The Games Gods Play by Abigail Owen

All The Games Gods Play Book club meeting – Books and Brew Club

Use the link above to see everything I did for the meeting!

Read with me! (Beware spoilers)

Part 1

Just before the Crucible is set to begin, a couple of thieves from a den of the Order of thieves, try their hand at the crowd of onlookers. Some are masters trying to pay off their debts, others are apprentices trying to show their worth. Lyra, the heroine of our story and the den clerk watches on to avoid letting anyone anger the gods at all costs. Chance, a master thief with a large debt, antagonizes her about liking another master thief, Boone Runar. It is hinted that Lyra was cursed by Zeus and attempts to get his attention by throwing rocks at his temple but is intercepted by Hades (the god of death and King of the Underworld) in the process. They banter back and forth and she tells him her mom went into labor with her in Zeus’ temple. Zeus was offended she defiled his sanctuary and cursed her daughter to never be loved. Her parents gave her to the Order of thieves at 3 years old. Hades lets her go free without rebuke. Legends say that gods and godesses tired of Zeus’ reign and started to fight among themselves to topple him, resulting in the Anaxian Wars. They wrecked wonders and destroyed cities including Olympus which has since been rebuilt in San Francisco. And so the Crucible was created in which every 100 years the gods pick mortals to duke it out on their behalf. Those who return don’t remember a thing and those who don’t receive blessings for their family. And this year Hades will participate for the first time (since he is already god of the Underworld no one thinks he should have more power) and he chooses Lyra as his mortal.

Part 2

The gods and the mortals are all taken to Olympus-the home of the gods. Hades and some of the other gods get in a little back and forth tiff before they are sat down and read the rules of the Crucible by Zeles. The previous winner, Mathias Aridam chose to move their family to Olympus where they have immortality. His son Zai is competing this year. The rules- the gods will be divided in groups of four by the virtue they favor most; strength, courage, mind and heart. Each god has devised a contest in which they will compete and whoever wins most of the twelve Labors wins the Crucible. Or if only 1 champion remains alive at the end they win by default. Champions can take any mortal tool sans weapons into each challenge. Gods can coach but not interfere. The first Labor starts now and everyone has a chance to win 2 gifts: a relic and a skill. They are given one hour to get to their god, a token will transport them there. Lyra figures out that their token has the symbol of their god and helps the other champions by telling them. Ares is angered by this and finds her token and smashes it and by interfering is then taken away to be punished. But Hades tells her there is always more than one way to win a Labor. She finds directions in crypticode on the items and uses them to navigate her way to Hades. For the skill, he gives her the animal tattoos on his arm-a fox, a panther, an owl and a tarantula. She can awaken them and use them to do whatever she would like. As for the gift, he kisses her, marking her as his, which allows her a passage from the Underworld to the Overworld. Before the first Labor occurred Hades dressed her in a tiara that contain 6 pearls that belonged to Persephone. They contain a hidden power she must figure out. Boone shows up in her room in Hades’ homes, baring items to help her, including a tactical vest full of tools, a small pick pocket set he bought himself, her relic (which you must graduate to earn but it just appeared one day) and his relic: dragon teeth that you plant in the ground to summon bone soldiers that can’t be killed. He tells her he paid off his debt 2 years ago but had reason to stay. The next morning Hades designs her an all black (color of the survival virtue she is in by herself) outfit around the tactical vest and Asclepius heals her bruised ribs. The first Labor is Poseidon’s.

Part 3

All the champions are bound to poles in Fingal’s cave in Scotland while the tide is receding. Some of them manage to climb up the pole. Lyra gets a hold of her relic and frees herself then goes to help the others, but when she frees Dex he steals her relic and swings at her, then swims toward the mouth of the cave. As the water recedes words on the wall appear IF YOU SEE THESE WORDS, THEN WEEP. Samuel helps Lyra on a wall with the other champions as something chases her in the water. Something hatches from eggs (12 total) under the words on the wall. Dex creeps behind them using a gift of invisibility but Samuel realizes and stops him, giving Lyra back her relic. She dives into the water to find dirt and buries 3 dragon teeth. The bone soldiers kill the seahorse crocodile creatures. And Diego discovers the eggs hatch when they hit air so some of the champions drape their wet clothes over them. Isabel (Poseidon’s champion) is bit and her body becomes consumed. Zeus declares Diego the winner of the competition and gifts him The Ring of the Gyges which grants the power of invisibility. Back in his house, hades tells her that Diego used his gift- the Halo of Heroism which gives him an edge in all four virtues. He also tells her that her relic was a set of two that Oden gifted to the oldest son of Cronos after they imprisoned the Titans in Tartatus and Hades has the other. Hades leaves Lyra and she ventures past the gates. First she runs into Dex but Aphrodite uses her power of manipulation to get him to go away.

