"Enough," Father spoke. "It is late and the moon is full. Should we prattle longer on the topic of mythical solutions, we would be here until the sun rose again. Now then, our herders have spoken of how poachers, squatters, and unauthorized herders have moved into the area around our city. It is the other path to build more paths and housing so that these new men could join our number. However, some," he eyed Targitaus Arradaes, Eleni's father, "wish to drive them out."
"It's our land, and the land of our fathers! We shouldn't have to tolerate these strangers in our lands, and we shouldn't require the Persians to protect us!" The warrior Targitaus still had some of his Scythian blood within him, and it seemed he wore it proudly.
"And how," Father drawled, "do you propose we force these men to leave? They are near our numbers in total, despite being awfully disorganized."
Targitaus rose from his seat and turned to his followers, who were a minority in his own group. "We have the heroine! We have our backing! We have the Gods on our side! It is our destiny to be victors!"
This threw men into a loop of confusion. I had not known that this strange heroine was so well-known that she'd also been a warrior in her own right. Come to think of it, on both sides of the argument there was the pervading sense of divine right. Quite frankly, this sort of religious superstition, while natural for our era, was starting to freak me the fuck out a little.
I was beginning to regret taking a step back from the state of things in our city. When I had used our religion to gain some personal power, I did feel a slight tinge of guilt, but I hadn't used it to hurt anyone. All I did was make people think I was blessed! Now our leaders had this idea in their heads that they were somehow ordained to have divine victory in violent conflict? I knew I needed to step in and take the reins at least on the theocratic side of things… what if some loony actually got them to think they were justified to take up arms? I would never have my carefree life if that happened!
"Quite," Father sighed and rubbed his head. He stood before the people and raised his hands in oratory, and began to speak to the whole group of all the people gathered this evening. "I will confer with her later. Until then, the least we can do is repair what we already have. As you know, many fences are old, and many of the poorer houses are falling apart. As it causes undue shame upon men to point out their houses are in disrepair, let us repair all of the lesser houses."
"That would leave us too occupied to pursue any other action," One man pointed out slowly.
My father nodded to that man. "Yes, that is so, but think for a moment. The Greeks across the Aegean Sea have survived the Persians once. How? I believe one reason is that many of the poorer houses there have become wealthier, affording their own weapons and armor. Think of it; rather than only fifty heavily armored soldiers in a group of one thousand, they might have one hundred, two hundred, or even more."
"I admit, our friend Hector of the Troidae has raised a good point. It would enrich us, if we sought to enrich ourselves. Is that not what we sought to begin with? How to use our wealth to better our city? This is indeed a wise path, and for this I applaud our friend of the Troidae." It was Shimshon of the Dannes, the well-spoken Canaanite descendant, who stood first in response. He spoke to his fellows, "Perhaps we cannot all have what we want, but this is a compromise that I can feel appeased by for this moment."
Even the hot-headed warrior could tell the way the winds were turning. Obviously, father's influence was weak at times like these, but with his good reasoning that seemed like something I'd talk to him about in the past, even Eleni's dad would have to just sit down and agree. And he did, "Very well. The men are already in our lands, it is all we can to do keep them from theft or murder. If we are kept safe, then for now, that will have to do."
"Let us commence the rites of conclusion, record our decision, and so we can go to rest at least, my friends," Father rose again and beckoned them. A clay slate was brought over and a summarized recording of the discussion was made.
Everything ended and I didn't need to intervene. If this was what they talked about every time, then I needed to pay more attention to them! I made a mental note of it before changing into an eagle and flying home.
*
"Daughter," Father approached me later next day. It was in the noon time when we gathered for lunch. He looked like he had been sweating all day, but he had slept late last night, so that could have been a contributing reason too.
"Yes, father?" I turned to him. I had, once more, been working with what I had, which wasn't much. I didn't have many metal tools or gadgets to use, and I didn't have any rare materials, so all I could do with was wooden things. This was fine, I would eventually figure out a way to make a nice bottomless bag eventually. Anyway, I had just returned from my little workshop minutes ago.
"I would speak with you." He seemed rather uncomfortable with asking his daughter for help or advice, and it was quite frankly something I was used to even in the previous life. Most girls got over it eventually, but it was definitely something that could be noticed after a while.
