The God of Stories and Creativity was a fairly young lesser God. Around three decades old, in fact. He hadn’t stuck around long after Life had finished injecting him with will and personality, ignoring the frantic calls behind him to wait as he swam away to explore the rest of the divine realms.
Unlike his compatriots, outside of his name, Stories, (which Life had shouted at him a couple of times) he had not been told what he was created for. But, inquisitive as he was, he decided that he would infer his purpose from his experiences. How exciting.
He learnt quickly enough that he was unable to touch or interact with anything in his surroundings. Neither could any godly individual that passed by see him. He even was able to phase past thick walls and walk through locked doors. A very strange trait for a God to have, he pondered.
Ahhh, he deduced confidently, I’m a voyeur! I’m probably here to help that elderly gentleman keep an eye on his friends!
Grinning smugly as he patted himself on the back on a mystery well-solved, he then proceeded to spend an entire two years stalking the denizens of the divine realms. This mistaken conclusion would only be corrected in year three of his life, by a chance meeting with the God of Truth and Honesty.
Stories had just finished his week-long surveillance of the God of Greed (who mostly just stroked his gold and ate a lot, really) and decided that his next target would be the blindingly white structure that he had passed by earlier. He poked his head into the side of the wall to have a gander at what was inside… when the resident within suddenly spoke up.
“Ooooh!” She had exclaimed. “New God! You guys, like, don’t usually stick around for this long… What’s wrong with’cha, little buddy?”
At the time, Stories had frozen in place, mouth gaping open and closed as he struggled to find the words to express his surprise. He hadn’t expected to be noticed after this long, so his communication skills were a little lacking. After nervously glancing to his left and right to ensure that the lady dressed in a loud red-gold ensemble wasn’t just staring at the wall for another unrelated reason (she wasn’t), one word was all he could muster. “…how?”
“Oh! You mean, how come I can, like, see you? That’s easy! I’m the God of Truth, so of course I can see you!” After another three hours of conversation, Truth finally realized the simple mistake that Stories had made. With a wide smile, she had then proceeded to drag Stories to the residence of the God of Life and Creation to get this little error sorted out.
In contrast, Stories spent the entire trip wriggling in the firm grip Truth had clamped on his right arm and screaming in confusion (“HOW ARE YOU TOUCHING MEEEEE AAAAA”).
Finally, after a brief but detailed explanation by Life, he was informed of his life’s purpose! His raison d’etre! Stories had proceeded to embark on his journey with gusto, excitement in his heart and joy on his face. He’d be able to experience new things whilst spreading his stories amongst the stars, bringing happiness and fulfilment to all sorts of strange creatures, who would listen to his anecdotes with rapt attention!
It would be hardly three months before Stories was back in the divine realms, his spirit broken and hopes dashed. He had tried to endure the task of being stationed in a single section of the mortal realm. Really, he did. But as it turns out, around 99 percent of the mortal realm was inhabited with unintelligent or underdeveloped lifeforms. That would not be able to understand the concept of a story. Stories had given it his best for those three months, jetting from world to world, looking for someone to regale with his tales. He even ranted at a particularly humanoid tree once, but it just didn’t scratch the same itch.
AND IT WAS BORING! Most planets were painted in a shade of black, brown or green. Hardly any variety. Not exactly inspiring for a self-proclaimed “accomplished storyteller” to write about. Defeated, Stories returned to his home in the divine realms to consider his options. The task he was provided with was rather simple, but mind-numbingly boring in its execution. What, then, could he do about the situation?
After two weeks of his usual surveillance (the habit had grown to be a source of comfort to him) interrupted occasionally by gossip sessions with Truth (“oooh, so you’re saying Time’s doing muscle training? How cute!”), he had come to an answer. A blindingly obvious one, in hindsight.
If the mortals couldn’t understand stories, all he needed to do… was to teach them!
Thus began another five years of futility, as the lesser God went from world to world, patiently giving lectures on story structure and the history of language to insects and animals that either stared blankly at him, or scampered off the moment he spoke. Back to the drawing board.
