AN: Imanoldfart -"so if I understand, the other gods power goes up and down depending on their prayers and such. like if they stopped revlcieving prayers they would slowly loose power over time where as the omnissiah just keeps getting more powerful and never looses it even if belief in him stops completly?" Response: Chapter 6, Athena's section. TL;DR for that: no they don't lose power but they do get mentally exhausted and even get headaches(maybe debilitating even). They don't lose power, but none of the gods like losing faith, it hurts and is tiring, plus it is insulting. If you are wondering why this is, simple, gods existed before humans, THEREFORE before mortal belief. So they had power without such. Maybe I am contradicting myself in some way but. Consistency is hard, ok. Also, this is what makes the Omnissiah different, faith is a power source for them. Is that broken? Maybe, maybe not. Honestly, the way I see it, making the gods not scalable stopped the easy option of removing them. Also if they just gained strength but didn't lose it as the Omnissiah does, why would they throw hissy fits whenever mortals don't sacrifice to them? It's not a perfect system.
Actual TL:DR: gods are static(kinda) but get headaches at loss, Omnissiah has faith no loss(op) and power source, downside? You'll see.
The stars were a truly beautiful thing, almost as beautiful as the skipped author's note. The calm flight from Olympus quickly gained speed. From the north of Hellas towards the south did they fly. Soon enough Crete came into view. It was still the middle of the night. All of the people of Dimitis were asleep and would remain that way provided nothing happened.
So to their temple they went, part of their mind disliked that they had to build their own temple. But the Machine God needed a place for their shrine to stay, and stay without rust or blemish. Not to mention with an easy-to-access place to worship them, people would have an easier time choosing to give worship.
The wood had dried and was without visible flaws. The structure is all held together by its own interconnected pegs and wedges. The light was low but it held no issue for the lord of all machines. Though, upon thought and examination, they thought, 'This darkness should be corrected at some point.'
It was not the only thing the temple lacked, it was very barren. Without any symbology or items aside from the stump seats and the altar with its table. With that observation in mind, the trinity placed down their robe and Aegis' gift for Korban. They moved outside and looked at the entrance. 'First impressions happen once.'
Into the wood above the door frame, a cog was carved. Within this cog was a pair of semi-circles, divided vertically one carved deeper than the other. Their mind drifted to a new memory, the walls of the cathedral were stone and steel. Along the walls into the place of worship were murals and words of prayer.
The memory faded, on the door frame itself, words were carved. High Gothic, the words would be foreign enough to show the difference in the language. The language was often called Tech by adepts. Tech would be odd without being so alien and incomprehensible as binary Lingua Technis.
Once the frame was done the lord of Mars moved into the small chapel-like building they had constructed. More images came to mind, amongst the walls were the Universal Laws of the Mechanicus placed in the glorious fashion of steel and gold. Eight on the left wall of the cathedral, The Mysteries of the Cult Mechanicus. The image was taken in as the words filled their mind. They read aloud for the world to hear.
"1. Life is directed motion" the words rung in their none existent ears. "2. The spirit is the spark of life." these words were taken into their knowledge further. "3. Sentience is the ability to learn and value knowledge." If one were to face the exit of the temple one would see those same words in Tech in an orderly fashion in the wood.
Above the now forming list was the name rectangle drawn to be filled, "4. Intellect is the understanding of knowledge." another box and list were formed on the right side of the door, "5. Sentience is the basest form of intellect." this second list was for now empty.
The wood took each utterance and carving beautifully, "6. Understanding is the true path to comprehension." The box began to have pictures and symbols create an intricate border, "7. Comprehension is the key to all things." a small bout of silence.
The next words were louder and seemed to reverberate through the whole building speaking to its core, "8. The Omnissiah knows all, comprehends all." A flash of white enveloped the temple material in a fast wave of energy from the altar. Though no one was around to see the display.
After a moment the trinity looked at their work, an immaterial smile. Looking over at the second empty box they found no images in their mind. Their nonexistent smile turned to a nonexistent frown. 'What good is knowing all if you can not remember it.' their frustration was quickly left be, "Soon it will be corrected, in the meantime."
