Standing amongst the oppressive auras of several divine beings was not Wisdom's definition of a good time.
When he was first transported by the "System", as she called herself, he ended up landing in a obscure house via a chimney, like an out of season and much younger Santa Claus going through a mid-life crisis. By the time he crawled out of it while groaning, he was greeted with a young girl with light brown hair and eyes as orange as a lit cigarette.
"So you'll be my Priest. My name is Hestia, Greek goddess of the hearth and home. You'll have to bear with me for this unfortunate game, though I assure you, I will retain a neutral stance in almost every conflict, so you needn't worry about me working you to the bone by fighting," she has hesitated. "Though house chores may be a different matter."
It was around this point Wisdom had already accepted his fate to be a glorified maid, though compared to participating in needless squabbles and fights, he supposed mopping floorboards and wiping sinks wasn't too bad a gig. Thus, he had spent exactly a month in the surprisingly pleasant and neat presence of Hestia, who was a great deal more humble and demure than he would've hypothesized a goddess to be.
So why he was here, in an extremely uncomfortable enviornment saturated with arrogance and simmering tensions felt like a decent question to have answered. However, as his goddess kept to herself most of the time, she lacked the specifics of the situation.
'Note to self: create an information network—that way we can stay neutral and relatively protected by all of these tiresome people.'
On his left was Hestia, just a few feet from him dressed to the nines in a gold and amber chiton and all of the assumed concourses of other Greek gods. The ones who stood out notably was a stately, stern woman with gray eyes and a war helm, her chiton of storm cloud gray covered with armor, a taller, bearded man with the build of a swimmer in an odd outfit of an open tropic beach shirt and a white cloth wrapped around his waist, sea green eyes alert and dark with power, and finally a man with curls of gold that matched his prominent beard, sky blue eyes crackling with lightning and his white chiton robes that were wrapped below his pectorals and thrown over one shoulder, exposing his chest.
Of course, all of the Greek gods and goddesses were eye-catching in one way or another, with armor and peacock feathers and even a crown of grape wines—but those three stood out not only due to their aura, but because of their gazes which were all similarly affixed upon other gods from the mythologies.
Directly across from the Greeks were gods in entirely different clothing, with men wearing expensive looking tunics and trousers from styles aging modern to ancient, and woman wearing the type of dresses he imagined were of more European origin. Based on certain weaponry and the clothing styles, he guessed they were the Norse faction, though a clear divide existed between the modern and ancient.
'Seems they have more infighting than any of the other factions,' Wisdom noted to himself before taking in the faction on his direct right.
Adorned in very recognizable Roman-style robes, tunics and dresses, a very clear tension existed between his faction and theirs, with baleful glares being exchanged more freely than stocks were.
'Yup,' he thought aimlessly while lighting and inhaling a cigarette to soothe his nerves, 'clearly we don't like them and they don't like us. Might need to steer clear of them in general, since I bet my cigarette pack and medical bills that if I were to exchange information with them, Hestia's siblings would have my hide. And that leaves...'
...the Egyptian faction.
Standing exactly across from him in the huge, circular and columned room was the oldest and arguably most united faction, with more history of alliances and betrayal to form a semi-united mass of ancient and wise gods dressed both modern and ancient, with two notably distant figures.
One wore a lab coat and glasses, a cigarette in his mouth and a surprisingly distinguished aura about him despite the strange stains on his white pants and coat.
The other was perhaps one of the stranger gods he had seen, with skin so dark it was black, a wild mane of silver hair, and a simple cloth surrounding his waist; scars that Wisdom could see from the distance crisscrossed and lined his body, and when he moved, so did the other gods, removing themselves from his path from disgust or fear, Wisdom could not tell.
Watching the enormous room fill up with these fantastical beings had resulted in Wisdom smoking what would have been an entire pack had the System not enchanted his cigarettes to never run out, and a pair of very sore feet. Rubbing a building headache, his gaze snapped to the entrance when he saw it shine and a strange group of people enter, though it was not their appearances, but rather formation that surprised him.
A total of six people, consisting of three men and three woman, entered at almost the same time, taking in the situation at hand as the rest of the room smothered them with impatient and curious gazes.
Two of the men stood at least a head over the rest, with one pale, thin and dressed in a white dress with a high collar, tight sleeves that widened at his elbows down into an almost cone-like shape, and a skirt that fell smoothly to his ankles and clung to his chest, and the other with a wild mane of blue hair, chest bare with crisscrossing leather straps holding up a fur cloak, ragged pants his only other article.
The bare chested man hovered protectively around a smaller girl, wrapped in a simple fur coat that covered her entirety. Their relationship was clearly comfortable, as if they had known each other for a long, long time.
Meanwhile, the thin one resolutely kept his gaze away from a comparatively shorter woman who wore an intricate linen shirt and shorts, gold accents glittering as she hovered near an even taller woman with dark caramel skin, a black wrap around her chest and poofy pants that reminded Wisdom of a dancers. Next to the dancer woman was a boy with skin darker than hers, a small cape covering his bare chest with him wearing black shorts, gold bands on his forearms, bandages around his ankles and feet, a golden necklaces hanging beneath his cloak and black and gold jackal ears adorning his head.
Across from Wisdom, the Egyptian faction began murmuring and moving at the sight of the young boy, expressions of shock, worry, and contemplation splayed across the majority. Greeted with whispers and gazes, the group broke apart, with the two men moving towards the more modern section of the Norse, and the boy and tall woman towards the Egyptian faction.
Hums of conversation hung within the air—and then stopped. Tension rose as the gods held their breath, as if waiting for something; the hair's on Wisdom's neck rose with their fervor.
It was like a glitch in reality—one minute there was nothing, the next, a small, masked figure levitated within the center of the colossal room, amber hair burning like a flame and sapphire suit rippling like water over a tanned and freckled body. A distorted voice that was simultaneously male and female, robotic and human, greeted them, detonating the silence.
"W-Welcome to t-the Conference of the G-G-Gods," the voice announced, glitching making a stutter form, "W-We will now s-s-settle f-factions."