“It’s hard enough to be taken seriously when love is up against powers like storm, war, knowledge, and death.” “Seems to me that love can calm storms, end wars, make fools of smart people, and bridge the gap between life and death. Doesn’t that make it the most powerful?”

And Lyra is nice to her so she shares two secrets with Lyra. First, her Labor is about the person you love the most and second that Hades has a hidden agenda to be a part of the Crucible and to be cautious. Then Lyra continues on her mission to search for allies, where she runs into a drunk Poseidon at Bacchus’ bar. In an effort to escape she finds Zai and hides while his dad berates him. They decide to be allies and yet again she runs from Poseidon. Lyra awakes without her vest to Labor two-Hermes’. They are high up a mountain on a ledge in a glass encasing two feet from the ledge. They must solve a riddle but there are rules: you may only ask three questions but every time a champion asks one of their questions everyone else loses an inch from their ledge which is only 12 inches and they will gain six inches to theirs. Once you ask your third question, you have five minutes to guess the answer. If you guess wrong you lose your starting inches. The first to answer correctly is the winner and receives the Talaria and can fly and the rest of the champions must climb down. Hermes presents the three fates and the riddle is as follows: one fate is True and will only speak truth, one fate is false and will only speak lies and one fate is random and may answer either way. They must use their questions to figure out which is which. Others ask questions and her ledge shrinks so she asks Clotho if her name is Lyra to which she replies yes. She uses her gift to awaken the owl and speak to Zai. If he promises to fly her out she promises to let him use her questions. They work together, he wins and flies her out. We learn Dex has the gift of foreknowledge because he was dressed and prepared for the Labor. She meets Cerebus who tells Hades he is needed.

Part 4

Zai and Lyra agree to meet up to talk strategy and he flies her to the the Temple because powers arent allowed. They decide who to ask to ally with them then Dex and a couple others come. They jump off the balcony hoping if they get far enough, Zai will be able to fly but Lyra ends up in the River Styx that takes her to the Underworld. Cerebus finds her there and takes her to Charon. After a brief chat Hades finds them after Dex came to him about what happened. Dionysus is the next Labor. He takes them to the Lost Cave and tasks them with going from one doline or sinkhole to the waterfall in the next about a kilometer carrying as many ounces of vodka as possible. Dex and Rima try to pin everyone against Lyra. Diego and Jackie go off alone. Meike, Trinica and Amir stay with Lyra and Zai. They form a pallet to pull the cases on and drag it through the jungle but once they get to the other doline they see that it’s covered in poison ivy. They figure out that the vodka helps with the wounds. As night falls the poison ivy tries to grab them. It trips Lyra and she is encased in ivy. Zai uses his epipen (he carries because of his allergies to everything) and she heals. She tells Dex’s group about the vodka and they all rush to get out together. But Meinke is badly hurt so Lyra uses a pearl (persephones pomegranate seeds) to teleport them to Zai’s room where there are more epipens. Hades brings her to the Underworld and leaves her with Charon while he offers himself to the Daemones in her place for using so many relics. Labor 4 & 5 belong to Apollo and Artemis back to back. For Apollo each champion is given two minutes to find a way out of a room. They take turns trying to solve it, first one through wins Apollos and moves onto Artemis’ Labor where they must wear flags for each virtue and make it through an obstacle course while monster try to get their flags. If you lose one you feel effects: confusion for mind, pain for strength, exhaustion for heart and fear for courage.Zai is first, Lyra is last. She solves it on her 4th turn by accidentally humming to a harp made of human parts that bites if you try to touch it. She resolves to tell the others as long as no one attacks another champion. They oblige and she is last to enter Artemis’ obstacle. Diego waits to follow behind her. First they jump across beams while bats try to knock them off or steal flags, then they crawl through a dark tunnel full of holes with hands trying to grab the flags or push them into the sides that electrocutes them. Lyra loses her courage flag. They run into a scrapyard where birds form from the beat up cars and chase them. Lyra finds Neve and tries to help her but loses her strength flag. They both make it out and end up in a field of tall grass. A hand rips off her Mind flag and that’s when she sees a purple dragon. She manages to make it across the field with a single dragon burn and into the arms of Hades and declares, “I only have my heart left to give you.”

