The few past weeks were more than arduous for her. Lady Sappho died and Lady Arachne left the island, in search of another person with a similar condition as her. As her lady wanted to find a more permanent company for herself.
The nice old High Weaver was murdered in cold blood. And the new High Weaver was a tyrant. Who tormented her for years, probably as long as she could remember, despite the original teachings of the cult. Not that she could read them, but some of the original senior members were scholars who liked to discuss the meaning of their teachings. And since none of them cared about her presence, when she was cleaning the meeting place, she was able to learn many things.
Not that it helped her much. She would not be able to explain the teaching to her tormentor, lest she wanted to be beaten even more than usual. Not even the nice lady with wings, who said that she was Lady Arachne's mother, would not come to help her as was promised when High Weaver beat her especially badly the week after Lady Arachne left and no one, from the expedition sent after her, returned.
So her only comfort was to hide and bury herself in Lady Arachne's spider silk cloth. It was soft and cold to the touch, it felt nice on her bruises. She liked to imagine that Lady Arachne was here with her providing support since she had no one else to do so.
And then suddenly people from the cult started to disappear. No one noticed at first, or at least for several first days after the disappearances started. But when some of the higher-ranking cultists, who supported the current High Weaver did not come to the meetings, for five days in a row, everyone knew that something was amiss. And the High Weaver became more brutish towards her.
Around the same time, she found a dark red ampechone, among the Lady Arachne's cloth. She never noticed it before, but at the same time, she did not frequent this place as much as Lady Sappho did. So she must have not noticed it until now. It was so beautiful, and calming, and she felt like a noble lady when she wore it. She just wished she could keep it with her all the time. While she might have gotten blessings from Lady Arachne to keep things from her residence, she would not dare to take the ampechone away. Mainly because the High Weaver would take it from her, once he learned, that it was made by Lady Arachne. She did not want to lose it.
Over the next weeks, more people disappeared, without any trace. Everyone expected them to be murdered, as many planned to do so, in order to further their own positions in the cult. She heard them discuss those horrible things since everyone just ignored her.
If only the High Weaver ignored her much like the others did. But he had an uncanny ability, to find her and abuse her every time something was not going his way. And with the disappearances of his most loyal people, he became more irritated. And she was ever so more hurt as a result of his anger. It had never been so bad before, but that was probably because she had to serve Lady Sappho at that time and look presentable. Now High Weaver no longer has to hold back...
She hardly knew how she stumbled to her room that evening. Her vision was blurry, her ears ringing and her head hurt. So she barely noticed a dark red piece of clothing, lighting up and wrapping around her. The blackness surrounded her and she saw no more.
N̵̛̬͌̍̽̌̅̾̉̈́́̚̚̕͝o̵̢̧͓̻̠̱̜̿͂̇̂̾͒́̽̔͌̈́̔̐̅̕͜ͅ ̴͉̗̯̬̘̟͓̙̰̲̘̤̪͍͔̈͋̇̋̐̍̾́̊̇̉̈́ͅm̴̡̧̧̖̰͚̘̬͈̟̭͔̙̰̬̈̅̈̈́̀̋̂̊̀ͅô̶̺͋͗͊̋̈́r̶̮̾͒͐͗̉e̸͖̺̭̱̽̓̃͆͒̍̽͘!̴͉̳͉̳̮̜͇̟̺̪͠ ̷̛̣̽̂̈́̈̌̄͌̕͝͝H̵͚̠͉̉̋͐ủ̵̢̧̧̮͇̜̘͎ŗ̸̳̯̮̩̩̫͕̳͙͖̲̉̑̾̃̃͗ţ̴͚͇͎̰̱̳͎̭̮̽̊͛̅̓͒̎̕͝ ̸̡̞̣̣̰͙͔͙̫̩̬̊͑̽̆̇͊̂̽̽͑̂̌̍̕ͅŅ̵̛̙̳̳̩͈͕̞̞͙̺͉̠͊͋́͋̆͊̈̈͑̈́̚͘͠O̸̭̯͕͐̀̄͠ ̶͉̺̫̣̮̩̜̟̗͑̈́̃̃̏̂̈̈́̐̀̆̀͌͜͝M̵̥͕̝̻̘͙̭͇̦͕͖͚̏̏̉͆̐̊̃͑̅̐͒̑̓́̀͝Ò̴̡̡̳̯̞̩̳̻̖̮ͅŔ̴̡͍̭͖̝̜̫̩͎̯̥͎̝̠̻̋̅Ë̶̡̨̫̗͔͈̜͇͇̝̤̦́͌̓͛̆̈́̓͋̿̂̚͝!̷̦̝̔̊̈́̑͊
Dear Diary,
I know that Artemis can be slightly "overprotective" of me, but that did not change the fact that I had the best two weeks of my life. Artemis and I did so many amazing things together, we even held hands! And not once, but twice!
