[God of Games] 4 – The Blessings of the God of Games

It took a few more minutes, but thankfully, Otis managed to find the sewer drain that led to a nearby river surrounded by a rather large forest. Sirus, who watched over the poor mortal, could only hope that the beggar would get a move on before any of the demons caught up instead of facing toward the direction of the city and gawking at the pillars of smoke in the far distance. 

Sirus had exhausted all of his Divine Energy in blessing and sending Otis messages. Unfortunately, Sirius wouldn't be able to watch for much longer, as apparently, his Divine Energy fielded his projection that watched over Otis. Already, with his reverses completely empty, he was struggling even to hold on.

Hoping that Otis would make it out of there, Sirius pulled back, returning to his body.

....

His hands were bloody, his clothes ragged and filthy, yet despite his rather poor appearance and horrific face that only a mother could love, Otis was alive and standing, one of the few that managed to escape from an active siege by the Demons, and not only that, but he was even personally blessed by a God, one that he has never heard of before, but one that gave him the strength he needed to make his journey through the wilds and hopefully back to civilization.

With his life as a beggar, he was already well accustomed to surviving off whatever he could scrounge from his surroundings, and he was certainly not picky, leaving him fed and with enough energy to be constantly on the move. All he had to do was follow the river until he found a road or something.

...

Meanwhile, back in Heaven, I was reeling from exhausting all of my Divine Energy, feeling an indescribable exhaustion creep into the core of my very being.

Falling back into the bed beneath me from which I meditated, I brought up my own status screen.

/=======+=======\

Name: Sirus

Race: Newborn God

Level: 1

Faith: 25 (+4 per day)

Followers: 1

Divine Energy: 1/100 (5 DE per hour)

Divinity: Games

Divine Skills: [Issue Quest], [Divine Contract], [Manifest]

\=======+=======/

I used most of my Divine Energy to form a Contract with Otis and give him my blessings.

At the moment, I have just four options: Status Screen, Heads Up Display, Looting, and Digitalized Body. 

Status screens, of course, give people a screen on which to see their stats and relative health; it is the cheapest blessing of the four.

The Head's Up Display did as it said. It gave a display that would show them their health, stamina, and whatever else they gained while also displaying information above the heads of others, such as their name, relative level, and hostility, such as when he came across the Imp, the name above its head was red, signaling that it was hostile. However, part of it worked off a database I had to fill out manually.

The only reason it was listed as an Imp was because I already went ahead and added all of the known Demon species and subspecies to my database. Of course, that does mean when it comes across something that's not in my database, the creature or entity will be unnamed and new.

However, I did enable a sort of feature where my followers could enter these unknown species themselves into the database, though I could change the name of the creature or entity at any time if I felt the name was not appropriate.

The third blessing, Looting, was a feature of many games, letting you loot enemies for items, components, materials, and more. However, the loot depended on the enemy looted. You wouldn't get good gear from a low-level bandit or monster unless it were something unique.

The last, the Digitilized Body, was by far the most important blessing of them all. It essentially turned my followers into game characters. The description was incredibly vague, but from what  I have witnessed so far, it gave them the ability to level up through EXP and upgrade their core attributes with each level, allowing them to grow stronger with time and more fights.

However, each blessing cost me additional Divine Energy.

The status screen cost me five DE for Divine Energy. The heads-up Display cost five DE as well, while Looting cost me twenty-five DE, and the Digitilized Body blessing a massive fifty DE, for a grand total of 85 Divine Energy per follower I wanted to bless.

The messages, on the other hand, were varied in cost, though I did not know what determined the cost.

Climbing out of the bed provided to me, I also noted the Faith I obtained from getting my followers, though I did wonder why I was getting four faiths a day from Otis. Why not five or even a lower number? What made it four? 

Wishing I had some paper and a pencil to write that down, I tried that bit of info for later investigation and pushed it to the back of my mind.

Since I could only hope that Otis would keep himself moving and alive, I had other things to do. For example, I still had to read the other sections.

[Notable Services in Heaven!]

[Notable Gods and Pantheons of Heaven]

[Heaven's Districts and Real Estate]

I first started with Notable Services, finding a massive list of everything imaginable, ranging from cafes, theaters, and even open parks.

The first service at the top of the list caught my interest. Arenas.

[Across all of Heaven lay many Arenas in which Gods can settle their disputes, fight one another, hone their skills, and so much more. Due to the c conflicting nature of Gods, many settle their disputes through combat between themselves or their Champions under the eyes of a God of Judgement, Law, Order, or Rules. Depending on the God overseeing the match, they can even put forth their DIvinites to ensure that the parties pay what is due or suffer the consequences]

Reading further into it, I read that these matches between Gods can be used to settle disputes over clashing religions, moral disputes, and many other things. There was also an example between two Gods and the winner enslaving the other God to their pantheon as a Minor God, with the stipend being that the Minor God had to give up a large portion of the Faith they received while also helping the Pantheon with whatever it required without resistance. To be in debt was a very, very terrible thing here. Because if you were in debt, Gods would gladly accept your blood as payment for the debt.

Of course, that also meant I could create my own Pantheon and challenge Gods to join my retinue.

Pantheons were essentially groups of Gods, like college fraternities or club groups. There were multiple types of these Pantheons. The most common ones were Monorachies, with a God-King as their head. Those Gods typically were the strongest of the group or the most powerful. 

Pantheons also worked as a sort of connection between Gods, allowing a single mortal to worship all of the Gods at once, giving everyone their portions of Faith dependent on the Mortal's particularly favorite god.

For example, in the Greek Pantheon, a mortal might favor Hephestaus and worship him solely, but while a good portion of that faith would end up with Hephestaus, the other Gods of the Pantheon would receive some of that Faith as well, even if it was minuscule, these were known as Union Pantheons. Of course, depending on the Pantheon, 90% of the Faith could go to the God King of the Pantheon regardless of which God or Goddess the Mortal favors; these Pantheons were called Hegemony Pantheons.

Pantheons came in different flavors of many kinds, just like companies from Earth. 

So, while the creation of a Hegemony Pantheon would be beneficial, it's not worth it if I somehow piss off all the Gods I managed to get under me by taking the faith they needed to survive. Then I had an idea: what if I created a Trade Pantheon? 

With my Looting blessing, I can give to my followers, I could work with Gods with divinities related to crafting, and our Mortal Followers could work together.

Though if I did make a sort of crafting Pantheon, I'd need to bring in muscle or strength myself enough to protect myself and others from other Pantheons and stronger individual Gods. It also means I'd have to build up a really strong mortal Champion, preferably one that's long-lived, so that I don't waste resources. Such as a Human, they are relatively short-lived compared to many races.

Getting up from my bed, I decided I'd go check out these Arenas and see how Gods fight compared to mortals, and boy, was I in for a doozy.