The God of Survival was one of the more “hands-on” deities in the pantheon of gods he belonged to. Well, at least he liked to think of himself as such. All gods had their quirks, be it the overly cautious and self-serving actions of Greed, or displaying unabashedly lascivious eroticism in every aspect of her life like Love. Their personalities were, of course, influenced mainly by their calling. It stood to reason that when one devotes many centuries of existence to a singular purpose, their actions would eventually be distilled down to only serve that need.
Survival’s “quirk”, was that he did things the manly way. Survival as a concept was elegant in its simplicity: the strongest and fittest would be granted the privilege to live on, while the weak and frail would perish and wither to make fertilizer for nourishing their betters. Naturally, the God representing this ideal would be one commanding immense power and unending vitality.
However, the ego of one wielding such strength would usually have been tempered with age. Take the God of War and Hate, for example. He was an Original Existence that understood that there were times when brute force needed to take a back seat to strategy and cunning, and one needed to be modest enough to pick between the two. Simply obliterating everything in your path with your fists just couldn’t accomplish every goal that you were working towards - even if it was extremely satisfying to do so.
And Survival? Well, he was a young God - merely two decades old. Hardly any time at all for his soul to mature and ripen to the point where he understood the importance of switching between the two.
Absolutely no humility ran through his veins.
After all, why should an Adonis like him skulk away in the shadows and shine his godly aura from afar as that senile old fool Life intended? The mortals should be worshipping him, every flex of his rippling muscles and every glimpse of his glorious, glistening figure. They should be falling to their feet as he walked amongst them, weeping tears of unbridled joy as he strutted around displaying his superiority. It would be a damned crying shame to deprive their mundane, meaningless lives of the magnificent honor of prostrating before his divinity.
As you could expect, this arrogant God chose not to spread his gift of life equally to mortals in the sector of space that he’d laid down roots in. Why should dumb animals that couldn’t even understand the concept of reverence be worthy of longer lifespans? He only bestowed the gift of life onto those that he approved of – the ones that had the brains to understand the blessing he was giving them. One wouldn’t be much surprised to find that the only mortals in Genesis 15 that had benefitted from Survival’s presence, having their average life expectancy increased to eight decades from their previous three, were also the only mortals in that sector of stars that had already developed a hierarchical society. With their current leader, of course, being the God of Survival.
It wasn’t hard for Stories to find his target when he finally entered the region known as Genesis 15. For gods’ sake, the entire planet where he resided was the only celestial body for miles about that was lit up in his field of view. Lesser Gods could make out the auras of their peers, sure, but this was the first time that Stories had seen something like this. Usually, the aura of another lesser god would be visible from afar, a small speck of bright light which flickered and cut out intermittently. This was the result of energy conservation, since lesser gods learnt quickly enough that if they wanted to stay around a planet for a long period of time, a small and sustained flame was better than a big and bright spark.
What Stories was seeing went entirely against this unspoken logic; the entire planet in front of him was shimmering a dark red, engulfed in a sphere of the lesser God’s aura.
“Geez,” he whispered in awe. “bet he visits Life once every week if he’s burning that much all the time.” After another few minutes of gawking at the irresponsible wastage of divine energy, Stories jetted towards the brightest point of the energy field – its epicenter, which periodically projected the red pulsations of energy which maintained the integrity of the thick film of godly aura.
As he touched down onto the bare rock of the planet, he took in his surroundings. The civilisation was still in its early stages of development, it seemed. Instead of houses of brick and stone, the homes of the natives were constructed with sticks and straw. But while he stood there, he slowly began to get the sense that something was… off.
These huts had to have been built small on purpose. This society obviously had developed intelligence enough to build shelters against the elements. But if that was the case, then it didn’t make sense. Why would one choose to live in something so easily destructible? Why not chop down trees and use logs instead for a more permanent residence? In a thunderstorm these fragile dwellings would collapse within minutes, ripped apart by billowing winds and rain. Stories placed a hand on the wall of one of these straw huts, fingers running across thin twigs desperately secured together by vines knotted across its width. Survival should have an answer for me, he thought. Leaving the straw huts behind, he continued on foot towards the red glow in the distance.
As he continued on, his feet brushed against a new texture – polished, smooth stone. That couldn’t be right. He took a few steps back. Rough, jagged gravel. Then stepped a few steps forward. Smooth, slippery stone. Now his confusion had deepened further. The natives had the time to painstakingly flatten out and sand down the edges of the floor which they tread upon, but didn’t spare any effort on upgrading their housing? And why start polishing the ground only after leaving the housing area? If the intention was to make the flooring more pleasant to walk on, why not create paths and maintain those instead? Curiouser and curiouser.
