Games Gods Play Book 1: The Beginning

Prologue: The Bet.

Judging the ways of gods is usually caused by either idiocy or sheer freedom of thought,

for gods seldom allow mortals make objects to be judged out of gods.

-From "The Chronicles of Otherworld".

Harry Potter was having a bad dream. To be frank, having bad dreams, more commonly known as nightmares, was as normal for him as breathing for most of us. He was dreaming of being forced to decide - which girl of the four that were fighting for being his girlfriend he chooses. And he could not - for all of them were equally valuable and dear to him. Hermione Granger - for being a true friend, though he never felt anything like love towards her. Ginny Weasley - more like out of pure fatherly love, for he was there to save her from whatever trouble she was in, but he was not feeling like having her for a girlfriend. Cho Chang - of course, he felt good when he thought of her, but he was unsure if she was doing this for her own good, or for theirs. And Parvati Patil, who kept yelling something about being his date at the Yule Ball and all...

He woke up in cold sweat. At least having nightmares about Voldemort killing somebody was redeemable by the fact that it also gave Harry his plans. Usually at least.

But this... This was unbearable.

He got up from his bed in Privet Drive, Number 4, and walked up to the window. His snow white owl, Hedwig, was sleeping in her cage - life with Harry's Muggle relatives made it so that she got used to sleep all day during his summer vacation.

They weren't really bad - they just despised magic, they despised Harry's mother for being magical and, therefore, they despised Harry. It was logical, in a way, however twisted and hideously deformed that way was. Except that agreeing with this surely did not make Harry's life easier.

Suddenly, a strange light attracted Harry's view - and it was flying towards his window! He leaned onto the window-sill carefully, trying not to make any sounds, thus avoiding danger and inevitable doom from the Dursleys'-being-woken-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night wrath®.

He was quite shocked to see that this light, whatever its source was, penetrated the window with ease and landed safely on his desk. He stepped closer to it trying to see what it was when it suddenly took flight again, this time hovering in front of his face.

"I greet you, Harry Potter!" it exclaimed. Harry peered closer at this light, finding out that it was a very small something - not a pixie though, pixies did not look like this.

"Well, I greet you too, little hallucination caused by doing too many History of Magic essays in one sitting," he replied, trying to sound cheerful.

"I am not a hallucination!" the small thing protested, "I am a messenger from Lord Arquin!"

"Who?" Harry asked. The only person he ever heard to be referred to as a Lord was Voldemort.

"Lord Arquin, one of the Rulers of Order!" the little thing exclaimed.

"Er... What Order? Of the Phoenix?" Harry asked tactfully.

"No, you stupid mortal! Order as in opposite of Chaos!" it yelled angrily. Harry was slowly wishing tha these hallucinations would cease right about now and he could go to bed before the yelling woke his uncle up, which in turn meant the extreme use of Brute Force of Doom (TM) on him. Not a thing he wanted to experience in this life, definitely not.

"Er... right... and you bring the message of..." said Harry, trying to get it (whatever it was) to tell him more.

"That you were chosen!"

"Chosen for what, might I ask?" he asked, feeling that he definitely missed the times when all of his hallucinations consisted of Death Eaters swarming from every corner, trying to kill him... At least those had a comprehensible meaning.

"To participate in the Tournament of the Gods!" it exclaimed cheerfully.

"And?"

"You are to report to Tanelorn in twenty-one hours of this world!" it cried.

"Er... pardon me, but who is this Tanelorn fellow you speak of?" Harry asked, trying to sound not very offending. Judging by the facial expression of the little messenger, he failed.

"Not who, but what! Tanelorn is a city! You must be there in twenty hours and fifty-nine minutes in this plane's time!" it repeated slowly.

"Er... and how am I going to get there?" he asked.

"You mortals always complicate things... Let's say you will be shown the way in about..." the small whatever-it-was paused for a moment, glancing at the window as if expecting something, "... about seven minutes later."

