“Stop it!”

“Hold on”

“Oh me!”

The cries of all The Seven confident enough to talk rang out as Rich surveyed his handiwork with a smile. To call it land would be to spit in the face of any of Earth, the homeland of The Seven’s, natural features and would soon become a mockery of all that would be made in this new universe. It was scarcely better than the void, as it was as lifeless and uninteresting as the world was when The Seven awoke.

It was impossibly flat, each grain of dirt perfectly evenly spaced, and it stretched to each corner of the horizon. An endless sea of brown, for no life grew here, it was truly nothing more than endless soil, with a carpet and some chairs at its centre. However, that was about to change.

Ignoring the cries of the other young gods, Rich held out his hand of flowing water and cried “Arise, ARISE, MY CREATIONS!”

Across the plains several hands shot out from the ground, creating a small pool of human hands struggling and straining to escape the soil they’d been buried in.

“They’re alive” whispered Rich, his tone full of awe, his grin stretching to each side of his thin lightning bolt face.

Soon, many of these new beings emerged from their dirt prisons and sat blinking in the light of the first day. There was roughly a hundred of them, all young, seemingly around 20 years of age despite having lived not even a day. They all seemed fairly ordinary, excluding the shades of their hair which alongside the shades natural for humans and hufolk were coloured every hue of the rainbow. The clothes they were dressed in, too were ordinary for civilians of a fantasy world, looking much like more inexplicitly well-off medieval peasants.

Many regarded this as a blessing, the ideas of modesty and embarrassment having been planted into their heads at birth. Many others considered the “rules” of society and clothes a bit ridiculous, having never been pressured into them or internalised them over a lifetime of living in a world where these rules were in place. Regardless of how humble their appearances seemed, or their personal philosophies on clothing, these one hundred were special. For these were to become The Ancients, the first new life in this new world.

Many of them looked around, curious as to their surroundings. Many drifted toward each other and began to converse, wondering what had happened, where they were, who they were and marvelling at the concept of their own existence. It was not long before each group began to converge on the one unique feature of the bizarre landscape, the one place that may lead them to the answers to their questions. A strange carpet, with chairs (which these new beings knew the names off, the knowledge they were born with a wonder to them) and beings both ordinary and strange. Yes, if any knew the secrets of their origins, it would be these marvellous beings. A word sprang to mind in the heads of many of the hundred. Gods.

The gods, with the exception of Rich, looked on in shock and in some cases horror as the new lifeforms approached, each slowly realising they didn’t know how to address these people or what their fellow gods would do. It was Mark who acted first.

“I call for a private meeting of the gods” he said, before raising a huge pillar of stone into the air, carrying carpet, gods and chairs high into the air.

The ancients looked on, bemused, but not offended. They were too innocent, many having never been slighted at all before and, with little knowledge of social interactions other than the knowledge put into their heads, they shrugged, made theories with each other about the gods retreat and generally milled about at the base of the pillar.

“What the fuck were you thinking?!” cried Damon as he shook Rizzleritchensteineonizziism, who flailed desperately, splashing water from one arm and fire from the other as he tried to escape the winged god’s grasp.

“This is why we’re here right? We make stuff! And I did that! I made a stuff! You can’t be mad at me, I’m the one doing what the scary boy said to do, you’re all slackers and boring! Look!” and to accentuate his point and further dig his own grave Rich waved his fiery hand and hundreds of feet below a plume of magma burst from the ground at the edge of the flat plain he’d created. The ancients below, who were far enough away to be safe ooh’d and aah’d. The gods above were a little less pleased.

Damon slapped Rich, with a clap that rang out across all creation. “Stop it” he hissed.

The god’s obelisk was silent and still. The gods were somewhat stunned and it took a moment for any of them to recover. It took even Holly, the most talkative of the bunch a while to say anything. It had been a long day.

Eventually, she said in a quiet voice “Damon, don’t do that. Rich, I know how you feel, and I can understand your impatience, but this is a big undertaking, and we all have to work on it together. We’ll need to plan what we’re doing because if we all act recklessly, everything will fall apart eventually.” It was hard to tell what Rich was thinking with a head as alien as his. But some signs of hurt and guilt were universal such as his head being lowered and facing away from Damon and his body being hunched and tense. “Is that understood Rich?” Slowly, he nodded.

