The Game of Gods: The Beginning - A LitRPG / Gamelit Dystopian Fantasy Novel, page 1
The Game of Gods
~The Beginning~
Joshua Kern
Copyright © 2019 Joshua Kern
Cover Design by Joshua Kern & http://Canva.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
First Edition
The Game of Gods: The Beginning is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or places, is completely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Intermission
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Afterword
End Notes
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Prologue
“I have grown tired of watching over these foolish humans!” Zeus roared in annoyance. Many of his fellow gods that were gathered around the circular table nodded in agreement.
“What would you have us do? They have all but forgotten us!” Odin replied, one hand stroking Muninn while Huginn rested on the opposite shoulder.
“Speak for yourself, some of us still have worshippers and followers.” One of the gods clinging to the wall of the room shouted.
“Bah,” Odin snorted in derision. “Those worshippers you’re so proud of are nothing more than sheep following the people around them. They don’t truly believe in us anymore.” He finished angrily.
“No, they don’t, but there is something we can do. We can reset the board, we can change everything before we truly are forgotten.” Zeus told them wearily. The long intervening years had not been kind to any of them. Many of them were one comic book or movie away from being forgotten by the masses.
“How? None of us have the strength to do something of that magnitude anymore. Even at the height of our powers it would have proven difficult!” Brigit of the Tuatha Dé Danann, said angrily as she finally rolled the dice waiting breathlessly for it to finish rolling. She got an eleven.
The man at the head of the table was garbed in a large cloak and hood that kept his face in shadow. “You needed at least a thirteen to avoid the attack from the crazed Dark Elf. His strike hits for one hundred twelve damage taking the rest of your health. You have died.” The games Dungeon Master told her with a barely hidden smirk.
Brigit stood in a huff and kicked over her chair. That was the third character she had lost in as many weeks.
“If you worked together with everyone else, you would not die as often!” He told the beautiful and angry goddess. His words doubtlessly falling on deaf ears, playing nice with other people had never been her strong suit.
“Well, there’s an idea!” Shiva interjected in a deep smooth voice. “We could all work together to make it happen. Combine all our remaining powers.”
“Hmm, it could work,” Odin said thoughtfully, his fingers still stroking the silky black feathers of the raven Muninn.
Arinna the Sun-goddess’s softly glowing hands reached across the table and snagged the dice. It was her turn to roll them. “What do we do then? How would we change things?” She asked as she tossed the dice across the table.
Zeus reached out and caught the dice before they could hit the table, ignoring Arinna’s squawk of displeasure. “That’s obvious we turn the entire world into this!” He told them all in a powerful voice as he waved his arm at the table.
Slowly, all the gathered gods began laughing as they caught onto what he was suggesting.
It was unnoticed by the rest when the face of the Dungeon Master upturned into a gleeful grin. Finally, things were about to get interesting. The game of gods was about to begin.
Chapter 1
Charles woke with a groan already able to feel his head pounding in anger at him having stayed up as long as he had. It wasn’t his fault that the episode of his favorite TV show had been particularly good, nor did it matter that he had watched the entire series at least five times already.
He had pulled three all-nighters in a row at work, in an effort to complete the project on time. When he had finally gotten home, the night before he had flicked on the TV to his favorite show instead of going to sleep. The high of being awake for so long had slowly faded away as he watched the show from his bed. A deep sleep had claimed soon afterwards.
His eyes felt like they were glued shut as he forced the palms of his hands to scrub at them with another groan. His dreams had been odd and disturbing forcing him to ignore them all night long.
“Oh, quit your whining, you pathetic weakling!” An uncompromisingly hard voice said to him.
With a hitch of his throat, Charles shot off his bed and to his feet, his eyes pulling themselves open with a wrench. His sandy and dry feeling eyes revealed a blurred and hazy looking room with a red-haired woman standing in front of his desk. As he blinked furiously, she slowly came into focus, revealing her long curly red hair that cascaded down the middle of her back. Her large green eyes were hard, and her sharp nose upturned haughtily as she looked at him. A sword was strapped to the thigh of her dark red leather pants. A soft green blouse tried to hide her womanly form only barely succeeding. She was an exceedingly beautiful woman, but none of that so much as hinted to the reason that she was standing in the bedroom of his apartment.
Then he felt his mind stutter and grind to a halt as he saw the long-tapered ears that peaked through her hair.
“Who… who are you?” He stuttered weakly as he tried to cover his overly skinny chest. His dark blue boxers highlighting his pale legs.
