While Stories was out on his entirely voluntary errand to retrieve the God of Renewal, Order decided to do some mild re-ordering of her schedules. Which mainly involved tossing out every plan she had made previously. After all, this experiment was going to take a long, long time. Best to keep all those interviews and other such appointments on hold for now.

Retrieving a white standing sign from the resource cabinet present on every floor, she scribbled with a black marker, “INTERVIEW CANCELLED, RETURN IN A DECADE’S TIME”, on its front.

That’d have to do; she wasn’t about to station herself on the Dimensional Wall for the entire length of her experiment just so she could turn people away. It’d interfere with her focus; what if she fumbled a crucial line of thought because some lesser God tapped her on the shoulder while she was concentrating?

…or maybe she could get a God to sub for her? Nah, they’d have to be coached on how to take notes to her liking. And they wouldn’t be able to see the interviewees anyways in the first place… Unless she got Truth to do it?

An image of the carefree God floated up in front of Order. She briefly imagined the cheerful girl greeting a lesser God and hugging them, then proceeding to spend hours on a single candidate as they engaged in lively banter about the planets that the latter God had come across. All the while with an angry mob of the other interviewees slowly building up in a line behind the first. Order quickly shook her head to banish the thought.

She didn’t want to be responsible for Truth’s violent and painful demise at the hands of her juniors.

No, no, the sign was good enough. Only Order herself could carry out these interviews. The data wouldn’t be reliable otherwise.

“Alright, that settles that for the interviews. Oh, I should drop Truth a message about this too, or she might end up wondering where I’ve gotten to when our next session rolls around.” Order muttered as she ran through the relevant appointments in her mind. “And… as for Chaos… I’ll just get Stories to do it when he gets back.”

He owed her, anyways. For the aura scanner.

“Probably can leave Greed in… the count doesn’t take that long. Plus, mindless busy-work allows me to collect my thoughts.” It’d be like resetting her mind-set, she reasoned. A blank slate to start off the work day. Help reorient her perspective and approach the problem from a different angle.

Definitely not because she was addicted, or anything. She could stop any time she wanted.

After a quick stop by Truth’s to pass on the news about what was going on, Order went to place the sign at the interview spot on the Dimensional Wall, weighing it down with a rock to ensure it didn’t topple over while she wasn’t there. She stepped back and squinted, framing the white sign with open palms. You could probably see that from a distance, right?

Finally, (after sparing some divine energy to restore the Plaza grass to their original lush green shade), it was time for bed.

Flopping onto the soft cotton duvet, Order rolled over onto her back and raised her notebook up to her face. Leaning against a propped up pillow, she flipped to her initial thoughts on the experiment and doodled a few idle comments in the margins. Three days till commencement. It was her time to shine; to prove herself by doing what even the God of Life and Creation himself could not, and claim a spot next to him as one of the most respected Gods in the entire divine realm.

She couldn’t wait.

The next three days were spent entirely in the Library of Records, with Order working feverishly on the preparations for the test as she awaited Stories and their honored guest. Well, it wasn’t like she had anywhere else to be for the next decade.

With the entirety of the observations on Renewal and accounts of her involvement in planetary events splayed out on the table, Order systematically went through and highlighted everything she felt might be relevant to her goal.

The God of Renewal was a lesser God in charge of the concept of cycles. Destruction and rebirth, the dead returning to the earth, new life sprouting from their corpses; stuff like that. And her innate ability was precisely to control that cycle: she could revert an organism or object to earlier stages of its life to heal its wounds, or even wind back the progression of disease in sick animals. Perfect for keeping mortals alive.

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However, the downside to such a powerful ability was the same as other Gods like her, Order included; the energy consumption required. As Order’s notes stated, Renewal was only able to utilise her ability around four times at full capacity. After that, she’d be running on fumes, and would need to return to Life to refuel. It was also why she didn’t fire it off with reckless abandon on every wounded creature she met. Her duty was to broadcast a wave of scattered divine energy over the whole planet; not focus it into a single mortal.

“Well, that’s alright. We won’t be too far from Life at any one given point in time. If absolutely necessary, I could tentatively transfer some of my divine energy reserves to power her ability.”

The experiment was set to take place within the confines of the Dimensional Wall, after all. It was the only way the project leader (Order) would be able to observe the results and tweak the variables to adjust for unforeseen circumstances.

There were around a million or so inhabited planets that fit the criteria Order was looking for, mostly those that dotted the edges of the Wall most distant from the divine realms proper, while still accessible to the Gods that were unable to leave the cage that was the divine realms.

She wanted underdeveloped, unintelligent, fledgling species that were fragile enough to perish within four decades; lifeforms that needed their helping hand the most. Lifeforms that no one would miss - unimportant mortals.

So, after a trip to floor 223 (Planets within Dimensional Wall) and back, Order had her testing grounds. Sector designation Blessed 903, 1503 and 2096. One for each of the scheduled Gods.

Next, she started to list down the native species for each of the planets - their characteristics, behaviour, their appearances while either at an infant state or fully matured, and in what biome could they most easily be found in. Details to ensure that the experiment would be smoothly carried out in an efficient and effective manner. It had to be perfect.

With that done, Order returned to the star map to confirm the selected planets, drawing up the fastest routes to each destination from their start point in the Library. Then she paused, pen still hovering over the circled planets. Another thought had occurred to her.

Three probably wasn’t enough. What if some vital variable went missing before they could begin, or the results led to total annihilation of the initial test species? In that case, she’d need a couple more samples; just to confirm that the results weren’t some fluke, thrown off by an unlikely occurrence. Best to select a few more as a buffer, so the flow of the experiment wouldn’t be interrupted by having to search through a bunch of star maps again.

And she was certain: her theory would work. The logic was sound. She would make it work.

So Order circled a range of inhabited planets from ten thousand to twenty thousand. A bit out of the way so it’d be a touch irritating if she’d had to travel to and fro, but not impossible by any stretch of imagination. Back-up sites. Redundancies.

Order didn’t like planning for failure. She never had to; in her entire six centuries of life, she’d only been pitched slowballs: she’d only absorb information, not produce it. She was never on the side of the trailblazers, only part of the spectators. What was the point of knowledge if you never get to use it?

This experiment would change all that. Baby bird’s first flight. And Order was determined to make it succeed, no matter what it took. No matter who it took.

Hopefully the extra planets wouldn’t have to be used. But if they had to be… for the greater good, right?

There was no one present next to Order to correct this rather chilling line of thought. To steer her away from the abyss. She had good intentions, of that one could be certain; but her planned methodology was abhorrent and utterly inhumane, with no regard for the mortals she was about to carry out these untested theories on.

But there was no one there to stop her.

So this foul seed was left to fester, and rot further; until the stench from its decay would be discovered further down the line.