“The God of Survival’s talent, according to my understanding, seems to be focused on the rule of survival of the fittest. In light scatterings, it makes people want to submit to those that are stronger than them. As I’ve mentioned before: an instant hierarchical society. In large doses, on the other hand, it would boost the individual to their peak performance. The strongest and fastest that they’ll ever be. This was where I was correct.” Order placed two fingers to her temples, massaging them in slow, circular motions as she sighed.
“Subjects displayed hypertrophy of muscle groups in upper and lower body in addition to an increased sense of smell, but in exchange for a diminishing of the ability to see. Perhaps they’d be able to see vague outlines of objects in the distance, but they’d be hard-pressed to provide detailed descriptions to anyone that asks. I’d say that’s an objective improvement; sight isn’t required to procreate, and mortals so very often prioritise looks over genetics. Unfortunately, in my haste to confirm my theory, I inadvertently… underestimated the side effects of the transmission.”
“Although that wouldn’t have been a problem if either of you were here to keep an eye on all our subjects… I will take full responsibility as the lead researcher.” She paused to glare at the two, before continuing.
“The side effects appear to be a regressing of the higher brain functions to prioritise the latter half of the God of Survival’s ability: the portion about the “fittest”. This led to subject Leffy, in a bid to prove his superiority to his companion, ending the life of subject Barkly. And in closing, allowing subject Treen to return to her home, thereby spreading the infection to the rest of the elven tribe… was a huge error that should have been avoided at all costs.”
Again, this could have been prevented if she’d just… tied up the three of them. Or used more restrictive barriers that didn’t amount to a simple plastic tarp. And to her credit, she didn’t know that more controls would have been required; after all, her previous experiment ended with the subjects liquefying, not morphing into harbingers of death and destruction.
Oh well. She’d do better next time. Cages, probably.
“Any questions?”
“Uh, yeah, I’ve got one: WHY KILL ALL OF THEM?! WE COULD HAVE SAVED A FEW! OR AT LEAST KEPT ONE OR TWO OF THEM ALIVE!”
“There was no time; no possible way that the three of us could round up and protect even a few of them. Let’s say we saved… seven of them. Or eight; the number doesn’t matter. What does matter, is that while we were dallying about creating some protective field for them to cower within, our attentions would be split. One mutant. If just a single one ran off, touching deer, fish, birds… the entire planet, within a couple of days, would become unliveable to anything but mutants.” Order spoke gravely.
Then she stopped, thinking carefully about her next words. An appeal to logic, to deflect further questioning by pointing out the failings of the more humane options?
No. This was Stories. The God was a bleeding-heart deity, through and through. He prioritised emotions over logic and reason. Sure, she’d get him with a lie here and a half-truth there. But there’d always be an underlying sense of distrust between the two. And that could affect the experiments. Heck, it already did; if he put the experiment first over his pointless desire to go sight-seeing, that elf Treen wouldn’t have run off. And subsequently, the test wouldn’t have ended in catastrophe. She needed to re-establish a baseline level of trust, for the both of them to know that what they were doing was the right course of action.
Order sucked in a deep breath. The truth, then.
“I admit that I… selected this planet in particular to get back at the God of Life and Creation for giving you the ability to veto my actions (not that you actually managed to do anything about it this time.) But there was always a plan put in place to ensure that the native population of elves would recover over time, I didn’t intend to wipe them all out. These are my honest, unfiltered thoughts.”
Stories eyed her over, trying to uncover the deception in her words. This wily hag was always scheming, finding new avenues to hurt or to destroy to get what she wanted. But the silent seven minutes of scrutinizing turned up nothing; by all accounts, she seemed to be genuinely telling the truth, in her own twisted way. After all, she wouldn’t have readily offered up the fact that she was choosing her subjects in bad faith if she didn’t intend to speak sincerely.
“Let’s say I believe you. Why turn over a new leaf now? Why tell the truth?”
“What happened here today cannot happen a third time. The two of us need to be on the same page - to work together to ensure that nothing as terrible as what happened today happens again. If not for me, then for the mortals that we’ll be interacting with. For that to happen, you need to be present at all times, to provide overwatch. Not gallivanting about our chosen testing grounds doing heaven knows what. In exchange, I’ll tell you the reason for everything I’m doing, the basis behind my opinions and thought processes. It’ll be up to you to decide if I’m doing the right thing, or if I should reconsider my choice.”
Stories frowned as he mulled over her speech. This was her telling the truth? She sucked. Where was the pity parade, the endless tearjerkers intended to sway his heart? Or the carrots dangling from sticks that’d entice him to comply? Even speaking truthfully she just couldn’t help but inject it with her brand of reasoning and rationalisations as to why her way was the correct way.
“Deal.”
She was, of course, right.
Stories wouldn’t be doing it for her, but for the mortals that would definitely be hurt by her trials. The experiments were Life-sanctioned, after all, so they’d be proceeding even with the recent failures. And one extra set of eyes couldn’t hurt. Stories didn’t think he’d be able to stop her from carrying out her plans; she could out-talk and out-logic him or spin some reasonable lie that’d persuade him into giving in to her. But he could be there to keep it from going too far.
“Yeah, sorry ‘bout interrupting your lovers’ quarrel, guys, but I’ve got one question of my own that needs answering, too.”
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Order turned to the titan. “Yes, God of Survival?”