“Well then” Holly continued in a brighter tone “as I joked about at the start of the universe, when none of you were around to hear” Scientia stiffened and Damon suppressed another eye roll, “this is a group project! And, like group projects you’ve had to do during uni, and school or whatever, we all gotta talk about what we’re doing and allocate work accordingly. So-“

Damon cut her off. He didn’t like how she was assuming control of the group and so, as innocently as he could get away with, he interjected “I propose we deal with the problem of the life down there. Let’s discuss that, as that is urgent, then we shall all allocate our future responsibilities.” He looked around at the others. A bit of stink eyes from Holly and that one fool who doesn’t know her own name but apart from that, no one’s so much as blinked at his seizing of control. Perfect.

“Well, obviously we can’t just kill them, that’d be cruel.” That was Mark, slowly thinking out loud as he pondered the problem.

“Maybe we should de-age them?” This was Holly. “I mean, seems kinda unfair that they start life at like, twenty, they won’t get a full life.”

“Untrue!” cried Rizzleritchensteineonizziism, some of his earlier enthusiasm restored but his voice still far shakier than before. He looked around at the others proudly and declared “I made them immortal!”

There was silence on the gods pillar once more, but it was blessedly shorter this time.

Coldly and quietly, Damon hissed “Why?”

Rich looked over at Damon and flinched a little bit, but he carried on, as confidently as he could “Well death sucks doesn’t it? Why do we gotta make this world as sucky as our last one when we could make it like, a heaven?”

Holly nodded. “He raises a good point. We should be trying to make the people in this world as happy as possible.”

Mark frowned. “While I agree with trying to make this world as utopian as possible, is making everyone deathless really the answer? Without death, would life have meaning, would we care about our impact, our moment-to-moment happiness, would we try to make the most of life while it lasts in a world where life lasts forever? I think we need death, at least a little.”

“Nonsense!” cried Rizzleritchensteineonizziism his past incident with Damon at least temporarily forgotten as he got sucked into this divine argument. “That’s just pro-death propaganda! The rationalisations of an existence who is forced to comprehend his own death and has gotta try and make the most of it somehow! You are a loon! A loon!”

Damon shook his head. “Should we even be making life as “utopian” as possible?” He sneered. “This “God” said we need to make a world befitting of the fantasy genre. What fantasy world doesn’t have danger and adventure? I say we keep these immortals immortal, but when we make real humans and other life we need to keep a bit of danger, a bit of suffering to prompt adventures and not get us all killed or otherwise punished by the thing that brought us here. Now, all those in favour of keeping everyone immortal raise your hand.”

Only Holly and Rich raised their hands.

“Now, all those who agree with my plan raise your hands.” Bird head, nameless girl, Mark and himself raised their hands and Damon smiled a faintly menacing smile.

“Very well then, now we should discuss what to do with these immortals” said Damon, not planning for a second for there to be any discussion. “I think we can make use for them. We can appear before them as gods and tell them they were made for a purpose. Encourage them to go out and report on what they see while we make their world, and they can constantly give feedback to us. There are only six of us and so we most likely won’t be able to see all the details of the world we make. Those people will. Any objections?”

Mark shrugged. “Nope, no objections from me. Anyone else?”

There was silence.

“Very well then” declared Damon. “All those who don’t look sufficiently holy make yourself invisible, we should look good and godly before our subjects.”

Mark began to lower the obelisk while Holly, Mark and the goddess who would name herself Aomy vanished from sight. Damon stepped forward, placing himself between Rizzleritchensteineonizziism and Scientia so he could address the immortals. When the obelisk sunk itself completely beneath the soil he spoke.

“My people!” He cried out. “I am Damon, your creator, and behind me are my fellow deities. We are the gods of this world and all you will ever see and all that will ever be, was made by our hands. This includes you, ye immortals and you have been blessed with something few else will ever dream of: Divine purpose!”

