The Gods play games.

The dice clattered softly as they slide across the face of the diamond and marble board. Two sixes shone upwards and Lueth groaned softly as his adversaries’ small knight figurine moved forwards with lightning speed and cut his deformed trolls head clean off its body.
“Looks like I win again dear Lueth. What does that make it? Five hundred games in a row? Not got bored yet? That’s a couple of year’s worth wasted. Including all those lovely little powers and trinkets of yours that I now own.” Gladiuth chuckled softly to himself as he scooped up his small crystal knight and the two gold dice. “Want to play again brother?” The two gods stared at one another for a moment as the rest of the almighty seven council sat watching on, most were bored but they all leaned forward to get a better look at the next hero Lueth would pull from the bag of mortals to face his brothers mighty knight.
“Of course I wish to play again,” snapped Lueth. The shining diamond board showed a perfect map of the mortal world that spun slowly beneath the feet of the Gods hallowed hall. There were the mountains of crag end, and there the mighty city of Ulth, the giant cesspit of Monpok and the almighty plains of Teknu. The whole world was mapped out in infinite detail. Small tendrils of gold laced across the perfect diamond to show the cities and the mountains and the lakes and the oceans, it was all there, all perfectly symmetrical to its real, living, breathing counterpart far below.
“Well I have already won so much from you I wonder what it is you have left to offer me. I wonder if you are finally willing to offer the prized Pegasus as a wager.”
“But I need those animals to pull the sun.”
“You have arms my dear brother I think you can find another way to keep the sun moving. So how does your Pegasus for my crown sound? Still think you have what it takes to win my throne? After all you do suck something chronic at this game.” The other Gods chuckled as they saw Lueth struggle to contain his anger. Being baited and riled by his brother was what had gotten Lueth into this trouble, a mad ill thought out bid for the crown and position as king of the Gods now saw him with virtually nothing left. No powers, no abilities, no respect and no room to manoeuvre. He was stuck and would have to play until his brother was forced to kill him. Nothing excited the Gods more than the spilling of blood, particularly the blood of one of their own. Over time the spilling of human blood becomes easy and boring.
“Come on hurry it up Leuth we don’t have all eternity,” mocked Cera, the Goddess of nature. Never had a more beautiful being been born into existence. With exquisite features, an air of regality never matched by another and an intelligence and humour honed to the sharpest point. But in spite of all her beauty and the peace and love she had for her nature there was dark core to Cera that she wished to see sated in the spilling of her brothers blood. Around the marbled hall the other gods rose from the small golden thrones and began to chant at the two men seated in the halls centre.
Harth, the God of the sea chanted with the sound of his mighty pet Kraken while Cera brought forth the sound of howling wolves. The other Gods began to give their own gifts to the chant. There was from Aphro a solemn but extraordinary music as she began to play her small harp, the sound brought tears to even death himself. From the God of war, Marius, a dozen trumpets of war broke forth from the lips of unseen hordes.
From the Dion, the God of exuberance, desires and pretty much anything seedy and unwholesome. Continually drunk and always looking for another excuse to party Dion was not the most trusted member of the council but he was always an exciting prospect to have at a party, known for his outlandish behaviour having Dion at a party was always sure to lead to many years of laughter. In the past few years however Dion had grown accustomed to crashing mortal parties and this always led to at least one or two dead mortals and a great many more twisted out of all synch with the mortal world. A great tide of wine smashed through the hall bringing the great cacophony of loud noise to an abrupt and sticky end.
“Oh for the creator’s sake what the hell is wrong with you Dion?” The rest of the council shouted their agreement with Cera. Each God flicked their wrist, snapped their fingers or shook themselves slightly disposing of the clinging red liquid. Standing proud in their now clean clothing each God, including the two gamers stood and turned upon the drunk Dion. Dion was lounging across his chair, a large jug of wine clasped in one hand and a giant leg of Grenola, a large chicken like animal, in the other. Dion was oblivious to the anger of his fellow Gods and continued to spill wine down his still soaking robe as he buried his face in the meat.
“Dion you worthless ape be gone.” As he spoke Gladiuth raised his hand and lazily spun it in a small circle, after the hands third circle had been made three griffins materialised behind the still oblivious eating God. In a flurry of feathers each Griffin reached out with their claws and grasped the by now very un-oblivious God and with a great burst of energy leapt high into the air.
“What exactly do you think you are doing? Let me down already.” As Dion squirmed and screamed at this totally unfair treatment Gladiuth smiled and waved his victim away. The Griffins immediately obeyed their creator and beat their wings with a great surge of raw power and carried the drunken God upwards into the sky. The roofless hall was quiet for a few moments before each of the Gods looked at one another and broke out into uncontrollable laughter.
Gladiuth was the first God to stop laughing as he noticed his almighty Knight crumble away to dust in his hand. Looking back at the board the Gods saw a small, perfectly carved Golden figure of Dion standing upon the city of Plendor, the last place Gladiuth had moved his Knight too.
