Hanis paced as she went over her notes and tried to order her thoughts. As the god of campfires and the stories told around them, it was her job to collect knowledge. Libraries, folklore, mythos, and every lie wrapped in a grain of truth was hers to remember and learn. It’s how discovered a horrifying truth.
Gods did not exist of their own will. As manifestations of the universe, they were the embodiment of will made physical. Devils, demons, and fay were all just as otherworldly, yet they could visit the mortals and directly influence them. It was the gods that were trapped beyond the divine veil, and just as affected by it as they could affect the other side.
They gambled and partied, and became the flow of mana in the universe, but they never cared to learn what that meant. As the god of stories and truth, Hanis knew that this was just one more chicken-and-egg situation. Was it the god of wind that caused the wind, or did physics have just as much of a say?
She ran a hand through her fire-red hair as it softly drifted upwards and turned yellow as she looked over her charcoal-colored skin. She was as presentable as she could make herself. Now she just had to avoid making a fool of herself as she took the stage.
The amphitheater sat high up in the wall as it overlooked the gambling den of gods, which made it a place where all could see her. A stray thought crossed her mind, as it was the perfect place to tell forbidden knowledge and cause an uproar, but she decided today would not be that day. There was no reason to ruin the day, or the story she was about to tell.
“It started with a tyrant,” her voice boomed for all to hear. All would listen today. “Born with next to nothing, he held the domain of a forgotten village and its history of bloodshed. He was Khan, the tyrant of conquest.”
“It started with a game of dice, as the villagers pillaged and destroyed a neighboring town. Then came a game of poker as a forest burned to make way to the fields of grain his followers sowed. With another bet, the villagers grew wheat as red as the blood that watered them.”
“He targeted domains directly, and with each victory expanded his own. He was relentless in his demand to play rigged games as his village grew into a city and continued to expand. Together, mortal and god alike, built an empire of blood.”
She paused, taking in the atmosphere. Testing the audience. Her eyes scanned the crowd until she found new faces. A god of seaweed, a god of oil paints, a goddess of the race dungeon-awakened squirrels, and a god of the godless. The last one caught her attention, but she didn’t dwell, as she had done this enough to know the audience was ready for more.
“The tyrant took all he could reach and forced the system to make games other gods could never win. Games we were forced to play. All but the closest to him starved while he fed himself on aspects so far out of his domain they were worthless, yet he ate out of spite. The tyrant enjoyed the look of suffering in the eyes that were on him as he wasted the food they needed.”
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“Khan knew he was all-powerful and that not a single person could stand in his way.” The pain in her voice was evident, for she had no reason to hide the scars she received in this era. “Everyone was too scared, because if they tried to take a stand and failed, he would have annihilated them. He ruled with fear and the System was on his side, and he knew it.”
Over half of the gods in the audience were not around when this story was told for the first time, so there were plenty that were enraptured. Though a quick glance told her not all were listening as intently as others. A few of the oldest gods were making bets on various reactions in the crowd. It was a thing Hanis knew without fail, for she was the god of knowledge. Though being the oldest of all of them certainly helped.
“It wasn’t complacency that was his downfall, but a mob. A hungry, angry, divine mob. Starved and desperate, they attacked not him personally but the System he wielded like a blade. Perhaps that was his mistake, to forget the blade was double edged. He could not refuse a single request as the system wouldn’t allow it. He would easily win one or two games, but hundreds of thousands of requests came in. It divided his attention, and he lost one, then two, then a hundred, then a thousand tiny cuts to his domain. The demands of the mob took him for every drop of blood, a single drop at a time. They tore apart his domain of bloodshed over years of daily battles.”
“The empire Khan had created could only follow suit. A thousand plights brought the mortals low and shattered the only empire that ever spanned the realm. Disease, feral animals, crops that withered, metal that rusted, rain that eroded foundations and mountains alike. They were destroyed so thoroughly not a single piece of the empire survived to see today.”
‘And it wasn’t our fault,’ Hanis thought silently. Her eyes watered with grief as she relived how much she suffered in that era, and how she wasn’t alone. It was a pain that made her want to do better, and it was a sentiment shared by the few other gods to suffer as much.
She scanned the crowd again, ready to continue. Her eyes never found the god of the godless, Mask. It was a name she knew instantly, but she didn’t know where he went. That was unlike her, as gaps in knowledge meant gaps in existence.
“We left the tyrant with nothing, for no matter how rich and how strong, a single person can never truly overpower the rest.” There was a cheer from the mother- no, father of insects. Hanis had to be better about gendering him correctly. “He tried, and every day he made a deal, they made a hundred counter deals against him. It silenced him as he became a social pariah, until one day no one even noticed when he left.”
‘Faded from existence, drained of the mana he needed to live.’ She chose not to add that last part. The others were happy not knowing what happens when a god dies because it let them think they were eternal.
“Though few here still remember when this event unfolded, the unspoken rules laid out that day persist to this day. We each have our domains, deals are mutually agreed upon even if games are not, and the system was updated to make sure history couldn’t repeat itself.”
As her words ended, so did the story. The reactions in the crowd were mixed, as some cheered, others got bad ideas, and a few were sick, but all enjoyed the story. With exception of a few who had lost their bets, but they knew it was all in good fun.
With a bow, Hanis, goddess of the campfire and every tale ever told around them, ended her story.