“Can I go now?”
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“I’M NOT LOST! I’VE LIVED HERE FOR A HUNDRED DARNED YEARS! YOU’D THINK I’D KNOW WHERE MY OWN HOUSE IS!” Acorn yelled into the empty clearing where he was sure the elven tribe’s redwood treehouses had been. And it wasn’t as if he was going senile at 146, his golden years were still ahead of him!
“I’m not saying you’re lost, dear. Just that we might have… gotten turned around. It’s been five years, after all. Look, you said you wanted to get away for good, didn’t you? Settle down away from all the stresses of civilisation and just… build a family out in the wild?” His wife, Evelyn, cajoled him as she cradled their baby in her arms, cooing softly as she rocked the infant back and forth. She wasn’t too concerned with the sudden mysterious vanishing of the elven ancestral homes. If she had been, she would have mentioned something before they’d left on a trip to explore the planet. The spontaneity of her husband was what attracted her to him in the first place. And coincidentally, that spontaneity was also what spared them from a early death at the hands of the Gods that had visited just two years earlier.
“Yes, but I still want my stuff. I had signed treeballs from champions in my room. Those are collector’s items! Oh- and my first spear! Manuals on hunting and archery! Things I was planning to leave to little Cairn over here AND PEOPLE DON’T JUST UP AND LEAVE IN 5 YEARS! LUDICROUS!”
“Oh Acorn…”
“BOB’S PROBABLY BEHIND THIS! DAMNED SAP-HUFFER STILL OWES ME EIGHTY LEAVES FOR THE BATHROOM I HELPED HIM INSTALL! WHEN I FIND HIM, I’LL SNAP HIM LIKE A TWIG!”
The two elves didn’t know it yet, but they were the last remaining members of the elven tribe left on the planet and locating any of their acquaintances would be an outright impossibility. Additionally, if the two of them decided to stop with a single child, the elven race would end with their bloodline; extinct due to the whims of a single couple.
It could be said to be a stroke of luck, then, that Evelyn was planning on raising a whole litter of children to fawn over. She’d go on to mother twenty seven children, and those children would have children of their own, eventually reviving elven civilisation as a whole. A very inbred elvish society, to be sure - but one that was still alive.
And alive beat dead, every time.
======================================================
“Alright, so you stand over here… and you… you stand over here.” Survival guided the two mortals he’d selected to their starting positions with light shoves from a large index finger. They’d been provided with weapons in racks to the side, of course, but Survival was pretty sure they’d go unused.
“Ok, that’s good, mate. Just wait about… another three-ish minutes, and we can begin.” Survival, satisfied with the oblivious mortals staying in place, excitedly hopped up the steps of his throne, his feet impacting the rock with heavy thumps. As soon as he got to the obsidian chair, he slid into a comfortable lounging position and looked down at the arena he’d instructed his blue-skinned subjects to construct.
Simple, to be sure.
Just a standard colosseum, complete with spectator stands that were now filled with similarly clueless natives that were murmuring amongst themselves about what their king was obsessed with this time. A few of them groaned as they recognised what this was. Survival had actually tried this before, but to little effect. Gladiators fighting to the death sounded thrilling on paper, but the natives of Genesis 15 were built small, weak. After the first battle between two scrawny males ended rather anticlimactically with one sticking the other with a thrown spear after a bout of tag, Survival had cancelled the whole thing, citing “boredom”.
But this time, Survival rubbed his hands with glee. About a minute to go now. The trip to go help Order hadn’t been a wasted one after all. Yes, she’d bossed him about a little, and he didn’t even get to bring back an elf or two as a souvenir. But she’d certainly gifted him with a new form of entertainment. One that didn’t involve just getting his servants to wait on him hand and foot. Or commanding them to create statues of him to show their devotion. And definitely nothing like the amateur hour that was the gladiator show he’d put on before.
The two nameless natives stood there, each sizing the other up, waiting for the signal to begin from their master. They didn’t know each other, the planet was a huge one, after all. And they’d happily do as their leader asked. But there was definitely an underlying feeling that this whole spectacle was meaningless. How were they supposed to fight to the standards that their God expected?
Then it began.
The corners of Survival’s lips began to curl upwards as he gripped the sides of his throne, leaning forward to capture every moment of the transformation with his retinas. Every growing bulge of muscle, every snarl and snort, the shifting of posture as each of the two gladiators crouched down, assuming an animalistic stance on all fours. The spectators were quiet now, sensing that this fight was going to be different from the others. The mutants launched themselves at each other, tearing and ripping skin as they began a macabre dance of death, exchanging wild blows and claws like the steps of a passionate samba.
There were gasps now, the fight eliciting shocked reactions from those that had never seen such unbridled fervour from members of their own race. But Survival could also make out the faces of some younger males, and he grinned at the sight. It was hard to mistake the face of exhilaration and awe.
Yes, yes! This was what Survival wanted to show his people the first time he’d thought of putting on a gladiator fight. The struggle to live, to feel the lifeblood of your enemy splash onto your body! Naturally, he’d deal with the aftermath by exterminating the winner of this fight, there’d be no problem with the disease spreading there. But he’d have successfully planted the seeds of his ideals in a couple young, impressionable minds, who would strive to improve themselves through training and competition. And that was good enough for the God of Survival.
This was what true survival was all about.