“Oh for pitty sake.” Muttered Gladiuth as the figure of Dion vanished from the board and with a loud pop the real being was back in the Council hall. A smile was plastered across the Gods face but it was the item held aloft in his hand that really captured the councils attention. The head of Sir Ulrik stared blindly out at the audience. Gladiuth’s knight had been a formidable opponent and had won him the last few Games of Life with extraordinary ease and now that he was dead he would have to bring in and raise the level of another Hero. “Damn you Dion there was no call for that.”
“No there probably wasn’t but it was quite fun,” laughed Dion and the other council members began to join in. “Besides you have to give Lueth a break and at least this game will be more entertaining for us to watch, so what do you say guys shall we get this game underway?” Dion was greeted with huge cheers as wine goblets appeared in all their hands and a great feast appeared floating in the air as the Gods returned to their original positions, the watchers to their thrones, the gamers to their board.
Dion turned the head of Gladiuths old knight over in his hands and stared at the once mightiest Hero, slayer of Dragons, tamer of Daemons and wooer of many a fair maiden, he chuckled to himself as he thought of the Game that was to come, a close match between new hero’s he thought, just the sort of thing to pass the next few weeks or maybe even months if it proved to be a truly epic contest. The Knights skin shrivelled and burnt away until only the gleaming white skull was left. A little mascot for myself thought Dion as he placed the skull on the arm of his chair and grabbed a floating wine jug and a very large roasted boar that floated past.
The two gamers sat down opposite each other over the large marble board. Each player placed their respective gaming bags upon the board and collected their separate dice. A small stack of fate cards lay at the edge of the board and each player picked their first three cards, lying them face down by their bag without seeing what they had drawn. Now it fell to the players to draw their first Hero’s. Neither had an experienced fighter but fate may just smile kindly on one of them and allow them to draw a high level fighter right from the beginning. Gladiuth grinned displaying some strangely sharp teeth and reaching into his bag he winked at his long time opponent.
Withdrawing his hand led to a great ohhhhh that went whipping round the council chamber like the verbal equivalent of a Mexican wave. In Gladiuths hands stood a small figure carved in bright red marble and studded with tiny sparkling diamonds. In the figurines hand was clasped a staff of bright white marble with a large diamond set into the staffs top. The wizard was an imposing figure and the council erupted into excited chatter, it looked to be an even greater Hero than the mighty knight that Dion had so harshly decapitated.
Leuth felt his mouth drop as his opponent pulled his wizard from the dark folds of his bag. A game that had once seemed so close now seemed over already, just another defeat to add to the huge list of past mistakes. Gladiuth placed the figurine down on the board and a magical force pulled the figurine over to wherever the real Wizard was far below on the mortal world. It settled over the small town of Athenia.
“Your turn brother,” whispered Gladiuth as he took a sip of wine, “Do you have anything that can beat a level 2 Wizard?”
Leuth quickly reached into his bag and felt the dozens of playing pieces he had to choose from, many were poor, a foot soldier here, maybe an archer or two there but nothing that would hope to stand up against mediocre Hero let alone a Wizard, and a level 2 one at that. But somewhere Lueth knew that a special piece had been steadily growing stronger for the past ten years, a piece that could stand up against that Wizard and bring it to its knees.
And so it was that after a few seconds of rumbling Lueth brought out the small figure of his son. Immediately the chamber erupted into chaos. Twenty years ago during a short break in playing Lueth had taken what he called an urgent ‘pit stop’ to the bathroom. While there he sneaked into the mortal realm, seduced a maiden and ensured he would have a good playing piece in future games. When the child was ten and during another emergency bathroom break Lueth once more slipped into the mortal’s world, found his child and took the part of his soul that was now locked away in the playing piece. It was this link between the two halves of the soul that allowed the Gods to control their pieces, each piece had been groomed from birth for the soul purpose of being a playing piece for their chosen God. Gladiuths Wizard for instance had had his soul stripped in half when he first set foot in the Wizard Academy at the tender age of six.
The murmuring around the chamber continued as Lueth placed the image of his son down upon the board and it was quickly dragged over to the city of Romena where the real son was currently browsing through the world renowned flea market.
“A cruel thing to do to your own son Lueth, stripping a soul makes it hard for the person to have a life after death and even harder for a demi-god to join us in the halls of Heaven.” The other Gods voiced there concerns over Lueth’s un-fair treatment of his own blood but he ignored them and laughed at his opponent.
“Ye ye I know I know no need to tell me. Besides I have plenty more where they come from,” as he spoke Lueth winked at Gladiuth and laughed, finally a game was within his grasp, “Now do you want to play or not?”
“Of course after you.”
“Why thank you.” As he rolled the dice Lueth’s smile froze as a card of chance rose from the pack of its own accord and lay face up on the board. All around the chamber the audience burst into hysterical fits of laughter and Lueth felt his game crumble around his ears. Far below upon the Earth Lueth’s son was not in for a good time.