If I knew that getting hurt, by some monster, would make her so invested in me, I would have done it a long time ago. Actually, I should probably thank that spider monster for hurting me... Or maybe not, since it really hurt... I guess I can leave her alone, dad's gonna do something about it anyway so that the spider girl can enjoy her freedom, while it lasts.
...
Artemis just messaged me, that she found something interesting, and she would be bringing it to me once managed to hunt it down. How sweet of her. I even managed to coax what it was supposed to be. A Medusa, Artemis told me that I could start a collection this way...
F*CK THIS SH*T!!!!!
Couldn't the monsters, I created, just stay somewhere hidden, away from people, not disturbing anything? Am I asking too much? I guess so.
Anyway the second Medusa, somehow managed to create several life-stone apparitions. Which is, in fact, evidence of her existence. Which is a problem for me, since she used to be a priestess in one of my temples. This way her existence is tied to me.
And the problem is, that I cannot find her, just like the other monster, the spider girl. But I can destroy evidence of her existence and then convince Artemis that she dated the life-stone apparitions wrong.
I'm not confident enough to be able to "distract" her. And no way in Tartarus I'm going to ask that b*tch Aphrodite for advice!
So hiding the statues it is!
While the monstrous horses might have been moving fast, they were not faster than the speed of sound. And thanks to the strategically positioned encampment and the very loud noises the monstrous horses emitted, the expected enemy could be heard before the first visuals were confirmed in the distance. In other words, now that I knew how loud they were I could make a better judgment of their distance and the speed they were approaching. As such there was enough time to prepare my trainees for the inevitable encounter with our monstrous enemy.
"Ready your spears!" I shouted the orders, angling myself towards the sounds of hooves, with my own spear in hand.
It felt almost nostalgic, too bad there were no bayonets to fix to the bolt action rifles. However, having a long-range option would be very advantageous against fire-breathing horses. In fact, having something more primitive, like a bow would probably suffice, those monsters did not seem to have any sort of natural armor. Or maybe even a sling would do, if some random untrained and undisciplined farmboy named David, could kill an armored giant with it. The monstrous horses would stand no chance.
Alas, thinking about it now was meaningless. None of my new meatshields didn't even mention a sling throughout the time we spent together. So it was safe to assume, that none of them knew about this particular weapon. Or if they did, they did not deem it important enough to bring it up. Neither did I know how this "sling" was supposed to work in the first place. I somehow doubted it was anything close to the slingshot I knew from Japan, of my first life, or what the boys in the orphanage, of my second life, managed to procure.
The enemy was certainly taking their sweet time, to attack us. Going by the sounds and a few short glimpses of the enemy, some of my trainees managed to catch a glimpse of, the monstrous horses that were moving sporadically. Their initial approach was from the east, but then they disappeared into the forest, distancing themselves from us, only to approach from the north several moments later.
Then they evaded again, instead of going for us. But any form of feints was useless, the encampment was entrenched and protected from all sides. The trainees were distributed equally and the sounds of the hooves gave our enemy away anyway. The other option was that they could be baiting me, to fire optical formulae at them, thinking that there must be some time interval before I could fire the next salvo again. As I was using it sparingly in our last encounter. Though, that would presume quite high intelligence from the monstrous horses. Or Being X's direct meddling.
And finally, the fire-breathing horses sprouted out, from the west side of the forest. The visuals confirmed it, as several fiery hot red and orange lights illuminated their surroundings. My trainees were ready! I did not even have to order them to move to the position, they organized themselves, taking the initiative. A proof that the past two weeks were not for nothing and that my time training them was not being wasted.
But under a closer look, the monstrous horses were not the only ones running our way. It was initially harder to spot, but there was something big running in front of them. Something too bit!
"Scatter!" I shouted as the horse-sized wild boar ran directly at us.
It was hardly visible in the light conditions of dusk, as its natural colors blended well with the environment and light emitted from horses did not reach far enough. So I only noticed it once it crossed my direct light of sight, in front of the horses. Without a moment of hesitation, I switched my weapon for the magnifying glass I used to fire optical formulae and fired one at it.
