The Challenge of Four Gods and Four Empires

“Ah, it’s so loooovely to have you all here together once again!” Kinisis floated happily above her little palace, welcoming her four children. “My lovely Epani, my headstrong Kairos, my beautiful Yisini and my darling Arkadin, I welcome you all back here, feel free to relax for a brief moment, free of your duties, free to play, eat and bathe as my beloved mortals often do!”

Kinisis’s children all varied wildly in size. Kairos was a mighty dragon, his powerful wings keeping many tons of draconic flesh airborne. Yisini’s long, coiled body could have stretched all the way round Kinisis’s palace if she so wanted. Epani’s massive, sea-monster-like body could have easily caused an eclipse on a small planet. Arkadin on the other hand was tiny, the size of a basic humanoid, not needing a massive body to show off his power, although his stall was taller than he was.

“Um, why are we here?” Arkadin quickly asked. “It’s really nice to see you again, mum, but I kinda have things I should be doing, like making sure Yisini has the materials to make things.”

Kinisis landed on the ground next to Arkadin, patting him gently on the head. “I’m sure the universe can go ten minutes without people dying, without the Cycle working perfectly, getting a brief respite from all that makes up your dark and unwanted domain, my dedicated little worker!” Kinisis smiled. “I invite you all here for multiple reasons, one of which is that I never see you all together, and you all never visit me, a pity really.”

“But…”

“Shush, littlest. Just listen for a while. For I want to offer you all a little challenge, as I believe that you all slowly grow to resent each other unless I force some interaction between you all, offering you some outlets for your various discomforts.”

The Blessed All looked up at her larger children, who were silently bickering with each other.

“But it’s just those two…” Arkadin sighed. “Okay yeah those two hate me but I’m perfectly happy with my existence right now. Me and Yisini are friends, aren’t we?”

“Yes, we are!” Yisini beamed. “I am interested in hearing what this little challenge is, but I wouldn’t like us to all be angry at each other like Epani and Kairos.”

“They’ve been bickering since they were born…” Arkadin added.

Kinisis tutted. “I know, my little ones, but if you would just shush for a while and perhaps listen to what I have to say, you can make your decisions then. I have been looking at my little universe for a while and I believe that it is currently too equal and nice, with lots of sameness and uniformity all around. I would like it if you four were to take a group of beings each and make it so that we have some different empires of different sizes, with different changes in things.”

Epani stopped silently arguing with Kairos and turned to Kinisis. “You want us to shake things up a bit.”

“Yes, that is what I would very much want!”

“But had a shake up like, what, 50 years ago?” Arkadin protested. “When Kairos tried to get the Kronospasts to build a super weapon and take over the whole universe, when they tried to kill me and Yisini! If I hadn’t fucking gone down there, we would have no new changes at all, we’d be stuck in a dead, cycle-less universe!”

Kairos growled at Arkadin. “What do you mean, you went down there? Did you… interfere directly?”

“Ah piss…” Arkadin shook his head. “Yeah. I interfered directly. Because you’re the retard who tried to convince a bunch of mortals to kill me. Did you really think I was going to just sit here and let them fire a cannon at Yisini?”

“You know better than to-”

“Oh shut up, Epani!” Arkadin was getting pissed off now, a rare sight for the normally rather cheerful god. “You and Kairos hardly ever play by the fucking rules anyway! You both make massive messes stirring up trouble among mortals and then pin it on me when I have to clear up all the mess!” The Thantophor turned back to Kinisis. “Do you just want me to kill a bunch of people to unbalance things again? Because I’ll do it, even if I don’t like it. But I don’t want to mess around with any stupid challenges or anything like that! You all need to learn to just let the universe be!”

Kinisis shrugged, then decided to ignore Arkadin. “Your littlest brother does not want to play, which is a shame but it does not affect the challenge for the rest of you! There are multiple already established empires within this lovely universe, one for each of you to choose from. My challenge to you three is simple, create a large and powerful empire with happy beings in it. The winner shall be the one who has the most territories and the highest population, but divided by the number of deaths caused to obtain said empire.”

“And what do we win?” Kairos asked.

“Whatever you so desire, my little Kairos, within reason of course.”

“Are there any rules?”

“Same as always, my dear. You may influence your own but never someone else’s, and no trying to kill your siblings.”

“Well!” Kairos smiled at Epani and Yisini. “This shall be easy. I shall reclaim my little Kronospasts. You two can fight over whether you want the Vohra Swarms or the Temthan Realms.”

“Can I have the Temthans please?” Yisini asked. “I think last time I had the Vohra…”

“That is fine with me,” Epani shrugged.

“Then we’re good. I’m going to go get started. See you, losers!” With a flap of his wings, Kairos disappeared. Epani flapped her fins and sailed off into the distance, and Yisini disappeared in a cloud of pink and red sparkles.

Arkadin stared at Kinisis, not sure what to say. He was feeling rather angry, but didn’t want to anger Kinisis. Kinisis smiled blissfully at Arkadin, happily aware of what she was doing.

“You make me really sad sometimes…” Arkadin finally spoke. “You can’t just leave the universe be, the same way Kenon does. So many will die over the next hundred years, and yet again, I’m going to get the blame for it all.”

“On the contrary!” Kinisis put a kindly claw on Arkadin’s shoulder. “I believe you can do better than your siblings, that you will be able to create a powerful empire with almost no bloodshed.”

The Thantophor thought to himself, an idea forming in his mind.

“Well, when you put it like that, mum… Maybe I can do… something constructive for a change…”

“Good boy. I can always count on you, my darling.”

Arkadin smiled, then tapped his staff and disappeared, thinking up a new, glorious plan.