“HEYYOO~ I’M BACK! Did’ya miss me? Brought a friend with me, you’d never guess who- oh, she’s not here.” Stories called out, ascending from the central cavity of the Library. Receiving no response, he quizzically scanned the layout of the 428th floor. Timidly clutching on to the sleeve of his pin-striped suit was the God of Renewal.

“…I can come back later if she isn’t around… I don’t want to make any trouble for Big Sis Order…” the soft voice issued from the black-haired girl’s lips.

Gods shared many qualities. Great strength, amazing resistances against extreme conditions, lifespans that lasted as long as the fabric of reality was still intact.

Personality was… not one of those qualities.

This was evident from looking at the trembling girl currently peering out from behind Stories’ back. When Renewal was created, her very first experience was an unfamiliar, wrinkled face with white fuzzy bits sticking out from it staring down at her. She was terrified. Traumatized, even. A new-born God thrust into an environment of loud, unpleasant and unwelcome stimuli.

After she had eventually recovered enough from her fright to understand the task the frowny shouty grandpa had given her, Renewal felt immense relief. It was perfect for her; a job where she didn’t have to interact with anyone at all. It would be silence and calm all around, for decades on end.

But it was hardly three years into her stint that her peace would be interrupted by the arrival of her peer: the God of Insects.

“Hey…itsss… your turn… for the thhhiingg…” he (it?) had skittered.

She didn’t reply; at the first sight of a large humanoid bug creature scuttling straight for her, Renewal had been locked in place, limbs freezing to stone. Insects noticed the effect he had on her, and a guttural, rolling vocalisation emanated from his mandibles – an approximation of a sigh.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t oblivious to the fact that he was the picture of one’s nightmares; he just wished that at least one of these Gods would treat him with the basic respect expected when one was greeting a guest. Not gawk or scream while pointing at his face.

Insects held out a note prepared in advance for this occasion. (By Order, of course. She saw this coming a mile away.) Waving it in front of the terrified girl’s face, the arthropod patiently waited for her to take it from him.

Eventually, working through her fear, still shivering and vibrating in sheer distress, she had gingerly plucked the pale white envelope from his pincers and mustered up her courage to incline her head in gratitude. She’d much rather just shrink away from the big, scary insect then hide away behind a rock or some other such large object until it went away, but after 20 minutes of being a motionless statue, she realised that the bug wasn’t going to leave until it did what it was here to do.

Insects exhaled once more in exasperation as his beady eyes stared at the trembling girl, his two antenna twitching from side to side, before he turned and flew off.

You’ll get it right next time, Insects, he muttered under his breath. One of these days they’ll actually smile when they see you.

Watching closely until the giant bug creature had become a speck in the distance, Renewal turned the note around in her hands, curiously examining it. There was a single word written on the front: Invitation. She carefully tore open the side and retrieved the note within.

“To whom it may concern, please proceed to the divine realms at your earliest convenience. There, I will conduct a face-to-face interview regarding the routine collection of data on your role and accomplishments thus far with the job assigned to you. Should this note have been assigned to you in error, please pass it on to the next God you come across in your travels.”

Signed, the God of Order and Knowledge.

Renewal’s face turned pale. Face-to-face? Interview?

She wasn’t exactly comfortable with interaction with other people for long periods of time; or short periods of time, for that matter. She’d much rather just stay nestled comfortably in the vicinity of the star system she was currently present at. Maybe for the next two decades.

But… It was a request from her senior, right? If she didn’t go, maybe it would inconvenience her? If Order was inconvenienced, then Renewal might even become hated by them! Being hated meant that they might shout at her… or maybe even throw things at her! She couldn’t refuse this invitation!

So, pumping her fists to gather up whatever shred of courage still remained, Renewal kicked off towards the divine realms.

This would be her first encounter with Order.

Recalling it now, Renewal felt the meeting didn’t go that badly. Sure, she was blubbering and sputtering all the way through, unable to even form the words to greet her senior. You could hardly blame her, Order gave off almost exactly the same vibe as Life did; all stern and serious, ready to shout and scold at a moment’s notice. But her senior God didn’t reprimand her for that display of anxiety. They simply had a nice little chat about the things she had done. Then after an hour or so of light discussion, she was free to leave.

