Damon sat in the throne/meeting room of his castle, sitting upon, naturally, his lavishly decorated throne of gold. He watched as the other five gods slowly filed in, and as they went to sit down, took in the room around them. It too was lavish, coloured the same bright silver as the rest of his castle, a red-carpet lead from door to throne and a huge candelabra hung from the ceiling. However, that wasn’t what provided the light from the room. Instead, the room was lit magically, the whole room sourcelessly lit by clinical white light, that reminded many of the gods, of either hospitals, or business meetings.

Which isn’t the only comparison to business meetings that could be drawn from this room, the whole space somewhat gave off that vibe. The chairs (exempting of course, Damon’s throne) were office swivel chairs and they were placed next to modern looking, smooth tables that lined the throne room on either side of the carpet. Behind Damon was a series of glass, floor to ceiling windows, that looked out across the dirt plains that were, as of yet, the entirety of existence.

The first to arrive was Rizzleritchensteineonizziism who appeared suddenly in a flash of light. His eyes (along with his lightning head and fiery arms) lit up upon seeing the swivel chair and he immediately began to swing round and round in it. Next was Scientia, who quickly scanned the room before sitting down next to the energetic god and began to scribble in his already remarkably filled notebook. Then, it was Loma, who checked to ensure his chair was strong enough to take his drastically increased weight and satisfied it did, he sat upon it.

It took a while for the last two gods to arrive. Loma conjured a phone and was playing something on it, and once Rizzleritchensteineonizziism got bored of spinning, his eyes immediately latched onto the blue light, and stood behind Loma, watching him play. Damon did no such thing, however. He wished to look regal and grand when all the gods arrived and so he settled for impatiently drumming his fingers against the side of his throne while he waited.

At last, Aomy and Naturum arrived. They glanced around the throne room, whispered to each other and giggled before sitting down opposite the other three gods. Damon’s eyes narrowed. They were still in human form.

“And why aren’t you two in god form?” he called out.

Naturum looked up at him on his throne and smiled pleasantly. “I mean, there’s no non-gods around here, right? Thought it’d be more comfortable to be in our original bodies.”

Rizzlerich stared, confused. “People don’t like being in god form all the time?”

Damon looked back down at the pair of gods and frowned. “It would seem not. I would like you to both be in god form, if only to be in the right mindset for god business.”

Loma nodded. “Makes sense. It’s like the worlds weirdest work clothes.”

Naturum whispered to Aomy, who nodded, and both transformed into their respective god forms.

Rizzleritchensteineonizziism’s eyes lit up for second time this meeting. “Yoooo” he yelled. “You look super cool!”

Aomy’s translucent golden skin glowed slightly. “Thanks, Rizzleritchensteineonizziism” she mumbled.

He blinked. “You got my name right.”

The glow changed from golden to faintly golden-red. “I’ve been practicing” she admitted.

“Touching, touching” declared Damon with a clap. “But we have things to attend to. First, why are you two late?”

Naturum shrugged casually. “Lost track of time. Did say I do that when we first met.”

Damon’s seemingly ever-present frown deepened. “Well, maybe you should work on that here. Anyway, I believe we should move on to establishing what we’re all going to be doing today. I say we all start simple. Let’s make a human country, with mostly simple and familiar landscapes and ecology.”

“Humans?!” objected Rizzleritchensteineonizziism. “That’s boring!”

Loma looked across the table to him, look of concern clear on his face. “Rich, wasn’t the first thing you did make humans? I know we call them immortals now, but they were meant to be humans.”

Rich’s various elemental appendages lost power as he paused for a moment and then deflated. “Fine, it’s within acceptable degrees of boring.”

Loma smiled at him. “Glad to hear it. Anyway, I like the human idea, does everyone else?”

Naturum nodded. “Seems wise to start things simple while we don’t have any practise being gods.”

“Very well then” declared Damon, his frown changing to his one other facial expression, a cruel smirk. “I won’t tell you how go about your various specialties, so I believe this meeting is adjourned. Go out there and do good work.” He stood up dramatically and made to leave the room.

“Objection!” yelled Naturum, her green finger pointed and outstretched. “I don’t think this meeting is adjourned at all!”

Damon hadn’t even made it to the tables before he stopped and turned, perplexed. “What?”

“Sorry, always wanted to do that. I know this isn’t a courtroom, but I think it fit. Anyway-” She clapped her hands and a pile of papers fell onto the table in front of her. “Behold!”

Rizzleritchensteineonizziism oohed appreciatively while Damon’s eyes narrowed. “What is this?” he snarled.

With a poof, Naturum appeared on his throne, papers in hand. She frowned. “Oh, this won’t do at all. It’s too far away”

She was treated to Chris Hemsworth’s silver face staring back at her, agog. “What are you doing in my chair?” Damon cried.

“Well I am running this part of the meeting” Naturum replied.

With a wave of her hand the two tables fused into a round table and all the chairs, with god’s bottoms still attached, scooted to its new position. This included Damon’s throne which she casually transformed into an identical office swivel chair.