The optical formulae hit the boar at that very moment and its head and part of torso lit up in flames. But instead of collapsing, as I expected it to do, it tripped and thanks to the unforeseen momentum, rolled right over our shallow trench, broke through wooden pikes, as if they were made out of twigs and crushed my crippled trainees, who cloud not move fast enough on their own, out of its way!
The wild boar was dead since its head was missing. But that was not the real problem. Not at all. The real problem was the horses that were running after it. And now directly at us. Their numbers recovered from our last encounter. Or perhaps it was a different group. That did not matter though, as I fired several optical formulae at them, in quick succession. The monstrous horses were still far enough to cull their numbers from a distance before they trampled over our breached defenses.
The subsequent explosions were bright and spread wide, burning numerous of the monstrous horses, but it was not nearly enough to cause their retreat. No, many more of them would have to die, for the group of monsters to retreat. If they were to retreat at all, since they could be unreasonable and fight to the last one.
"Engage!" I yelled at my trainees, who did not freeze this time around even as their comrades died under the weight of the giant wild boar.
Luckily they now knew how to fight the monstrous horses. Not that that mattered much to the monsters, as they kicked and bit and breathed fire, dying at the speartips of my trainees, while killing them in exchange. Utterly unreasonable waste of human resources. Better I joined the fray too so that my trainees could not tell me that I was slacking, while they were fighting for their lives.
Much like the last time, the fire-breathing horses attacked, the scene of trench warfare was reenacted almost perfectly. As a bonus, this time there were also trenches, if only shallow and wooden pikes in place of razor wire. And let's not forget the burned boar, it could easily take the place of a tank hit by an artillery shell. How magnificently wasteful!
With one more monstrous horse slain, the surviving monsters decided to retreat. Not that my remaining trainees let them do that unobstructed. I could see the anger in the faces of my trainees when they viciously killed and maimed retreating horses. This way, I might lose their respect if I did not execute at least one retaliation strike at the galloping monsters. Optical formulae fired and an explosion of light and fire followed. Burning pieces falling down from the sky.
"Tamayaaa!" I could not help myself but to be cynical.
After all, from the original number of my trainees, less than a third still looked able-bodied, while not even close to half of them were still alive. Which was why I hurried with my silver blood to heal those who were critically injured. I refused to waste any more of my human resources to this ridiculous world.
Amidst the healing, some deep squeaky noises along with snuffling sounds, appeared near our broken camp. Instantly my able-bodied trainees, took their spears ready for another enemy attack. The noises were getting slowly closer, whatever it was, it was either slow or was approaching with caution. Which would not be surprising given the carnage all around.
And then they appeared in the light of the flames, three little pigs. Or more precisely young of the giant wild boar, I killed. They had the striped fur and the size of a German Shepherd. Which made them not so little.
"Ladies! It seems that our dinner came to us tonight," I did not have to say more.
From the look on the faces of my trainees, we were on the same page. They were also starved after brutal battle and killing the piglets should relieve at least a bit of their anger from the loss of their comrades. Some spears were thrown and some charged directly at the three little pigs. In a few short moments, two piglets lay dead on the ground, while the third managed to get away with a spear near its back.
What an underwhelming result. But I would not blame my trainees, they must have been too tired from the battle to pursue the last one. And even two not-so-little pigs should feed all of us survivors for more than a few days.
Not wanting to be seen as useless, by my trainees, and not participating in the meal procurement, I went to prepare the piglets for cooking right after I healed the last of the survivors with my silvery blood.
I do not know where it came from, but my trainees did notice and pointed out that I was humming. At first, I did not realize it, but then it was clear the song was "Once I Had a Comrade". While I did not consider my trainees to be my comrades, I supposed they were each other's comrades, so I taught them the full song.
Truly, what a waste. Why was Being X now throwing so much madness my way, in a quick succession? What was his plan anyway? First I encountered a giant monster whale, that ate a pirate ship. Then there was a god-pretender and berserker, followed by fire-breathing monstrous horses, ending with the giant wild boar, whose young we just ate for dinner. Although there was also the god-pretender that first time when I was turned into half monster.
This world was so much more unforgiving and ridiculous than the world at war of my second life. Not only it was hard for me, but it was also incredibly, nigh impossible for regular people to live in this world. A world that would turn on its head any second, a world without any rules. Absolute anarchy, where human life had no value and the strong usurped the weak. A breeding ground for communism.