A hazy black transparent box flickered into being in the corner of his vision.
You have been cursed by the gods! Your refusal to acknowledge their announcement has earned their ire!
The curse ‘Sleepless’ has been placed upon you by the gods, as such only the gods may remove this curse.
As Zeus is one of the gods involved in this curse, it was decided that you will need to complete twelve challenges to have this curse removed. Details of the challenges you will need to complete will be revealed in time.
For now, enjoy not being able to sleep.
Charles felt his legs grow weak at what he was seeing. The soft edges of the box stayed in his vision no matter how much he blinked.
“You have to will it closed like you would a window on your computer, you dimwitted fool!”
Charles extended his hand and tried pressing the corner as she had said. A harsh laugh filled the air at his actions.
“You have to do it with your mind, not your hand. Just think about it closing.” At the direction of her words, he pushed with his mind and the box closed leaving nothing behind.
“What is going on?” Charles asked weakly as he sank back onto his bed.
“If you had woken like everyone else in the world, you would already know the answer to that question. The world has changed. My fellow gods and I decided that we had grown bored looking over the world. You all had but forgotten us, leaving us with nothing to occupy our time. Can you really blame us for growing bored and needing to find other things to occupy our time with? We decided that we no longer wanted humanity to continue down the path they had been treading. So, we combined all our powers and changed the very fabric of reality and the world.” The red-haired elfin eared goddess pushed away from his cluttered desk to stand at her full angry five-foot height.
“The world is now modeled after the fashion of your table-top role-playing games. People can now gain levels by completing tasks or killing monsters. And yes, there are monsters in the world. We have brought back the monsters of legend and awakened them from their slumber. As time passes, more will be introduced when the time is right. You will be happy to note that when we made these changes, we decided to include a helpful guide to the way the new system works. All you have to do is think ‘Help’ and the guide will pop into being in the center of your vision.” She continued speaking, but Charles felt his attention drift at the fantastical change that she was talking about. Nothing was the same. The entire world had been changed overnight.
“What happened to the power?” He asked numbly as he noticed that his alarm clock was no longer working.
“About that,” She answered with an audible smirk. “You see something interesting happened when we changed the world. It created something akin to an Electro-Magnetic Pulse, consequently, the entire world no longer has power. All the technology humanity has created over the years is now worthless.”
“What about pacemakers and life-support machines?” He asked, trying to wrap his
“What about them? They’re all dead!” Was the cold reply. “Do you even know how many people have died in the hours since our announcement? The shock alone killed a full tenth of humanity, since then roving monsters and accidents of all kind have taken another thirty percent. Of the nearly eight billion people that were alive yesterday just under five billion remains.”
“Who are you?” Charles finally managed to ask as the shock of what she was saying broke him from his stupor.
“My name is Brigit of the Tuatha Dé Danann, and I am a goddess you mortal worm.” As she spoke her voice grew deeper, and she seemed to grow in height.
“My family,” Charles asked, choosing to ignore what she had just announced a second before. The Fae weren’t real, then again neither were the other gods. He would have to ask her about them all later if he had the chance.
“Hmm?” Brigit asked, seeming unable to follow what he was asking.
“What about my family? Are they alive or dead?” He clarified for her. Last night, both his parents and his older sister had all been alive.
“Your parents are dead, they were in their car when it happened. As for your sister, it seems that she is still alive and has formed a party of survivors on her school campus.” She paused for a second before refocusing her large eyes on him. “Enough about other people, I must leave soon, and we have a lot to cover. Pray that we have time to finish the list.”
Charles forced himself to push aside the feelings he felt concerning the death of his parents and the situation his sister was in. For now, at least he had other things to worry about, and by the sound of it, his sister was doing better than he was. Besides, she was on the opposite side of the country at MIT. There was nothing he could for her from Denver. He would make his way to her though, he would make sure of it.
“Pull up your ‘Status’ page by thinking about it. This page will be very helpful to your future, so don’t forget that it exists. It will be where you manage your various abilities.” She told him, once more getting down to business.
Charles thought ‘Status’ and saw a page with three simple lines in it and nothing more.
Name: Charles Byrne
Level 1 - Exp to next level: 40
Cursed by the gods with ‘Sleepless’
“Umm, isn’t there usually more than three lines of information on a status page?” He dared to ask the goddess who was suddenly looking at him strangely.
“Yes, there are supposed to be lines for Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Intelligence and more. For some reason, you don’t have any of those listed.” She crept closer to him until he could see that her eyes were unfocused and slightly glazed.