After those words, many pictures were carved in perfect form. They showed tales and lessons. The walls all simultaneously began to possess inscriptions and pictures. The dust and wood from the carving were brought out of the temple. Among many of these were canticles, lessons, prayers, but all seemed to bring forth an air of the divine. 'Odd the second half escapes us at the moment. Then again, this has not been normal to start with.'
As the walls were filled with art and substance the lord of Mars found another vision. This one was not of the second half of The Universal Laws they had hoped for. The vision of the deity was filled with a dark room, it was cramped and full of scrap and machines. There a Tech-priest knelt in silent prayer, a stick incense burned in a stand.
Their servant was at that moment experiencing comprehension. The vision faded as the Machine God extended their senses. Finding some stones nearby they grabbed and summoned them to their side. After a few moments, they looked at the rocks. There were two both of roughly equal size and somewhat spherical. Both were split into even half all four being about the size of a fist.
Once the rocks were split their shapes were made perfectly spherical on the uncut side. Each had a flat bottom from the cut, at the top of the rock several holes were made each roughly half a centimetre wide. These small shafts went about three centimetres into the rock. Each rock was given three holes each. For a total of twelve holes.
The wood of the walls was done with the exception of the labelled but blank box. The label was in the same clear straight font of writing as the rest of the building, "The Warnings of the Cult Mechanicus" it said. Two of the rocks were placed on either side of the altar. The other two were placed on the stone floor before the two boxed lists near the entrance.
The purpose of these stones was to, of course, hold incense. They had noted Korban had some but had never asked about it. 'Perhaps a source can be obtained when we give him the owl rock.' Looking around the walls were now covered with detailed carvings and words in Tech. On the table were their gifted robes and the gift for Korban.
'...Perhaps we should have a place to store objects.' the thoughts of incense brought the need for storage to their mind. Leaving the building and looking outside a small tree was selected. The tree was not much bigger than two meters tall, it was quickly cut down and with frightening quickness stripped. The processing was just as fast.
The heat was created from thin air and it dried the wood which had its moisture drawn out by immaterial hands. Boards were cut with inch-wide pegs coming out of them on one side near the ends. Once these boards were finished, holes were made in the table's legs to match the pegs in the new boards.
The results were boards covering up the front, back, and sides of the table. If one were to face the altar on the left side of the table they would see that several connected boards slid out from the topmost and bottom-most boards. These top and bottom boards had carved out squared channels for the connected boards to slide into securely. This created a removable side.
The table had no bottom other than the stone floor but it would serve for now as a safe place to store anything the deity possessed. 'Not that we have anything to store right now.' with the temple now improved they let their mind wander.
It had not been more than an hour since the lord of all machines had started working on their chapel. As such it was still night out, and now needed something to do that was productive. As their mind wandered it came upon an odd thought. 'Dimitis has farmers, hunters, and fishermen. There is a lake nearby but…'
The tri-part deity extended their senses towards that lake. 'There is not enough fish in the lake to support several men fishing daily. Nor are there boats or a dock… The ocean is within a day's travel by foot, but is there a dock there? Surely there would have to be a settlement or dock for ships.' their inductive reasoning settled on needing confirmation.
The deity began to leave with cloak and gift in immaterial hand and closed the side of the table when a thought struck them. 'When and where would a stranger walking through your home village be welcome at night?' Another pause.
The side was partially opened to allow the cloak wrapped around the rock to be stored. 'Less focus is given on remaining hidden if we hold nothing. We are unlikely to interact with anyone regardless. So we have no need of our cloak to make a visible form.'
The side was closed up and the deity left the building, flying high into the sky. Once there they began to search for the ocean. Finding it the trinity began to fly in that direction while lowering to the ground. There was a well-worn road that came from the direction of Dimitis and went towards the ocean. After about fifteen minutes of flying low and slower than usual, the deity came to the coast.
The road led into a town slightly bigger than Dimitis, there were several small ports and docks. With ships now tied up due to the time of night. It was unwise for one to go out at night when one could not see. Especially when not all people can swim, 'Though we would hope all sailors here can swim given their work.'
There were many houses and businesses, the market had cobbled stones instead of just dirt as Dimitis did. 'So this is likely the place those "fishermen" in Dimitis come to work. This town is also close to Dimitis, they may have even heard of us from the fishermen or simply from travellers...this proximity could help with expansion.'
