The Legend of Z'oth

Chapter 1

So, as it turns out some people are actual gods, like Zues or Odin. Others are a bit more sinister, like C'thulhu or Apophis. Then there are the ones like me who didn't know until they died. So now I'm just a massive amorphous shadow thing floating through the void. I have learned a few things in my time here: First, I'm apparently an Elder God. What that means for me I don't know. Second, I learned my real name, not my human name. Z'oth is my name now. Finally, I can leave the void to a random universe. Honestly based on what I learned from some of the others I have seen, it just doesn't seem enjoyable.

-An unknown amount of time later-

For untold eons I have wandered the void beyond the stars, I have been plotting and scheming against The Great Old Ones. My name is not recorded in human texts for I have never visited Earth, and I prefer it this way. It means I can devour their essences while they try to regain enough energy to reenter a universe. So it surprised me when I felt a rift open around me, dragging me from the void into the material plane.

As I take stock of my surroundings I find myself surrounded by metal and factories, and I'm standing in the rubble of a summoning circle. More surprisingly is that I find myself in a human form, but barely feel a dent in my strength. It was then that I finally noticed the panicking people near me on the summoning platform. The woman directly behind me looked like a faceless silver doll or manikin, she did however feel somewhat familiar. Something that was not quite a God, but definitely an Elder Being of some sort. To her right was a relatively tall woman with long white hair and a pale face, I could tell she was thin but other than that I couldn't tell much as she had a long jacket that reached all the way to the ground, For the third and final person, she appeared mostly human except for the pure white skin and the tentacles for arms. From what I could see is that she was holding a large key rather tightly.

"So, would any of you like to explain what exactly happened," I say, entirely unamused.

"Hello Master, I am Ihilthe, Keeper of The Key," says tentacle arms, or Ihilthe. "I don't quite know how we got to wherever we are, but we were attempting to summon an Elder God to deal with a Great Old One."

"Well you got part of that, as I am an Elder God, but what is to stop me from killing you and leaving," I say, not that I am planning to actually do that.

"Oh Master, that would be well within your rights. But as a benefit to leaving me alive I will dedicate my being to you, my power is your power, The Key lets me open doors to other worlds and, if I have enough power, other universes. It also lets me unlock any human lock, even ones that haven't been made yet. I will be able to unlock them."

"Hmm," I hum pretending to ponder, but in actuality I have already made up my mind. "If you are serious about dedicating yourself to me then know this, to betray me is to earn my wrath. If you do turn against me, I will personally hunt you down, but I won't toture you. I will simply end you and repurpose your body for other things."

"Of course Master, but I have no reason to betray you. We summoned you, albeit on accident, to serve your will," says Ihilthe.

"I suppose that is the best I'm gonna get for now," I say with a sigh, "Alright then, who are you two?" I ask, directing the question at the others.

"I am Grezha, Master. I am a lesser Elder being compared to you. Despite the flubbed summoning I have an excellent knowledge of the arcane and occult. Along with other skills that you might find useful in the future." Says the silver doll, or Grezha now.

"I am X-213 Master, this is the only name I can remember," says the tall one. "I was hoping you could have killed the scientists who experimented on me, fusing eldritch DNA into my own. But as for skills, I can shapeshift into almost any human with enough accuracy to fool close friends, facial recognition, and fingerprint identification. As to where we seem to have appeared, it doesn't appear to be Earth, but a forge planet."

"Convenient," I say more to myself than the others. "I assume that you two are also going to serve me, based on the fact that you both called me master?"

"Yes, Master," they both say.

"Well then I suppose I should introduce myself, although I doubt you've heard of me. I am the Elder God Z'oth, The Unknowable. Or just Z'oth to keep it short. As I said, I doubt you would have heard of me as I generally didn't leave The Beyond after my ascension until recently."

Landing on a forge or factory planet is convenient for me. And based on my telepathic scans we won't be leaving anytime soon. Damn crusaders, trapping any Old One or Elder Thing with a blanket binding ritual. I can't leave the universe until I deal with that I suppose. Although this does end up working out in my favor, I had planned on eventually leaving The Beyond to hunt the Old Ones, so this just pushed up my time table a bit.

"X-213, I need you to assume the form of a generic human and gather as much scrap and tech that you can find," I command. "Avoid detection to the best of your abilities."

"Yes Master," She says with a bow. She then turned around and I got to hear the wonderful noise of bones cracking and rearranging as she shrunk in height and her hair turned black. Oddly enough her jacket stayed equal to her current size, but without more information I can't tell if it is a part of her power, or some sort of nano weave.

"While she does that. Grezha, I want you to take stock of what we have, I would rather not need to reveal my presence here unless absolutely necessary,"

"At once," she says, while proceeding to organize everything that made the trip with them.

Now that I had a second to get my bearings, I looked over my human form. I was wearing a nice black business suit that wouldn't be out of place in a 2010 board of executives but on a forge planet it definitely will stand out. I hope my powers extend to clothes, there wasn't really a point to check in The Beyond. Looking around for a reflective surface I took stock of my physical appearance, I had pale white skin with pointed ears. I was thin, not quite reedy, but I definitely looked under weight. My face looked like a mix of eastern and western human, while my hair was brown and slicked back. The biggest thing for me though was my eyes. I had purple eyes and if I focused a bit, I could turn the whites black and the purple would glow, it was neat.

Next up was covering all my powers, or at least the ones that wouldn't give us away immediately. My telepathy was decent for now but it would get better in time. At present my telepathing range was about 20 Light Years, depending on who, or what, you are that is either significant or not. My biomechanical adaptation also seemed to be functioning within acceptable parameters, but that was more due to a lack of raw materials. But that will be rectified as soon as possible. My next big power requires organic matter and I would rather not use my new servants or myself until I get a better idea of my surroundings. Although, from what I can tell, the population on this planet isn't as low as I would expect for being a manufacturing world. It seems to have nearly two billion minds, which I can either influence, or just use to create my army. Either way, more humans than I was expecting, but less than I had hoped for. I would like to assimilate this planet as fast as possible before those damnable crusaders show up, as they no doubt have a way of tracking Old Ones or Elder Beings. I will need to take this slowly and cautiously to build a power base. It's my hope that if the crusaders have a detection method that it is inaccurate for close range scanning.