He watched as her mouth began to move softly whispering to herself in a language he didn’t understand. The more she whispered, the brighter her green eyes became until they were glowing brightly. Finally, the glow in her eyes began to fade as she finished whatever it was she had been doing, no longer whispering.
“It is because of our curse on you!” She said at length. “To level-up properly you need to fall asleep for the various changes to take effect. Since you cannot sleep, those changes are unable to be applied. It is good we discovered this now before we curse anyone else.”
“If I can’t level-up and grow stronger, then how am I supposed to survive?” Charles asked weakly as he pulled his still warm blanket over his bare legs.
“Yes, that may prove to be difficult for you. Oh, well.” She said nonchalantly as her eyes fully refocused on him.
“Oh, well?” Charles sputtered. “I’m going to die because of what you people did and all you can do is say oh well?” The sunlight in the room dimmed as clouds passed over it.
Brigit’s hair took on an otherworldly glow blazing red at his question. “You dare to question the gods?” The anger was palpable in her voice as it lowered to a deep bass that he felt in his bones.
“Yes, yes, I do.” He said indignantly, glad that he was already sitting. He didn’t think his legs would have held him otherwise. Just sitting in front, she was almost too much for him. His mouth and throat were dry, and his heart was beating faster than it had before causing everything to take on a reddish tinge.
“Do you understand that I could kill you without a thought and not feel anything more regarding the act than I would for stepping on an ant?” Her eyes had begun to glow again, flashing dangerously.
“What is your point?” He returned, acting far braver than he actually felt. “From what you have told me, it sounds like I am going to die, anyway. So why exactly should I fear the wrath of the gods?”
The goddess’s eyes flashed one last time and then the light illuminating them began to fade taking the blazing red of her hair with it. She stood there in front of him looking down at him a gleam replacing the anger in her eyes.
“Hmm, you surprise me, human. You drew our attention by your lack of action during our announcement. Now you have drawn my personal attention by your actions.” She stepped back and leaned her hip against his desk in the corner of the room her eyes fixed on him thoughtfully.
A small grin slowly crept across her face as she continued to look at him. “I think that I am going to enjoy this new world that we have created!” She said softly to herself unaware that Charles still heard her words. Her eyes slid out of focus as her attention drifted from him to somewhere else.
Charles struggled to keep his face even as he sat in his bed. The goddess put out a palpable and near stifling aura of pressure, even while she was just standing there calmly.
“Very well,” She said, finally drawing his attention back to her and away from his inner musings. “I have discussed it with the other ruling gods, and we have decided that there may be something we can do for you. The gods have decided to gift you with a weapon and an item that will help you survive if used correctly.” The air in front of her blurred as she held out her hand with her palm open and fingers pointed upwards.
“How will a weapon be useful to me?” Charles managed to force out, his tongue feeling increasingly thick and unresponsive the longer she was in front of him. “I’ve never even been in a fight before. I don’t know how to use any weapons!”
Brigit’s face tightened at his interruption. “If you would remain quiet, I will explain!” She enunciated each word carefully through clenched teeth. “As I was saying. Both items will possess certain enchantments that you should find useful in remaining alive.” The air above her hand solidified into a small black flask with an attached strap to allow it to hang from a belt. “This flask contains a health potion that will heal you back to full health as long as you remain alive to use it. It will not bring you back from the dead in other words.”
Great, a single use item! That will only be useful one time, Charles thought carefully keeping his inner thoughts from showing on his face.
“This flask is more than what it appears, however,” She continued with a smirk on her face clearly having guessed what he was thinking. “There are a number of enchantments on it. The first binds it to your person so that it cannot be sold, stolen, or given away. The second, refills it over time, every twelve hours it can be used one time. Bear in mind that it doesn’t matter how much you drink, it will still count as using it a single time. Also, the potion inside cannot be stored inside any other container, so don’t even try. Finally, the flask can only be used on yourself or a member of your party.” She passed the flask over to him watching as he looked at it closely.
Those limitations on it, he knew would ensure it remained useable over time while keeping it out of other people’s hands. It was definitely a good item as long as he could find a way to remain alive, with any luck the weapon she had mentioned would have equally useful enchantments on them.
The air above her hand once more blurred as a long black sword that seemed to absorb light settled into her open hand. It was what was known as a hand and a half sword allowing it to be used with one hand or two depending on the situation. The blade was thin and appeared to be suitable more for piercing than slashing. Above her hand, a simple unadorned leather scabbard and belt appeared and then settled limply in her grasp hanging over the edge of her hand.