"And I have time for you, of course, Father," I nodded. I knew he probably already had spoken with this mysterious heroine of theirs earlier in the morning, so he was probably already done with that. He probably just needed my help with other projects, or maybe talking to the Prince Xerxes… or was he already king?
"If we wished to make our home safer," He said slowly, as if he was just piecing together his words because he hadn't put much thought into it having put most of his mental efforts into the things he was probably preoccupied with earlier in the day, "how do you feel we should go about it?"
If we were to make our house safer? I could probably put up some runes or magical protections, but what we really lacked were trustworthy people. My uncle was gone now with his side of the family, and the house sometimes felt really empty. I couldn't believe it, but I even missed him bothering us. In the end, what made us the least safe was probably our position in the city, with father's dying influence, and without other family members to watch our backs. "If we really wanted to be safer, then perhaps we should move into a different city. A larger city, perhaps. I wouldn't suggest Athens, considering it'd get sacked soon enough, but afterwards it would be fine, or maybe a different city of that size would be nice."
"Could we not rely on the Persians, or other forces, for aid?" Father asked. He seemed so intent on calling for help, and I found that was a core aspect of his character. Then again, he was attached to Troad. It was his home, after all. Maybe I was just too young to be so attached?
Still, what other forces? Parthians or Egyptians? Those kinds of other forces? I scoffed. "Other forces are notoriously untrustworthy. You know, Father, in the end, we have only ourselves to rely on."
"What of the other members of the city?" He pressed. Was he so intent on moving? He couldn't have decided on this from my word alone, so he was probably looking for a good enough excuse and good answers to difficult questions that would undoubtedly rise.
I looked other at Mother, who was acting like she wasn't part of the conversation. She would give birth soon. "We're all of Troad, Father. It would be nice to have a closer, more tight-knit community."
Father seemed to agree with this sentimental non-answer. He nodded. "Very well, I have much to think on."
"I'll leave you to it then," I shrugged and went back to my wine-soaked bread. It was better than the last iteration, but still not good enough. While there wasn't much I cared about in advancing overall technology, I really liked good food. Perhaps I should put more effort into making the possibility of having good food possible?
I sighed. To even get there, I would need to train up my own cooking skill. I only had knowledge from a past life; everything of this life needed experience and work to get anywhere. I needed to more than familiarize myself with the tools available, the materials available, and the logistics that I was limited to.
Hell, I couldn't believe it but I was even yearning for the sugary water that was god-awful for me. Maybe working out how to make a cola could be a good first step? It certain was a productive 'little game' compared to Mother's ideas of manipulation.
In the end, without a challenge, I had moved passed feeling restless… I was beginning to feel a bit bored. I was starting to look forward to whatever that Bastard was cooking up for me.
Growth 2.2
*
The practice of making sculptures from wax dates back to the earliest humanoid civilizations. Only the medium of wax can so closely duplicate the transparency of skin. Often, creators use powerful magic to house an animating spirit within the wax model. A created waxwork creature obeys the commands of its creator. Rarely, a wax sculpture animates of its own accord—the result of nearby magic suffusing the wax of a lost spirit in search of a corporeal form. Such waxwork creatures are uncontrolled.
In folk magic and witchcraft, a poppet is a doll made to represent a person, for casting spells on that person or to aid that person through magic. They are occasionally found lodged in chimneys. These dolls may be fashioned from such materials as a carved root, grain or corn shafts, a fruit, paper, wax, a potato, clay, branches, or cloth stuffed with herbs with the intent that any actions performed upon the effigy will be transferred to the subject based on sympathetic magic. Poppets are also used as kitchen witch figures.
No true wizard needed to combine the waxwork human construct with a poppet. None of them really had the necessity of requiring assistants without having found easy aid in the form of unpaid interns, er, apprentices. Those wizards who had the requirement and couldn't find a trustworthy slave, er, apprentice were more than capable wizards of great power. Thus, they could create masterwork homunculi or golems.
Furthermore, even the less capable wizards were able to make a living for themselves—they didn't have a resource or wealth drought like I did, so they never had to look to lesser materials like I had to. Where other wizards could make things out of mithral or adamantine, I had to work with wax and wicker.
I needed a versatile assistant, but I couldn't find an apprentice without giving away information about myself that I wasn't willing to give away just yet. In this necessity, I found myself looking into the construction of both waxwork humans and small poppets. Both had a challenge rating of two, making them equals to the lesser giant spiders, but that wasn't good enough for me.
