Dragon God’s System

The next morning, the first thing I did was compare my height to the previous day’s height. One of the first things I did when I got home after slaying the giant bats was to make a mark on the wall. As expected, I was taller. In fact, I was noticeably taller. As I suspected, I was growing very quickly, much more quickly than the average kobold hatchling.

The system was definitely accelerating my growth. This probably also explained my ravenous appetite. After all, a growing body needs a lot of energy. Speaking of growing bodies, my stomach was definitely not happy with me. It was gurgling, demanding to be fed. Almost reluctantly, I flew up to the table and started eating the cold food that had been left for me.

Soon, the joy of a full belly washed away my concerns. It wasn’t as if I could do anything about it anyway. Also, I had been given a second chance at life, so whatever happened was a bonus. If anyone deserved a second chance, it was me. I had been a good guy in my previous life. Despite this, I had lived a menial and depressing life. Well, I wasn’t going to have such a life again.

With renewed determination, I prepared myself for the day. Of course, this mostly involved strapping a lot of food bags all over my body. Then I sent a mental thought to Alsvartr asking her to meet me at Chuck Norris Bridge. From there, we would head back to the giant bat colony. While I had killed over two hundred bats yesterday, there were thousands of giant bats left.

I tripped over my feet and landed face first on the floor when Alsvartr sent an answer, “Yes daddy.” I wasn’t even sure what to say. So many questions raced through my mind. Did the recent level-up give her more intelligence? Was she growing up at a faster rate as well? Was the system influencing her? Was it my bloodline?

Sighing, I brushed myself off and stood up. “Life is getting interesting,” I muttered to myself.

“It certainly is an interesting time. Now that so many gods have fallen, new gods are certain to rise up,” Hyggiandi said, starting to lecture once again.

“Curious,” I asked, “which gods have fallen?” While I knew there were several gods, I didn’t know how many there were. All I knew was that several of them had given me their favor. While I probably could have searched my memories for the information, I was too lazy to do so. I might as well let her tell me. She loved talking anyway.

Hyggiandi seemed very pleased by the fact that I was actually paying attention to her lessons for once. “Let’s start with Othur, the god of creation. Of course, he wasn’t the one who created our world, but he did take over that role once he and his pantheon overthrew the Primordial Gods.

“His counterpart was Sortna, the goddess of darkness, who also fell in the conflict between their two pantheons. Both of them desired to become true Overgods who no longer had to depend on the faith of their followers for power. However, the conflict between the two pantheons led to the destruction of both pantheons.

“Leknair, the goddess of life, Speki, the goddess of wisdom, Sannligr, the god of justice, and Ljós, the goddess of light, all died from the Holy Pantheon. As for the Pantheon of Darkness, Garpr, the god of war, Kunnigr, the god of magic, and Lauss, the god of freedom, all died as well. Even the god of death, Banasár, fell.

“Even the neutral gods were drawn into their battles eventually, which led to the Time of Calamities. Lauss was able to convince a few of the unaligned gods into helping his side. Until then, neither side had an advantage. However, once the Holy Pantheon became aware of unaligned gods helping the Pantheon of Darkness, they became desperate.

“For decades, the gods fought each other tooth and nail. Their powers weakened, and their followers died. Even the followers of unaligned gods died, which lessened their power. This caused mutual destruction. Most of them gods in both pantheons were destroyed, leaving only a few of the unaligned gods remaining”

Surprisingly, I was actually finding the lesson both informative and interesting. It certainly relieved my boredom and was better than studying the information myself. While I knew I could access all the information if I searched my memories, I viewed it as if I had a library of knowledge, but was too lazy to search for the book I needed and read it. For a second, I was actually tempted to start listening to her more often.

Hyggiandi continued her lesson, unaware of my thoughts, “These gods were not powerful to begin with. The gods who did survive were mostly weak, or indifferent, and didn’t take part in the battles. This caused them to lose the respect of the people. The people were angry with the gods and refused to worship them because of how many people died during the Time of Calamities.

“The remaining gods and lesser gods created a few demigods, but didn’t create any minor gods since that would weaken their power even more. They were having a hard time keeping believers after the death of the gods, much less the death of the greater gods.

“The lesser gods didn’t have the wide appeal of the dead gods, and even though some of the gods attempted to assume the domains of those gods, they were never able to do so. The gods lost the faith of their people. The people didn’t see much benefit from worshiping a god when they could still receive the blessings of unaffiliated clerics.

I nodded to myself at this point. I had learned about this earlier. One of the reasons I hadn’t wanted to become a cleric was because I didn’t want to worship another god. It wasn’t until I realized that there were generic clerics who were able to harness divine powers without the intervention of the gods. Of course, these clerics often lacked the powerful benefits praying to a particular god could provide. Realizing I was getting distracted I concentrated on listening to what she was saying as I crunched on a dried bug while walking down the tunnels toward Chuck Norris Bridge.

“The pureblood races became more insular and didn’t venture out as much any longer. The hybrids used this from time to time to establish themselves. When they ventured into pureblooded towns, they competed for jobs with mongrels, and as such, had a conflict with them.

“Most of the followers of these gods were humans, elves, dwarves, and common races. They lost a lot during the Time of Calamities. The hybrid races were mostly unaligned and didn’t take sides. They had been persecuted before. Afterward, they became much freer and spread rapidly.

“The hybrids were still looked down by the purebloods, and they in turn looked down on the mongrels. The pure races still had their powerful cities and started specializing in higher professions. The hybrids took over a lot of the manual professions, such as farming, hunting, and soldiers.

“The mongrels had to take what they could and were often marginalized. In fact, they were often outcasts once they served their purpose. They would be brought in for cheap labor with promises of food and a place to stay, but once the work was done, they would be cast out. The purebloods would try to turn the hybrids against the mongrels.”

By this time, I had already lost interest. It was starting to feel like an info dump. Because of this, I stopped listening and went back to my own thoughts. So, apparently the goddess of night was gone and her godhood was up for grabs. Considering I was a twilight dragon, perhaps it was destiny for me to take over her divine domain. Wait. Why should I limit myself to being the god of darkness? I could also be the god of magic. Yes, that sounded even better.

With these thoughts in mind, I shortly reached Chuck Norris Bridge and met up with Alsvartr again. I hadn’t looked at her information screen in a couple of days and wanted to see what had changed. Obviously, something was since she was calling me “daddy.”

I mean, why call me that? Why not master? I know she was still very young, almost a baby. I also knew that tenebrous bats were mostly raised by their mothers. Could Alsvartr view me as her father because of this? Well, I suppose I could understand that. I had even given her my bloodline so I suppose, in a way, she was my child.

Maybe I could be the god of magic and make her the god of darkness. That was appropriate since she was a creature of darkness. In fact, she even had several class and ancestral abilities that dealt with shadows. Maybe it was time to look at her closely. I had been paying too much attention to myself lately. After all, as a father, I needed to look after my baby and make sure she grows up to be a big, strong goddess. Pulling up her information screen, I wondered what type of surprises I would see.