Vol.5 Ch.21.1 – At Last I

Chapter 21: At Last

Under normal circumstances I would have made a snide remark about Demeter joining the fight after all but instead I held my tongue. Not only did her bloodshot eyes imply that anyone who mouthed off to her right then would meet the same fate as Bres but, much more importantly, the giant goat kraken hadn't actually vanished yet.

“Strange,” Artemis remarked, “normal miracles are dispelled when the god that cast them dies.”

Well that was a slightly concerning thought. How many long-term miracles the gods had set up across the mortal plane had ceased to function because of this attack? How much damage had the Holy Maiden truly caused with this assault on Olympus? It was food for thought but right now at least I had an answer:

“The part of it that came from Bres' power might be unstable but the part supplied by the Holy Maiden's power is still going strong.”

“You think she, what, anointed Bres as a Dark Lord?” Artemis asked.

“Close enough,” I said. “You saw those markings. The real question is, now that he's dead, will she have to reapply them? Or did she corrupt him thoroughly enough that they're still there after he died?”

“Could we discuss this after we take out the giant goat kraken?” Selene called and I immediately shut up because she had a point. But before I could focus on that thing there were a few things I needed to do.

The first and most time-critical was Poseidon. I rushed over to check up on him but just as I reached him a small ritual dagger clattered to the floor and he vanished into motes of light. Evidently he had decided to kill himself rather than wait for someone to heal him.

Next on my list was Hermes. I rushed to the messenger of the gods, still lying on the ground with his legs cut off. He was looking rather paler than before now but it would still be a good long while before he expired.

“Took you long enough, Tailor,” he murmured but he didn't sound like he was actually upset.

“If I kill you, do you take your sandals with you when you vanish or do I need to hold onto them for you?” I asked.

“Soul-bound mythic item,” he murmured. His speech was starting to slur. “They're part of me. Just end me. I'll be back in a flash.”

“Can you pick up Hestia while you're at it?” I asked. “I don't like leaving her out there when Ares is still at large.”

“Ares really is a traitor, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Hermes chuckled weakly. “Better him than anyone I like.”

I snorted and then drove my blade through his heart. Then I stood up and took a deep breath. As convenient as the gods' ability to revive was, killing someone like this wasn't something I wanted to get used to.

But that brought me to the final thing I needed to do before I could join the fight against that rogue miracle. I looked at what weapon Hephaestus had thrown me, exactly.

The blade wasn't the simply gladius shape of Helios Edge, instead looking a lot more like the style of straight sword used by followers of the Aesir or the Tuatha Dé Danann. The sword was double-edged, with a pointed tip, and an array of runes ran down its length. The sword had a pronounced cross-guard and its hilt was wrapped in exquisite leather, pleasant to the touch and providing excellent grip. I quickly pulled out my appraiser's loupe to have a proper look at it and swallowed as I read what it had to say.

The blade was called Eleftheria, the word for freedom in the old tongue of the Olympian faith. Like just about every other legendary weapon it was enchanted for durability and sharpness but with an added armor-piercing enchantment. That was all fairly common, but the other two abilities were not. The first said that the blade would amplify the effects of miracles and 'any other kind of life force-based ability'. The second read that the blade had its own reservoir of power, as indicated by the runes along the blade. If the reservoir was properly filled with life energy then the blade would grow yet sharper and more durable.

I couldn't quite believe my eyes as I read this. Had Hephaestus made this blade specifically for me? Because it sure seemed like it. The abilities seemed practically tailored for me. But that gave me pause. Helios Edge had also had a reservoir of power I could fill with life force and its abilities had also been greatly amplified when channeling life force through the blade. That suggested Hephaestus had been experimenting with life force-based abilities for a while already. Had he looked into what Athena had called quintessence before or was he simply an artisan who enjoyed crafting interesting enchantments regardless of how many people could make proper use of them? Either way, I was going to show him just what kind of monster he had forged with this sword.

I summoned forth my Qi and fed it into the blade as if I was going to use a Qi Burst. As expected, the weapon soaked up the power I fed it and as it did the runes along its blade began glowing light blue, one by one. When the last one started glowing the weapon hummed with barely restrained power.

With a properly prepared sword in hand I finally looked up at the goat kraken in the sky. It was looking quite a bit worse for wear. Most of the tentacles were nothing more than stumps weeping black fluid and the goat head was deformed, as if whatever energy had formed it was running out. It would only take one more push to get rid of it. And I intended to give it that final push.

I raised Eleftheria high above my head in both hands and summoned forth as much Qi as I could into a combined Qi Burst and Qi Projection. With Helios Edge I would have simply sent out a flame lance charged by a Qi Burst but that wasn't an option here. Instead I powered up both Qi techniques until I could hear the blood rushing in my ears.

Sing for me, Eleftheria, I thought as I brought the blade down.

An enormous slash, a foot wide, appeared in the air, mirroring the movement of my sword. Unlike normal Qi techniques, which were stark white, this one was light blue like the runes along the blade's side. The slash bit into the goat kraken and continued without stopping, bisecting it from top to bottom.

The thing had just enough time to glare at me before its two halves split apart. They crashed to the ground with a nasty splattering sound before they started to dissolve into ectoplasm.

Eight pairs of eyes turned to stare at me. The gods, the Heroes, and my girls, all were dumbstruck as they stared. Well, all except Hephaestus, who had tears in his eyes he looked so proud.

“It works exactly the way I hoped it would,” he whimpered. Yep, an artisan who enjoyed his craft.