"Later from what?"

"From now, you stupid creature!" It was now yelling at the top of its miniscule lungs, but fortunately for Harry, it still made a rather quiet sound. Either it was not trying hard enough, or it just could not. Anyway, Harry already discarded the threat of the Dursleys being woken up by this... this... thing.

"Oh. That's what I thought. And it'll be... a map, I hope?"

"He hopes! He hopes!" the messenger muttered angrily, then switched into some other language, incomprehensible to Harry, yet quite skilfully used to conjure up some very bad sounding words. Harry was not sure if this was explicit swearing or not, but the tone sure pointed to very colourful profanity.

Harry was about to excuse himself for whatever fault his was, but the moment he opened his mouth, the window was smashed open by what looked like a tail. Moreover, it was a bird's tail, and even furthermore, it was a tail of a bird made out of metal. It was hovering right outside Harry's window, making some very odd noises.

"There's your ride, mortal!" the messenger exclaimed, "Hop on and the bird will take you to Tanelorn."

"Um... Should I pack? At least dress up?" Harry asked. The messenger eyed him suspiciously from head to toe, while Harry listened to Vernon Dursley snore (the broken glass seemed not to affect his sleep at all). The thing nodded, "Dress up, you won't need luggage where you're going."

Once he was dressed up (a pair of jeans, an old t-shirt and a pair of black robes, just in case), his wand safely in his pocket, the glasses fastened onto his head, he jumped out of the window, landing on the bird's back. After all, playing Quidditch for six years taught you a lot of things concerning acrobatics, flying objects and their combined use.

The bird gave a strange screech and took off into flight...

*****

Draco Malfoy was meditating. Actually, he was just trying to recover from just winning a drinking competition over at the Sleazy Weasel, but he told his parents that he's meditating. They, being the people they are, decided not to ask why is their son going to meditate while smelling as if he just consumed half of the world's alcohol supply in one sitting. Actually, even if they asked, he wouldn't've given them a reasonable answer.

The main problem with concentrating on real meditation was that nasty little light hovering in front of his face.

"Hey, mortal! Wake up!" it yelled.

"Bugger off, you... you... hallucination caused by my drinking too much!" he replied angrily, trying to remember if it was the vodka or the tequila that made him see things like that. Probably it was all that cognac, he concluded as the thing started yelling with its high-pitched voice again.

"Snap out of it, mortal, I'm not a hallucination!"

"Yeah, right, and then they drag me off to St. Mungo's just because I'm talking to thin air. I know the story..." his voice trailed off as he felt that all that alcohol finally made its way to his brain, effectively cutting off any nerve signals that tried to reach it. Luckily for him, that included hallucinations. And messengers from Rulers of Order.

*****

Hermione Granger was not sleeping this night. Instead, she was doing her Astronomy homework, looking at a comet in the sky. She was about to turn to her notes to write down some more, when she saw a small light through her telescope, growing steadily bigger until it became the size of the sun, then bigger, bigger...

She was about to run off, yelling "There's a meteor falling!" like mad, as the messenger, who was already freaked out by the actions of the local mortal population one time too many, simply knocked her out.

"Three down, one to go," it muttered before consulting the small map it took out of nowhere...

*****

Ron Weasley was sleeping soundly.

Actually, saying 'soundly' would mean severely underestimating his abilities at snoring. Of course no one noticed when the snoring suddenly stopped and strange sounds started coming from his room, because everybody thought that Fred and George had finally gotten their hands on him.

Frankly, so did Fred and George, except that was in their dream...

*****

Harry walked into a large hall, seeing three beds and a chair in it. On the beds, which were aligned side by side, in order from left to right were:

One Draco Malfoy, who, judging by his look (and smell), was drunk into the next millennium.

One Hermione Granger, who appeared to be in a finer state of health, except that she was dressed as if she was not sleeping that night (Harry fought real hard to cast all the bad thoughts away by just telling himself that she must've been studying late again repeatedly).