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“Oh.” The matter-of-fact statement escaped his open lips as he finally understood the reason for this discrepancy between logic and reality. Standing in front of his eyes was a large, imposing structure of red granite – an altar of sorts – with massive stone steps leading to its apex. At its very top, a giant lounged on a throne of obsidian, serviced by two blue skinned humanoid females – the natives, probably.
Stories kicked off the ground to propel himself to the top of the altar. Lesser Gods were more solid in the human realms, so they could interact with objects around them with ease. And Stories liked this feature very much; after all, personal experience was important to the ability to inject realism into literary works, so when he was in the mortal realm he’d do as the natives did, walking on his own two feet, suppressing his powers to the level of a slightly more durable mortal. But he’d seen enough here for him to release the cap on his godly abilities. It was obvious that this was indulgence; everything around him was the result of a lesser God getting drunk off of the power of domination over beings weaker than themselves.
“Well, ain’t this a surprise? One of you high-and-mighty Gods coming down from your heavenly palace to visit my domain of dirt and stone?” The deep, booming voice came from the man on the throne, addressing Stories as he approached. An arrogant, prideful tone that only one who knew no defeat could muster. Coming to the front of the throne, Stories slowly brought his gaze upwards to meet the eyes of the God of Survival. And kept raising his head. Holy crap, he thought. This dude’s like, three times my size. Survival apparently didn’t believe much in clothing either, because he was fully bare-chested, with only a rough piece of fabric wrapped around his waist.
He gulped. “Hi, uh, God of Survival? I’m the God of Stories,” He left out his secondary title – he felt a bit embarrassed appending his unofficial self-assigned title in front of someone that looked like he could fold him five times over with ease. “So err, what’s up with the big red energy bubble, dude?”
The brute smirked. “You’re asking about my aura, huh? Pretty cool eh, mate? These mortals,” Survival paused to pull one of the alien women to his side, the woman responding with flustered giggles. “with a little help from a display of my absolute power, now all serve me. Their new purpose in life is to do my bidding – which is just as these weaklings deserve. I give them protection, and they return that tenfold in divine power. Who needs approval from that old coot Life; I get my supply from a whole planet of these livestock.”
Geez, Stories thought. Kinda laying it on a little thick there, friend. “Well, ok, I was just wondering if you could spare some time to… help out with a test a colleague of mine is conducting?”
“Help?” The perfect specimen of a man stood up, dismissing the two natives that had been hand feeding him some sort of yellow fruit. They shuffled off to the side, waiting for the next command from their master. Ok, correction, Stories thought. Five times my size.
“If you want my help, you’ll need to best me in a contest of strength. Why should I submit to someone weaker than me? Don’t make sense, eh, mate?”
Ooh. That would be… not ideal. Stories was pretty sure he’d get pummelled into paste if he took up that offer.
“I… don’t think I’d win, so I’ll respectfully pass on that. Would it help if… I said the God of Order and Knowledge is the one asking?” It was a long shot, but he tried the flimsy gambit anyways. No way was that hag’s name going to sway this brute.
“Order?” The boastful tone faltered. The titan of masculinity seemed to shrink several sizes, his previously cocky demeanour nowhere to be seen now. “Why didn’t you lead with that, mate? If it’s a request from her… yeah, sure, I’ll go along with you.”
Huh. That was surprisingly easy, Stories thought. “Well, alright, just follow me back to the divine realm, then. She’s working on a big project for Life so we’ll need to get back as soon as we can." Survival nodded anxiously, waving hurriedly at the two native women to leave his side. Stories took off first, with Survival tagging along behind, heading back to their realm.
Wait a minute, Stories mused. Order met with this orc before, didn’t she? No way was she getting anything useful out of him if he was this full of himself all the time. He’d probably just talk over her the entire interview and ramble on about his muscles or something. But… she had all the basic details on him recorded down in a book. His power set, appearance… stuff like that. The only way someone could get anything from that one-track mind brute… would be if they’d beaten him at his own game. Stories thought about it a little longer, then dismissed the thought with a nervous chuckle.
Nah, there’s no way she could have beaten him up; if Survival was five times the size of Stories, then he’d be something like five and a half Order’s stacked one on top of the other. No way would she have won a fight against that giant.
Right?