Vol.5 Ch.7.2 – Welcoming Committee II

“Felix bloody Tailor,” the messenger of the gods said, his sandals flapping their little wings frantically to keep him airborne. “What the fuck are you doing here? Wait. Tina?”

“Hello Hermes,” Athena said. “Could you come down here so we won't have to shout?”

“And why would I do that?” he asked. “For all I know you're working with these monsters.”

“I fled Olympus to find help,” Athena said, sounding a bit upset at the accusation. “Now I'm back. With help.”

“If anything,” I said, “how do we know you aren't working with the Outsiders? You're telling us you held out on Olympus for months despite the entire realm being overrun with monsters?”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “I'm not taking that kind of shit from you,” he hissed, then shot down until he stood right in front of me, almost nose to nose. “I've been fighting a guerrilla war here all on my own for months, hiding where I could, getting rest where I could, and thinning their ranks as much as I could. And I'm not letting some mortal upstart accuse me of working with these creatures.”

And now that I knew what to look for, I could see the truth of his words.

Hermes had always been a handsome cunt. He had short, curly golden hair with a laurel wreath in it (not gilded; he wasn't quite as arrogant as Zeus), a perpetual mischievous grin on a face that had just a few too many sharp edges to look boyish, and eyes that seemed to shimmer through all the colors of the rainbow. He wore a particularly short toga and of course his iconic pair of winged sandals. Strapped to his belt was a small knife that I had no doubt would be sharper than any ordinary weapon had a right to be and in one hand he held his caduceus staff, which he used as a magical focus.

Except he looked a lot rougher these days. The mischievous smirk had become more of a grimace, the almost boyish face had been hardened by stubble, the luster in his eyes had dimmed a little and his clothing had tears and stains in it. He truly did look like he'd been fighting a war on his own. Only his sandals, the mythic piece of gear he was most known for, still shimmered like they were brand-new.

But instead of mentioning any of that I asked: “So how about we stop posturing and fuck these creatures up together?”

He regarded me for a moment, then said: “I still want an explanation why Athena brought you of all people here, and who the others are, but for now? Yes, let's.”

“Who is that?” Alisha asked quietly but nonetheless Hermes' ears pricked up. Instantly the battle-hardened version of him sloughed away a little as he tried to flex his charm.

“Well, good evening, my lovely lady,” he began and leaned forward to give a bow with a flourish.

Before he could make any more of a fool out of himself I interrupted his spiel: “Everybody, meet Hermes, the messenger god of the Olympians.”

He aborted the bow, looking a little annoyed. I continued:

“Patron god of alchemists, diplomats, travelers, highwaymen, thieves and just about anyone else who didn't run away fast enough.”

“Hey now,” he said, “some of those didn't try to run away at all.”

“I'm guessing it was the diplomats,” I said. “Cause they love to talk just as much as you do.”

Anna gave me a slightly exasperated eye-roll at that. It gave me a little pause. I hadn't meant to insult her but she was a diplomat, wasn't she? A reluctant diplomat, maybe, but a diplomat nevertheless. And as much as I loved her, I could not deny that she had a tendency to drone on and on during negotiations. It was simply because she took her work seriously but that didn't make it any less true. Before I could worry about her being upset, however, she poked me in the side and let me pull her close.

“So, who are these lovely ladies?” Hermes finally asked. “I've had the displeasure of meeting Felix Tailor before but the others I don't know.”

“We can have a round of introductions but first, do you know of a safe place to talk?” Athena asked. “We are somewhat out in the open.”

He waved it off. “We're safe here. This street is deserted except during the guard change at the landing platform. I prefer to stay on the rooftops but that's mostly out of paranoia. So, introductions?”

Athena sighed, then explained: “I went looking for the most competent group of adventurers I knew, ones I knew would be opposed to the Outsiders. That search led me to Tailor and his party... his lovers.”

Hermes' eyes panned over all of the women, then landed on me. “Since when did you become such a ladies man?”

“Since shortly after we last saw each other, actually,” I said. “Funny how that works.”

“Um, I'm here too, you know?” Melinoe said from the back.

“Oh hey Meli,” Hermes said. “I didn't even notice you there. So, you and Felix Tailor...?”

I turned to see Melinoe turning red as an apple before she squeaked out: “No! I just... I...”

“She decided to tag along after we ran into her,” Athena explained for the flustered demigoddess.

“Ran into her?” Hermes asked. “The Underworld isn't exactly on.. the...” He trailed off as he put the pieces together. “You hired the Heroes of Elysium?”

“They did,” Athena said. “They wouldn't even hear me out but...”

Hermes nodded. “So, where are they? I don't see an army behind you.”

