Several past months were quite interesting, so to speak. Over the course of approximately six months, I got to know another individual with a similar affliction to mine. Or perhaps it was the same thing, just with different symptoms, given the fact that the vector of origin was exactly the same in both cases. Namely god-pretender Athena.
Although my new acquaintance, with a similar curse as myself, Medusa, was not exactly what I expected. As in she was actually a nice person, so much unlike myself. Addmitedly I expected a person with too many complexes to name them all, but Medusa was anything but. Perhaps it was thanks to not having to encounter the worst of all god-pretenders, Being X. Or perhaps it was thanks to the presence of her hair snakes, also known as her daughters, who as I, over the course of several months, found out were, indeed sapient and their own people with different personalities.
If I were to judge them, they must be young children, with some of them entering their teens, at least based on their attitude, because visually there were no differences between them. This caused a problem a few times, when I managed to misname them, just because I could not clearly see where exactly they were attached to Medusa's head. Therefore my only identification pointer was invisible. But given that it was always followed by, what could be passed only as snickering, they did it on purpose.
Luckily Medusa was not offended by that and rather reprimanded her daughters for playing pranks on me. Not too harshly though, as she was one kind-hearted person. In my past lives and probably even a few years back, I would have scoffed at her for being such a naive individual. But as I had no choice, in the selection of long-term acquaintance, I let it be. Even if it added work on my shoulders, should some scammers try to trick Medusa into one of their schemes. I considered that an acceptable price. And eventually Medusa and I managed to create a working relationship between the two of us. Needless to say, sharing different stories of our lives has been quite productive in getting to know each other. What a nice example of the free market principles.
To my surprise, all of this was happening in relative calmness. Yes, there were a few monster incursions into the camp, where I was training my new combatants, or I might even dare to say, soldiers. But the unreasonable creatures were swiftly dealt with. Several more packs of monstrous horses, but with the way the encampment was entrenched, they never stood the chance and were dealt with from a distance. The same went for the giant wild boars that also appeared on a few occasions.
Admittedly, I was not even surprised, when Medusa's daughters devoured the pork as ravenous beasts, only to end up looking incredibly fat, hanging limp from their mother's head. Unknowingly they gave me the means to stop them from playing pranks on me. Alas, Medusa did not seem to appreciate the added weight on her shoulders but did not say anything.
Then there was one more monster that appeared. A new type of monster. It could not be described as anything else but a cyclope. Four-meter-tall humanoid monstrosity, with incredible muscle strength, skin so thick that wooden spears did nothing to it, and bronze spears left nothing much more than a paper scratch on it. And worst of all, it ambushed my troops at the moment I was visiting Medusa, thus I was unable to support them with my magic.
Luckily for them, it was not exactly nimble, nor it was clever. Therefore my troops were able to run circles around it, looking for any weak spots they could find. Which boiled down to a single one. That being its enormous single eye in the middle of its face. So, when the first spear flew at it, the cyclopes covered its weak spot to everyone's surprise. Apparently, it was not completely stupid.
But it was nowhere near the ingenuity of my troops. At around that time, my troops took to another weapon, that being a sling. Of course, none of them being proficient enough, they would have to be extremely lucky to hit the eye with the stones. But that was not their aim at all. They decided to pepper the monstrous giant from all sides, forcing it to cover its tender spots, forgoing protection of its biggest weakness, its eye. To no one's surprise, the idiotic monster fell for it and protected its other spots rather than the single eye. With one well-aimed spear, the cyclops fell dead to the ground, eye pierced
Once I returned to the encampment, I did not want to believe my eyes. The sight in front of me was just so surreal. At the time I thought that Being X decided to go all biblical on my troops, and after I checked that none of them decided to suddenly convert to a new faith, I reprimanded them for not informing me of such an enemy immediately while needlessly risking their lives. After which, I congratulated them for a job well done and healed several wounds caused by wooden splinter shrapnels.