And one Ron Weasley, who looked as if he had been knocked out by an elephant-sized dose of various sleeping potions.

Harry deposited himself onto the chair, waiting patiently for something to happen. According to his watch, he was waiting for the third hour straight now, and if the messenger was not lying, the deadline would commence in seven hours. He slept on his trip here, so he was quite refreshed now.

Since no events were taking place right here, he decided that having a look around won't hurt. He stood up and left through the only door out of the room.

The hallway was decorated in a style Harry had seen one time too many in all those Hollywood action movies. The ones that usually featured a hulking mass of muscles as a protagonist, a lot of blood spilling and a lot of busty women wearing nothing but tight leather bikinis. Actually, he felt like he accidentally landed in one, except that there were no hulking masses of muscles, protagonist or not, no busty leather-bikini-clad women and no blood spilling, just the set.

The walls were covered with engravings in languages Harry did not comprehend (if they were languages at all), pictures of heroes with their magical swords (somehow all of them had only swords; Harry made a mental note to file a protest to the Tanelorn Ministry of Culture for the lack of axes and spears in these illustrations of heroic achievements) defeating evil enemies of theirs - horrid monsters, dark wizards/mages/warlocks/other incomprehensibly named magic users and hordes of barbarians - in the most gruesome ways imaginable.

Having traversed this Hall of Heroes, as he dubbed it in his mind, he came out onto what looked like a large balcony overlooking the city. The City of Tanelorn itself seemed to be a wild mix of styles, apparently people from various places came here and just built their buildings in the style they were accustomed to. This however, only made the city's look more stylish, like something out of a fairy-tale, which only made Harry more unsure whether this was real or not.

A quiet cough behind told him that he was not alone anymore. Quickly turning around, he saw a tall man standing there, wearing what seemed to be very well-used battle armour, as it was covered with a multitude of various indentations, scratches and all the other obvious signs of the wear and tear all armour is exposed to during combat. What attracted Harry's eyes though, was not the man's outfit, but his face - aside from the fact that its shape was not quite common among humankind, as it looked more slender, as if he was an elf from one of those fantasy books Dudley read now. The truly strange thing about the man's facial features was that he was obviously was an albino - red eyes, deathly white skin, and long and almost colourless hair.

For a moment, Harry even had a [wicked] thought that this was what Malfoy would look like in about ten or so years if he kept up his habit of hanging out indoors. Even Harry had picked up a decent tan, while the Dursleys had him doing slave labo... er... work around the house.

"I see you are the one Lord Arquin spoke of," the man said, his English sounding more like Australian, with a hint of an accent Harry could not quite place.

"Er... I suppose so. So... This-" Harry waved his hand at the city, "-this is Tanelorn?"

"Yes," the man said, nodding, "and, by the way, your name is?"

"My name? Oh... I'm Harry Potter, wizard-in-training. And you are..."

"Elric of Melnibone, bearer of Stormbringer, at your service."

Harry swallowed nervously as the man put his hand onto the hilt of the large black sword hoisted onto his belt. Was it Harry's imagination or had the sword gave out a whine, as if asking to be let out of its sheath?

"So, I suppose you're not going to tell me why I'm here?" Harry asked, turning back to gaze at the city.

"On the contrary. I was asked to explain to you the reasons why you are here."

*****

"You see, the Lords of Chaos and Order have made a bet - the Lords of Order will send four mortals into a world controlled by the Lords of Chaos, and if the mortals manage to overthrow the followers of Chaos there, Order gets the world."

"And if not?" Harry asked nervously.

"Chaos gets your world," Elric explained emotionlessly, as if he was talking of nothing more important than prices on vegetables or the weather.

"Er...and those mortals... It's us, right?"

"Exactly. The Lords of Chaos think this will be an easy victory for them, and frankly, so do I. Anyway, I must be going now, for I have already overstayed my visit here. Arioch will be wondering where I went."