What if one day the people turned on me and decided to burn me out of town like some kind of Frankenstein's Monster? Furthermore, I didn't want to indulge in becoming a necromancer, though not because of how that could affect my reputation, but the smell. Rotting or dead bodies, or even skeletons, they all smelled awful!
More than that distant fear however, was the more immediate threat. Without a challenge, I was beginning to feel that perhaps the next challenge would be a powerful one that was far beyond a mere nest of a hundred giant spiders. There was no such thing as too much preparation… the most I would do was turn myself into Ancient Greek Magical Girl Batman, and I could tolerate that.
I made three masterwork waxwork wicker poppets about the size of adult humans. They had an internal skeleton of carved, oiled wood, a fleshy mixture of local herbs and flowers and wax, and an outer shell of woven wicker as underclothes. They weighed about sixty pounds, and had an approximate attribute distribution of around 16 STR, 14 DEX, 10 INT, 10 WIS, and 10 CHA, with about 40 HP, and came with a waxen regeneration 5 (fire), which made them about as capable of healing themselves as the average troll, and with similar vulnerabilities too. There was also an immunity to cold damage, fatigue, exhaustion, ability damage, energy drain, disease, mind-affecting effects, death effects, paralysis, poison, sleep, stun… well, useful things for animated puppets.
It took some figuring out, but I found that if I used the similar configuration as improved homunculus creation, where in I integrated ten potions into them, I could give them a once-a-day spell-like ability. It wasn't much, but giving them each one use of lightning bolt as if cast by a third level spellcaster was the best I could do… but that seemed like a waste of resources, and I didn't have enough to give them all that kind of ability. Instead, I could only settle to allow them each a sort of permanent mage armor, similar to how my bracers yielded an invisible force field armor around myself, but to a lesser degree. It seemed the more astute option, considering I wasn't actually looking for puppets that could cast spells, I was just looking for meat shields (or was it wax shields?) and puppets to carry stuff for me.
Hell, they could even carry a palanquin and then I wouldn't ever have to walk anywhere again! But that was probably bad because walking never hurt anyone. Still, I sort of missed riding a car around. It wasn't one of those things that I thought I would miss until it was gone. Anyway, I tied their command token to my ring of invisibility, which was a nice homage to Sauron, and a reminder to myself to not forget to keep it on from now on.
I was tempted to name one of them 2B because of the waxy bubble butt and wax boobies, but I decided against it. It was probably too weird to use that kind of naming scheme… well, it sort of fit, maybe I didn't really want to treat my creations with the sort of cold calculation that just gave them a number and a letter and called it a day. But was it so bad? Naming her 2B would have been a nice homage…
… I felt conflicted in the naming, but I had probably wasted too much time on this. In the end, they were disposable assistants, not some kind of central figure for people to worship.
"You, blonde one, will be Galatea. The snowy haired one will be called 2B, and, hm, the lime-green hair, why is it lime green?" I muttered with a frown.
"I do not know, Mistress," it replied.
I shrugged. "It's probably the materials mixing a little. That's fine, we'll just name you Enkidu and call it a day. References for days, and no one will get it except me!"
"Of course, Mistress," the newly named Enkidu agreed. "What reference is it?"
"Very good, Mistress," the other two nodded as well.
"It's an anime... oh never you mind, anime isn't even invented yet. Anyway, I heard Eleni was baking honeyed bread today. I love honeyed bread! Come on, my creations! Let us go and enjoy honeyed bread!" I walked out of the workshop at last.
*
"… what are those?" Eleni asked, eyeing my creations with a suspicious squint.
"I wanted to make some puppets to help me out a little, like, with carrying things. You know how weak I am," I flailed my little girl arms at her.
"So you made, what, people? Wow, they look so life-like, but also not at all at the same time. It's a little scary now on the edge of both qualities they are!" Eleni marveled at the handicraft, not knowing that I had abused the masterwork transformation spell excessively to get all the materials just right before assembly. "What is that? Oil? No, it's… wax? But it feels soft, like skin!"