“We wanted to head to the tholoi and free them one by one until we reach Hades' one. The portal is being guarded. We'd been hoping that some of our kin are being held in them so we could free them one by one.”

“Not a bad idea,” Hermes agreed. “A lot of our kin are being held inside their tholoi.”

“And you haven't tried freeing them yourself?” I asked.

“Fuck you, Tailor,” Hermes hissed. “They're much too heavily guarded for me alone. But with all of you tagging along...”

“So we're your sidekicks now?” I asked.

“Well of course,” he said, puffing up his chest. “I have been heroically fighting a one man war while you are a bunch of Johnny-Come-Latelies.”

I snorted. “Sure, buddy. Whatever helps you sleep.”

“Are you sure he was the best person to ask for help?” Hermes asked as he leaned over to Athena.

“I'm afraid so.”

**

“You know, I always thought that 'Fuck you, Tailor' was something only Athena said,” Alisha said quietly to me as we made our way to the first tholos. As we did, Yume was using her illusion magic to help us avoid patrols of mutated orcs and goblins. She couldn't keep us invisible the entire time, the strain was much too great to keep the spell up long-term, but her efforts were more than enough to keep us safe. In all honesty, I was a bit surprised at just how light the presence of the invaders was. For the most part Olympus was just... dead.

I had always imagined Olympus of this realm of gold and splendor, of absolute majesty and I could see how it had once been just that. The streets, such as they were, were made from the finest marble, lined with small flower beds, with golden details inlaid into the stone. The buildings, even the clearly residential buildings, were all lined with marble columns as if they were temples. And then there were the clouds, the ones Athena had told us could be walked on. They lined most of the realm, though there were a few holes in the carpet of clouds, like the one the goblins who had tried to circumvent Melinoe's barrier had fallen into. Either way, the clouds looked simply too perfect, too fluffy, like something that shouldn't exist in our world. And, technically, it didn't. This was not part of the mortal realm. We were in the realm of the gods now. I doubted anyone who fell off the realm of Olympus would land anywhere in the Trismegistian kingdom.

Either way, Hermes, who was walking ahead of us and guiding our way, turned around to respond to Alisha's comment:

“Oh, Athena was the one who started telling him that but any god who spends time in his presence understands why she does it, so it caught on.”

“And yet,” Alisha said, “you don't seem too upset about him having come to help you.”

Hermes chuckled. “Well, I can't deny that. He's a bastard but he's exactly the kind of bastard we need right now.”

I had to smile at that. In all honesty, I got along a lot better with Hermes than I did with a lot of the Olympians. Of course, there was also a possibility that the shifty bastard was the traitor and was just playing us for fools but I really hoped he wasn't.

“So, you said you've seen some of the gods in their tholoi,” Melinoe said, changing the topic. “What about the rest of them?”

“Why are you asking?” Hermes replied.

“We have reason to believe one of our kin sold us out,” Athena said.

“Well... It would certainly explain how they were able to attack us from all sides,” Hermes said, taking it a lot better than I would have expected. “So you're asking who's not in their own tholos to suss out the traitor, then?”

“Yes,” Melinoe said.

“In that case, I can tell you that Zeus and Hera aren't in their tholoi and neither is Artemis. Though with Zeus and Artemis at least I know where they are and... let's just say I doubt they would be treated like this if they'd sold us out.”

“Dare I ask?” I asked.

“Well, our father is in the audience chamber, fused to his throne by a layer of black goo. The invaders had this woman with them...”

“Long black hair?” I asked. “Curvy?”

“You know her?” he asked. “Right, her. Calls herself the Holy Maiden. She spends most of her time lounging on dad's throne, using him as her chair.”

“Well shit.” Syr's body was indeed here. Which reminded me.

How are you holding up?, I asked into my mind.

Kind of relieved, actually, came Syr's reply.

Because we know where she is?

No, she said. Well, that too. It's... that connection that felt so hazy? Ever since we reached this realm it's snapped back into focus. So no, she hasn't found a way to kick me out of my body for good, she was just too far away.

That's really good news, I said. Think you can go spy on her?

I felt Syr pause before she said, in a tone that sounded a little embarrassed: You know, it's been so long that I genuinely forgot to try. Here, let me...

And then I felt her fade away. Alright, apparently we would be getting some better intel shortly.

I felt my lips quirk up into a smile. I had said before that I didn't believe the Holy Maiden had ever outsmarted us and that the only reason she'd perpetually been multiple steps ahead of us had been because we didn't know enough about her plans.

