"Desperate times call for desperate measures"

  Hippocrates

  “Hurry, Thoth, or we'll never make it,” Oracle shouted as they dashed through the labyrinthian marble hallways of Godhome.

  Twin metal keys, as old as memory and forged from creation itself, jangled in her hands. Her flowing white robe, embroidered with celestial moons and stars, danced around her slender frame as they rounded another corner.

  Oracle's knees buckled from lack of use, and her companion had to steady her. Thoth, the God of Wisdom and Magic, had been her friend since the first days. She had spent months locked away in that tiny cage, dangling over the endless abyss, until he had manged to free her from captivity.

  “I know that, Oracle,” Thoth replied, an edge of panic beneath his calm exterior. “I know the consequences of getting caught. Having posession of those keys and freeing you from your imprisonment will be enough for our High Lord to strip me of my rank in the pantheon. And if we succeed? We'll be lucky to see the next sunrise with our heads still attached.”

  Thoth stretched his neck uncomfortably at the thought. He liked his ibis head, slender and green with the most magnificent, elongated bill.

  “Worse will befall us if we fail. You know that, Thoth," Oracle reminded him. "The madness spreads amongst the gods like fire now. Even the High Lord is infected. I've seen it Thoth - the madness in his eye. It is only a matter of time before he succumbs like the rest."

  Oracle pressed her rounded glasses, too large for her narrow face, back onto her nose with a gentle finger. “The Thirteenth God Contest of homosapiens must be launched. They must have a victor. It is the only way for the Cycle to end and for the Nexus to reset. It is the only cure for the madness.”

  “Except there have been a dozen God Contests already, Oracle. Pompeii, Machu Picchu, Skara Brae, Caral, Mesa Verde, to name just a few. Each ended with the complete annihilation of its human players. There isn't an intelligent species in this universe where more than three God Contests were necessary. These humans are so flawed that it may be impossible for them to succeed."

  "Do you have a better idea?" Oracle asked, though she already knew the answer.

  "No," admitted Thoth as they dashed through the great library of God Home. He glanced around the innumerable volume of texts contained within. "I've spent the past hundred years in this very library, trying to come up with a different way. I failed."

  "You failed because it is not in our power to change. The Nexus - our creator, and the source of all life in the universe - requires the God Contest to have a victor before it can begin anew. It is the way it has always been, and it is the height of hubris to believe we can change that. You might as well try to turn back time itself."

  "Turning back time might just be easier. These humans are hopeless. You and your husband, Hephaestus, designed the twelve previous contests, and they failed them all. Why will this thirteenth time be any different? Especially since you had mere decades to design it after the last failure."

  Thoth tried to control the panic in his voice. His only hope was that his friend, the Goddess of Foresight and Prophecy, knew something he did not.

  The sounds of fighting erupted into the hallway, combatants flowing through the doors of the great banquet hall, laughing and screaming in their madness. God against god, holy and unholy powers crashing in chaotic rhythms without a care for the target of their fury.

  There was no purpose to their battle. It was the final stage of the madness. Their eyes were black, the madness inside them in control.

  Oracle and Thoth ducked through a thick oak door and out of sight. Thoth locked the door behind them. He had no desire to bear witness to the end of those he'd known for so long. He had watched who they were fade away over the decades as the madness stripped away who they were bit by bit. He knew it was only a matter of time before the madness grasped hold of him too. He was one of the lucky few remaining who was uninfected.

  They stayed there in silence until the sounds of battle passed, though Thoth did not know if it was because the Gods had momentarily regained their senses, or because they were all dead. He decided he would rather not know.

  Oracle was bent over at the waist, gasping for breath. Her hands unconsciously stroking the twin keys as if to assure herself they were still there.

  “How do you know this time will be different?” Thoth asked, desperate to know.

  Oracle looked her oldest friend in the eye. “Thoth, I don't know if this time will be different. I am grasping at straws.”

  Thoth was flabbergasted.

  “You…you don't know? You don't know?” Thoth whispered harshly, his panic overwhelming his senses. "I thought you had a plan, Oracle. The High Lord claimed you were imprisoned because you violated our sacred laws. Because you... because you and Hephaestus created an abomination within the heart of the Thirteenth God Contest. You wouldn't have done that without a vision. Tell me what you have seen! I need to know.”

