Archmage Tingarth was not in a good mood. He had just spent hours placating the terrified nobles of Gantz, who had demanded answers and solutions to the divine temper tantrum in the sky. As if he, a mage who wasn't even a Legend-tier, could do anything about the wrath of a Primordial God.
As he approached his tower, he felt the tell-tale tingle of his wards. An intruder.
"Interesting," he murmured, a cruel smile playing on his lips. "Who would be so foolish as to break into a mage's sanctum? A brutish warrior? A vain knight? Perhaps some gutter-rat adventurer?" He quickened his pace, the grim task of dealing with nobles replaced by the pleasant anticipation of acquiring a new, screaming specimen for his collection.
He entered the first floor to a scene of controlled chaos. Five of his seven trigger-traps had been sprung. "He walked in a large circle," Tingarth noted, his smile widening. "Looking for something, are we? And you found nothing." The traps on this level were weak—minor spheres of cold and sound, designed to startle, not to kill.
The second floor was more destructive. Twelve traps had been triggered, leaving scorch marks and craters. A large, summoned boulder sat in the middle of the room, out of place. "He blocked a Falling Rock spell," Tingarth observed, disintegrating the boulder with a flick of his wrist. "Strong. A high-ranking knight, perhaps."
By the third floor, his amusement had curdled into annoyance. Every single trap had been activated, destroying a significant portion of his valuable alchemical ingredients. "This fool is doing it on purpose," he snarled, the meat of his face twitching. "You will pray your pockets are deep enough to cover this, or you will learn why mages are considered the most creative of torturers."
The fourth floor gave him pause. A Dimensional Banishment trap had been triggered, but the intruder was nowhere to be found in the pocket dimension linked to it. "High magic resistance," he deduced. "A dragon in human form? Or an artifact of spatial warding?"
He continued his ascent, his confidence wavering. By the seventh floor, it was gone completely. This was no common fool. This was a being of immense power.
At the door to the eighth and final level, his study, he stopped. Taking a deep breath, he began his preparations. He wove a tapestry of defensive spells around himself: anti-teleportation, death ward, flight negation, non-detection. He summoned his staff from its demiplane, its gem glowing with power. Then came the minions: invisible servants, elemental spirits, celestial guardians, void horrors, shadow beasts, and abyssal demons. A small, interplanar menagerie of death formed around him.
Satisfied, he commanded a hulking demon to shove open the heavy oak doors.
Inside, sitting calmly in Tingarth's favorite black dragon-hide chair, was a young man. He had the classic features of the local Angsaxon people: short, gold-flecked hair, a high-bridged nose, and startlingly blue eyes. He smiled pleasantly at the archmage.
Tingarth's own eyes glowed as he cast True Seeing. The world dissolved. The chair, the room, the man—all were eclipsed by a golden, ethereal light. At its heart floated a black-red sun, pulsing with divine energy. Whispers of prayer, chaotic yet clear, swirled around it.
Praise be to you! Great Lord of the Sun!
His magical senses screamed a single, terrifying word: Demigod.
Leo, seeing the flicker of recognition in the mage's eyes, offered a polite, noble nod. "Good afternoon, Archmage Tingarth, Guardian of Gantz. My apologies for the intrusion. I came seeking your library, but to my dismay, I could not find it. Would you be so kind as to show me your collection?"
No, thank you, Tingarth's mind screamed. But years of ingrained habit, of dealing with beings far more powerful than himself, took over. "It would be my honor, Your Excellency," he said, bowing low. He opened a portal to his private library, a vast demiplane filled with towering shelves of books.
Leo stepped through. He returned hours later, as the moon climbed high in the sky.
"Thank you, good sir," Leo said, his tone gracious. The mage's library had answered his most pressing question. "Your collection is magnificent."
"It is my honor to serve, Your Excellency," Tingarth replied, his back still aching from holding his bow for so long.
"Might I impose upon you one last time?" Leo asked, his smile disarming.
Tingarth's heart sank. "It would be my privilege."
"As a traveler new to this city, could you offer me shelter for a time? I promise I will not overstay my welcome."
You want to live here? The mage felt a fresh wave of panic. A demigod in his tower was like a dragon in his treasury. "My tower is your tower, Your Excellency," he managed to say, already calculating how many of his possessions he could hide.
Later that night, sipping on freshly squeezed root-juice served by an invisible servant, Leo marveled at the effectiveness of high-class etiquette. A book from the mage's library, the Tome of Caddir, written by the God of Knowledge himself, had explained everything.
Fane's memories were flawed. Faith is not the key to godhood. Domain is.
To claim a domain is to become a demigod. To master it is to become a True God.
The key to claiming a domain is to Enact it. The key to mastering it is to gain Validation.
He had Enacted the role of a creator god on Earth, and so had claimed the domains of Creation and King of the Gods. But what was "Validation"? It couldn't just be mortal belief, or he would have already ascended.
A new, chilling thought occurred to him. What if Amon-Et wasn't just angry about a new sun god? The Tome stated that domains could be subdivided. 'Disaster' could split into 'Volcano' and 'Storm'. What if 'Dawn' was merely a splinter of the greater 'Sun' domain?
He's not just angry. He's terrified. He knows that if I master the Sun, his own domain of Dawn will be absorbed, and his godhood will be extinguished.
This also explained Lady Shar's confidence. Her domains—Night, the Moon, and Creator of Dark Creatures—were primary and powerful. She was a tier above the Lord of Dawn. She wasn't just being territorial; she was swatting a fly that was bothering her neighbor.
He was safe in Gantz, under her shadow. But he was also trapped. He couldn't leave without Amon-Et descending upon him. The solution was not to escape, but to solve the puzzle of "Validation" right here.
"I can't do this alone," he realized. "But I can have others do it for me." He needed an organization. A secret one.
He stood, and his form shifted back to that of the divine Ame-no-Minakanushi. With a gesture, he invoked his newfound domain. "Creation!"
A sphere of silver light appeared before him. Inside, the four primal elements swirled in chaos. He flicked a single drop of divine power into the sphere. The chaos subsided, ordering itself. Within minutes, a small pocket dimension had formed, complete with earth, water, air, and a miniature sun. A secret meeting place.
Now, for the members. He needed people with access to secrets, but not so important they were constantly watched. Not geniuses, not failures. He needed the overlooked, the mediocre children of powerful families and organizations.
He strode out of the tower and returned a moment later with a captured scroll of Wish. It was a powerful, unpredictable spell. A wish for godhood might turn you into the literal word 'god'. But he had a simpler desire. Tearing the scroll, he sent its magic out into the world.
"Let's see who bites the hook," he murmured. A planar version of a message in a bottle.
In the capital of the Violet Kingdom, Fiona Russell, a bored noblewoman, saw a flash of light in her room. It resolved into a set of ethereal coordinates. "An adventure!" she whispered, a thrill running through her. She would ask her tutor for a Projection scroll. Safe, but exciting.
On a bloody battlefield in the Abyss, Iyet Cavendill, a divine scion of the fallen God of Dawn, paused his crusade. The coordinates appeared before him. He cast a quick divination. "No danger," he noted. "Intriguing."
And in the Gray Keep, headquarters of the Knowledge Church, Ephram Krell, a high-ranking cleric, watched the light of the Wish spell fade. "A dimensional coordinate," he mused with a gentle smile. He tore a page from a book, folded it into the shape of a tiny man, and sent the paper construct flying through the planes.