But now we were in the same small pocket realm. Now we had Syr's intel back. Now we would finally get to measure ourselves up against her. This woman's specter had hung over us for months. Yes, she was dangerous, probably terribly so. But I was sure we would be able to overcome her.

“Here we are,” Hermes said and we paused.

We had made it to the edge of the realm and in the distance we could see a small tholos on a plateau surrounded by a sea of clouds.

“That's Hestia's over there. You want to call up the bridge or do you want to brave the clouds?”

“They're safe, right?” Selene asked dubiously.

“Absolutely,” Hermes said and to demonstrate he flew over to the clouds and then landed on them. They seemed bouncy, almost swallowing his feet.

“That isn't as reassuring as you think it is,” I called after him. “How do we know you're not using your sandals to hold you up?”

Even my supernaturally enhanced eyesight wasn't good enough to see him roll his eyes but from the motion of his head I nevertheless knew he'd done so. A moment later he began untying his sandals and when he was done he held them up in one hand, showing that he wasn't plummeting to his death even without them on.

But still I tested something out. I reached into my bag of holding, pulled out a plate and threw it onto the clouds. It landed on them and didn't fall through either.

I took one deep breath, not believing I was seriously about to do this, and then flung myself over the edge of Olympus.

Despite all reassurances I was certain I was about to fall to my death but when I reached the clouds my feet sank into them by about a foot and... stopped. The clouds were ridiculously fluffy but they were, in fact, solid enough to walk on.

“It's fine,” I called up to the others, hopping up and down to test the cloud's elasticity.

Almost before the words had left my mouth Selene and Yume landed beside me, Yume landing as graceful as, well, a fox and Selene almost face-planting in the clouds.

Athena took a look at us, then took a breath and leapt after us, leaving only Alisha and Melinoe up on the walkway.

Alisha gave me an uncertain look and I nodded at her, then opened my arms. She smiled, took a step back and then ran straight over the edge, describing a perfect arc and landing in my arms. I spun her around and then sat her down on the clouds, then opened my arms again for Melinoe.

“Come on,” I told her. “I'll catch you.”

She pressed her lips together, looking embarrassed, but then ran over the edge as well. Her arc was nowhere near as graceful as Alisha's and she windmilled her arms but at least she kept herself from screaming as she more fell than jumped. I had to scramble a few steps forward to catch her and even then she nearly knocked me over, being not quite as light as my little elf.

She stayed in my arms for just a moment too long before pushing herself away from me and spinning around so I wouldn't see her blush. Was she self-conscious about her weight or something?

I shook my head and then turned to the tholos. “I probably should have asked this earlier, but is there an easy way to get back up to the stone plateaus from here?” Most of us were capable of jumping up that high with Qi Bursts and Hermes could simply fly up there with his sandals but Melinoe wouldn't be able to follow. I supposed I could carry her while jumping but...

“All of the plateaus have stairways that lead down to the clouds,” Athena said. “They're usually hidden out of sight though. For the tholoi they're all on the sides facing away from the main plateau.”

“Got it,” I said. “Let's get to it then.”

**

Walking atop the clouds was taxing. Athena hadn't been exaggerating one bit, it was exactly like trudging through deep snow. All of us had superhuman physiques so it wasn't as big a problem as it could have been but normal mortals would have been exhausted after walking to one of the tholoi.

As we walked we began to hear sounds coming from the tholos. They were sounds I had been expecting to hear though not exactly sounds I was happy to hear: Goblins. They were chattering excitedly and I already steeled myself for what we would find inside the tholos.

Unlike a lot of the Olympians I actually liked Hestia. She was annoying but she wasn't a bad person. But even if she had been a horrible cunt like Demeter, nobody deserved to be violated by a group of goblins. And so as we ascended up the stone stairs up to the plateau I already expected to see the goddess of the hearth being held down while a group of horrible, goat-like goblins did gods knew what to her.

What I found instead almost made me laugh. Almost.

Tholoi were round temple structures and this one was no different, though instead of a place of worship it was a small apartment, complete with a small kitchen and with a large bed as the centerpiece. On that bed sat Hestia, looking immaculate except for huge dark circles under her eyes.

Hestia was exceedingly pretty, though in a somewhat peculiar way. She was all of five feet tall if she jumped, but with a disproportionately large chest, larger than Yume's. She wore her long, black hair in pigtails and the hairstyle only served to accent her youthful face.

Except right now she looked like she hadn't slept in months.

Arrayed around her in a circle was a group of goblins, chattering and slavering with their faces and naked crotches pressed against a massive energy barrier that described a perfect dome around the bed, their noses bent and squished because the little shits were pressing against the barrier so hard.

“Hey short stuff!” I called. “Need a hand?”