As that thought came into mind the master of Mars held another, 'Is there a temple?' this was important to know. What gods would they have to be dealing with, what kind of people these were could be told through their highest honoured gods. 'Likely Posideon but the other gods that are most honoured could be any. Even minor ones.'
After a small search, their reward was a building that contained several small shrines. The one which seemed to get the most offerings was the one bearing pictures of waves and fish. 'Posideon, as expected.' the other shrines seemed to be for Hermes, Apollo, Hera, and Zeus' as they were about to explore the town further a doorway caught their eye.
Going down it lead to a larger room which held a single altar, on it were pictures of couples, swans, roses, and a seashell. There were many offerings, just as many as Posideon's interestingly. 'Aphrodite, we have heard of some of her tales. But it is not much. Korban had much to cover… it is good we have something to give him. Aside from the incense we now also must speak more of the Olympians as well.'
Silence as thoughts came and went, 'If we are to expand from Dimitis we must set a place aside for ourselves.' The Machine God left the temples and began to look around. The temples' building was at the edge of the town, nearby was a small grove of trees.
Just like their new chapel, it was not ideal. It was not ideal since they were not possessing a domain of wilderness, but it had space and most importantly it was distinct from the Olympians. Without being so far as to cause coming to any visitors to groan.
Once in the trees there was a rock near to the ground only about two and a half feet above said ground. The rock was flat and quite level, deciding this was a good spot the lord of manufacturing took several loose and free rocks from the ground. From there these rocks were forced to heat up. Incredibly hot, containing the heat was important.
After a few minutes, the rocks were liquid and all poured into an invisible mould. A circle standing on its side with a flat base at the bottom. On this circle, a cog formed in the center of it. At this point, the material was changing more rocks were added to the mould as the molten material was compressed slightly through pressure.
After about an hour of carefully sorting the materials into two sides and the rock was slowly and evenly cooled into its final form. While not a perfect separation it much resembled their other shrines. Only without any steel. The rock was dark on one side, light on another, and the cog was grey.
This long process would have been taxing even just a little while ago when the previous morning they had forged those previous shrines and helped Mairus. Now that the crude shrine was done, they need people to see it and understand it. Perhaps they were expanding too fast. But going slow wouldn't stop the Olympians from finding out about them. It might mean there was less to notice, but they would have more time to notice.
But that could be solved by going fast, 'Because once established we shall be difficult to obstruct. And if we are large enough in influence, any negative attention is too late to stop us.' another thought came, 'Though they may not try to stop us, it is still likely given we would be competing for worshippers at the least...fighting at the worst.'
With that thought and a completed shrine. They blessed it like the others. Though it did not take as well due to the material, or lack thereof. 'steel or iron would have been better.' Once finished with the blessing a memory from not more than three days ago came to mind.
'Ash certainly drew attention before', with that thought came another, 'and perhaps words will assist now that we have them.' They flew back to the town and channeled their domain into themselves. The lord of all knowledge took what they knew of the spoken language of this land, and forced the written word to come to mind.
It was surprisingly easy, and they were almost shocked to discover common letters and symbols. Many of which were used by the Mechanicus. 'More familiar than binary, how right we were.' With words and letters in mind, they summoned ash from the houses.
Every fire that had died, every torch, all of them had ash that was brought to the temple of the Olympians. The deity of knowledge began to make a trail with the ash inside the temple. Once the trail reached the exit of the temple ash was placed into the word "Ακολουθηστε" which hopefully someone who was literate could read.
If nothing else the trail was likely to bring people to the destination. Once the trail of ash was complete the remaining ash was used to write more words. Before the newly made altar on the ground, "Ρωτήστε τον Διμιτις" was written.
Dawn was nearing now, though the night was still shining with stars. Before the lord of knowledge left a thought struck them. Focusing upon their domain once more they found the answer. "Dimitis, Creteonus, and now Tritia. Progress."
AN: Sorry for not updating, I have had a lot of essays and assignments alongside my classes. I have my finals coming up but I may be able to update more since I will have more free time since my classes ended. I have had a lot of free time, just not stretches I like to have, to do single sittings for writing. That is my excuse but hey, no one dies from it. Also again, please tell me if I don't use "they" for the trinity.
