I altered the God's Space, which is a name I just made for it since Kandance never bothered to make one, and gave it some furnishings and added two extra domes connected to the original. Those were separate bedrooms for myself and the ex-Goddess, since we both agree that we need our own spaces, and the original area got a table and some comfy chairs to make it a living room. I wanted a dining room, but as I don't know the foods of this world, I can't recreate any. Not even anything from mine. Which reminded me about the fuckload of questions I had for Kandance, so I called her over to chat.
"So… I've never really had a subordinate. And because of that, I don't know how I should treat you…?"
Kandance just shrugged. She clearly still has some resentment towards me, and I can't blame her. I'll just try to keep things amicable between us.
"Anyway, as mentioned before, there's some stuff I want you to tell me. You're fine spilling everything to me, right?"
Kandance crossed her arms and puffed her cheeks.
"Well, duh. Besides, I don't know how not being in charge feels, so I'm doing what you mortals do and figure it out myself."
… And?
"Does that include following orders?"
"Probably."
"Mkay. Then let's get started…"
I pulled out a stack of papers I had worked on in my room between the crying session and now. My memory is absolute shit, to the point where I can lose track of what I was doing a few seconds after I've decided to do it. Sadly, I'm not the most organized note keeper in the world either, so I rarely put down my thoughts anyway. Still, I tried for this. Gotta make an effort to change if you want change to happen.
"First off… wait, you already answered this one."
Another amazing feature of my bad memory is that I forget when something is told to me. A lot. And then I remember as soon as it's most inconvenient. Like when I made this list, I forgot that Kandance already told me that the reason she still has some power is that she can borrow some from me. Though that does lead into something else.
"Okay, first off for real: what limits do you have in "borrowing" power from me?"
The ex-Goddess across from me starts to think. It just occurred to me that she probably doesn't know too much about her own situation, considering that she had never been in one like this. She may not even be aware of the specifics herself.
"Well, I can use anything you've made as a catalyst, assuming you've made it with the intention for me to use it. It's why I was able to display my video on the panel you made, and why I could modify the space in the room you made for me."
Really? Let's see about that. I make three chairs: one with the intent for her to increase its size, one with the intent to let her change it to whatever material she likes, and one I don't intend for her to change at all.
"Try stuff out."
That's all I tell her. It'll give me more to observe, too. She eyes the chairs, holds her hand up, and lowers it to make… a panel of her own. This one had a little eye on it, which she tapped before pointing at each chair. She enlarged the size chair, made the material chair turn to gold, and did nothing to the last.
"Okay then… so, what was that?"
Yeah that felt right out of a JRPG or something.
"It's a God Panel. Some of the past mortals I've brought here described it like a "yew-aye" from games they play. It's something only an omnipotent being, aka just you and me, have access to. At least in my world, I can only dread what would happen if a world was built around these things. They basically let me do whatever I want, including putting names and numbers on aspects like mortal strength or skills. I used it to inspect these objects and it told me what I had your permission to do to them."
Ah, I see.
"Actually, it's UI, like the letters. Not being mean, just correcting you."
But since she said only we could do it… I tried it for myself. And yup, it showed me the permissions I put onto them and the effects currently applied.
"Only we should have access to this. Well, us and any past mortal who may have wished for something similar. Besides, if the people of the world could evaluate each other by measurable means, it'd be horribly abused!"
I can believe that. I've heard of stories where that exact feature exists, and it basically meant that, if you actually lived there, your entire worth to society was both quantifiable and completely up to chance.
"Actually, this is a good segway into my next question. How… long has it been since you've observed your whole world?"
Kandance starts counting her fingers. This worries me. She brings up a panel and starts writing on it, and it reminds me of when teachers do math in front of a class.
"Well, let's see… my first visit was when I actually made it. Then I watched them for five years before I let it sit for around… fifty thousand years of mortal time? After that, I made my reincarnation system and isekai'd a mortal in every thousand years of my world's time, though for your world it's more like every two to fours years? The last time I had to step in was when THAT situation happened, which was with the tenth mortal. And you are mortal number twenty-five, so… it's been seventy four thousand nine hundred and ninety five years."
What.
"Oh, actually! I only observed those affronts to my will, the Dreimazz, and even then it was just for five years. So that'd be… I guess fourteen thousand nine hundred and ninety five years for their civilization and seventy four thousand nine hundred and ninety five years for everyone else. Directly, anyway, since I heard a lot of nasty rumors about them from the Dreimazz, which I mostly dismissed because I do not like them."
WHAT.
"... Let me get this straight. Outside of the five year timeframe from the initial conception of the races, you have NEVER gone out there and seen what the world is like?"
"Well, I still read prayers and can see what is offered to me via my God's Panel, and I've gotten a good amount every mortal year. Which clearly means that there are still worshippers of my faith! Thus, everything should still be fine and I can just read whatever prayers I got for context!"
WHAT.
"... Yeah fuck this, the questions I have can wait. I need to see what it's actually like down there. You have probably been feeding misinformation with that video of yours for SO many people!"
Her cheeks puffed even bigger than earlier.
"To be fair! I did make it after the tenth because of what he did. So at least the geography I used for it is accurate! … If you count the geography from fourteen thousand nine hundred and ninety five years as accurate. And besides, I only needed to use it three times, so it's fine!"
That does not help at all. But whatever. Assessing the current state of the world I'm going to be in charge of is way more important than its history! I gotta figure out how I can visit, now!