“The throne was because I was leader of the gods, not because I ran that meeting” Damon growled.

Naturum looked back down at the transformed throne. “Oops. Sorry. Anyway, take a seat” she said, gesturing to one of the empty seats next to Aomy and Loma. Relenctantly, he did.

“Alright, now everyone is all close together” she declared brightly, “y’all will be able to see me and Aomy’s ingenious creations. Behold…wait I already said behold. Uh oh, theatricality slipping. Um. Witness, (nailed it), the god contracts!”

Damon’s frown returned, full force. “At least when I ran meetings, I kept them professional. What are these god contracts?”

Naturum smiled back, her effortless brightness countering his moodiness. “Well, they’re like demon contracts, y’know, deal with devil type stuff.”

Rizzleritchensteineonizziism leaned forward, excitedly. “Are you trying to steal our souls?” he asked, voice full of enthusiasm.

Naturum shook her head. “Nope! But, theoretically, if you agree to the terms on the contracts, you should be unable to break them. Like how deals with the devil work.”

“Hmm. Okay, but why do we need them?” asked Loma.

“Well you know, to make sure we don’t go around deliberately fucking with each other’s creations, kill each other in fits of rage, y’know stuff like that” replied Naturum.

Loma nodded and looked to the top of the pile. “No one can destroy, damage, touch or otherwise interact with the chair falling to the bottom of the universe, with the exception of looking at it. What?”

“Okay, right, so that’s included as like a test thing to make sure these contracts are actually binding. Me and Aomy tested them on each other before a bit, but we both thought it best to do a big test on everyone before y’all signed the important ones.”

Loma nodded again, albeit more hesitantly. “Okay, but what chair at the bottom of the universe?”

It was Scientia who responded. “At the start of creation Naturum created a chair to sit on but it fell through the void and hasn’t yet been stopped. It has been falling through empty space since then.”

Naturum nodded, before abruptly pausing. “Wait, how d’you know that?” she asked.

Scientia paused for a moment. “Research” he hesitantly, yet paradoxically boldly answered.

Naturum scrutinised him for a second before shrugging. “Well, whatever.” With a click of her finger, the table, chair and gods were outside, barrelling through space next to a simple chair. Curiously, none of the gods, or importantly the contracts seemed affected by the winds, as if the table were perfectly stationary. “Alright, if y’all can sign this” Naturum said, after signing the contract herself and passing it to the other gods.

One by one, they all signed it and looked across at the chair. Dismissively, Damon tried to erase the chair from existence with his mind, but to his panic, found he could not. These gods had made properly binding contracts! Next, Rizzleritchensteineonizziism pulled back both his hand of fire and his hand of water, before thrusting them forwards. A huge beam of purple energy came blasting out from his hands but when the energy faded the chair was unfazed. Lastly, Scientia stood up, floated over to the chair and tried to grab it, but as he did, his hand refused to close the distance, as if the chair was protected by some kinda of barrier.

He nodded appreciatively. “It would appear that the chair is completely protected. It shall fall for all eternity."

“Fantastic!” cried Naturum, clapping her hands together as the void faded and the table was once again in Damon’s ex-throne room. “On to the important stuff then. If you object to any contracts, please bring up any complaints and any and all contracts you are under no obligation to sign, but like, most are pretty self-explanatory stuff, so I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to sign any? I don’t know. I’m getting side-tracked. Where was I? Ah, first contract.”

She picked up a bit of paper and waved it around. “Okay, so this one, is, in a nutshell, no fucking with mortals. I advise you to read the whole load of jargon yourselves, but basically, no killing a mortal for fun, no disposing of a king you dislike, and once a civilisation is set up, we’re not gonna rule em, gotta let the mortals live the own lives. Obviously, you can guide them and stuff, especially if they’re like, a worshipper of you, but that’s about it. So, hopefully that’s pretty standard god stuff, what do y’all think?”

“I don’t like it” sneered Damon. “I don’t think any of us will go around killing mortals for fun, so it seems unnecessary and leaving ourselves unable to interfere with mortal affairs sounds pointlessly limiting and may cause us to be locked out of intervening in an emergency.”

Loma shook his mighty earthen head. “No, no, I like it. We have a lot of power, seems smart to ensure it doesn’t get to our heads.”

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely” said Naturum, quoting something, although she had no idea what. “Also, if like the world’s ending, or like, bad shits happening cos of us fucking up in the first place, there’s a clause for that. I think. Aomy knows the specific’s more than I do.

“Well I suppose I’ll sign it, if only to ensure Rich doesn’t fireball the first city that shows up” declared Damon with a self-aggrandising smirk.

“Stop making weird assumptions about me! I wouldn’t do that!” cried Rizzleritchensteineonizziism, waving his arms about wildly.

“Rizzleritchensteineonizziism does seem to have people’s best interests in mind guys” mumbled Aomy. “He made the immortals immortal because he wanted to make a heaven, remember? He’s just a bit…reckless.”

