Further inspection had shown that the quick spell access slots had equally disappeared. Now I simply remembered the ten quick access spells without having to leaf through the magic book or transfer them to operative memory. The potential of this was much more serious than just an easy access to an extra vial. Increasing the number of available working spells could give the perma players a considerable advantage whenever they battled monsters or other chars. More spells meant more tactics; more chances to get an extra gram of experience or survive a close shave.

At the moment, it wasn't a good time to look into this mystery, so I left it until later. I had a funny feeling there was more to it than that. My hair was already standing on its end as I'd come too close to the altar—so close I was getting little shocks. A high-voltage transformer isn't a good place for thinking.

I concentrated on the opened interface windows. I'd have loved to rip the arms off the bastard who'd tested the interface's ergonomics and usability. It was as clear as mud. Actually, how sure was I that it had been tested at all? I was looking at the inner workings of the NPC admin panel. More than likely, both the post of the First Priest and access to the altar hadn't been meant for real players to begin with. Very well. There's always the good old method of trial and error. I just hoped the system was foolproof and wouldn't let me do anything stupid to this mind-blowing nuclear kettle. With any luck, I'd stay in one piece.

Naturally, I exercised the utmost caution. I didn't touch any settings, just studied the menus, my absolute memory soaking up their multiple branches. Once I checked all the options, I shook my head, trying to put the puzzle together and build a complete map of altar control. After that, it was time to proceed with caution and understanding.

Consecration to a junior god.

For your information: Every Dark Temple automatically boosts the Fallen One's strength. In addition, it can be consecrated to a junior patron god of your choice.

Pantheon alert! The Pantheon of the Fallen One is empty! You can't consecrate the Temple to an existing subgod. Would you like to summon a new god?

You bet! I pressed Confirm, triggering an enormous list sheet. Hundreds of names flickered before my eyes. I had to sort them all out into some kind of system. Why, for instance, would I need all those Indian ones, all those Agni, Brahma, Varuna, Vishnu et al? It wasn't as if I was on the Hindu's pay roll. I fiddled with the list until I finally managed to get rid of all the unwanted ones and arrive at the list of ancient Slavic gods. I also kept the Greek and Scandinavian ones: I had a soft spot for them for some reason. Both Aphrodite and Odin appealed to me more than Guan Di or Hanuman.

The triage resulted in about thirty ancient Slavic names: the likes of Perun, Belobog, Hors and Svarog. A quick prompt popped up when I highlighted the first of them, complete with a list of bonuses for the god's worshippers. That did it for me. Gods, let me tell you, are seriously cool. Take Perun, the god of thunder, patron of warriors. The skills he could shower onto his worshippers made me want to prostrate myself in awe.

Heavenly Thunder: a powerful discharge of electricity that deals the target 2,000 pt. damage. Cooldown: 12 hrs.

Chain L ightning: targets several creatures standing next to each other, starting with the chosen target. Every new target halves the damage: 1500, 750, 350, 200, 100. Cooldown: 12 hrs.

Sky Guard: allows to summon a warrior from Perun's numerous retinue. The summoned creature's level always equals that of the summoner. Spell duration has the minimum limit of 5 min. with no maximum. However, the number of the Thunderer's warriors is limited causing the summoned Guard to leave the summoner at any time in case of a shortage of available retinue warriors when somebody else is casting the same spell. Cooldown: 24 hrs.

Blessed Steel: a weapon buff adding +25% to magic fire damage.

Spell duration: 2 hrs.

Cooldown: 24 hrs.

There is an off chance of the buff never wearing out, leaving the weapon forever enchanted by the divine word.

And so on and so forth. The skill list was long: the god was trying a bit too hard to push the worshipper into earning Faith points, elevating him through the ranks and offering him the chance to choose yet another uber freebie. Wonder if it was the result of the god's already being forgotten once? Meaning that now the divinities would appreciate their earthly following, hurrying to get them out of trouble and showering them with skills.

It looked as if I was in it for the long haul. I lay my shield on the black sooty floor and sat cross-legged on top of it. Let's have a look!

The next dose of shock I received when I made my way down the list to Morana's name. The goddess of winter and the wife of Koschei—the Slavic god of death. The very first ability made me sit up:

Life Cycle: by using this skill, a player will gain one level per second, including all respective racial and class bonuses. Upon reaching level 200, the character's life cycle comes to an end and he receives an XP penalty as he would have in the case of death at the hands of a mob. Cooldown: 24 hrs.

How very unusual. I wasn't even talking about its combat properties: they required quite a bit of combined thinking from me and my calculator. Still, the fact was that this particular ability was my long sought-after suicide button. Plus giving you a couple extra minutes to beat the hell out of your adversaries who wouldn't know what had hit them. As somebody who'd done my time suspended from a hook in the Cats' torture cellar, I knew the true potential of it.

Still, it was never a good idea to bet on a dark horse you'd never seen even though you might have heard that yes, it's a horse and yes, it might be able to run.

I queried the Internet service for everything they had available on Morana. I had barely made my way through half of her skills when they contacted me. Did they have an AI in their customer service or something?

I opened the file and started reading, my heart sinking with every sentence. I really, really didn't like her. Not a good deity at all. Very vicious. Her symbols: the Black Moon, a few skulls and a scythe that she used to cut the thread of life. Holy moly. How sure was I that summoning her wouldn't be a blunder to end all blunders? What if my name would be cursed for millennia for summoning the goddess of death into a deathless world? Laith the Traitor, the Immortality Thief. Did I like the moniker? Not really. Couldn't I find just one out of these hundreds of deities with similar skills and a nicer temper?

I spent the next few hours scanning hundreds of pages of fine print. My head was buzzing on the same note as the mana flow: either from the information overload or from the proximity of the altar. And I couldn't even move aside as I still needed to be in direct contact with the stone. All discomfort aside, I had to admit that few things were more gratifying that studying the skills and abilities of the average Pantheon, especially in a world where gods weren't just manipulation tools in the hands of corrupted priests. Here, they were a force to be reckoned with and the knowledge of them remained a vital tool indeed.

I kept turning page after page. A god, a goddess, a Titan, a dragon...

Zhelia, the goddess of sorrow, sympathy and weeping. Logically, she could do: lots of interesting skills, like blocking pain sensations in battle. To my chagrin, she didn't have what I needed most: voluntary death.

Karna, her sister. Mourning the dead, eternal grieving, greeting the fallen ones on their way to the world of the dead. Same thing: lots of bells and whistles but not the one I needed most.