The location was a set, currently being used for a game show. Not just any game show.
But one that consistently ranked among the top productions scattered across not only a few galaxy groups but the entirety of the universe itself, which meant there was no room for slip ups. If there was anything to take away from the previous seasons, it was that the management never disappointed delivering nothing but the best. From the lighting to the decorations, every detail had been taken into careful consideration.
Tied up with a major titan of the streaming industry 'Light Stream', while some of the audience joined through the streaming service, enjoying the show from the comfort of their homes, others settled into their allotted luxury tables, since today was the most anticipated day, a start to a new season with the pre-event beginning in a few minutes.
The pre-event was essentially a bidding war among players participating in the game, each competing to select a character from the multiple options provided by game management.
The lights shifted their brightness, just enough to fill the anchors' stage, but carefully calibrated to stop just short of blinding them. The two anchors hosting this season, Vorra and Orion, who despite having no practical need for a physical form, had each decided to take on something resembling a human one regardless.
"Orion." Vorra leaned back in her chair, crossing one leg over the other. She was strikingly tall even sitting down, her hair falling in silky strands the colour of silver. "Your eastern continent is a mess again."
Orion didn't look up, biting his nail absently while staring at a small glowing tablet floating above his hands. "Well, if you didn't know," he paused, looking at Vorra dead in the eyes, "it's character building."
"Three famines and a civil war in one century is not character building," Vorra scoffed. "That's just negligence."
"If you want to weed out the weak, you have got to sacrifice a few."
Vorra stared at him for a moment. Then turned away, knowing very well what type of person Orion was, the type who could argue for several thousand years if his ego took over.
Their exchange was cut short as the noise behind them swelled. The green room was in full swing, a broad open space where others milled about with the loose energy of people waiting for something to start. Still waiting for the event to kick off, they spent time looking at others or sharing their own different worlds. Floating before each of them, shifting and alive, were maps that didn't resemble any single place. Continents dissolving into other continents.
Each of them had built something entirely unique to their own ideals. Different rules. Different skies. Different stories to tell, each world had their own definitions for what it meant to live and die.
"Thirty thousand years and they finally got there," said a broad-shouldered figure, his voice carrying the quiet satisfaction of someone who had been proven right after a very long wait. "Written language. The northern tribes on my new planet in the Dark Eye Galaxy.Guess all the blessing's I poured into that world finally bloomed."
"Mine skipped written language entirely," said the woman beside him without looking up from her own floating map. "I invested my blessings and got them straight to telepathic encoding through sound waves. Much cleaner."
Nearby, two others stood with the loose posture of old rivals who had done this enough times that the hostility had long since mellowed into something almost fond.
"You want to go again?" the taller one asked, his blue skin catching the light as he swirled something luminous in a wine glass. "What's it been, a couple millennia? Didn't see you the last game. Let's go for a proper war this time, full scale."
"Yeah, spent too much of my blessings, had to focus on my status so I dont get erased." He shrugged, raising a hand and tapping the air absently. A similar glass of wine materialized out of thin air. Raising his glass toward his friend, the two clinked and sipped. "Another war, well it depends," he said, lowering his glass. "Which side are you taking?"
The taller one savoured his sip for a moment, an amused smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. Then he looked over. "I'll be the demon lord this time."
A pause.
The other shook his head slowly, tapping his temple with one finger. "If my near perfect memory is right, weren't you the demon lord last time?"
"I was the demon lord the time before last. You were the demon lord last time and you spent the first two centuries just building infrastructure." He gestured loosely with his glass as if the point barely needed making. "It wasn't interesting."
"Infrastructure wins wars."
"Infrastructure takes too long." He set his glass down. "And besides, the last one didn't do well with the views."
The other considered this seriously, the way someone considers a genuinely fair point. Then, reluctantly, he exhaled through his nose and waved a hand. "Fine. You can be the demon lord. But I want the northern fortress."
The taller one extended his glass forward. "Done."
Then the two at the desk straightened.
Vorra picked up her microphone. Orion set down his tablet. The light above the backdrop shifted from standby amber to a clean, sharp white. Along with the change in colour, a mask of professionalism settled over their faces.
Vorra leaned forward, her serious attitude completely vanished, and tapped the microphone once.
The sound that came out of it did not travel through air the way sound normally does. It arrived. Everywhere and all at once.
The room went quiet.
"We're live in five," Vorra said.
The backdrop shifted one final time.
"Five, four, three, two."
A breath.
"One."