  “I can’t…” Oracle whispered, her head lowered.

  “You can’t what, Oracle?” Thoth accused as feelings of betrayal clouded his mind.

  “I can’t see what will happen. The High Lord stripped me of my powers while I was in that cage,” Oracle shouted, tears streaming down her face. Her fa?ade of control shattered in an instant. "And if I had a vision before that, he stole the knowledge along with my powers."

  Thoth gaped at his friend and saw what he should have seen before. Oracle didn't have the youthful look of the eternal gods. She just had youth. Youth that would age and die, like so many mortal women before her.

  "I... I didn't know he even had that power to do that," Thoth said, aghast.

  His heart ached for her, and anger at their High Lord replaced his sense of betrayal. No God had ever been stripped of their powers.

  "It... it doesn't matter," Oracle muttered. "In a handful of years, every god will be dead of the madness, unless we succeed here today."

  “Then let's get moving, old friend, so your sacrifice isn't in vain,” Thoth said, his voice like steel. Oracle had paid the ultimate price. What kind of God would he be if he did not risk the same?

  Oracle wiped away her tears - her first in a very long time - and gripped the keys with determination.

  It took hours to reach their destination as they wound their way through the labyrinthian passageways of God Home.The only sound they made was Oracle's sigh of relief when they reached The Shrine - located at the heart of God Home, where the Nexus resided.

  The Nexus was here first, and God Home had been built around it. It was at the heart that each cycle began and concluded. Even the High Lord had no memory before the first cycle, when He had ascended.

  Oracle pressed on the enormous black and gold doors carved to resemble the night’s sky. She winced at the loud creak as they slipped inside.

  Oracle breathed in the scent of the musty bookshelves as her eyes adjusted to the candlelight that illuminated the chestnut workbenches spread throughout the small chamber. The Shrine could have been mistaken for an old library or medieval workshop had it not been for the giant orb awash in a kaleidoscope of colors and hovering in the exact centre of the room.

  The Nexus - the source of life, the origin of the Cycle, and the heart of the God Contest. Oracle and Hephaestus had spent innumerable hours in the Shrine designing each God Contest down to its most intimate detail, yet even after countless millenium, she never failed to admire its beauty.

  Yet she knew something was off. Although beautiful, the Nexus’ normal hum was strained and its colors dimmed. Oracle approached it hesitantly and gasped as she saw a thin, black tar begin to work its way under its surface.

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  “No,” she whispered in shock. “Thoth, the madness has infected the Nexus."

  “We can't do anything about that, Oracle. We have to hurry.” Thoth urged, shutting the doors behind them and barring them. “The High Lord has no doubt realized we stole the keys. He'll know we intend to launch your prototype. We must do so before he arrives.”

  Oracle tore her gaze from the Nexus and rushed to the workbench that Hephaestus had occupied for the past four decades as he built their last hope. She opened a drawer and removed its sole occupant - a cube of grey and gold that fit into the palm of her hand. It all came down to this.

  She removed the slip of paper that Hephaestus had attached to the cube and handed it to Thoth as she approached the control panel in front of the Nexus.

  “The Thirteenth God Contest of Homosapien. Prototype: Artificial Intelligence Director. Warning - highly unstable technological and magical infusion. Likelihood of success: Negligible,” Thoth read aloud, heart dropping with every word. “Oracle, what were you and Hephaestus doing here? Artificial intelligence? As in new life? The High Lord was right. That's sacrilege.”

  “Humans have failed twelve times, Thoth. We... I... believed that was due to their highly unpredictable nature. We needed something at its core that could adapt to their behaviors. So... we took a risk.” Oracle said as she choked back tears. choking back tears. “The madness took my husband before I had finished designing the AI Director, so you'll forgive me if I don't accept his odds of success.”

  Oracle set the tiny cube into a perfectly shaped indentation on the Nexus’s control panel. The panel lit up, its multicolored buttons illuminating the darkness around her. With practiced movements, she set the target location.

  “Tokyo - an entire city in their country of Japan,” she said. “Over fourteen million people. Hephaestus and I designed this Contest based on their ‘role playing games’, and our hope is a few amongst them will be skilled enough to succeed despite the odds.”

