Ubris glared at the woman, well, goddess, across from him as he flipped through her resume. He hated doing interviews almost as much as he hated renovating old planets. Unfortunately he was doing this interview because he was renovating an old planet, which meant he had an extra serving of hate to go on top of it.

“So you’ve been a freelance goddess on this planet for the last…..?” He said as he flipped through the pages.

“378 years, come summer, yes.” She responded. Her voice was warm and motherly, evoking feelings of safety and comfort. The kind of voice that accompanied pie, warm bread, and hot chocolate. Ubris waved the literally divine power away.

“And you’re Livania Goddess of Protection, Fields, and Mothers, is that correct?” He grunted.

“Feel free to call me Liv dear.” She replied.

“And why exactly should we allow you to continue to operate on planet 001982?” Ubris asked

“It’s called Oboris.” She chimed in. He gave her his best ‘I don’t care’ glare, she seemed unfazed.

“Why should we permit you to have clerics on Oboris?” He reiterated.

“As an already established deity I have connections with all the surviving civilizations already. In addition I am aware your Pantheon has many worlds to tend to while I can be on hand to deal with any problems that crop up immediately, or if they’re outside my domains, to investigate and report them to you with pertinent information alleviating the need for tedious investigations on your part.

“I work hard, I have a good reputation, I don’t start needless crusades nor am I prone to fits of unnecessary smiting or deific ultimatums. I have no issue working with other deities, provided they remain civilized, and I have never once missed a day of work.” She finished.

Ubris pursed his lips and examined her portfolio once more. “I see you have no prior job experience. Oboris is your first world, correct?”

“That’s correct, I came into existence four hundred years ago as an offshoot of a previous Deity of Culture. She, sadly, moved on not long after that, and I’ve been working here ever since.” Liv provided.

“When you say moved on you mean she left.” He stated. Liv flinched slightly at his hard tone.

“Y-yes.” She stammered slightly. “She was offered a position with another pantheon. You have to understand, it was a very good offer, tenure in under a century, possibilities for advancements and new portfolios. It would have been foolish to not take it.” Liv’s voice had gone quite soft near the end. The explanation had the sound of something rehearsed repeatedly. Ubris frowned causing Liv to quail slightly.

“I see. If there’s anything else you’d like to tell me now is the time.” He said as he closed her folder.

Liv looked about for a moment while biting her lower lip. Finally she spoke. “One of my priests has found a dungeon and is assisting in the construction of a town nearby. I am… in on the ground floor, as they say. I could be quite helpful in protecting and nurturing it.” She said carefully.

Ubris considered. He knew about the dungeon of course, he was after all the god of dungeons and maintenance. He also knew the dungeon wasn’t likely to survive. However if it did that’d save him a lot of work. The manasphere of this world was almost depleted and would likely collapse in the next hundred years or so, leaving almost no mana on the planet’s surface. One of his jobs would be to rebuild it from the ground up, which would take time and effort. Time and effort he could better spend on other projects. If this dungeon could somehow survive, maybe even thrive, it could raise the mana density of the entire planet given time.

“I see. I am sure you’re aware of the state of mana on the planet, and how unlikely it is for the dungeon to survive.” He replied.

“It is unlikely.” She agreed. “Unless certain steps are taken.”

“And what steps might those be?” Ubris inquired.

“Well, the way I see it the two main problems are lack of mana and lack of adventurers. There just aren’t enough people on the planet to support the kind of population that rushes madly into danger and gets themselves killed. But that kind of population does exist elsewhere. There are many, many planets with not just enough adventurers, but too many. What if we were to entice those adventurers to come and challenge this dungeon? One of the minor gods still around is Thrimble, god of portals. He could open a stable gateway to other, nearby planets and then we could entice them to send their adventurers through to face our dungeon.” She explained.

Ubris nodded as he listened. “Given the state of the dungeon, what makes you think even the meanest adventurer will fall to it? Further, what are you going to entice them with?” He asked as she paused.

“You’re right, currently the dungeon is basically a cake walk. But, what if it had Blessings? I would be willing to give it the Blessing of Growth, you could almost certainly extract other blessings from the gods you’ll be interviewing later. Any time working for the Eternal Pantheon would look good on a resume, so almost all of us would be willing to offer a minor blessing if it got us a foot in the door. Think of it like asking them to buy shares in a company to prove loyalty.” Liv continued.

Ubris did some more nodding. It wasn’t a bad plan, drop enough divine magic on the dungeon and it might just pull through, the only reason he hadn’t done so was because giving a blessing was like dedicating a small piece of your soul to something. Thus the amount you could give out was inherently limited. He continued to ponder this as he asked his next question. “And how are you going to entice the adventurers to try an unknown dungeon on another planet?”