My troops then tried to explain themselves. Apparently, they wanted to prove their usefulness to me, since none of them could use the magic I was so painstakingly teaching them. And while that came as no surprise to me, that none of them were able to use magic. They felt that they somehow disappointed me by that. This was not true, but these numbskulls of mine did not understand that, even after numerous attempts from my side to explain it.
And thus they got themselves a harder training regime afterwards.
To them who remained on their home island of Lemnos, it was clear that the Lady Arachne, whom the cultists introduced and the Lady "Nike", whose name was actually Arachne, were one and the same. It was not that hard to figure it out, since the cultists were more than talkative. That was, only after all the women on the island, who wanted, got their fill and the cultists were not preoccupied all the time.
While they themselves were grateful to their lady for saving their lives, it was not so easy with the rest of the women on the island. But slowly and surely, all of them started to worship Lady Arachne whom the cultists introduced, in one way or another. This way, it was easy to slowly connect the two and only a few of the women were against their new faith, once they found out. However, those were preoccupied with different troubles at the time.
As such, they, who could, together with some of the cultists, started to build a small temple for Lady Arachne, just as the cultists said she would have liked it.
Getting hurt by the Ares's upgraded Amazonias was not fun at all. If anything it was the exact opposite of it. She might have won and none of the Argonauts suffered fatal injury. But it was those morrons' fault in the first place, that she was hurt. If they did not decide to play heroes, like idiots they were, and attacked the enemy she just managed to successfully negotiate the peace with. Then she would not have to protect them from the Amazonians' wrath while getting hurt in the process.
But that was a long time ago. Many months, in fact. Many months she used to heal herself, which those idiotic morrons, also known as Argonauts fully exploited, to entertain themselves with locals.
If nothing else, their hedonism made them easier to control and keep an eye on, even when she was incapacitated, by her injuries. Quite frankly, how was it possible for the Amazonians to hurt her that badly? Even if they were demigods, they should not be able to do so much damage to her. Unless something else was at the play.
In the end that did not matter, unless she encountered the Amazonians again. This would hopefully not happen, since Zeus has been informed about the initial encounter and Ares was reprimed for his new attempt at creating demigods. Although the ultimate fate of these new Amazonians was not known to her. So there was a chance that they were still somewhere out there.
But for now, she was to depart with the Argonauts on the journey to finally get the Golden Fleece.
The months following Lady Arachne's departure from the island of Lesbos were terrible. The new High Weaver became ever so more unhinged, with every single disappearance of another cultist. And he brought all the hate on her. And she had to suffer it, as there was no choice for her.
But then one day, she found the dark red ampechone, made by Lady Arachne, wrapped around her. How it got there, she did not know. What she knew, was that she had not slept so well for a long time and the morning was even more shocking. Usually after getting beaten as much as she was the previous day, she would be black and blue for weeks. But not this time.
She woke completely in pristine condition, even her clothes were clean, with no trace of her blood, or dirt on them. Something supernatural must have happened, and if the cool and smooth ampechone was anything to go by, it must have been Lady Arachne who protected and healed her, through it.
Yet she could not wear it all day. It looked too obviously out of place on her, and worst of all, she feared that High Weaver would take it from her. Not caring that it was Lady Arachne's will for the ampechone to be hers.
Hiding it, Cynane departed for the day. Hopefully, today would not be so bad as the day before.
"T̵o̸g̷e̸t̸h̶e̶r̴,"
She stopped for a while, thinking that she might have heard someone talking to her, but since the person did not repeat themselves, it must have been just her imagination.
What was not her imagination though, was the High Weaver's ire. It could not be because another person was missing, since she noticed that everyone who was there yesterday, was here today. But suddenly, it became painfully clear, what had earned High Weaver's anger this morning. It was her, or rather her being healthy and not hurt.