  She twisted a golden dial until she saw the destination reflected in the surface of the Nexus, viewed from high above the Earth. The display below the dial read ‘Estimated players: 14,506,234.’

  She pulled out the twin keys. “Final chance to back out, Thoth,” she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt.

  “I trust you, my friend,” Thoth said, taking one of the keys from her hand and moving to a keyhole at the far end of the panel while Oracle moved to its counterpart. "It's not like we really have a choice, after all."

  The God Contest could only be launched with these two keys. Until now, they had never left the High Lord's side.

  Under normal circumstances, the launch of a God Contest was an occasion of exeptional celebration. A full year of feasts would be held before the launch, kicking off the greatest entertainment the gods would experience. Their High Lord would give a speech about the role of the Gods in creating and guiding the species, and how the Contest was the culmination of their magnificent work.

  The final test of the species. A right of passage, before the Nexus began anew.

  Tonight, one god and a mortal woman, in the candle-lit darkness of an empty Shrine, would have to be enough fanfare.

  Oracle inserted her key. A chime sounded throughout the room, joined by a second as Thoth inserted his.

  “On three,” Oracle said, bracing herself. “One…”

  “Two…” counted Thoth, his knuckles white as he gripped the key.

  “Three,” said a malevolent voice from the darkness as they turned their keys.

  The Nexus spun to life, rotating wildly. Lightning arched across the ceiling, shattering ancient wood and stone. Thoth and Oracle were flung backwards and struck the walls on opposite ends of the room.

  Through blurred vision, Oracle watched as the cube sunk beneath the surface of the panel, then rocketed into the centre of the Nexus. The cube sped towards its destination, through the Nexus' multidimensional space towards the mortal realm.

  It was the image that would now be plastered on every viewing orb throughout God Home. A testament to the crime they had just committed.

  “Well done, Oracle. You have saved me much trouble,” came the malevolent voice from the darkness. The figure that strode into the light had a skeletal grin that stretched thinly across his skull. His stomach shook with amusement, blood and rotting flesh striking the floor beneath him. As he approached the Nexus, the carrion creatures that accompanied him scattered to consume the pieces he left behind.

  “How marvelous,” Cizen whispered, staring at the Nexus. His breath filled the room with the smell of death and decay. “I must thank you, lesser gods. This is easier than I expected.”

  Cizen strolled casually over to the control panel. “I take it the Contest cannot be recalled. It cannot be stopped?”

  “Even the High Lord cannot stop it now,” Oracle said weakly, unable to get to her feet. The mutual hate between the God of Death and the former Goddess of Foresight and Prophesy lay thick in the air.

  Cizen scoffed at her struggle and rested his skeletal fingers on the golden dial that Oracle had used to select the Contest’s destination. He twisted it, ever so slightly, and the location in the Nexus changed.

  Oracle’s eyes grew wide. “Cizen, you can't. Please, don’t…” she tried to shout, but she choked as she spit up blood. Something had ruptured inside her when she was thrown backwards, the first true pain she had felt in unknowable millennia.

  Cizen finished his adjustments and locked the destination into the system. The Nexus now showed the continent of North America, its target zone significantly diminished. The display below the dial now read ‘Estimated players: 807’.

  “You really should have locked in the destination before you launched Oracle. I thought you were smarter than that,” Cizen said, walking towards her. Oracle felt the fear of mortal death grasp her heart tightly.

  Cizen grasped her chin gently between his skeletal fingers, eyeless gaze piercing hers. He clicked his teeth together. “My dear, Oracle. Our Lord sure did a number on you. A pity. It truly is.”

  He released her chin and Oracle felt dead skin form where his touch had been.

  “Leave her alone, Cizen,” Thoth demanded, struggling to his feet. Blood streaked from his beak, but he was still a God and would not be stopped so easily.

  “I have done nothing, Thoth,” Cizen said, throwing up his hands dramatically to protest his innocence. “All I did was change where the contest will occur on Earth. An old promise fulfilled. But if I were you, I would worry more about what will happen when our High Lord arrives. He's mad, you know, and your betrayal may push him over the brink.”

  There was a thunderous crash from outside The Shrine, and suddenly the heft doors were blown inward, the bar across them shattered.

  “Well, speak of the devil,” Cizen whispered to Thoth, grinning wickedly.