Which, I doubted, Being X would endorse as the only good thing that commies ever did, was to reject the existence of a god. Yet even communism, as much as salvation it must have sounded for the average people at first, turned into autocracy and tyranny. A personality cult, a disastrous regime, where people worshipped a dictator instead of god.
That was it, wasn't it? Being X pulled one, directly out of the communist party's political officer's handbook. First, make people suffer, under harsh conditions with some unnatural monsters on top. Second give them incompetent, leaders or rather absolute rulers in the form of god-pretenders like Athena, who can make people's lives a living hell. Like turning them into monsters, for example. And lastly come in marching yourself as a big savior, who can alleviate all illness and injustice by miraculously waving a hand. Everyone will love you and worship you. Have faith in you.
Admittedly, I should have probably congratulated Being X, for managing to learn something, even if it was from commies. But begrudgingly, he decided to put me on the wrong side of things and turn me into a monster. Where I could have peace only as long I did not participate in the world. As long I did nothing, but stay hidden away from all humans. Did Being X expect, that being forcefully turned into a hermit would somehow awaken my faith in him? If so, he must have been just as stupid as ever.
Although, I would not be able to forever distance myself from the rest of humanity, as I was able to do in this time period on the island of Lesbos. Eventually, the human population would grow in size, and humanity would spread to all corners of the world. But that was directly in contrast with my long-term survival. As humans were indeed idiotic, they would see only a monster in me and try to end my life.
This left me with overall two options. One, where I would assume a similar modus operandi as Medusa and move around forever, never staying in a single place for too long. But this still brought the danger of encountering less-than-friendly monsters or humans. This way it would be just a matter of time. Which would play directly into Being X's hands. My second option, on the other hand, was to create a place where I would be accepted even as a monster. Going by my experience from Lesbos, it was possible to coexist to some extent with humans. Given that not all people on Lemnos were hostile to me and some of them even sought my tutoring. It was clear that there were some deviants among humans, who were reasonable enough to consider me a person, yet unreasonable enough to attept to comunicate with a quite obvious monster, like myself.
Therefore it was possible to create my own place, or rather a state in this time period, where people, at least neutral to my being, could exist.
She had no idea what sort of madness possessed their princess and their party leader in one person. But the end result was, that she left them on their own. Not that they would not be able to complete their quest of capturing the half-spider monster woman. No, that was not the problem in the slightest. The real problem was, that their queen would skin them alive, should they return back home without the princess.
As such, she took the reign of their group and became the temporary leader, at least until they found the princess. And should the princess resist further, and refuse to go with them to finish the quest, she would have to become a leader until this assignment was over and the spider monster along with the process were safely presented before their queen.
Alas, when they figured out that the price was missing, they had to quickly scramble to look for her. The first clues, as to where their princess disappeared, were found only after several hours passed since the initial disappearance, given the princess vanished during the night. The found evidence was a pair of human tracks heading east. One was of an unknown person and the second belonged to their princess. The problem was that it was the princess footprints that were leading the other person around.
Which somehow made things even worse for them. Because, in case their princess was overpowered by the groups of people, they would be able to track them easily and deal with them, or at least free the princess discreetly without her captors noticing. But since it was the princess, leading the only one another person. Their group would have a harder time tracking the pair since the princess knew how to hide track from her kin.
Luckily for the group of Amazons, they had the best tracker of their people with them. They were originally supposed to track down a monster, after all. And not even the princess was, that good at hiding her tracks. Moreover, since she had an inexperienced company, who knew little about hiding their tracks, the princess had to keep up the slack for the both of them. Not always successful.
Not even several princesses attempts, at creating false tracks, did help her. And over the course of nearly a month, their group managed to almost catch up with the princess and company, several times. Alas, the princess has been persistent in escaping them. Thus, she, as the current leader of the group, had quite a headache because of the runaway princess. Worst of all the princess Antiope was her friend, so why didn't she tell her anything? If she knew that the princess was planning on escaping, she would have gladly joined her or at least helped with the escape. Alas, that did not happen, since the princess disappeared without as much as goodbye. She felt betrayed.
