Chapter 87

Chapter Player.5 Vs. Li’l ’Don —And Then There Were None— Gods’ Games We Play 1 The gods’ games, played by the gods on high: Chosen humans became apostles and could travel to and from Elements, the superior spiritual realm. Fay and the others landed in some ruins rich with the smell of earth. They were in what looked like a large room with five exits, each leading to a dark passageway. They could see candlelight flickering within. “Looks like Uroboros sent us…somewhere. Whether we wanted it or not,” Fay said. He suspected this was a god’s playing field, in this case designed to look like some underground ruins. The ceiling was made of packed earth, and when he touched the wall, he found the soil was loose; part of the wall crumbled away under his fingers. “This is a pretty depressing place. It smells moldy, and the air is so thick,” Nel said with an edge of nervousness. Elements were usually grand, as befitted the holy dwelling place of the gods. These ruins, though… They were, indeed, quite depressing and more than a little eerie. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Master Fay. Any god who would dwell in such a gloomy place must have a most unpleasant game in store for—” Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud! She was interrupted by pounding footsteps that came rushing toward them. “Ah! Ha! Hah! Welcome to my labyrinth!” The deity was a pelt-wearing humanoid—a large-ish goddess who had two horns like a bull’s growing out of her forehead. She looked reserved and demure, though her outfit was rather primitive, an animal hide that left her shoulders exposed. “I, and I myself, am the master of this underground maze—the human/beast-god Minotaur!” Minotaur: the “bull” god who ruled a subterranean labyrinth. This deity’s most salient characteristic was…a chest so large that it seemed to say, Well? How about this?! As she ran along, it bounced up and down, causing the onlooking Leshea and Nel to exclaim, “Look at the size of those!” “Welcome, you four humans, to… Huh?” Minotaur swept them with her gaze, but when she got to Pearl, she blinked. Then she gave the girl a hard stare, but she wasn’t looking at her face. No, the god was studying Pearl’s own prodigious chest, plainly visible even with her uniform on. “She hasn’t lost!” Nel shouted. “You might have the size advantage in absolute terms, O Minotaur, but if you go by ratio of height to bust, then by my judgment, you’re almost equal! This could be the biggest battle in history!” “The biggest battle of what?!” Pearl interjected, but the Minotaur simply pointed at her, eyes shining. She appeared to be overcome with joy. “Ahhh! A member of my own tribe!” “Excuse me, I’m a human! And where do you think you’re pointing?!” “Could it be?! Could it be that you’re my own older sister, separated from me some five hundred years ago?!” “No, I’m definitely not!” Who would have expected Minotaur to see Pearl as her peer? Apparently, in the eyes of the “human-beast god,” Pearl’s chest was as good as any deity’s. “Yep, you’re sisters, all right. Your chests and your personalities are both of a piece!” “You too, Leshea?!” “Welcome, humans. To start things off, behold my brilliant maze!” Minotaur spread her arms gleefully. “In this labyrinth, you, the human players, run away from me, the god, and try to get to the goal before I catch you! Hee-hee-hee! I’ll bet you’ve never seen such a splendid labyrinth before, have you, humans?” “Oh, sure we have,” said Fay. “What?” The horned goddess blinked, completely taken aback. “Maybe I’m hearing things. I thought you said…” “Ahhh… Yeah, uh, sorry. I hate to break it to you when you’re feeling so bullish about your maze, but…” Fay shared an awkward smile with his companions. “We, uh…” “We just cleared a labyrinth game,” Pearl said. “I see… Yes, with all the gods out there, I suppose this was bound to happen eventually,” Nel added. “It’s a game overlap!” chirped Leshea. Yes: The games had overlapped. Anubis’s labyrinth game and Minotaur’s. In the broadest terms, as games where the players tried to escape from a sprawling maze, they were the same. The gods each created whatever kind of game they wanted. They didn’t know what the other gods were doing. “Wh-wh-wh-wh-what?!” Minotaur backed up, deeply shaken. “But…but