A Solitary God In A Dark Multiverse

[We will unlock one of your powers in dreams and dreams alone: the ability to shapeshift. What this means is you won't be restricted to your current physical form whenever you are in a dream. Instead, you can take on any form you wish.] The system began, telling me about some of the stuff I'd want to know if I was about to go into dreams.

[One of your wild traits is named 'Shapeless One'. That trait gives you the ultimate shape-shifting power. Your form is totally malleable, and you can opt to even shed a physical body and become a creature of pure spiritual, divine, and magical power if you wish. But we think it's important that you be able to relate to mortals and so we wish for you to stay in a physical, human body. For now.] The system said, urging me to continue to be in my physical form, for the moment.

[That said, in the dreams of mortals you'll probably want to leave an impact. Being able to adopt an awe-inspiring godly forms helps leave a solid impression.] The system remarked, before stopping for a second to formulate its own thoughts.

At that point, I chimed in. "Look... I don't know what an 'awe-inspiring godly form' even looks like." I told it, reminding the thing of my exceedingly limited knowledge. I heard a sound like the clicking of a tongue in frustration in my mind, and then the system apologized.

[That's fair. We're sorry, you've only seen humans, goblins, and animals and we just forgot about that for a second. What we mean by an 'awe-inspiring godly form' is a form that radiates divine power and is one of great beauty or power.] The system explained. As an additional favor to me, the system transmitted images that accompanied the end of its message to illustrate its point.

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After spending a few moments sorting through the images that accompanied the system's message I could see what it meant by awe-inspiring.

Many of the images I had were received were of purely elemental looking beings. What I meant by this was that they were entities that looked to be made entirely of the elements themselves.

I could see massive, mountain-sized men made of gorgeous orange fire. Human-sized feminine figures made of water and ice. Gigantic animals made of air or stone. Their forms were breathtaking and looked like they could inspire tales of wonder and magic.

A handful of the images weren't of elemental beings. Some of them were astoundingly beautiful women and powerfully built, impossibly tall men with eyes as white as glaciers. Others were of fusions between men and animals.

Some were of men and women who had the upper bodies of humans or human-like entities and the lower bodies of terrifyingly large spiders. Others had the bodies of men and women but the heads of a massive predator like a crocodile. One stunning example of this was of a man who had the lower body of a massive stag, and the upper body of a powerfully built male and stag's horns atop his head.

It was in seeing these images that I began to formulate my own envisionment of what my own divine form could look like.

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[Have you had time to begin to visualize a divine form for yourself?] The system asked me, curious to hear if my time looking at the images was useful. I nodded and responded affirmatively to its question.

[Excellent. More and more people are falling asleep. This seems to be a town wherein people fall asleep early, which is perfect for your needs.] My oldest companion revealed to me, suggesting I had more time to engage in mischief here than elsewhere.

[How do I... actually do what I'd like to do? This is the first time I'm actually doing this, do you mind giving me a walkthrough?] I asked, quite humbly.

The system chuckled, and then graciously explained how I could go about doing what I hoped to do. [Since it's your first time trying to do this you'll need to use your other new passive power. It shows you which creatures within tremorsense range are sleeping. You can use your dreamerwalker power on any sleeping humanoid you can detect.] The system began telling me.

[Once you detect them, if they are sleeping you'll be asked if you wish to activate your power, targeting them. That said, you can also use your powers on creatures under your influence regardless of their distance from you.] The system explained. I nodded and closed my eyes.

The minimap was taking less and less time to become not-so-mini. This time almost the instant I closed my eyes I could see it in my H.U.D. And when it showed up I was immediately drawn to the differences between it now and it earlier before I had my ability to detect who was awake and who was asleep.

Folks who were asleep had a distinct purple aura that radiated out of their circles, and the first one on which I clicked revealed more than when I had last identified someone.

[Nearby neutral humanoid detected. Preparing proper notification... Scanning creature.

The selected human lacks class levels. The human is asleep and if left unbothered will have an average night's sleep.

The human is neutral towards you. She doesn't know you.

Do you wish to use dreamwalker on her?]

I smiled and nodded while telling the notification that I did want to do that.

[Understood. Since this is your first time using dreamwalker, among other things you will need to select your dream form. Initiating dreamwalker in 3... 2... 1...]

Upon the countdown reaching zero, everything around me changed. All of sudden I went from standing in my room in the inn, into standing in a blank white space, the exact opposite of the void I spent an unknown amount of time in.

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[Hello Althos! Welcome to... well welcome to where you go when you need to decide how you look.] The system told me. An instant later I was surrounded by mirror-like images of myself from all angles.

[Here is where you go whenever you need to change your appearance. Or rather here is where you will go when you need to change how you look once your shapeshifter power is well and truly unlocked. There are no limitations imposed on you in here, you can look however you desire to look.] The system told me, eagerly letting me know that when it came to how I looked, in this place if nowhere else, I was close to omnipotent.

I smiled and imagined my form changing. Which it did, before my very eyes.