Renewal was grateful for that - Order had identified her nervousness and treated her with care and kindness. For the introvert that she was, this meant that Order was bumped up several places in her mind, all the way to the top – from mere acquaintance to big sister.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

So when some unknown, chatty (and annoying) man popped up while she was deep into year eight of her isolation and requested her assistance for something that Order was working on, Renewal happily went along, casting aside any initial doubts she might have had following some random stranger she’d never heard of before.

It’ll be fine, she reasoned. He knows Big Sis Order! (Disclaimer: kindly do not follow strangers who tell you they definitely know your mum and that there’s candy in the back of their van.)

Which brings us to the present: where the two had returned to the Library to meet up with Order, who was mysteriously absent. After carefully prying Renewal off his sleeve and plopping her down in the general vicinity of a chair, Stories drifted towards the bookshelves, looking through the aisles one by one. Maybe she was engrossed in some lengthy text about the history of mathematics or something. Then again, he had shouted pretty loudly. You’d have to be deaf not to hear that.

It was on aisle 35 that he finally caught sight of a figure in white collapsed on the floor, a book left open by her side. His breath caught in his throat. Shit.

“OI! Order!” He hurried to her side to assess her condition. No time for energy conservation, he thought, channelling divine energy through his hands to solidify them so that he could adjust the body to search for wounds or other causes for her state of unconsciousness.

But just as he turned her onto her back, he noticed that her chest was heaving up and down. Huh. She was still breathing. Imagine that.

He shifted his gaze upwards towards her face. There, in uncharacteristic form, Stories found Order’s mouth gaping open, a line of drool escaping from the side. Oh, Stories breathed a sigh of relief. Just sleeping. Girl must have tuckered herself out from all the intense… uh… reading she must have been doing. Smirking to himself, he gently shook her by her arms.

“Oi, lady… I’m back with the girl. No time for sleep. Wakey, wakey. Don’t we have an experiment to run?”

The jostling eventually roused Order from her slumber, and she gradually brought herself into a sitting position, her hair still slightly dishevelled, drool dripping off her chin. Order rubbed off the drool with the back of her hand as she yawned, eyes still blinking away the blurriness from fatigue. And she was fatigued - she’d spent the entire night before Stories was set to return double checking weather patterns and hibernation behaviors on Blessed 903 to confirm that conditions would be optimal for the testing she needed to do.

She sleepily turned towards the lesser God who was currently suppressing a fit of giggles at her atypical appearance.

“…oh, you’re back, huh… That was quick… Give me a moment to freshen up and I’ll be with you two for the briefing.” Getting up onto her feet, still yawning while she did so, Order made her way to the restroom to splash some water onto her face.

After five minutes, she exited the restroom and made her way towards the circular table where the two were waiting. “My greetings to you, God of Renewal. I hope I haven’t pulled you away from anything important.”

“Oh… no, it’s alright… I’m happy to be here...” Renewal responded in a small voice. It seemed to still be difficult for her to interact with others in a satisfactory manner, but Order could tell she was at the very least making a conscious effort, so she didn’t comment any further on the matter. She turned to face Stories. “Was it difficult getting to where the God of Renewal was? You’ll have to be making two similar trips after this one, so I hope not.”

“Nah, it was a breeze. Like you said, just follow the green arrow.” He tapped the black box currently at his side. Then, after a moment of consideration, he spoke up again. “But if I said I had said it was hard, would you give me any more gizmos to make the journey easier? In that case, oooh yes, it was super difficult, you gotta give me more stuff - like a ray gun, or like a grenade or something-“

“Now that pleasantries are out of the way, let us move on to the briefing proper.” Order cut off the rambling jester before he could go off on another unrelated tangent.

“The target planet,” she propped open a presentation that she had prepared and pointed to a red circle in the corner. “is the planet Blessed 903.” She flipped the page. “The relevant species we will be working on will be these.”

“These are Plerbies.” Order pointed to a picture of a large animal mostly resembling the form of a bear. The creature was huge and imposing, except for one small detail - the body hair covering its massive frame was a shade of dark purple.

“Do not ask me why they are called that - the God of Truth and Honesty got to them first.” Stories slowly lowered his raised hand in disappointment.

“Over the course of three days, I’ve memorized the relevant information regarding their behaviour and what we will need to do to locate them. As long as you follow my lead, nothing will go wrong. Understood?”

The two lesser Gods nodded in unison. It was Order, after all. To them, she was the paragon of preparation, with a contingency for every problem that might crop up. Plus, she was one of those goody-two-shoes types, and someone like that would never be able to do anything wrong.

Surely nothing bad would happen?