I calmly walked over to pick up the bent Helios Edge and did my best not to stroke it and tell it everything would be alright, but mostly because I didn't know if it could be fixed.

“Give me that,” Hephaestus said and I handed the bent blade over to him.

“Fucking philistine,” he muttered and for a moment I thought he was referring to me before he added: “And you've been taking such good care of her, too.” He looked up from the sword and into my eyes before saying: “Once this is over I'll fix her up for you. Until then...” He placed Helios Edge into a bag of holding on his belt and then pulled a leather sheath out of another bag before handing it to me.

I nodded and fastened the sheath to my blade before sliding Eleftheria into it. “Thank you.”

“Thank you for wielding my swords so well,” he said, then looked up and into the distance.

I followed his gaze, worried that Ares was back. What I saw instead is a view I spent a good long moment committing to memory.

Hermes was back, flying through the sky, and he had Hestia and Poseidon with him, both gods slung under his arms like sacks of grain. Hestia was windmilling her arms and legs in indignation, her ridiculous tits swinging like hyperactive pendulums. Poseidon didn't even look indignant. He looked resigned and humiliated by the way he was being carried. And the way they were being carried was abjectly ridiculous, Hermes' sandals flapping their little wings as fast as hummingbirds on a sugar high.

The moment Hermes touched down Hestia's flailing caused her to fall to the ground, where she kept windmilling for a few moments before realizing she was making a fool out of herself. Poseidon, on the other hand, simply stood up and brushed himself off, unwilling to even acknowledge the way he'd just been carried. In his defense, I was pretty sure under water he could have carried both of them and made it look much more graceful.

“What did we miss?” Hermes asked once he had his hands free.

“Tailor showing off,” Aphrodite said.

I did not blush. Instead I very heroically cleared my throat and asked: “Did you see Ares on your way back here?”

“No,” Hermes said. “Think he's already with the Holy Maiden?”

“I think someone here would have noticed if he'd rushed past all of you, right?”

“Probably,” Atalanta said. “Things were a little chaotic here before you guys showed up.”

“Fucking Ares and Bres,” Hephaestus said. “Then again, probably the two that will be missed the least.”

“Oh, right!” Alisha yelled and then threw herself onto her knees.

For a moment I was confused by what she was doing but when an orange circle with a knot design sprang up around her I knew what this was about.

“Oh goddess, oh Brigid, queen of the Tuatha Dé Danann, I urgently request an audience with you. Matters of great import have transpired that you need to know of.” She waited a moment before repeating the same incantation once more, then once again. I worried for a moment that Bres might have revived next to Brigid and immediately attacked her but a moment later there was an answer, just not the one I had expected.

Every time Alisha had held council with Brigid she'd done it on her own, without anyone else present. Of course I had peeked at her once or twice but I had never actually seen her talk to Brigid. Alisha had clearly been able to see and interact with Brigid but to everyone else it seemed like Alisha was talking to herself. Not so this time.

Brigid, goddess of hearth and forge, god-queen of the Tuatha Dé Danann, was gorgeous. Tall and broad-shouldered, her hair a sea of fire cascading down her back, her eyes blue flames glimmering out of a gorgeous face. She was just the slightest bit transparent, telling us that she was not actually here in body.

She smiled at Alisha, a smile like a benediction, the kind the gods reserve for their most favored servants. That smile died the moment she realized what kind of situation she had appeared in.

“Alisha,” Brigid said, her voice loving but uneasy. “You have never called out to me with such urgency but I will admit I had not expected to find a situation so... dire.” She turned her head to look at Hestia and Hephaestus and gave her fellow gods of the hearth and the forge a deep nod.

“My goddess, before everything else: Do you know of your husband's whereabouts?”

Brigid frowned, a remarkably unpleasant expression on her gorgeous face. “I have not seen hide nor hair of him for...” Her voice trailed off. “Months.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“As you can see,” Alisha said as she gestured around her, “Olympus has been overrun by the followers of the Black Goat.”

Brigid nodded. “You told me about this when last we spoke. I did not expect things to be quite this bad, however.”

“Things are even worse,” I said. “Your husband was with them.”

Brigid's gaze snapped to me, then back to Alisha.

“It's true, oh goddess,” my little elf said. “We fought him and his Fomorian kin here. His chest was covered in Outsider markings. That was why I called you. Do not trust him. He is working with this Holy Maiden.”

Brigid took it a lot better than I had expected. Then again, she had never liked the guy so maybe she was glad she finally had a reason to get rid of him. But then her expression darkened. “I should have kept a closer eye on him.”

“He bragged about how your distrust was the reason he could get away with it all,” Poseidon said.

I winced. Bres had indeed said that but Brigid really hadn't needed to hear that right then.

Her expression darkened further. “I... see.” She took a moment to compose herself, then looked back at Alisha, her expression full of a love for the little elf I knew all too well. “Sweet Alisha, you have done a great service to me, informing me of my husband's treachery so swiftly. For the duration of this battle, feel free to call upon my miracles as you please. And once this situation is dealt with, we shall speak at length.”

“Yes,” Alisha said. “Thank you so much, oh goddess.”

Brigid's form burst into motes of orange light.

“Is she always this formal?” Selene asked quietly. Or at least it should have been quiet. Spoken into the utter silence of the plateau the words were like a thunderclap.

“No,” Alisha said, “that was just to keep up appearances. She's usually really fun to talk to.”