Awakened Elemental Powers
The powers of a fully awakened elemental overlord, even a weak one, were awe-inspiring. One moment the world of Torus was a world of disasters and cataclysmic weather, and the next it wasn't. And it was all due to the fickle whims and desires of a single elemental overlord: Althos.
The young entity abruptly ended every volcanic eruption ravaging the planet at once, with the same relative ease with which he had willed them to erupt in the first place. It took the same amount of mental effort required to recall a line from a book one once read as a child. Even while he was physically in the Rodan forest his incredibly potent powers allowed him to shut off the incredible disaster that within a few hours had decimated entire civilizations.
Distantly, the god felt the grateful emotions of millions of lifeforms who lived near volcanoes and could see an immediate change in the skies near the volcanoes as they stopped spewing ash and lava. This brought a slight grin to his face, though very few of the creatures who worshipped him would ever see this particular grin.
One part of the world that was especially ravaged was the world's frozen poles. Both the north pole and the south pole were hit especially hard by the dramatic skyrocketing in global temperatures, and entire communities that were situated on glaciers or on the hospitable portions of both poles were in danger as their homes rapidly and visibly shrunk in size.
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Inside of a gigantic yurt, a pair of blue, muscled hands deftly grabbed a pick fashioned from magically enchanted ice, and the tusk of an impressive walrus. The hands belonged to a particularly impressive frost giant, one with pigmentation the color of the frozen water visible off the peak of the melting glacier he had long lived on.
He studied the pick for one moment, a look of sadness darkening his features before he steeled himself for whatever would be necessary for the next few minutes. He easily lifted it up and then quickly sped out the open flap of the yurt, a grim determination visible on his face.
As he stepped outside of the yurt he felt the relative warmth of the sunlight that shone on the glacier, this being one of the few spots in the world with no looming, ominous ash cloud hanging high and sinisterly in the sky, and he began to speak, his voice booming across the rapidly shrinking glacier he and his tribe lived in.
"Our prayers have not been heard! Or they are just not being answered in a way that we'd like. One way or another you must prepare yourselves. We have... minutes left to act. And if we fail now, then we may have minutes to live." He said, his voice echoing across the thick but thinning ice that had long housed his tribe. Other frost giants lived within or just outside of the glacier and they looked at him with expressions similar to the one that darkened his features moments earlier.
He was a gigantic creature, well over 10 meters tall, and though he was the largest member of his tribe his own children were almost as tall. He could see them, not far from where his yurt was located. Their yurts were not like his, not made from the scales of a white dragon. They hadn't yet had the chance to slay one of the icy tyrants in single combat like he had had. And a small part of him feared that they might never get to experience that.
The giant felt the glacier creak beneath him. Its stirrings reverberated mightily enough that he could feel its almost agonized moans. Inwardly he cursed, but he kept a cool, stoic face and lifted his pick aloft. With the pick in his hands, he was magically attuned to the glacier's overall health and stability and it was worsening by the second.
"Children of the glacier! Rally around me! Our home is dying beneath our feet, but we ourselves must not despair!" He proclaimed. In his hand, the handle of his pick seemed to absorb sunlight, and he felt it grow warm in his hand. He didn't fret about this, it was normal after all. His magical pick was not weakened in the slightest by even the warmest and brightest sunlight that occasionally touched the pick.
"We have always known that the day would come that our home would prove to be unsuitable for our needs. We just never imagined the exact circumstances under which-" He was in the middle of speaking when Althos' distant powers began to make themselves felt by him and his tribesmen for the first time.
The long solidified ice beneath their feet began to vibrate ominously, dramatically enough that they felt it beneath them even without the aid of a magically attuned instrument like the pick wielded by the chief of the tribe. Many of the giants worked to dig their feet into the ice while swiftly pulling out blades that they then stabbed into the ice underneath them. They stubbornly stayed on their feet, even as the world shook around them.
"What is this?" The chief asked, his voice barely containing the shock he felt.
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Turning off the volcanoes, as in ending their eruptions, was a simple affair. It did not take me any real effort to bring an end to the climate catastrophe I had created in the name of turning the world against the dwarves and their nuisance of a creator-god. And reversing much of the damage inflicted by my actions was also very easy.
Over the course of my life I had become a deity and elemental overlord of the four classical elements. Water, fire, earth, air, and even things like liquids, solids, gases, and plasmas were all mine to command. And it was thanks to that that I had the power to prevent the loss of homes and the destruction of entire civilizations that were located in the northernmost and southernmost edges of the world.
