Vol.6 Ch.1.2 – Companionship II

After our little shopping trip yesterday our larder had been fairly well stocked and so the breakfast ended up quite filling, eggs and ham and bacon and bread as well as plenty of sliced vegetables and a bowl of fruit that everyone managed to get some of before Alisha claimed the rest for herself.

For the first few minutes we were just eating and chatting about nothing in particular but once everybody had eaten at least something the real discussion started.

“We're heading back to Olympus today, right?” Anna asked.

“That's the plan,” I said.

“Want me to just cast Homeward on Athena?” Alisha asked.

Athena pressed her lips into a thin line in response.

“Don't want to be seen arriving with us?” I asked. I didn't put any real venom into it, though. We had never actually talked about how we, how I, should act around her in front of her kin.

“It's not that,” she said. “I... think it might be best if I went ahead to talk to father.”

“How so?” Alisha asked but I was already nodding along with Athena's words.

“We can't exactly stroll into his tholos and make demands of him so it's better if we wait for him to summon us to him first, right?”

“Exactly,” Athena said. “You can't arrive as a supplicant. If you want to get anything out of him you have to wait for him to demand your silence.”

We had saved Olympus, had saved the world, from the Holy Maiden and her cultists. But if the truth ever got out that a group of Outsider worshipers had overrun the seat of a pantheon it would either create panic among the populace or make them lose all respect for the Olympians, if not all the gods.

However, what we had done was a Mythic Quest. The bards wrote songs about the Heroes who finished such quests, whether they lived to tell the tales or not. Those who survived such quests were seen as living legends. But that wouldn't be us. To acknowledge our accomplishments would be to admit their own failings and the gods could not afford that.

And so, Zeus would be forced to negotiate for our silence, to keep the status quo for at least a little longer.

“But don't we need you along to access the treasury?” Selene asked.

Athena had promised us an obscene number of magic items for our help and we would start perusing them today. But Selene had raised an excellent point. Without Athena along, we would just be seen as thieves. Probably even Melinoe vouching for us wouldn't be enough to get us in there. Even if she was the daughter of Hades and Persephone she was still only a demigoddess.

“You do,” Athena said with a nod. “That's why I want to go ahead. That way I can speak to father and then await your arrival to guide you to the treasury.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “How long do you think you'll need?”

Athena turned to Alisha. “Could you cast your Homeward miracle on me alone?”

“Of course,” Alisha said.

“Then once you do that, give me an hour, then head for the Temple of Zeus.”

The Temple of Zeus in the capital contained a gateway leading directly onto Olympus. It had been the way we had gone to infiltrate the realm last time.

“Should we wait in front of the temple?” I asked.

“You can go through the gateway and head up the stairs,” she said. “If I'm not there to greet you, wait until someone comes to get you. I have a feeling they might be a little nervous about unexpected visitors for a while.”

Rightly so, I should think, I thought but didn't say out loud.

I bit my lip as I considered asking something, then decided to go for it. “Would it be possible for me to visit with someone while we're on Olympus?”

“Who would you want to visit?” she asked, slightly baffled. I couldn't blame her. I had history with nearly all of the Olympians and very little of it was good.

I told her.

Her eyes widened and I could all but see the gears turning in her mind as she understood why I wanted to see him. “I suppose that could be arranged.”

“Thank you,” I said.

A light blush colored her cheeks. I wasn't in the habit of thanking her. She'd given me precious little reason to give thanks to her after all. My thoughts began swirling, bringing me back to the days when I had begged for her help and she...

I felt a soft hand wrapping around my clenched fist and opened my eyes to see Alisha looking up at me with concern in her eyes. I calmed down and made a conscious effort to unclench my fist.

“Should I cast the miracle on you, then?” Alisha asked.

“Yes please.”

**

We took our time to finish breakfast and change into proper clothes before heading out to the temple district.

