“Looks like it’s going to be a couple of weeks before you’ll be back. The God of Adaptability is in Genesis 37.” Order fiddled with the aura scanner as she spoke. “As usual, I’ll prepare the materials for the pre-experiment briefing. Yes, you’ll be privy to the details this time. No, I won’t protest if you want to end the test prematurely. I believe that there won’t be a need to go through the whole process of getting more than one experiment subject. We just need to find out how his ability works on one lifeform, and we can go from there if the effects are aligned with our goals.”
“This is the last of the three lesser Gods that you’ve selected, right? What are you going to do if this one’s a dud too?”
“He won’t be.” Order handed the device back to Stories, materialising and unfurling her wings in preparation for the long flight back to the divine realm. “Adaptability – change - is key to a long lifespan. If you were able to evolve in a way that bypassed a natural demise, that’d satisfy the parameters of the problem. I have in my Library several records of mortal lifeforms that can exist for over four centuries due to the unique composition of their bodies, which allow them to withstand extreme pressure conditions that’d kill most any other mortal beings.”
“Wait a minute - that sounds perfect! Grab a couple of them, we’ll get more info about how they work, extract what we need, presto-changeo, we’ve solved the whole problem! Whew, and here I was, thinking that it’ll be another torturous session of solitary flight.”
“Unfortunately for our purposes, their biology also excludes them from viability. I hardly think that the God of Life and Creation wants all mortals reduced to deep-sea fish with no other purpose in life other than to float about and suck down plankton. Intelligence is a non-negotiable aspect of determining the success of our experiment.”
“Gah…” Stories groaned. “Looks like I’m going to be talking to myself again for another two weeks again.”
“Four weeks.” Order willed her wings to move, stirring up tiny clouds of dirt as they pushed downwards forcefully to lift her body off the ground. But before she made her exit, something else crossed her mind. She hovered there a moment thinking, suspended in the air by the periodic flapping of her wings.
Right, Stories might need a little heads-up with the next of their collaborators.
“Oh, before I go, I should probably warn you about the God of Adaptability. He’s a little… eccentric.”
“What, more than Survival was?” Stories scoffed.
“Well, I knew how the God of Survival would act. He has a one-track mind, after all. Might makes right. And I beat him at his game, so there was no way he’d ignore a summons from me. The God of Adaptability, on the other hand…”
“Don’t scare me, bro. How can anyone be worse than Survival?!”
“Just… watch yourself. Wouldn’t want to conduct this experiment down a man before we even begin.”
With a wry smile, Order flew off, leaving the lesser God alone with his increasingly uneasy thoughts.
======================================================
“Hey, uh, God of Adaptability…? I know you’re here… somewhere… If you need to know who I am, I’m the God of Stories! Could ya come out? This place is seriously creepy as heeeck, dude, so the less time I gotta spend here, the better.” Stories called out as he nervously touched down onto barren, red soil. There was nothing for miles out. Only sand and rock as far as the eyes could see. The eerie, deafening silence itself seemed to be an indication that this entire planet was just a lifeless rock.
Stories gulped. He wasn’t too good with horror stories; he was a drama and romance dude all the way. And this place just felt like a set-up for a clueless, helpless God like himself to be devoured by some eldritch horror driven insane by isolation, that’d wrap its tentacles about his body and pull him down into some dark abyss where it’d spend the next twenty years plucking off strips of godflesh from his body and snacking on him like he was some party platter. No, thank you.
Stories re-checked the black device that had led him here. No mistake. The aura scanner had pointed to this wasteland devoid of life. This was definitely the location that housed the divine form of the God of Adaptability. The problem with that, was then the fact that Stories hadn’t noticed the tell-tale signs of godly aura spilling out anywhere.
Even a lesser God with the least amount of divine energy was still visible from a distance as an indistinct mote of light in the eyes of their peers, since it was the construction of their bodies itself which allowed for lesser Gods to identify one another from range. Even the smallest candle flame still gave off light and heat – it was an immutable law of reality.
But here, there was nothing. Not even a glimpse of the expected divine glow.
Maybe Adaptability’s like, a ghost God. Do ghost Gods exist? Stories anxiously stepped forward, sweaty palms gripping the scanner as he followed the green arrow. The existence of the God himself wasn’t in question, at the very least; Order had met him, after all.
But what was it she said he was? Eccentric? Eccentric how? Eccentric like, he liked the taste of apples and only ate apples eccentric? Or eccentric like he went around slaughtering mortals and bathing in their blood eccentric? There was a rather large gulf between the two ends of the spectrum; Order probably should have clarified which it was.
“Or maybe the scanner’s broken. Order’s had it for a while, I doubt she’d have taken the time to go have it checked by Technology… silly, dumb Order… Right! It’s decided, then. I’ll look around for another ten minutes, and if there’s nothing of note here, I’ll go back to the divine realm where it’s nice and safe and free from scary tentacle creatures... and have the scanner repaired. No biggie.” Stories nervously muttered out loud.
To no one in particular.
It wasn’t as if two weeks of sensory deprivation followed by being forced to walk about in an obvious backdrop for a horror novel was getting on his nerves. No sirree. It wasn’t like being cut off from contact with other lifeforms that could talk and laugh and do things was dredging up some deep, unresolved fears of being buried alive, of being covered in dirt and soil and being unable to enjoy the joys that living brought-
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“Stop.” A sharp something prodded against his back. Stories breathed a sigh of relief.