Physically I was still in the Rodan forest, but my senses and my mind were elsewhere. And it felt odd. My mind was far from my body, far farther than when my mind had been in Raiz's tree. My mind was currently lingering inside of a rapidly melting glacier, one that was actually and oddly enough inhabited by a tribe of massive frost giants.
Within the glacier, I had a much greater idea of how devastating my act of destruction had been. I could see cracks and even holes forming within the glacier, surrounding me on my all sides, and it allowed me to more properly see the sort of destructive abilities I had at my disposal than I could have previously. I could also hear the sounds of the glacier itself groaning as it continued to melt.
Frost giants were, fittingly given their species name, utterly gigantic humanoids. They were heavy, blue, or white-skinned giants and they wore thick suits of tanned walrus skin, and judging by their size, each suit must have required numerous walruses to make.
They held weapons fashioned from ice and they were all staring at and listening to one of the largest creatures I had ever seen. Most of them were between seven and eight meters tall.
One frost giant was a legitimately enormous creature that was over 10 meters tall. I could look at him and sense the authority he radiated. It didn't take a genius or a god to come to the reasonable conclusion that this giant was the leader of the frost giants living on this glacier. He held an impressive-looking pick that radiated a magical aura. The pick was almost as large as some of the smaller giants who stood in front of the one who held the object.
The giants themselves were afraid. They sensed the decaying state of their home, or rather that was melting beneath their feet. They were clever creatures and I sensed that they were in the midst of preparing themselves to enter a new state of their lives. Fortunately for them, I was here and I had arrived to save them and others like them. I mentally sighed and focused as I began to target the glacier itself, in a move that I knew would save this place.
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[Liquid subdomain passive powers:
Blizzard: At will you can generate a snowstorm that surrounds you with ice, hail, snow, and freezing air. This blizzard's intensity can be manipulated at will by you. It can be a gentle snowstorm that covers everything in a pristine blanket of snow or an impossibly intense storm that freezes creatures solid.
Cold manipulation: Thanks to synergies between the domain of physics and the subdomain of liquid and the earth you can manipulate and reduce the kinetic energy of atoms to make things colder. This power allows you to make the overall temperature of a place drop, or even freeze a living creature if you so desire.
Freeze: You can turn water and water vapor into ice. You can select any amount of water so long as you can detect it and freeze it at will. You can also freeze blood and the liquids inside of a body.
Elemental healing: Your powers over healing and over the elements are so strong that you can heal non-living things, even the elements themselves. With this power you can heal the very earth itself, water, or even air. This is similar to "cleanse" except it can be used on things like glaciers, mountains, and more to undo melting or erosion.
Evaporate: You can evaporate any amount of water or ice at will. This turns water into water vapor which you can manipulate with your powers as a deity and elemental overlord of air.
Liquify: You can transform water vapor and ice into liquid water.
State manipulation: This synergistic power allows you to switch the states of water, or other classical elements, fire, air, and earth. With it you can create liquid fire, gaseous earth, and other seemingly impossible things.
Liquid Subdomain active power:
Aquatic mutations: This active power synergizes the power of the liquid subdomain with the domains of biology and chaos. With it, creatures gain an enhanced version of the effects of "Aquatic freedom" including the ability to speak to fish and other underwater life. This once a day power can be used on up to 1,000 lifeforms at once and greatly improves their ability to survive underwater.]
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I wrapped myself in an aura of potent healing energy and began to go to work. The first thing I did was activate one of my handier and newer abilities "Elemental healing" so that the damage that was done to the glacier would begin to be repaired.
This unusual power activated rather dramatically. Seconds after I activated it I watched as holes within the glacier began to be filled in by new ice, ice which appeared to be stitched seamlessly into place and connected almost ethereally to the older, natural ice. Cracks were phased out of existence, seeming to disappear almost immediately.
The ice around me shuddered, and I felt the glacier itself vibrate louder than ever before. The noise was almost deafening, and I didn't doubt that it could be felt by the giants who lingered atop the glacier, far above me. I was dozens of meters deep within the glacier, and within it I could see and feel the glacier abruptly stop melting and even begin to grow again.
I glanced upwards at the giants, whom I could easily see thanks to my divine vision, and waited to watch their reaction. They were all doing their best to not fall over, and not speaking. The ice underneath them was shaking dramatically, so their desire to not fall over made sense.
