Two figures sat across from each other; each holding a hand of playing cards with a table between them. The taller of the two stared out into the endless white void they inhabited, lost in thought. His face was wrinkled and blemished and yet his eyes were young. The only hair on his body was a vibrant red beard that fell down to his stomach. A frown was set into his face as he stared, his eyebrows knitted together.
“Come now, brother, You’ve been sitting there for an eternity,” the shorter figure, Elos, said with a mixture of annoyance and concern. Their face was entirely ambiguous as if it was a mixture of every face that could ever be made. Both masculine and feminine, both old and young; they looked like they could bear a passing resemblance to any person you could think of, and their voice was equally ambiguous. “What’s eating at you?”
“I…” Matos, started, still staring out into nothingness, “I must admit that I am quite bored.”
“Bored? How can you be bored, it’s your turn,” said Elos, bewildered.
“Hmm? Oh sorry,” Matos said without looking away from the void. “Give me all of your… twos.”
Elos stared at him dryly. “We’re playing poker.”
“Oh,” replied Matos, “am I winning?”
Elos dropped their head into their hands and eventually groaned, “Fine. Go fish”
Matos grabbed a card from the deck and sighed when it wasn’t what he was after. He examined his cards and went back to staring into the distance.
“It’s not the game I’m bored with, Elos, it’s the mortals,” Matos sighed. “They’ve stagnated which means we have as well. They’ve been stuck in the fourth era for nearly a thousand years now. They haven’t discovered anything or advanced at all and I cannot understand why.”
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“That is true,” Elos turned to face the void, “even our worshipers have decreased in number since era three. I admit I have been bored as well.” They thought for a moment and smiled. “I might have a proposition that might interest you.” At this, Matos fully turned his attention from the void and to his younger sibling with stars in his eyes.
“How about,”’ Elos put on a huge grin, “we play a game.”
“What, like your last game? No thank you, we got in so much trouble last time.” Matos crossed his arms and turned up his nose. Elos was younger and impulsive, often coming up with hair-brained games that would break a great many rules set by their father.
“That was millennia ago, and Father doesn’t have to know about this one.” Elos leaned in and wiggled their eyebrows. “It’ll be a quick game. It won’t impact the mortals at all.”
“I’ll hear you out,” Matos said, “but I’m not committing to anything”
“I say we should make a wager,” Elos declared, leaning forward and summoning an empty chess board onto the table. “I suggest that we each pick a mortal to be our pawn, equip them with an artifact of our choosing, and whoever’s pawn kills the other’s will win.”
“What’s the prize?” Asked Matos, looking skeptical.
“The prize,” Elos said, leaning in further and dropping their voice, “will be that the winner can perform one unquestioned miracle.”
Matos, for the first time in a while, met Elos’s gaze. “So you’re suggesting that we gift a share of divine power to two mortals, pit them against each other, and then one of us gets to perform a miracle?” Matos sat back in his chair and stroked his beard. “This could irreparably change the course of humanity. Not to mention revealing ourselves for the first time in thousands of years. It’s dangerous and wholly irresponsible.” Matos smiled a devious smile and held out his hand. “I’m in.”
The two figures shook hands and the endless white void shook. Both beings turned their focus to the empty chess board, planning their first moves. A wager was set; the game was afoot.