Our villa was located in one of the upscale residential districts of the capital, far away from the bustle of the central districts but located fairly close to the temple district. The name of the temple district was somewhat misleading though. It wasn't as if there were no temples outside of that district but it did house the largest temples. Most of the ones outside the district were either very small chapels and shrines dedicated to a single god or slightly larger temples dedicated to multiple gods, either to whole pantheons or to groups of gods with similar roles or themes. There was a very prominent chapel dedicated to Asklepios and Aphrodite in the red light district for example, letting you pray for virility and good health right before visiting one of the brothels.

“I can't even tell if that's ingenious or disgusting,” Alisha said.

Apparently I'd said that out loud.

“What about temples like in my hometown?” Selene asked. Urd's Embrace had a temple dedicated mostly to Freya but they allowed worship of all gods, as was pretty common for temples in smaller towns and villages.

“That's not really a thing in the cities,” I said. “Small towns can only afford enough space for one or two temples so they have to allow other worshipers. Here it's not really necessary. You can find a temple for pretty much every god without even going to the temple district.”

“All gods of the Northern realm,” Yume amended.

“True enough,” I said. “Only the Aesir, the Tuatha Dé and the Olympians.”

“Not quite,” Anna said. I paused in surprise and she explained: “There are one or two temples dedicated to the children of Svarog.”

My eyes widened in understanding. It was surprising but it made sense. In the Underworld we'd met a dark elf who had told us that beyond the mountains to the north there was a kingdom that worshiped both the Aesir and the children of Svarog. There was not a lot of travel between our realm and theirs but in the capital at least it made sense for there to be enough of them to want to build their own temples. Although I supposed to Yume they were also just 'Northerners'.

Finally we had reached the Temple of Zeus. It was an obscene structure and I didn't just mean the size. What was inside could make a dockside whore blush and that was after we'd burned away the taint from the Outside that had taken root in it.

Walking through the entrance hall we once again had to pass the various statues of Zeus, the ones showing off his... virility. I cringed a little as we reached the one titled “Conception of the first Minotaur.” Zeus was a sick bastard.

I had to consciously remind myself that this wasn't out of the ordinary for gods, though the frequency at which Zeus did this kind of thing hinted at this being a favorite pastime of the horny bastard. Gods, this degenerate was the king of the gods so many worshiped? The one we had to trust would negotiate with us in good faith?

Eventually we made it past the statues. This time we didn't even pause in front of the giant statue of Zeus on his throne, the one enchanted to pop a boner if a pretty woman walked in front of it, and went down the corridor behind it.

The place no longer smelled like a mixture of a whorehouse and an abattoir, at least. Last time we were here we'd seen things that had left indelible scars on our psyches, scenes of carnage and degeneration not meant for mortal eyes. We had burned it all down. Evidently the crown had sent a water mage to scrub everything clean because the smell of soot was the only reminder left of what had happened here.

Once we made it past the corridor we found ourselves in an open space. The space must once have housed a giant oak tree, though by the time we had come here it had been turned into a horrific creature of the Black Goat. That was gone now, too. Apparently a cleric had wasted a couple Cleanse miracles to get rid of it, thank the gods. Yes, the enormous hole in the ground was like a scar upon the structure, but at least there weren't any bones visible in the hole. Maybe they'd already been given a proper burial. I heard Alisha quietly mutter a prayer as we walked past the hole. I didn't comment on it.

Finally we made it to the tunnel that acted as a gateway to Olympus. This time I consciously tried to feel out the moment we left the mortal plane and arrived on Mount Olympus but it was utterly impossible to tell. I wondered if that meant that the tunnel shifted you between planes gradually or whether there truly was a gateway hidden somewhere inside that tunnel and it simply didn't feel any different.

I shook it off as I started to see light at the end of the tunnel. Finally.

We emerged onto a large marble platform, this time without a group of orcs and goblins casually grilling a body. In fact, the marble was so clean it looked as though it had never been stained with blood and worse. Once again we took the marble stairway up the side of the plateau, this time without having to pursue a goblin before it could tell on us.

But even with all these differences our ascent ended the same way as last time. With Hermes yelling at me.

“Took you long enough, Tailor!”