my maze game has monsters! You can defeat them to earn items, and then at the end, there’s a major sequence where you battle me as the final boss! I’d like to see any other game match that!” In fact, another game had matched it exactly. She was literally describing the concept of Anubis’s dungeon. “They really are similar,” Fay muttered. “I don’t mind playing the same game twice,” Leshea volunteered. “I don’t, either, if it’s not too long,” said Pearl. “Nor do I have any objections. In fact, our experience might serve us well in the same kind of game.” “Same, same, same! Stop saying same!” Minotaur wailed, her voice echoing around the labyrinth. “Awww… This stinks.” The bull goddess sat down on the floor, and tears began to gather at the corners of her eyes. “Waaaaaahh!” She started to cry, her eyes getting red and puffy as big, fat tears rolled down her cheeks. “Huh? Wh-whoa, I don’t think it’s anything to cry about…,” Fay said. This was getting more uncomfortable by the minute. How could they make her feel better? Fay and the others looked at one another, and it didn’t take them long to notice something strange going on at their feet. Plop! Minotaur’s tears pooled on the floor, until the liquid was almost as high as the humans’ ankles. That was way too many tears! “Waaaaahh!” The goddess’s weeping flooded the floor and promptly formed puddles, then pools, until the water was around Fay’s knees. “H-hey, uh, hold on! Minotaur? My lady? At this rate…” “At this rate, we’re going to drown!” Nel and Pearl tried to persuade her to stop crying, but it wasn’t helping. The sobbing deity sucked in a big breath, then shouted: “Poseidooooooon!” At that moment, the water around the humans’ knees exploded. “Who dares to bully my friend?!” someone bellowed. Before Fay and the others could figure out who was shouting, the ceiling of the ruins came crashing down, burying them in earth and dust. Before he knew what was happening, Fay found himself floating on a vast blue ocean. He wasn’t swimming—he and the others were, of all things, riding on a massive jellyfish that bobbed on the water’s surface. “Say, Fay, do you suppose this means that underground labyrinth was deep below the ocean?” asked Leshea. “I guess so. I never would have imagined there was this much water above those ruins. You know, I thought I heard somebody shouting just before the ceiling caved in.” The surface of the ocean swelled, and then, with a great spout of water, a massive white whale came flying out of the spray. “This is my Elements!” A girl with bright blue hair was standing on the whale’s nose. She had a baby face that made her look even younger than Pearl, and her eyes glittered with curiosity. In her hand she held an outrageously large trident. “When one speaks of Poseidon, the sweet deity of the sea, it is me they speak of!” Outwardly, she seemed just on the cusp between being a little girl and a young woman. She looked adorable, but there was no denying the sheer presence she projected—definitely that of a god. “You say you’re Mistress Poseidon? But we’re supposed to be facing Mistress Minotaur. The labyrinth collapsed, and…you’re saying this is your Elements?!” “No, no, no!” The young-looking deity waved her trident. “I’m not Mistress Poseidon, I’m sweet little Poseidon!” “Y-you actually want us to call you that?!” Nel asked, shocked. “I h-have serious reservations about addressing a god with such familiarity. Perhaps we could compromise and say Lady Poseidon?” “No way! If you really want to call me that, then address me as sweet little Lady Poseidon!” “I’m having a flash of inspiration!” Pearl exclaimed, her eyes sparkling. “How about Li’l ’Don?” “I’ll allow it!” Oh, enough… As Fay and the rest of his companions looked on in exasperation, Minotaur sprang up and onto the white whale. “Li’l ’Don here, see, she likes being called little and sweet and stuff.” She grabbed Poseidon from behind in a hug. The hulking Minotaur and the nearly child-size Poseidon looked almost like a mother and daughter, the one embracing the other. “Heh-heh-heh… Game overlap. Who would have guessed? In that case, instead of sweet little Mino’s labyrinth, you may face my game, humans!” Poseidon gave them an unexpected grin. “Ah, you wonder what my game might be? Then let me tell yo—”