Finally!
He complied with the command, slowly raising his arms in surrender. It had taken a while, but the God of Adaptability had finally poked his head out of his hidey-hole. Another five minutes of dead silence and Stories might have broken down and started curling up in a fetal position right then and there.
“Oh, good. I presume you’re the-“
“You speak when you are SPOKEN to. Why are you here?” A hoarse, deep voice rumbled as the pointed edge of what Stories assumed to be a blade of some sort pressed deeper into his back. But by now, Stories was more annoyed than scared. Was this guy being for real right now?
“Dude, we’re Gods; I’m not going to be afraid of a titchy knife like that. Don’t think that’ll even scratch my skin.” Stories spun about and slapped the short dagger out of Adaptability’s hands, who had jumped back a little in shock at the sudden shift in his prey’s demeanour. “And were you trying to lower your voice? That was atrocious. You should work on that.”
Finally coming face to face with the lesser God, Stories understood what Order meant by eccentric.
Adaptability was, for lack of a better word, the dictionary definition of a wimp. He was at least a head shorter than Stories was, and his stature was like that of a young teenager’s (small), which certainly wasn’t helped by his hunched, tense posture. His attire, if you could call it that, was a black cloak draped over his body loosely, which was in turn swaddled with what looked to be grey bandages. The bottom half of his face was partially obscured by a mask, but Stories didn’t need to see all of the God’s facial features to draw conclusions about him; just the two blue eyes that shifted nervously, seemingly trying to avoid eye contact with his peer.
“You’re just a paranoid little twerp, arent’cha? Everything about you screams, “Agh! Get away from me! Don’t hurt me!” What, you think someone’s after your life or something?”
“…you wouldn’t understand.” Adaptability’s voice had dropped to a squeaky, barely audible whisper now. He’d dropped to his knees to pick up the small dagger, which was less an action to retrieve the weapon and more an excuse to hide his face from view. Bad with social interactions too, huh?
Well, Stories would soon fix that.
“Nah, I think I get’cha pretty well; you just need to get out more, that’s all! Which is why I’m here, incidentally.”
“…huh?” Adaptability looked up at Stories in mild confusion. Get out more… where?
“Life said as long as I’m supplying mortals with divine aura I can hide wherever I want.”
“What mortals? There’s nothing here!”
“No, look.” Adaptability scrabbled through the dirt, creating a small hole in the ground as he searched for something. “Ah, here.” He reached into the hole and closed his fist over the object and pulled it out. Stories leaned in curiously as the other God opened his fist. Flailing about within was a pulsating mass of worms, wriggling about as they tried to return to the warm embrace of the earth below.
“Invertebrates and insects count as mortals, too.” Adaptability crouched back down and returned the disoriented worms back to their home, and filled the crater back up with soil.
“Oh… kay… anyways, back to what I was saying; It’s your lucky day! You’ve been selected by Order to help out with a little experiment of ours! Hooray!” Stories started clapping mockingly as Adaptability digested this new tidbit of information.
“Oh, you’re from madam Order’s place. Okay, I’ll come along.” Adaptability’s tone of voice had changed dramatically, from an unsure, timid chatter, to a calmer, more steady timbre.
“Huh.”
“You don’t seem too happy about that.”
“No, no, I’m just… curious… about why you agreed so readily.” Stories cupped his chin with a palm as he stared at Adaptability, who promptly turned away, pulling up his cloak to cover his face. Survival, he understood, but it was hard seeing this cowardly deity connecting with that shrew.
“Because of these,” Still hiding his face, Adaptability pulled out a strip of the grey bandage wrapped around his form and offered it to Stories, who picked up the material and rubbed it with two fingers. It seemed to be just coarse fabric, but there was something about the texture that prickled under his skin. Like small, tiny thorns that jutted out from its surface.
“She helped come up with these after she interviewed me; it can interfere with the expression of a God’s divine aura. Makes it harder for people I don’t want finding me to, well, find me.” Adaptability jerked the strip out of Stories’ hand and tucked it back into the bindings.
“Well, alright then. That's that mystery solved. Let’s go, then.” Stories shrugged, then proceeded to kick off the ground, propelling himself into the air.
But after about a minute or so of flying, Stories looked back to find that Adaptability hadn’t followed him. He groaned, then turned back around to go pick up his charge.
“You know, when someone says, “Let’s go!” that’s the cue for you to, y’know, follow them.” Stories landed back in front of the other lesser God, who was seated leaning against a rock.
“I know my way back. You go first, I’ll return later. You might have been followed; I don’t want them to find out I’m here.”
“WHO’S THEM?! THERE’S NO ONE AROUND FOR MILES!”
“Just… go first. I’ll be behind you. I promise.”
“But… but…” Stories spluttered as he gestured with shaky hands.
“Really; message received. I know Order wants me back in the divine realm, I’ll show up at her Library as soon as I make sure they aren’t around.” Adaptability waved dismissively at him, then returned to looking about for his supposed pursuers. (That most definitely did not exist.)
“GAH!” Stories screamed in exasperation as he leapt up once more, returning to normal flight. Summing up his escort missions thus far, he’d been threatened with severe injury by a giant and now he’d be returning home without the person he’d been sent to get. (Renewal didn’t count, she was very sweet.)
Could Order pick worse candidates to help with her experiment?