Liv smiled. “Whoever touches the core gets a gift, such as a spell or innate magic, that’s in line with one of the blessings the core has. For instance the Blessing of Growth might give a spell or innate talent that allows the user to better cultivate plants, or might accelerate personal growth, or any number of other similar things.”

Ubris considered what she was saying carefully. If it worked the world would require far less of his time. If it didn’t nothing of value was lost. He looked back up at Liv and finally spoke once more. “And what’s to stop any one adventurer from gaining multiple gifts?”

“Nothing, each adventurer can try again and again and again. But they can only gain one gift per delve per year.” She explained.

“Month.” Ubris said immediately. “Per month. And each gift given reduces the power of the corresponding blessing by one percent. Each adventurer carrying a gift who dies in the dungeon returns their gift to the core, increasing the corresponding blessing by one percent.” Liz gave him a puzzled look so he explained further. “The core is sentient. This way it’s forced to defend itself with all its strength and cunning or risk losing everything.”

“Oh, of course. But because of that maybe an addendum to the rules? In order to keep the gift the adventurer needs to return to the dungeon at least once a year, and complete, let’s say, half the dungeon? That way the god who granted the gift isn’t tied into it forever, and the dungeon will have a chance to retrieve the power at least once every year.” Live postulated, and Ubris nodded in thought.

“Very well.” He said after a few moments of consideration. “I’ll be speaking with Thrimble in the next few days, and after his interview I’ll make my decision. For now I’m granting you probationary stats as a goddess of Oboris with all the rights and responsibilities that pertain therein. Do not disappoint.” He said as he jogged the portfolio back into a semblance of neatness and filed it in a drawer. “Thank you fo coming, please send in the next applicant as you leave.”

“Of course, I hope to hear from you soon!” Liv exclaimed cheerily as she stood, pushed in her chair, and exited the office.

Liv exited the building and stopped. She stared down at the planet below her feet. The ‘office’ building was currently in orbit, so she was standing on nothing and staring down at a white and brown marble with splotches of blue and green. Oboris wasn’t doing well, and it made her heart hurt. She watched for a few more moments, then took a deep breath and oriented herself. Then she began to fall.

While falling was the easiest term to describe what she was doing, it’d be more appropriate to say that she pushed herself downward as an act of divine might, for the speeds she descended at couldn’t be matched by those gravity would impose. In fact, most advanced technological (or manalogical) societies couldn’t achieve such downward speeds either.

Within moments her sight was completely filled with the continent she was headed for, then the specific region, and soon she could see the small castle that was her destination and then she was there. She stopped just above the courtyard floor, and stepped down as if coming off the stairs. Dusting off her ceremonial garb she walked briskly, and confidently, down into the dungeon she knew resided below. She moved past the beetled and bugs, the moss, and then drifted gently down the hole to the ‘garden level’ (as if that name wasn’t a total mockery of everything a garden should be). Then she walked to the location right below the diamond that house the soul of Norbrant the Blowhard.

Oh in fairness Norbrant was a genius. A Mathematical genius. The man could have probably redefined most higher order math if he’d wanted. But no, he turned himself into a rock in a hole instead. Typical short sighted mortal.

She gazed up at the rock and then with a thought rose to float just under it. She was certain Ubris was going to import adventurers as she suggested, it was the easiest way to fix the problem and from what she knew of the god of Maintenance he very much liked easy solutions (provided they worked as intended and didn’t cause other, secondary problems he’d have to deal with). She pondered the rock for a moment and then sighed. She was going to end up giving it two gifts, she’d already decided that, but now she was dithering. The problem was that Norbrant would almost certainly lose the majority of his gifts within the first year, he just didn’t have the juice or the planning skills to do better. So she’d need to give him the skills, but at the same time it needed to be a gift he couldn’t lose, which meant not bound by the rules of the game, and thus it had to be given before those rules came into effect. Such as, right now.

With a sigh she reached out and touched the gem (something that would no doubt have terrified Norbrant if he’d known she was there) and pushed a spark of deific power into it. The divine magic flowed from her freely as she shaped the gift. Her first gift to him would be the gift of Protection, but not any form of tangible defense. Instead the gift was the instincts of how to best protect himself with the tools at hand. The power stopped flowing, and the blessing settled into place. Liv grimaced at the cost, but accepted it as the price of saving the world she loved. Then, with a small displacement of energy, she was gone.