This prompted a muttering from amongst the crowd, perhaps less because they knew how blessed they were because frankly, they knew next to nothing about the likelihood of having divine purpose and in fact many had already theorised such a thing and were gloating with their new friends. No, they muttered because they were excited to hear the answers to all their questions and delivered in such an exciting way no less. Still, they muttered, if they had purpose, what could it be?

Damon was quick to answer. “Soon you shall see new lands beyond this flat plain in the centre of our universe. I want you to travel them, reporting to us on what you see. I want your praise, and I want your critiques. You shall be our eyes from a human point of view. This is a most important task, so I want it taken seriously. Is that all understood?” There were nods amongst the crowd. “Good!” declared Damon. “Then go forth! Whenever you wish to report hold your hands together like this and your thoughts will be transmitted to one of us six gods.”

Immediately, after Damon willed what he said to be true, words like, “Ooh this is fun”, “Can you make stuff soon, all this dirt stuff is boring” and “Can you explain the lava plume?” all echoed in the gods heads. Satisfied his work was done, Damon began to raise the pillar into the air once more when someone called out to him.

“Oi, Damon, you haven’t answered all our questions yet!”

Damon singled out the voice in the crowd, a man with impossibly red hair, standing arms crossed over his chest. Damon brought the pillar to a stop with a resounding clang.

“You will address the gods with respect!” yelled Damon. “All of you! We are, fundamentally, above you and I want all of you to be aware of that. You are our holy servants and I, your holy master.”

The red-haired man paused, clearly shaken. He stuttered “Oh, heavenly masters, please may I ask a question? Where have the other gods gone?”

Damon paused. He had no explanation for that! Should he scold this man for his insolence? Already he could feel the disapproving looks of the others behind him.

It was Scientia who saved him. “The others are currently gathering power for the work to come. Thank you for your questions and I hope you retain your curious mind and endeavour to learn more about the world to come”

The immortal looked incredibly relieved and bowed his head. “Thank you, O wise one. I shall.”

Damon sniffed dismissively before calling out “Any more questions, ask them through prayer. Us gods are busy and must speak alone.” And with that, the pillar rose to the skies once more.

“You will address the gods with respect?” Holly asked incredulously, hands on hips. “What the hell was that?”

Damon was unphased and explained “Look throughout history. Do you see the Greeks, the Romans, the Ancient Egyptians speaking to their gods so casually? Imagine if Hercules was like “Oi, Zeus, make sure the skies are clear.” “Oi Poseidon, make the sea calm.” Or “Oi Hades, make sure I don’t die tomorrow!” If we’re to be gods, we need to be respected and we won’t be respected if we let people treat us like friends or equals.”

“Actually it would be Heracles” Scientia corrected, booming, powerful voice slightly undercut by the nerdiness of his correction.

“What are you talking about?” sneered Damon in response.

“Hercules was the Roman name. If this character addressed the Greek gods, he would be Heracles. Also, Hades did not control who died, he, most likely, only ran the afterlives.” It was a testament to Scientia’s knowledge of social rules that he still managed to make this statement sound grand and impressive.

Mark frowned. “Also, weren’t the Greek gods all kinda dicks, even according to the Greeks? Dunno if we want to emulate that.”

Scientia smiled, which was an odd sight considering bird beaks, in general, don’t smile. “Ovid, a Greek poet, certainly accentuated the god’s misdeeds and wrote them from a perspective of them being very flawed, but his interpretations of the myths are heavily influenced by his dislike of authority. Truth be told, we do not know how the Greeks interpreted their gods, although, from a modern perspective, many of them were, indubitably, dicks.”

There was a moment of silence as Mark listened, enraptured and Damon seethed at the conversation quickly drifting out of his control.

Eventually, Holly sighed, breaking the silence and said “Well, what’s done is done I guess, not much point in arguing amongst ourselves. Should we divvy up the workload now?”

Damon seethed even more, as his chance of regaining control was cut short, but Mark replied before Damon got a chance to make his displeasure apparent. “Yeah, sound good to me.”

Holly looked round at the assembled gods. “So, does anyone have any ideas?”

And thus, with progress finally beginning to be made, began the assignment of responsibilities.