So when she and her Amazon warriors reached the city of Athens, she felt angry! She hoped that the Antiope would not be so stupid and go to this city, but the tracker said that the princess with certainty entered Athens. Which should be impossible! None of the Amazons could physically enter Athens as long as the various wards were in the place. Nothing that could be seen by normal humans, but they were all daughters of Ares, one of the gods who was forbidden from entering Athens! Thus they were forbidden from entering. Or more specifically, as they quickly figured out, they suffered immense pain, when they tried to enter the city of Athens. That way, they would not be able to fight!
This meant that something else was in the play. Some of the gods must have blessed Antiope to be able to enter the city. When she got that god in her hands, she would... She would do nothing, or rather she could do nothing to the gods. Hence, she had to focus on getting the princess back, that was the only thing she could do.
Since it was the wards, hidden well in the various shrines, temples and some of the buildings, which were preventing them from entering the city of Athens, they would have to be destroyed! Athens would be sacked because there was no other way to retrieve their wayward princess!
Getting out of the Underworld happened almost without any trouble. Almost, because she had to pull out several of the Argonauts out of Cerberus's mouth. Once those idiots started to play with the Underworld's guardian slightly rougher. At least none of them had to be revived again. If they were scarred for life, that was not her problem, since she needed them to be just alive, not whole.
Luckily none of them suffered crippling injury and all of the Argonauts, bar Heracles, who was still recuperating from death, were able to set sail. However, she would have to reimburse her expenses later, from Olympus treasury, since Charon refused to ferry them for free after Pollux insulted him. Not that she did not enjoy, disciplining the demi-idiot, it just was not worth that much money.
Once Nike and the Argonauts finally crawled out of the Underworld to the surface, the young men demanded a break, to enjoy their youth to the fullest. But that was swiftly refused by her. Not that some of them did not try anyway. Good thing that Nike was now an uplifted human Olympian and thus was able to herd them to the Argo, with only slight use of force. She really wanted this quest to be over quickly.
Argo awaited them in the harbor, fully stocked with fresh supplies. Both Scylla and Charybdis let them pass without any problems, thanks to the fact that Nike was around to discipline all of Zeus's "offsprings" among the Argonauts, who attempted to flirt with Scylla.
From there it was just smooth sailing. Fast ship, nice weather, strong winds and her. If it was just her alone and not the fifty or so young men, she was forced to babysit. Although that would do them a disservice, to assume they were all the same brats. Sure most of them were, but some of them were decent people, or close enough to decent people that she would spend her time talking with them.
This way, many days and weeks have passed. Without anything else but, sailing, occasional storms and regular stops at different ports to resupply, nothing out of the ordinary did happen. The whole journey so far was, in fact, quite a calm and relaxing affair. If it stayed like this, she would not even mind. How long could it take anyway? Several months at most at the current pace.
That of course, soon changed, with an urgent message from Athena. Nike, just rolled her eyes, followed by the most professional poker face and voice she could muster.
"Lady Athena?" she asked.
"Nike! Great! Go immediately to Athens!" said the goddess of supposed wisdom.
"Lady Athena, I'm on a priority quest to recover Golden Fleece with the Argonauts, as ordered by Lord Zeus," explained Nike, not wanting to do anything to complicate her current mission.
"I know! You take the Argonauts and go protect Athens. That idiot Ares somehow recreated the Amazonians and they are now attempting to sack my city!" said Athena clearly distressed, not that Nike would point it out, she just secretly enjoyed it.
"Amazons are attacking Athens, my lady? Wouldn't that endanger the Argonauts? Are you going there as well?" she queried.
"Yes. Some of them might die, but that is not going to be a problem as long as all of Dad's offspring survive, along with Jason. The rest are expendable. And no, I'm currently preoccupied with something of utmost importance, so I can't go there. That is why I'm telling you," said the goddess slightly irritated.
"I'm on my way!" said Nike with fake excitement.
"I'm counting on you Nike!" said Athena ending their conversation.
Needless to say, she was not happy with the sudden development, that changed the course of the otherwise comfortable and calm sailing. She was angry at that stupid Athena and Ares, those two idiots always complicate things, when they do not have to. But most importantly, she was now angry at her lover Aphrodite, since she was the one who tasked Ares to find a spider monster, also known as Arachne, her daughter. And then redirecting the Amazonians attention to Athens. What was Aphrodite thinking anyway, sending Amazons to sack Athens as a distraction?
"Damn you!" she cursed at no one in particular. But if there was someone, putting her in these stupid situations, they better never get close enough to Nike, for her to relieve her anger on them.