Money. Gold. Gem and jewel. It didn’t take much time for Order to reach Greed’s domain. You could hardly miss it, in fact; the glittering mountains of riches occupied a large portion of the Western Living Areas, after all, and the sheen of metal and crystal stole the attention of any visitors to this part of the divine realms.

All of it maintained meticulously by Order, of course. Recorded and more importantly, sorted by type and value.

A couple hundred years back, Greed had simply tossed each of his new acquisitions haphazardly onto a nearby pile. An accumulation of wealth over multiple centuries of harvesting minerals from passing asteroids, and making deals with the occasional mortal or two.

The resulting image was, well, in Order’s opinion, a vulgar assault to the senses. Her senses, to be precise. Her Library of Records was located to the far left of the Western Living Area, meaning that she had to walk by, day and night, past a complete and utter denial of her life’s purpose in the form of a hideous blob of rainbow coloured shapes and objects.

It took her three years of pleading and begging for Greed to finally allow her (reluctantly) to even touch his treasures so that she could create an itemized list by type and value, and finally put an end to the visual torture inflicted upon her day on day.

All under his watchful eye, of course. Could never be too careful around others, she was told. After all, thieves could come from anywhere. Especially friends and family, he griped. You have to tell them where the traps are, after all.

“…Ten million and twenty three. That’s all of the gold bars in this section. We’ll be finished after the ruby piles.” Order placed the bar back onto the stack, making her way towards the mounds of red jewels, Greed following close behind.

The God of Greed and Gluttony was a particularly… stout individual. He wasn’t one you’d call fat, but he certainly wasn’t skinny, either. Rotund, perhaps. Think a slightly deflated balloon hobbling around.

His stature was the result of his daily routine of voraciously shoving delicacies from the mortal realms down his gullet, the smell, taste and appearance of which were faithfully stolen and recreated with his divine power, then subsequently wolfed down in seconds.

Normally, Gods weren’t able to breach the Dimensional Wall erected by the God of Life and Creation at the inception of the fabric of reality. There were two known ways to bypass this restriction, however. You’d either have to have a significantly lower level of divine energy than that of other Original Existences, which would enable you to slip through the Wall entirely. Levels like that of lesser Gods, that is. (The caveat being that these lesser Gods would literally be unable to manifest in front of other Gods in the heavenly realms, effectively being ghosts in their own home)

Or… you could simply have as much divine energy as the God of Life and Creation himself. As much godly power as the literal creator of the heavenly realms.

Naturally, the God of Greed met the latter requirement. Wasn’t hard, either, when you were as miserly as he was. Gods were nourished by engaging in activities aligned with their vocation, but most Gods spent just as much godly power in carrying out these activities as they received.

Greed? All he required was a god’s innate strength and constitution to break up large space rocks for the goodies within, to laze around his domain, admiring his stash of immense wealth, and he was content.

This stockpile of power, fuelled by centuries of energy conservation, enabled Greed to do a multitude of things other Gods would never even dream of, like setting up a giant energy forcefield encompassing his entire domain which would stun and incapacitate intruders (any treasure you couldn’t defend wasn’t yours, after all), or forcefully holding open a tiny hole through the Wall to have a gander at the happenings of the mortal realms, so as to recreate the finest banquets one could dream of.

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All for himself.

Order could be said to be Greed’s direct opposite, at least in terms of energy consumption. She burned through her divine power reserves on a daily basis; to the extent that she had to top it up every day with a visit to the God of Life and Creation.

Her ability, explained simply, was manipulation of data; being able to know everything about any object with perfect understanding by merely touching it, or extruding the ability to overwrite the surroundings in some form. In fact, it was thanks to this ability that she was even able to converse with lesser Gods, a feat that most other Gods would not be able to imitate.

A drawback to its versatility was that the energy burn rate was proportionally related to the amount of history behind the item in question, as well as the object’s own interference values. Perfect understanding meant just that: to know everything, the feelings and regrets of the person who had created it, the impact it made when it interacted with other individuals and all events it was a part of.

This meant that if she were to attempt to learn everything about, say, the God of War and Hate, she’d be down with a raging fever by the time year 6 of his history rolled around, divine energies fully exhausted, given that her ability would have to contest both the interference from his innate divine constitution as well as the amount of mortal suffering he was present for.

Which was a lot of suffering.

It did however, make counting large piles of wealth a breeze, especially given that inanimate piles of gems and gold usually didn’t have much history behind them, nor divine aura to interfere with her ability. Greed’s daily wealth count was one of the easier parts of her day, actually. She took it as a warm-up for other more mentally exhausting tasks she was dreading, like talking to Chaos. The mindless repetition of moving shiny things around, forming a satisfying, uniform pile was quite calming to her and something she rather enjoyed. Loved, even.

“Are you done? Can you leave now? I have things to do.” An impatient voice rang out behind her, abruptly cutting off her train of thought.

Order sighed and turned around. “Yes, I’ve completed my task. Many thanks once again for allowing me to do this, God of Greed and Gluttony.” He grunted in acknowledgement, before practically shoving her out the front gate, waving his hand in a hurried flourish over the entrance, re-engaging the energy film and sealing the bubble of divine energy once again.

Order watched as the grumbling hulk disappeared behind a pile of gold coins, shaking her head in disapproval. They were fellow Gods, after all, and she expected a level of respect or decorum befitting that status.

Then again, she thought, it was Greed, after all. The man treated nothing but his treasures with care. He’d probably fight the God of Life and Creation himself if it threatened his precious collection.

She retrieved the brown leather notebook from her waist and crossed off the first line. That’s one task down, at least. And ahead of schedule, too.

Order returned the book to the loop on her belt and started to trudge down the path to her next appointment – her long-time friend and confidant, the God of Truth and Honesty.