"E̴n̴o̸u̸g̴h̵!̵"
Someone said as the High Weaver was readying himself for another strike. But it never came. She waited for several moments, but no strike rained down on her. As such she dared to open her eyes.
In front of Cynane, was an unbelievable scene happening. From his right side the High Weaver was being dragged into a bright red and yellow plane, or rather a sheet of cloth, as she recognized.
The man, that hurt her, was stunned, unable to move, and with fear in his eyes. If he could, he would have commanded other cultists to save him, but he must have known that no one would have helped him. Since none of his loyal followers remained on the island.
With a noise, his High Weaver's mask fell to the ground, as the man disappeared in the cloth. The sheet brightened for a moment and then suddenly lost all of its colors, turning dark red, and folding into the well-known shape of ampechone.
"Take me,"
Cynane heard the voice once again, clearer than before. Guided by the unseeable force, she took the ampechone and in a swift motion, it positioned itself around her shoulders.
She was too shocked, to react to the approaching elder cultist, who was of the weaver rank, when he gave her the mask of the High Weaver.
Finally, it was time for him to be born again. Not that he was exactly excited about the process itself. Not at all, if he had to be honest with himself. But he would have to tough it up, in order to, be able to enjoy the free life that would follow.
And that was the thought that kept him sane through the whole process. It was quite a messy affair. The humans sure had a hard time just to get to live, so much unlike him in his previous incarnation as an Olympian. Where would just spontaneously appear fully grown and conscious. That was probably why humans did not usually remember this part of their life.
But now, as a demigod, or as close as he was to one since he used a god's blood to create his new being, he got front row view. Luckily for him, it was quickly over and he managed to check, that he got all the parts that he wanted from this new body. Checking the integrity of his new meat suit further, he was able to conclude that it was operational at over a hundred percent. Hundred percent being that of a fully healthy human.
The only thing that was holding him back from inventing new wondrous things, was a little fact, that he would have to grow up, to be able to wield the necessary tools. Which thanks to his body's new mortal predicament would take some time. But at least whilst waiting to finally grow up, he should be able to prepare numerous blueprints in his mind.
As for the handsomeness, he so ordered for himself, he would have to wait, but he was quite sure of a positive outcome.
Though he was curious, who was this man now holding him in his arms, measuredly looking at him? As he remembered, there were not supposed to be men on this particular island. So, who was that?
The child his wife gave birth to, was strange. It looked just like any other infant, but there was something that made it different, he just did not know what it was, yet.
"What are you?" he wondered.
He was not exactly happy with the results. Copying Gaia, proved to be, not so easy. He begrudgingly had to admit her genius. His own version of the winged warriors inspiring faith, was for a lack of better words, lacking.
Certainly, they would bring shock and awe to the masses, which seem to inspire faith in some of these humans. But not on the level he wanted to achieve. His winged... Angels were kind of empty, plain, maybe even slightly mechanical and mainly uncanny.
He would know, that when he tested his Angels on a human city, Babel they called it, the whole population of the city went crazy, slaughtering each other and destroying anything and everything they got their hands on. Even the beautiful spire they were building.
"So if copying is not enough... Then maybe taking your homework for myself would work better, Gaia... Now how should I go about it?" he pondered.
For some time now, she was attempting the same experiment over and over again. Expecting a different result, like a madwoman. But the result was always the same, no matter the search parameters, no matter the updated data not even when she added him to the database.
Every single time, the results were inconclusive - no match found. As much as she did not want to believe it, it was sitting straight in front of her, laughing at her, as if taunting her, should her imagination run wild.
So that, left her only with the impossible since all improbabilities have been crossed out. Her lover's child was a new one. The only thing remaining to be seen was if that was something to celebrate or something to fear.
Discarded by her maker, driven out by her "husband", she was left with no other option but to flee west, since nowhere else was safe for her and her "children. While her own daughter was most likely dead.
She, Lilith, the mother of the Amazonians, hated them all!