Part 5

Lyra is treated by Asclepius for her dragon burns over the next couple days. Then she sees a couple claiming to be her parents on the TV and they tell a bunch of lies. Now its time for Labor 6: Aphrodite’s. They all awake strapped to a bed. Hypnos will put them into a deep sleep and Morpheus will send them into dreams. They must look for the mortal they love, wake them and bring them back to Olympus by sundown or they will die. If successful they will be a partner in the next labor. In her dream she hops on a Pegasus that takes her to the Muir woods, a place she has never been. She uses her fox as a guide to Boone’s cabin. His cabin is guarded by tarantulas, she uses hers to distract them. There is a sleeping Boone and an awake one. She tells the awake one she loves him and they try to leave but he is scared of spiders. When she says it again to sleeping Boone, awake Boone is gone.. But then he reappears and they take the flight back to Olympus while Lyra tells him everything. Daes love is the only one not to make it because Hera’s gift to Amir is vengeance so any champion who hinders Amir is punished and Dae is the reason he lost his strength flag in the last Labor. Zeus hosts a dinner for everyone to meet the loves and Boone is the life of the party. Afterwards Boone goes to explore Olympus and comes back with the Helm of Darkness that he stole from Dex. Before returning it, him and Lyra decide to use it to listen in on the gods’ meeting. Boone gives her a thank you kiss before leaving. At the meeting the gods just talk about how chaotic the Crucible has been because of Hades and Lyra but don’t decide to do anything about it. When they get back to the house Hades appears and puts a wall of fire between him and Lyra and Boone then he kisses her.

“This is all I was thinking about during that farce of a meeting…Tasting you again. Making you light up for me…Because you do light up, Lyra. Stars are made of fire. Meant to burn.”

But Lyra thinks he kissed her for show in front of Boone and he disappears for 3 days. Trinica and Amir ask to officially join the alliance and now it’s time for Hephaestus’ Labor. They start in the middle of a forest. They must find a tower where each level contains an automaton that they must defeat or outsmart. The champion to complete the course the fastest will win. Each team goes one at a time and will have 4 hours. Failure does not result in death. Some champions decide to compete alone without their loved ones. Trinica, Hephaestus’ champion flies through the course and Lyra and Boone are up last. The first automaton is a golden boy with an axe trying to kill them. Lyra uses twine to tie him up. The next automaton is an owl and a chess board in mid game. It takes them 7 turns to put the owl in checkmate (chess is the onlu game they have in the den to teach strategy). When they reach level three Boones decides it would be faster tp scale the tower from the outside. But when they reach the window to level four a metal tentacle slashes Boone and pushes him off the wall and onto the spikes waiting below. She makes it to the top, avoiding all the windows, where Hades wraps around her and teleports them to a library in the Underworld. There she breaks down over the loss of Boone.

Part 6

Hades tells Lyra that if she wins he can make Boone a god making him immortal and saving him. Then they both realized the tentacle sliced through Lyra and the adrenaline masked the pain. Charon goes to gather all the doctors in the Underworld. She doesn’t get better so Hades gives her some of his blood so he can douse her wound with water from the River Styx and it won’t kill her. It heals her after some time and the blood gives her the ability to feel his emotions. Hades tells her that the gods didnt wait for her to heal to resume the Labors. Three were completed in the two weeks she was out. Samuel won Hephaetus’ Labor and Diego won Demeter’s, which was to run through the Fields of Forgetting and if you got lost storms chased you down. Neve didn’t make it through this Labor. Diego won the Protective Mark of the Algea which keeps him from feeling pain. The ninth labor was Hera’s and she added a new constellation the champions had to figure out which. Rima and Zai won together. The new constellation was called halmeoni, korean for grandmother. Zai was given a stone that wards off poison when eaten and Rima was given a vial of dragon’s fire. The tenth was Ares’. He gave each champion a chimera they had to return to its nest without being mauled. Samuel lost his hand while trying to distract the mother and Diego won and was given a telescoping spear. Lyra invites all the champions to the Underworld and offers them a proposal: in exchange that she wins the last two challenges, Hades will give everyone who dies, lovers and all, a choice to stay in Elysium or return to the Overworld and gain immortality as a god. When everyone leaves, Lyra strips down and gives Hades the option to follow her into the grotto or deny her and walk away. He chooses to follow after a time. “I need to know you realize what this can’t be…and what it can.” Then they do the thing.

