Sam could feel a cold breeze on his skin tickling his hair as it brushed over him. But how could that be? His last memory is that of being engulfed in fire and his mother burned the house down with him and his younger brother locked in the back closet.
Jori! His brother!
Sam opened his eyes and quickly sat up. It took a second for what he saw to register. He was laying on a bricked walkway nestled between several white stone columns.
What the HELL! Sam shouted in his mind and his widened eyes took in the scenery.
Between each column, there were large statues of men and the female statues were tucked behind them. Some of them looked so unhuman like that Sam thought that they could possibly be aliens? Maybe?
Beyond the columns and statues were the largest tree's Sam has ever seen, and Sam lived in Oregon with large Redwood trees. These trees would dwarf the largest Redwood he has ever seen.
Sam then looked to his right and down the stone walkway. There seemed to be a group of people not that far away.
Sam's heart skipped a beat. His first thought was that maybe they know where the hell this place is. He second thought, was maybe they know where his little brother Jori is. Although Sam had a feeling that would be a long shot question to ask perfect strangers.
Sam got himself up, slowly, into a standing position, and walked somewhat quickly to the group of people. As he neared he began to see the people that made up the group. While two of them were human looking, one had animal ears coming out of the top of their heads, as well as what seemed like animal tails. Much like a few of the statues that he had passed heading this way.
The closer he got, the more and more the group of people looked like a mixture of humans and other humanoid like beings. The thought of aliens crossed his mind again.
Sam started to feel his gut churn. He definitely wasn't on earth anymore. But where the hell was he now? This question, Sam had a small hope that this group of people/humanoids could tell him the answer.
Sam came closer and closer and he began to hear a murmur of voices from the crowd. But the crowd eventually noticed him and they all went quiet and turned and watched him approach.
Sam couldn't help but feel a fearful chill go down his spine at their behavior. He got within speaking distance to the crowd and stopped. He looked over everyone as they too looked over him. Then a tall 'male', with what looked like fox ears and a large fox tail, spoke up to him.
"Who are you?"
"M-me?" stuttered Sam
"Um...Yes, you." replied the fox man.
"M-my nam-me is S-sam." stuttered out Sam while he gathered his hand together in front of him. He has always had a stutter when he met new people or had to speak to several people at once. His guidance counselor told him that it's probably because he is a very shy kid. Kid...if you still called a recently turned 18 year a kid still.
"Sam?" asked a man with large horns on his head who was staring quite intensely at Sam.
"Y-yes..." softly whispered Sam as his face heated up, which he knew meant his face was now quite red.
"Do you not know where you are? At all?" questioned a rather normal looking human woman.
"N-no...I-I just w-woke up h-here m-m'am." replied Sam shyly.
"For heaven's sake! Why would they put you in a God level when you just got here!?" the human woman said angrily with a harsh tone. "How old are you? Only 18 year olds and older can be in the games."
"G-games??" Sam's head was swirling even more than before.
"Lotus really! Your confusing the poor boy. Listen here sweetie, you've died. In fact we've all died in our previous lives. This is called Gods and Games. Well this one is specifically called 'Amorous Fields'. But nonetheless, it's apart of a mass system of games that the dead play in order to get a better chance at another life. It's for those with an undetermined reward or punishment. Either because you've never really did much in your previous life, or you did equally good and bad, or you were a blaise person in general, or you were too young and had yet to start in adulthood, and many more reason's. Are you following me?" said an middle age man who looked like he was fully human.
"U-um y-yes. B-but what a-about m-my little b-brother?" questioned Sam.
"Your little brother? Was he in a bad predicament when you passed?" questioned the middle aged human man.
"Y-yes o-our m-mother s-set t-the house o-on f-f-fire. W-we...w-w-we w-were l-locked i-in a c-closet t-together." answered Sam with big tears welling up in his eyes.
"I will just say this little one. Children who die are usually instantly reborn or sent to heaven if it was too traumatic to let them heal before rebirth. If your brother is underage, then one of those two things happened to him. This will be explained after completing your first game. You can stick with me and I'll help you through the game. It's unfortunate that you were put in a God level game right off the bat." the middle aged human man said with a soft disapproving sigh.
Sam, with shaking hands, rubbed the tears, that had fallen to his cheeks, off with a large sniffle.
Sam has always been a crybaby so to say, though for right now it is understandable that he is upset. The kids at school would often tease or bully him into crying. It was like them enjoyed seeing him cry without actually hurting him physically. It was always mainly the boys at school though. Sam also has a secret. A secret that his mother abused him for on the regular.
His secret was that he was also a she. He is a true hermaphrodite. He was born with both male and female reproductive organs and DNA. Albeit he is infertile in both, though if a true hermaphrodite was fertile, they would only be fertile in their female organ.
Because of this secret, Sam is a little more emotional than other boys, due to his female hormone, estrogen, sometime rising and causing him to irregularly go through menstruation, which he had been going through when he had died. But also the high emotions of being burned alive, dying, and finding out your little sibling is not with you as well, is also a big emotional tug to his normal state.
"T-thank you sir." said Sam, who still had tears rolling from his eyes, that he started to frantically rub.
"Sweetie Sweetie, don't rub your eyes like that. You'll hurt yourself." said a kind middle age woman with snake eyes and snake scales on her face, neck, and the backs of her hands. "My dear, my name is Gloria, I'm a kyleris. This human man is called Lucas. The demos, the one with the horns, is called Gree. And not to forget, the fennax, fox-man, is called Sebastian. Of course you heard Miss Lotus's name as well, she is also a human. I welcome you to Gods and Games. This particular one should start soon. Come let me tell you how to pull up your user window so you can figure out your tasks."