"Arioch?"

"My lord, the Knight of the Swords, one of the Lords of Chaos."

Elric left the mouth-open-in-shock Harry to stand in the hallway as he left through one of the many doors in the hallway Harry passed through on his way here.

Having nothing better to do than wonder why this talk ever took place, Harry wandered back through the hallway into the room with the beds. As it turned out, he did it right on time.

*****

"What do you mean by 'This is not an illusion', Weasley?" Draco Malfoy yelled angrily. "I want back, I am willing to recover from my hangover like a proper normal person, not caught in this strange and complex illusion that seems to involve too many Gryffindors!"

"What, they fixed your hangover for such an occasion, huh?" Harry asked triumphantly as he entered. Hermione was just waking up from the racket Malfoy and Ron raised, and was not in the state to talk yet, as it seemed.

"Potter? Great. You were the only person missing to make this even worse! Can I have some explanations now, please?" Malfoy yelled.

"Of course," a new voice said. Everyone turned to see who it belonged to, seeing a tall handsome man with dark hair. He almost radiated nobility and honour, as if he was the epicentre of all that was truly noble in this universe. And he was wearing clothes that stouted, if not nobility, than at least a decent taste and a sizeable bank account.

"And you are..." Hermione prompted.

"Lord Arquin. Sorry to have resorted to such ways of bringing you here..." he started, before Malfoy cut him off.

"Yeah, sure you're sorry! I want my hangover back! I don't want to be part of this... this... whatever it is. At least as long as they are here!" he yelled, waving his hand around like mad, pointing out Harry, Ron and Hermione.

"I am afraid that you will have to get drunk again to get a hangover, my friend," Arquin replied, "As it is not reversible in any other way."

"Wonderful!" Draco exclaimed angrily, sitting down on the chair, crossing his arms across his chest sullenly.

"I have heard the beginning of the story - that you've made a bet with the Lords of Chaos that we will survive wherever you're sending us, so now I have three questions," Harry paused for breath here and ignored the questioning looks the other three threw at him, "Why us, where are we going, how about our lives back in our world?"

"All at a time, my friend, all at a time," Arquin responded, "We chose you because you are wizards, quite capable of teamwork and making a well-balanced team," he ignored Malfoy's angry "Hmphf" and went on, "You are going to this world-" he pointed at the map that appeared out of thin air behind him, "- and you must not worry about returning, for we will organize it so that once you win, you'll be returned to exactly the time and place you were taken from."

Harry took his time to study the map, noting the strange-sounding names of cities, countries and land masses. And the strange little dot labelled "The Camp of The Chosen".

"Er... and if we don't win?" Hermione asked somewhat nervously.

"We'd better win, I guess," said Ron, looking at the drastic change in Arquin's face.

"I'm afraid that if you lose, there'll be nowhere to return to. We lose - the Chaos gets our world, and that's equal to World War Seven," Harry explained.

"Seven? What happened to Three, Four, Five and Six?" Ron asked.

"All rolled into one," was Hermione's grim reply as she caught up on Harry's train of thought.

"So, I'll be sending you in, not without help, though all I can give you is a limited (but permanent) boost of your abilities. Respectively, you will get a boost in what seems to be your main part on the team."

"Team? I did not agree to be part of this so-called team!" Malfoy announced angrily and standing up, sending the chair he was sitting on over with a horrible crashing sound.

"Dry up, Malfoy!" Ron hissed at him, "Lord Arquin, could please you elaborate a bit on that last statement of yours?" he added, turning back to Arquin.

"Of course. Harry gets an extra addition in his willpower, Hermione in magic, Draco in his ever-growing thirst for control, and you Ron, in courage."

"Er..." Malfoy and Ron started at once, but were cut short by Arquin's voice, which now resembled a thunderstrike.

"And now, go forth, Champions of Order! Seek the Chosen Ones!" he said, his voice magnified by what seemed to be thousands of times.