The scene blinked as lphie opened her eyes once more, but she was still surrounded by the void. She looked around only to find a blue divinity fragnt hovering in the air before her.
"Is this...the one I hadn’t bonded to yet?" She took the divinity fragnt, looking at it puzzled. Suddenly the ground beneath her began to shake, and the void moaned and screeched as if sothing was tearing it apart from the outside. The divinity fragnt shot out of her hands into her chest, but the ground only began shaking more violently.
Suddenly another divinity fragnt shot out from her pocket and began trying to fly away, only for an unseen force to begin pulling it gradually backwards until, unable to escape, it was violently sucked back, also shooting into lphie’s chest.
Her eye sockets imdiately flooded with golden light and she gradually lifted off the ground, her head tilted backwards as if she had been shocked unconscious. Mana poured off of her in waves, turning blue, purple, and then finally golden as the halo around her head began flowing outwards into the rest of her aura until she beca so blinding that I had to close my eyes, white once more flooding the vision the void was showing .
When the light faded lphie found herself in the middle of a garden-like forest. A small creek burbled its way through rose bushes and sparse white-barked trees from a spring that rose up next to the lush grass clearing lphie sat in.
She looked around only to quickly realize her arms were no longer skeletal. Instead she had taken on the human-like form that I had first seen the goddess in. Her lush dark brown hair curling down to her shoulders, framing her heart-shaped face set with two lavender-grey eyes underneath long black lashes.
The resemblance to who she had been before her lichhood was unmistakable, though her beauty far exceeded that of her forr self. "Have I...ascended?" She looked in wonder at her flawless porcelain skin and the lush woodland around her.
She closed her eyes, summoning her soul light, to see if there were any changes, only to open them in shock again as six soul lights fled from her chest, each settling into their own place on the grass lawn.
"Wha—"She started, only to be interrupted by voices.
"I’m free!"
"What happened...?"
"Damn that Vampire King! Damn that Lich! This has taken too much out of !"
"Why are we just sitting around? Where are we?"
"I exist! Hahahahaha."
"Mistress..." All of the lights turned to the voice, and then turned to lphie. "What do you plan for us?"
"Who...What are you?" lphie looked confused, though as yet none of the lights seed threatening.
"We are you, and you are us. But as the original soul, you maintain control over our body. As such you have authority over all of us." The light who had addressed her responded.
"Authority? You’re ? What are you talking about? Aren’t you clearly separate people?"
"When a soul rises to godhood, it expands and fuses with each fragnt of divinity, creating parallel minds that are dependent on the original for their existence. We are each a product of a slightly different section of your soul, aning that despite slight differences in our personality, we are still you. We can only appear separate from you, because your domain has summoned a soul scape in which we are able to persist outside of your body."
lphie turned pensive and put a hand to her chin as she looked at the ground. "So that’s what those texts on the nature of divinity were speaking of." She looked again at the soul lights surrounding her. "I thought you’d all feel more...I don’t know, familiar, like extensions of my will rather than as separate entities."
"Perhaps because we are in your soul scape?" One of the other lights suggested. "In the outside world we’d basically be voices in your head."
"No, even then." lphie shook her head. "I don’t like this, you all feel separate from my will, rather than a part of it." She frowned.
One of the lights shifted uncomfortably. "So...What are you going to do with us then?" They said in a small voice.
"I don’t know what the other gods do about this, but I’ll do this my own way. From now on, you’re not , you’re your own people. I think binding you to serve for all eternity is the wrong move, even, or maybe especially if you’re really . I wouldn’t want to treat others like that, let alone parts of myself.
"The world is vast, and I rule a domain now. I’m sure eventually we can figure sothing out to get you your own bodies. As for the rest, why don’t we start getting to know eachother for a while. You should all have your own nas, but that may take a bit for us to figure out."
"Yay! Nas!" One of the lights rushed up to lphie and nuzzled against her chest. "You’re the best. hehehe."
"And who’s this little one?" lphie said amused as she petted the light in her lap.
"I believe she was ford from the divine fragnt Grimoir, the Shadow Chira, gave us. It’s been a long ti since undead of her lineage have walked the lands, but I believe in antiquity they used to be called the Night Mistresses."
I gasped and took a step back in the void, but the scene kept playing.
"Ooh stream!" The light turned and jumped off lphie’s lap to go jump in the stream, her illusory legs splashing in the waters.
"She seems a little different from the rest of you." lphie looked over the other lights who had remained motionless and more or less silent except when they had sothing to say out of obedience to their original.
"Perhaps she was born from a more child-like section of your soul, or perhaps her divine fragnt changed her more than most of us. Who can say?" Another light shrugged.
"Riviera." lphie smiled, looking at the soul light playing in the water of the stream. "I think I’ll call her Riviera."
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