Sam looked at Misses Gloria is confusion. What is a user window? thought Sam. Nonetheless, Sam walked over to Misses Gloria and looked up to her expectantly. Him being only 4 foot 4 and her being at the very least 5 foot even.
Sam blinked quietly at Gloria and waited for her to explain.
Gloria looked at him and blinked back at him rapidly and then cleared her throat and began explaining the User Window to Sam.
"The user window tells you some important details. While in a dungeon you can only see your given information for the role you need to play in the dungeon if there is one and it will show you the Relics and Buffs you have received previously or along the way within a dungeon. No one but you can see your User Window. To open it you just think of it, or think 'Open User Window' in your mind."
Sam thought that was relatively simple. So he quickly thought 'Open User Window' in his mind and then all of a sudden a transparent screen popped up in front of him.
On it was a simple information chart.
User: Sam
Age: 18
Skills: Shy (will hide from dangerous and non-dangerous beings when feeling shy)
Buffs: Loved by Males (All males of any species will have a good feeling about you or fall in love), Innocent Eyes (In all beings of every species you will look innocent and harmless, not a threat)
Relics: None
There was a blinking bubble in the top right corner so, Sam clicked it with his finger. A whole new set of information popped up in front of him. This time it seemed to be referring to his role in the dungeon.
Dungeon Role
Dungeon Title: Amorous Fields
Name: Sam
Age: 18
Role: Innocent Bystander
Mission: None
Skills: Cry (will weaken killing intent)
Buffs: Loved by Males (All males of any species will have a good feeling about you or fall in love), Innocent Eyes (In all beings of every species you will look innocent and harmless, not a threat)
Relics: None
It would seem that he has the role of an innocent bystander and his skill 'Shy' has changed to 'Cry' instead in this dungeon. Sam being a bit of a crybaby he wasn't surprised about this skill, just thought it seemed manipulative to cry on demand. Which is something he has never been able to do. So simply put, he won't cry on demand.
"Did you find your dungeon role? If you did, do not tell anyone your information, they can use it against you." stated Gloria fiercely.
Surprised at the fierceness of Gloria, Sam could only nod obediently and blinked teary wide eyes at her.
Gloria and the others hearts trembled at the innocent look of Sam and worry began to form for his future. Sebastian's face slightly flushed as he felt his heart beat particularly hard and Gree's body felt somewhat warm when looking at Sam. Both of them didn't know why they felt this way towards the young Sam and were disturbed by their bodies reaction. While Lucas, the middle-aged man looked at Sam with curiosity and contemplation. He had a good feeling about this young man but he didn't know why.
Gloria and Lotus also had a good feeling about this young man but it was mainly based on his innocent and sweet look. It was not really a mystery to them. Both of them liked cute people and Sam was definitely cute.
Sam looked at the five and then looked around at the statues that surrounded them. The statues were beautiful and the people that the statues represented were also beautiful albeit some were rather strange looking.
Sam for some reason since he got there the feeling of being watched got stronger and stronger but he couldn't figure out what was watching them. Just that someone or something was.
"W-what are w-we suppose to do?" Sam softly asked, his body beginning to shake from the overwhelming feeling of being watched. They weren't harsh stares just very heavy feeling. Like something powerful was watching him intently.
"Weelll, to be honest I don't know. Usually there is somewhat clear directions on what to do but this dungeon doesn't seem to have a clear directive. I suppose it is just to survive." said Lucas with a frown, and looking as if he was looking at his User Window.
"It would seem so." stated Gloria with a deeper frown.
Sam being a bit of an introvert wanted to continue walking down the path and he built up his courage and softly said, "I-I-I w-want t-to g-go d-down the p-path."
Everyone looked at his teary eyes and felt their insides shack hard. With hearts beating fast they all readily agreed to go with Sam.
Sam blushed, because he really wanted to go by himself but felt he couldn't argue, so he followed along with them as the headed down the path that was guarded by these beautiful statues.
Sam looked at each one with awe and again noticed that the ones in front were all male it seemed and most behind the ones in front were male with a few females scattered among them. Sam really didn't know what that may mean but with his slight fear of females he thought it was appropriate to have them as far away as possible. With Gloria and Lotus, he also felt anxious but he didn't want to be rude, which is why he wanted to be by himself. But alas, it was not to be.
They continued to walk for about an hour, still surrounded by statues, when in the distance they saw a temple like building coming into view.
It was white and had columns from what Sam could see at a distance.
The feeling of being watched got even heavier as they slowly drew nearer and nearer to the temple. Sam still paid attention to the statues because he really felt that they were important. The others as well paid attention to the statues.
Within about another thirty minutes they reached the very large temple. It was massive in Sam's opinion. There were more statues outside the temple and he could slightly see bigger ones inside. The heavy feeling was getting harder and harder to bere.
Tear formed in his eyes and silently trailed down his cheeks under the heavy pressure of the eyes watching him. He could feel his heart beating hard and his throat dry up.
Sebastian was the first to see Sam's state and hurriedly came over to Sam and gently patted him on the back asking what is wrong.
"I-I-I-I c-c-can f-f-feel e-eyes w-w-watching m-m-me." Sam stuttered hard and began to feel scared at the intense pressure he felt. He looked at Sebastian with scared teary eyes. Sebastian felt like he was struck by a bolt of lightning and swallowed with difficulty.
The the words that Sam had said struck him. 'Eyes watching him?'. Sebastian felt a little panicked at that because it would mean the God of this dungeon was paying attention to Sam.