“Took you long enough.” Order said coldly as she noted the two lesser Gods coming up from the cavity in the center of the Library. She couldn’t have missed them even if she tried; Survival literally spanned the height of two floors of her Library. Bit hard to ignore a skyscraper rising up from the ground. But the reason for Order’s apathetic response wasn’t due to the twinge of discontentment from having to work with that twat Stories again.
Well, maybe a little.
No, the actual reason for her irritation was that even accounting for the increased distance Stories required to travel compared to his first trip, he’d overshot her estimates by a little over two days. Not that it mattered much, she supposed. It wasn’t as if the test site was going to vanish if they were late by a few days. Still annoying, though.
Stories was messing up her plans. Again.
“Don’t look at me, lady.” Stories raised his hands in mock surrender. “Mr Survival over here insisted on checking out every sizable planet we passed on our way back. Said something about ‘wanting to expand his worshipper base’ - yeah, I don’t get it either.” He prodded the giant in his right thigh, who cleared his throat and swatted at the offending finger. The Stories pre-meeting with Survival might have balked at the sight of future him actively provoking his towering associate, with the understandable reason of not wanting to get crushed into an unrecognizable ovoid of God-flesh. Which would probably then be dribbled about like a basketball by said crusher.
But this was post-meeting Stories. He’d had time during the journey to get to know his junior, and one thing he learned about the experience was that the phrase, “Looks can be deceiving”? Was one that could apply in every situation – including when dealing with people five times your size.
Stories had unwittingly discovered one of Survival’s crippling weaknesses through trial-and-error. (Mostly error.) Outside of anything that required brute strength, the great and mighty God of Survival was woefully underequipped.
There was many a time during the week-long journey where Survival had gotten incensed at something or another that Stories had done and winded up to throw a punch at the puny weakling. But before he could do anything particularly pummel-y, the gears of his brain would start to creak and grind to life, spitting out a line of reasoning to stay his already-raised hand.
Survival was subservient to Order. And Stories - he was Order’s colleague. If Stories got hurt and tattled to Order, she might be angry with Survival and punish him in some way. That meant that no matter how much Survival wanted to beat the twerp up… he was unfortunately off-limits. Stories hadn’t noticed the first few times Survival had raised a hand in anger only to then lower it back to his sides.
But when he did catch on – and he did catch on pretty quickly – he’d tried to test the giant’s limits by deliberately slipping in a taunt here and there about how Survival was only picking on those weaker than him in the kingdom of mortals he’d created, or how the manly God would probably flee if he had to fight a real opponent like one of the Original Existences.
Each time Survival would clench a fist tight, raise it, then slowly unclench the fist and lower it back down. You could probably attribute about half a day or so of the delay to Stories and his antics; and yeah, the first few times of poking at the big guy was to confirm his initial suspicions.
The next thirty pokes was because he was starting to have a bit of fun watching the titan’s reaction of barely repressed rage.
If you asked Stories to quantify traits as numbers on a character stats page, Survival would have a perfect 10 in STR; and 2s across the board for everything else.
A classic dumb warrior, if you would.
Order arched an eyebrow at a word Stories had mentioned. “Worshippers?”
“It’s quite brilliant, really. He has a planet in Genesis 15; you should see the thing yourself. Whole place enclosed in a full bubble of his aura. Mental. Especially since, y’know, he isn’t getting subsidized by handouts from good ol’ Lifey. But... it’s probably because the entire planet treats him as their God king. I mean, they live in shabby little huts while he gets a whole freaking altar dedicated to his ass.”
“Huh.” Order cupped her chin with her hand. Interesting; someone had actually put her theory into action – and it seemed to be working swimmingly if he could create and sustain such a dense expression of godly aura that it filled the skies of a whole planet. Based on her projections she’d expected that the results would have been a lot more disappointing, something more akin to fueling a lightbulb with a potato battery.
Now that she knew that it was viable, all she’d have to do would be to refine the method for use with her particular… circumstances. And if a lout like Survival could achieve something like this just through using brute force to instill fear in his subjects, she’d be able to elevate that to greater heights by employing other tactics. Brainwashing or conditioning, perhaps. He would have likely not even exploited the resources at his disposal to their fullest. If she were to do it, she might even be able to squeeze out another thirty or so percent of god juice out of the mortals. She made a mental note to follow up with Survival after the end of the experiment for more details.
“If I may… interject? Thank you. My greetings to you again, Madam Order.” The uncharacteristically humble words came from the large titan’s mouth. Order acknowledged his deference with a sharp nod.
“Likewise, God of Survival. I see you’ve changed since our last encounter. Good to see that you’ve learnt a modicum of respect.” Alright, Stories thought. I can’t take it anymore – I have to know. He pulled Order aside out of earshot of Survival and huddled down in the corner. Order was slightly peeved at the act, but allowed him to pull her in nonetheless.
“How, pray tell, did you get that brute to listen to you - let alone call you madam?! When I first met the bloke, he was all loud and arrogant; I mean, he even challenged me to a damn duel, for god’s sake! What’d you do, threaten to gut him in his sleep or something?”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Ah, she thought. The cretin wants to know how I tamed the great beast, hmm?