Part 7: My only hope

Rima meets Lyra at the gate of Hera’s to tell her the champions are saying no to her proposal. Rima’s blessing from Apollo is the gift of prophecy and all she can she is Hades as the King of the gods burning down the world and no one can stop him. Hera’s Labor is in the Coloseum that is rebuilt with glass to form a maze. She also has an illusion of the heads of all the champions that were lost on spears. Lyra calls Athena a monster twice. She feeds a bowl of spiders Boone’s blood and they grow. Scorpions are grown with Neve’s blood, bullet ants with Isabel’s and hornets with Dae’s gradmother’s. Then she puts all the insects in the maze. Rules are simple: you have an hour to escape the maze and no using relics to skip running the maze. First one out wins. Lyra runs through a web of spiders first, then realizes she can awaken her tattoos to help guide her. The tarantula makes a pact to keep her safe from the spiders. And the panther and fox help her decide what direction to take at all the T’s in the maze while silmutaneously killing the other insects. She protects Dae in exchange for a petal that heals her from a bullet ant bite. She lets Dex pass her by without attacking him. Meike makes it out of the maze first but Dex snaps her neck to take the vivtory. Then he attacks Lyra but ends up being stabbed by a sword when Zai and Trinica try to help her. Charon grabs Lyra and takes her back to Hades’ where he tells her that Persephone is alive and locked in Tartarus. Hades shows up and tries to convince her that she isn’t just a tool to save Persephone. The Daemones take Lyra to Tarturus until the final Labor at the request of Athena for calling her a monster. Zai came to visit her and she tried to get him to have Demeter visit her with the plan to tell her about Persephone, her daughter in exchange for saving Boone. But Aphrodite visits her instead and tells her that she won’t tell anyone the secret for fear that a war will break out. It’s time for the final Labor, Hades tells her to stay alive and to go home and forget anything that happened. The champions are all transported to a desert.

Part 7 The spoils

The twelfth and final Labor belongs to Zeus, which he claims is the toughest of the Labors. And duh duh duh it’s worth three wins! All the champions have to do is cross through three gates without using relics to escape or skip any portions. Zrus stole Hades axe to give to Dae and he gives his to Lyra at the start of the Labor sOut of the first fissure between the champions and the first game appears a minotaur. Lyra buries more of her dragon teeth and begins running toward the gate. Zai and Jackie attempt to fight the minotaur while the other champions run through the gate. Once everyone makes it through the gates shut. Out of the next fissure in the ground comes a Kraken. The bone soldiers try to fight it while everyone tries to make their way to the gate. Rima uses her vial of dragon fire to disorient the Kraken while Jackie uses her wings to help people get across. Once they all are across the gate closes. Ahead of them is darkness and the sounds of sirens. She uses her tears of Eos to see in the darkness. Because of her curse the sirens can’t see her because she is unloveable and sirens crave to love. The sirens grab all the other champions and fly them away. Instead of crossing the gate and winning the Labor Lyra decides to save the other champions. She uses one of the pearls to transport to the Isle of Sirens. She finds the sirens arguing over what to do with champions in an ampitheatre. Samuel, Jackie, Dae and Trinica are kept in a room while Zai, Diego, and Rima are tied up near the arguing sirens. First sees goes to Jackie and has everyone in the room hold hands, then she uses a pearl to transport them back to thr gate. Then she goes back to the others and tells Zai to hold hands with Rima and Diego. Her friends can’t hear her over the sirens so she pickpockets the antidote stone and puts it in Zai’s mouth then tells him to grab onto Rima and Diego. She uses a pearl to get them back to the gate and tells everyone to run before the sirens return. The others haven’t crossed to the other side yet, they waited for Lyra to cross first. She insists they all cross together but Samuel pushes her and the gate disappears. But the Labor isnt over. Now they are faced with a gigantic Cerebus intent on killing her. He attacks Lyra but a bone soldier stabs him from behind and Lyra screams at him not attack anymore. Cerebus is knocked out of the spell and tells Lyra the only thing that will help them is the Styx. Zeus appears and realizes she is the baby he cursed and announces that he can’t let her win so he sends a lightning bolt into her stomach that knocks her back and rips her open. She was knocked onto Cerebus and she shoves her last pearl in his mouth and tells him to think of the Styx. As Zeus walks up to her Hades appears. He uses the Bident to get Zeus on the ground and shares all the ways Zeus cheated during the Labors which Zai confirms with Dae’s Lantern of Diogenes. But its too late Lyra is already dead… When Lyra opens her eyes she expects to be the Underworld but she’s not. She is still in the desert next to Hades but now she is the goddess of the Underworld, he transfered his power to her. After a couple weeks of hiding out all the champions are called to Olympus for the ceremony revealing the winner. Everyone believed it would be Diego since Lyra died and he had the most wins. Turns out the Daemones unanimously voted on Lyra since she was alive when she crossed the last gate and a non Labor force killed her. Hades grants her the first boon and she asks for Boone to be a god. Then he fulfills his promises and tells all the champions dead and alive that he will also grant them a boon. As for his boon, he asks for Pandora’s box, which will open a door to Tartarus and allow one person to enter or leave, a one time use. Demeter, Boone, Cerebus, Charon and Lyra all go with Hades to open the door in case anything comes out to attack. But when the door opens Boone grabs Lyra’s arm and something inside pulls them both in. And the door closes behind them.