“See!” yelled Rizzleritchensteineonizziism. “She gets it! You’ve been making weird presumptions about me since then! And! I! Won’t! Stand for it!”

“You did say you’d hunt my followers for sport…” mused Loma.

“As a joke!” exclaimed Rich, his flailing arms, flailing wilder.

Loma shrugged. “Fair enough. Anyway, Naturum, what’s the next contract?”

“Okay, this one’s a bit weirder.” She replied, holding a different bit of paper up, as everyone signed the first contract. “Basically, its no time travel. At all. As like, a rule for the universe, not just the six of us.”

“Awwwwww” pouted Rizzleritchensteineonizziism.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, sorry Rizzlerich” continued Naturum. “But we decided time travels too messy. Like, not only could we potentially go back like, pre contracts to fuck each other up, if mortals got access to time travel who knows what would happen. Like, we don’t know the rules of time travel and theres no real good and tidy option that won’t lead to like, universal destruction, creation of new universes, or worrying implications on the nature of free will. Best left alone, we thought.”

Rizzleritchensteineonizziism shrugged. “Fiiiine, I get it” he grumbled as he signed the contract.

Once again, all the gods joined him.

Naturum clapped her hands together and grinned. “Oh, this is going fantasitically smoothly. Okay, second to last but not second to least, here’s another doozy. Basically, the six of us can’t hurt each other. More specifically, we can’t will each other out of existence if that’s even possible, we can’t physically assault each other, we can’t make weapons to hurt each other with and we can’t blast each other with god magic. Given how nebulous and untested our god powers are, this contract was a bitch to write, but hey, we got there! Important to note: You can try and emotionally hurt each other, we haven’t forbidden that in the contract although, obviously, try not to. Any questions?”

Damon frowned. He didn’t like it but if he didn’t sign this contract, it would look bad. So, even before the others had finished reading the legalese in full, he signed it.

Loma shook his head. “No, no questions from me” he said as he signed it too. Like before, one by one the other gods signed it.

“Okay, last contract” she exclaimed. “And this one is important. As I said before, our powers are nebulous, and we may even be somewhat omnipotent. So, me and Aomy thought it would be necessary to introduce this one. No willing yourself out of a contract. No willing these contracts and their legal bindings out of existence. And if you have willed yourself out of any of these contracts before signing this one, it becomes binding again. Any objections?”

There was a brief moment of silence before a voice cut through the quiet. “It would be Aomy and I” Scientia grandly declared.

Naturum blinked. “Sorry, what?”

“You said, quote, “me and Aomy thought it would be necessary to introduce this one." But grammar dictates that you should have said Aomy and I.” he replied.

Naturum blinked again before her grin returned resplendently to her face. “Nerd. Alright, anyone got any actual objections to the contract?”

The other gods shook their heads and began to sign this all-important last contract. But Naturum wasn’t ready to adjourn this meeting just yet.

With a flourish and an almost comically theatrical puff of smoke, a new piece of paper appeared on the table before the gods.

“SURPRISE!” yelled Naturum. “Bonus contract! If you could sign it quickly, please.”

The other gods looked curiously at this last bit of paper. It was much less dense than the other contracts and in fact, written upon it was nought but a single sentence.

"Upon signing this contract, you will immediately give Aomy and Naturum your thanks for putting their hard work into this very thoughtful preventative measure for the potential of god rampages.”

The other gods looked back up at Naturum, many incredulous.

“I think not” Damon sneered.

But Rizzleritchensteineonizziism’s eyes were alight, and with smile full of mirth, he hastily signed the contract. Immediately his hand shot out and with a poof, a small, round hamster appeared in his palm. He strode over to the two goddesses and held it out, offering it to each of them.

Now it was Naturum’s turn to look incredulous. She looked to Rizzlerich, with a stare that was desperate for answers.

Rizzlerich grinned. “His name is your thanks. I have to give him to one of you, so please, one of you take him.”

“Hmmmm” rumbled Loma contemplatively. “It would appear the contracts aren’t infallible.”

“Okay, to be fair” Naturum began to retort, as she scooped your thanks into her hands. “The other contracts are a lot more cheat proof than that one. I mean, yeah, they probably also have loopholes but they’re not gonna be as easy as that one.” She began to stroke your thanks lovingly. “Hey, Rizzlerich, now I have him I can change his name, right?”

Rizzleritchensteineonizziism shrugged. “Sure, but you’ll ruin the joke” he replied.

“Oh, I just wanted to give his name capital letters cos the contract had your thanks written in lowercase. The moment I realised that it really began to bug me.”

Your Thanks looked up at Naturum with a look that if you thought hamsters were a lot smarter than they were, could be misinterpreted as gratefulness and adoration.

“Well, as necessary as you all seemed to think this was, this has been a long detour” sneered Damon as, with a click of his finger, his office chair turned into a replica of his old throne. It quickly slid into its position at the end of the red carpet and Damon could, at last, look down at the other gods. “Now that this contract signing is finished, I re-adjourn this meeting. Go out there and get to your respective tasks. Its time to make mankind.”