I took a second to begin to snake my thoughtform, currently manifesting as an ethereal orb, towards them. The tiny orb began to move through the glacier, unbothered by its temperature or its rapidly increasing solidity and quickly moved towards them. The glacier was no obstacle and I moved through it as easily I had walked along the trail towards the goblin encampment earlier today.
It only took me a few seconds to reach a place where if my mind moved forward even a bit more I'd be out of the ice and surrounded by frost giants. That said I didn't mind that at all. I paused, considering if I should truly manifest an illusionary form to facilitate interactions with the giants, or if I should just stay invisible. That thought process didn't take me long at all to work through and so with that out of the way I burst through the ice and into the air between the variously sized frost giants. As I did so I activated a handy and dramatic ability that was perfect for this particular situation.
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The giants themselves had been caught off guard by the sudden and terrifying vibration that shuddered from within the glacier, and so none of them had the calmness of mind or stillness of heart that would have been needed to see the astral form of the god when it phased through the ice and found itself between the regular giants and their chieftain. The strange diety didn't even bother to look around as it activated one of its more potent powers that wouldn't usher in a calamity of sorts.
The giants were totally unprepared for the sudden and noticeable drop in temperature that the god caused. The ice underneath their feet had ceased vibrating, even as the god's power undid the harm done to it by worldwide volcanic eruptions, and the god himself chuckled as his powers began to manifest fully.
The blizzard, a moderately intense one but not one that would kill the giants, caused the arctic temperatures of the glacier to dip considerably below their usual bone-chilling norm and what was worse was that this was instantaneous. In addition to the chilling temperature, the god's mental form was momentarily surrounded by a sphere of ice, snow, and hail that allowed the giants to quickly realize that they weren't alone right as the sphere became visible and then proceeded to expand outward.
The sphere spread out in a 360 degree spread around the god, smashing into giants and forcing them back away from where the sphere had originated before slowly beginning to disperse and act as a more traditional snowstorm. Even though the sky above them was cloudless and clear snow and ice began to form and speed through the air in a perfect circle dozens of meters wide around the god.
Closer to the god snow wasn't the only thing drifting through the air. Ice, hail, and even freezing rain came into existence at blazing speeds and surrounded the god in a protective sphere, confusing the chieftain of the giants who had been able to endure the sudden blow dealt to him by Althos' power.
He could peer through the hostile weather and saw nothing at the center of it but he wasn't a fool and he knew that this obviously supernatural weather must have had a cause. A part of him wondered if it was the mysterious god who had healed everyone in the world weeks ago.
"Althos? Is that... You?" He asked, projecting his voice in an effort to be heard over the raging and surprisingly noisy winds. Althos himself was in the middle of the storm, where the winds were the loudest and the snow and ice the thickest.
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"So this is what my blizzard power looks like? How entertaining..." I muttered, in the middle of the wild and supernatural storm. I listened to the raging winds, and distantly I could hear the pained grunts of the frost giants. A part of me considering turning to face them, but for now I felt like doing something else.
I examined the ice underneath me. It looked more solid than ever before and was a fascinating reflective surface. If I had had a physical form here I would have been able to reach down and touch it. I allowed myself to study it before coming to a nice realization.
"If I use this right now... I could make some neat artwork couldn't I?" I realized, a smile on my physical body's face as I came to that handy discovery. I quietly activated "Cyrokinesis", a power of mine that allowed me to masterfully manipulate ice, and began to work. It was while I was beginning to create my first ever piece of art that I heard a loud and fierce voice.
"Althos? Is that... You?" The voice asked, speaking powerfully and directing his words into the blizzard that protectively surrounded me. For the moment I ignored the voice.
I willed the ice that was underneath me, underneath the orb-like astral object that represented my mind, to form a human-sized and human-shaped shell. The shell it created was a replica of a nude and featureless humanoid, almost like what I envisioned an ice elemental would look like. It stood over a meter and a half tall, positively tiny for the frost giants but I wasn't building it for them.
I studied the eerie shell I had created and chuckled at it. I enjoyed its featureless form, and for a second I wondered why I liked things like that. I often created strange, alien-looking forms when I wandered through dreams, and I was quite fond of them.
"Is it because I myself lack a true form?" I muttered, speaking, and thinking aloud for once. The ice sculpture I had created was a strange thing like someone had a sort of template for the most basic and bland humanoids imaginable. And like me, even in my default form, it wasn't anything special or especially unique.
Meanwhile, even as I studied the sculpture I had created, I could hear the frost giants behind me struggling to get to their feet. A small part of me supposed that I ought to address them and reply to their fears and concerns before I finished messing around with my artwork.