Well, he pondered, what about my divine ability? At the moment, all he could do was materialize solid scrolls of divine energy that he could scribble his new ideas on. Which wasn’t downplaying the usefulness of the ability, since these scrolls were solid enough to write on, and could be stored away easily simply by tossing them to the side, given that the parchment would lose tangibility the moment Stories stopped channelling his ability through it. Recalling these texts would then be as simple as reaching out into the subspace and grabbing hold of the relevant document.
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If he could make parchment from divine energy, perhaps extruding the power in a different state might lead to a different result? He began his experiment with the large armadillo-like lifeforms on a distant planet. Activating his ability while touching one of their carapaces and taking care to prevent the usual parchment from taking shape, he watched with bated breath. What would happen if he injected a mortal creature with divine energy that was processed through his divine ability?
And at first, nothing. After about five minutes or so of infusion, Stories had stepped back and observed the creature, who seemed slightly dazed for a moment, before curling up into a ball and rolling away. Stories had sighed, ready to call the experiment another waste of time.
On a whim, however, he decided that he would at least give it a day. Just to see what the scaly lifeform would do. And if nothing happened, no harm done. He’d just return back home and think of another way to attack the problem.
It was a stroke of luck that he did, as the next day, in a sea of armadillo grazing on all fours, there was one fully bipedal one, taking wobbling tentative steps. Stories watched on in amazement over the next few days as one bipedal armadillo became four, then eight, then sixteen until every single creature were walking steadily on twos. They had even begun simple vocalizations in the form of grunts that very clearly referred to actions or objects. Grunts that one might even call… stories? A bit of a leap in logic, but Stories was too excited to worry about the small details.
He had done it. He dubbed his new and improved ability, “Divine Inspiration”. A magnificent title befitting the effects it had wrought. From what he could tell, a five minute channelling of godly energy, focused through the lens of his ability into one member of the species, had then jumped from one to another like a contagion, leading to an overall acceleration of intelligence that would have otherwise taken hundreds of years to develop.
“And that,” Stories smugly replied, taking a mock stage bow. “is my story.”
Order was genuinely amazed. From what she had heard from Truth during their tea sessions, Order had formed the impression that Stories was simply an unmotivated slacker, putting off his actual tasks in favour of entertaining her with a bunch of tales he had concocted in his free time.
And a braggart, too, since he had appended “Creativity” to the end of his name, when nothing implied that he deserved such a grandiose title. That Order could tell from the bits and pieces Truth told her, anyways.
If what he had said was true, and Order had no reason to think otherwise, Stories had singlehandedly pioneered a new method to extend the lifespans of a mortal species: via advancing them to the next level of civilisation.
“Have you performed this experiment anywhere else? This could be the huge step forward that the God of Life and Creation has been searching for.” Order further emphasized the importance of this discovery.
“Oh, mademoiselle! What do you take me for, a fool? Of course I’ve repeated this experiment a couple more times since!” The smugness present in his voice was nauseating, but Order pushed through to get to the meat of the story.
“I’ve tried using “Divine Inspiration” on a variety of organisms; insects, crustaceans, plants, rocks… You get the idea. As far as I can tell, if it can hold a pen or make sounds with whatever orifice it possesses, my ability will be able to catapult them to that stage of intelligence!” Stories was now puffing up his chest and grinning arrogantly, his chin raised in pride.
Order continued to hastily scribble down her thoughts on this new discovery. So divine energy could be used in this way as well… was this limited to abilities possessed by Gods? Would there be any difference if multiple Gods used their abilities in concert on the same lifeform? Did such an action provide the lifeform with the equivalent life force that the general scattering of divine energy into the atmosphere would have brought otherwise?
She underlined Stories’ name again. It could be that the filtering of the energy through the sieve that was a lesser God was the key… and specifically that his ability allowed him finer control over the output of energy than other Original Existences. Showering a single organism with a torrent of power over that short a period of time would otherwise cause them to disintegrate, after all, while too little would be the same as what lesser Gods were already doing.
Also, would the God’s calling affect the nature of the infusion? Chaos probably could perform a similar feat, but perhaps it might work by different rules? The concept of stories was deeply intertwined with intelligence and expression, after all. It doesn’t matter, Order decided, Life would be delighted to hear about this. After so long, finally.
A glimmer of hope in the darkness of failure.