Order was still slightly annoyed with Stories, of course – he was the reason why all her plans had been thrown into disarray.
But she could never resist an opportunity to flaunt her superiority to other Gods.
“Simple. I took him up on his offer - and won. Just that simple.”
“You… WON?!” Stories exclaimed, still maintaining a hushed whisper. “What, like at chess or something?”
“No.”
Ooh, just watching the shocked expression on the imbecile’s face gave her tingles of joy. Yes, this was how it was supposed to be: the inferior God recognising her obvious superiority.
“I trounced him completely. Yes - in exactly the way you’re imagining. I laid him flat. I rearranged his face. I subjugated him in every way imaginable, and won with nary a scratch.”
“How?” His mouth was hanging all the way open now, the idiot. Fine, she crowed to herself in her mind. Listen to how I managed the feat, and tremble in awe at my greatness.
“The manoeuver is a straightforward and easily understandable one - yet I believe that of the full pantheon of Original Existences, there would be scarce few that could replicate my solution. War could, probably.” She looked over to gauge Stories’ reaction.
Good, the fool was listening.
“You understand the mechanics of my ability, yes? Full control over information, with merely a touch?” Stories nodded.
“Then it should be a fairly quick explanation. You see, with any book I touch, any work I interact with, I am able to retrieve a full understanding of the history behind their creation by simply willing it to be. I am able to pick the brain of its creator without having to speak with them directly and persuade them to provide me with their reasoning. This, of course, goes the same for books on martial arts - especially styles which involve incapacitating a foe larger and stronger than you are. And yes, full understanding means precisely that – I become a complete master of that skill in an instant. With that in mind, it would be a trivial matter to dispatch someone that relies solely on his stature and innate physical prowess.”
Order was practically beaming now; she loved to demonstrate her intellectual supremacy to her fellow Gods, and rattling off exactly how she’d bested a professional at their own game gave her a healthy serving of self-confidence.
“I am the master of around two hundred and fifty seven styles of martial arts, gathered over the years from long past civilisations; I daresay I could hold my own against any one of the other Gods specialising in brutality.”
Over the course of her explanation, Order’s chest had been gradually puffing outwards, her chin slowly tilting upwards in arrogance. Stories was frankly starting to get a little annoyed himself at how much the female God was praising herself.
Wow, great, so you relied on a crutch you were born with to beat him. Nothing to do with outwitting him or tricking him or whatever. Big whoop. Better bring her down a few notches from her high horse, Stories thought. Don't want her hopped up on ego juice right before we're starting an experiment involving the lives of countless mortals.
“Yeah, that’s cool. Very inspiring. Don’t want to burst your bubble or anything, since I can tell you’re having a lot of fun reminiscing about how you beat up the mental equivalent of a small child, but don’t we have an experiment to run? It’s why Survival's even here, after all. The sooner we finish this, the quicker he gets to go back to his walled kingdom of mortals.”
Order snapped out of her indulgent haze of self-absorption.
Right. The experiment.
She coughed once in embarrassment. “Well, that’s the entire story.” Order turned to address Survival.
“We’ll be leaving momentarily for Blessed 26 – the home of the long-eared humanoids.”
Stories did a double take at her words. That wasn’t the plan. He grabbed her arm and leaned in to whisper in her ear.
“Wait – 26? What happened to the other two selections? The thousand-five hundred something and the two-thousand something? I distinctly remember you picking planets closer to the Dimensional Wall to minimize the experiment’s effects on the more intelligent and advanced mortal civilisations. What happened to the stuff you said to Life and all that?”
Order shrugged off the grip, looking at the temporarily solid palm with distaste. That was twice now he’d burnt divine energy just to get her attention. The fool didn’t know how to conserve energy.
“That was the old plan – the plan which I assumed would encompass a great many testing sites. Not just one per God. This new plan sacrifices that smaller footprint for better, more relevant data.”
“Shouldn’t you run it by Life first? I’m assuming he’d have something to say about your decision. I'll pop over and get his input.” Stories turned to float up towards the surface.
“Wait.” Order called out to halt him in his tracks. She scoffed.
“What do you take me for, an imbecile like you? Of course I’ve asked; he’s given his reluctant approval - just so long as we don’t take it too far.” She hadn’t, of course, actually asked. What was the point of revenge if you announce it to your target beforehand? The lie was merely there to allow her to carry the plan out fully without interruption from resident busybody Stories.
“Well… if he’s already agreed…” Stories shifted uncomfortably in the air, still a little uneasy at the idea. He had half a mind to go anyways – to corroborate her account with Life himself. After all, he’d already been tricked by her once before. Best not to rely on her words again.
Then again, he thought, stopping himself. The old man’s already appointed me as his proxy. As long as I keep her on a relatively short leash and yank it at the first sign of trouble… it’ll probably be OK, right?
How much trouble could one simple test even cause, anyways?