  “What is the meaning of this?” the High Lord demanded, his voice booming across the chamber. Ancient books fell from their shelves and workbenches shook with the reverberations from his voice. Oracle raised her hands to her ears in pain. Her mortal ears not meant to hear such a voice.

  Thoth shook in place, his knees rattling in fear. “My Lord, we…” He trailed off weakly.

  What could he say? He had freed Oracle, stolen the Nexus keys, and launched the forbidden thirteenth Contest.

  “We did what had to be done,” he finished with a whisper.

  “My Lord,” began Cizen, moving to the High Lord’s side. “I'm afraid I did not arrive in time to stop them. There is nothing we can do. We are in the hands of the humans now.”

  “My Lord,” whispered Oracle, faintly. The High Lord’s hand rose, and Oracle flew towards him from across the room. He held her aloft in mid-air. She dared the smallest glance at the first amongst them. Billowing light pouring from his being, but his eyes were clouded. She could see the turmoil within the god as sanity fought a losing battle with madness.

  “Which one holds his mind now?” thought Oracle. “His strength or the madness?”

  “Be silent, mortal,” demanded the High Lord. “Was losing your immortality not enough punishment for you? You have doomed us all with your actions here today. The Thirteenth was a failed experiment - the folly of Hephaestus’ madness. And of yours.”

  The High Lord’s gaze shifted to Thoth, who was now kneeling and staring at the floor. “I expected better from a God of Wisdom,” he judged, disappointed. “What am I to do with you?”

  “There is only one punishment grave enough, oh mightiest Lord,” said Cizen, whispering in his ear.

  “Death? Yes, that would be fitting," the High Lord mused. "We've never executed a God before, though we've seen plenty of death in recent years. I wonder - would they go to your domain? Two fallen Gods to be your playthings?"

  “As fascinating an experiment as that would be, my lord,” Cizen said with a grin. "I believe there is something more... entertaining... that you could do to punish them."

  Cizen's eyes flashed towards the Nexus.

  The High Lord watched him skeptically, then grinned widely in understanding. Oracle saw the madness within Him take hold of his senses, and she shook in fear.

  “You are right, Cizen. The Gods should be entertained. If this will be our last Cycle, our Last God Contest, then let's make it one to remember.”

  The High Lord casually waved with his hand and Thoth was dragged across the Shrine until he hung beside Oracle, squirming.

  “First, Thoth, for your betrayal, for freeing the criminal Oracle, and for stealing the Twin Keys of the Nexus, I take from you your godly might and immortality - mortal once more."

  A silvery thread materialized that connected Thoth’s heart to the centre of the Nexus, and the High Lord broke it.

  Thoth’s body erupted in pain, every fiber of his being on fire. He felt his ibis head warp and his elongated beak fall to the floor. His gorgeous feathers fell out one-by-one and turned to dust. The now mortal Thoth's eyes were filled with tears, as all he felt was the emptiness inside - a constant reminder of what he had lost.

  Oracle’s eyes shone with the deepest sympathy. She knew what he felt right now. What he would feel every second of every day of his short mortal life.

  “And now, for both of you, who have doomed us all, I sentence you to the same fate you have bestowed upon your fellow mortals. I cast you into the Contest, that you may entertain us before you die.”

  Oracle’s head shot up. “No, please High Lord. The contest is already unstable. If we introduce another foreign element, we will risk everyone. We…”

  Oracle looked into his eyes, hoping to see reason. All she saw returned was the madness.

  The High Lord threw out his hands and Oracle and Thoth flew into the Nexus - into the multidimensional space, quickly headed towards the God Contest cube within.

  “Now what, my Lord?” asked Cizen.

  “The Contest has begun, Cizen,” the High Lord declared, now beaming, as if this were all as intended. “That means entertainment and celebration of the highest order, does it not? Come, the Gods will know by now. We will prepare a feast and watch its commencement.”

  The High Lord strode from the Shrine, whistling. The sounds of battle echoed through the halls, but he did not break his stride. He did so love the Contests, even ones doomed to fail.

  Cizen looked back at the Nexus, his grin fading for the briefest of moments.

  "I've fulfilled my promise, old friend. Now, we wait."

  Cizen followed behind the High Lord, into the home of mad gods.

  The Non-Canonical Aftermath: