“The stress of wondering how things are going to end up for Bloom?”

“Huh, what’s happening to Bloom?” Mora perked u...

CH940

“Oh, okay.”

“Ben, this demands slightly more of a reaction than just an okay!” Helori yelled at him, getting a small shrug in return.

“I mean, I started giving off divinity when I became the demigod of growth and gain, didn’t I? Speaking of, now that I’m at the ninth level of that, how much am I giving off there?”

“When did you reach the ninth?” Nare cut in, Ben’s growth in that particular skill just as much of a cause for curiosity.

“Both autho...

CH939

It was a while before Thera could sleep, the many events of the day playing havoc with her thoughts but eventually her exhaustion won in the end, letting Ben send a part of himself up to his god’s realm with three deities staring him down once he arrived.

“What took you so long?” Myriad asked him, the stress in the god’s voice sounding like it was going to reach a breaking point.

“Oh, well, Thera was having trouble getting to sleep so I was trying to help her relax. We h...

CH938

<What did you just do?> Myriad asked in open horror, unable to believe the notifications he just heard going through his apostle’s head, even if he’d barely been able to figure out that that was what Ben had been aiming for before it happened.

My best. We’ll talk about it when I go up to your realm later, so grab the other two for me because this is going to be a long night.

With the heavens blocked for all but his god, he had a while until word would get arou...

CH937

Hey, so I’ve got a small question for you. Ben thought to the heavens as he stood in the street, wanting the distraction while he waited.

<Alright, what is it this time?> Myriad asked him. <And why are you in Allfaith right now?>

Not important. So here’s the thing, Mora took a job today, just for fun but it got me thinking, what sort of jobs do gods get? You’re part of the system, and you can’t tell me none of you have ever gotten curious enough to...