"I was going to use clay," I told her as we watched her family eat. Her father had already decided to pretend as if I wasn't here, and her mother was doing some kind of arcane rite every time I visited. Her brother mirrored her dad, but somewhat stubbornly to the point of being kind of cute, in a stupid way. "But who uses clay to make people? Dumb people, that's who. Wax is clearly the superior material."
She looked over at me queerly with a sort of face that was like someone eating pineapple pizza for the first time topped with chocolate lemons. "… what's wrong with clay? I use clay to make pots, you know?"
"But those are pots. There's nothing wrong with clay, if we're using it to hold water, but sometimes you want something more… flexuous, or plastic," Both words weren't in our actual vocabulary, so I had to borrow from Modern English.
"Plastic?" She blinked in confusion.
"Ah…" It was complicated to explain, as I couldn't talk about putty since that wasn't invented yet, I couldn't talk about Play-Doh, because that also wasn't made yet. "… Well, I suppose the word is to be more like clay than clay, perhaps?"
"More clay than clay itself? That is a humorous thing," Eleni giggled.
"What are you even using those… those things for?" Her brother finally couldn't take it anymore and entered the conversation too. He scowled at my three sculpted creation and harrumphed. "Anything those things can do, humans can do better. Why not just get three slaves?"
"Alexander!" His mother called to him in the way mothers did when they wanted to scold their kids in public.
"It's okay, Matron of the Arradaes," I raised a hand and smiled at the kind woman. "It is a good question. In truth, I had originally made them for doing labor and aiding me in crafting where I don't have the strength or dexterity to do what I need to do, but I'm starting to think they can be more versatile than that too."
"They don't look strong, with their big udder and thin limbs," Alex huffed into his olive oil soaked bread before grumbling more, "And they're all women too. They're probably too weak to do any man's work."
I nearly snorted into my watered wine. "I'll have you know they're probably stronger than you are… I made them durable enough. However, their strong point isn't their strength; it's that they don't need to eat or sleep, they can work without end, forever. Come to think of it, that's basically having energy ex nihilo…"
Noticing that I was probably going on another ramble, Eleni came to my rescue and asked, "So what are their names? You did name them, correct?"
"Yes. This is Galatea, 2B, and Enkidu." I smiled at her as we intertwined our fingers.
"Tooooobee? What a strange name!" She laughed.
"I don't believe any of them are stronger than me!" Alexander slammed his cup into the ground so hard that the pottery cracked and shattered. He stood up without caring how his hand was wet and his tunic was stained by the splatters.
"Alexander!" His mother said even louder than before.
"… you could wrestle one of them," I suggested, seeing his father just watching as the scene played out. If the man of the house wasn't going to step in, then I couldn't do anything about it. Similarly, if he just withheld judgment, then by law, I couldn't just do something offensive. I was a law-abiding citizen, after all!
"I will take that challenge. This time, I will prove to you that I should have gone on the Adventure of the Sardisian Spider!" He shouted.
Oh, was he still on about that? "Well, alright then."
*
Moments later, we gathered outside at the practice field where most of the men and boys went to swing their wooden, weighted swords. Much like the later Roman Era, men of the Classical Greek period used wooden swords about two or more pounds heavier than their actual metal counterparts in order to train up the muscle mass and endurance for constant warfare.
Even hoplites and phalanxes of this time period used a small blade, though most of them were more cutting weapons than thrusting blades of the Roman period. We still held a great deal of importance on mixed arms, and this was something that carried on even into the time of Alexander the Great. One of the reasons why his phalanxes were so much better than those that later on faced and were defeated by the Roman Legions was perhaps because of their mastery of the mixed arms—being capable of switching from their more than three meters long spears to their swords, which was obviously a great advantage when in close quarters.
Having seen us gather at the field, several of the boys ran to get other people, and many of the men who had came back from working the field during the day also gathered on the fence. We gathered an audience before even the first bout was started—obviously they were curious about my new masterwork puppets, and I felt a sense of pride in how they saw my skilled labor. This was better advertisement than if I went around town shouting about what I did!
I drew a rough circle in the sand similar to a sumo wrestling ring. Greek wrestling in this era was similar to how it was in later history, but we never put much effort into making the ring anything special, in my opinion. Furthermore, having raised my spellcraft so much, drawing circles had become something of a specialty for me—I needed to have great drawing skills just to make circles that didn't break when demons were summoned, after all.
At the other end of the little clearing, Alex hyped himself up and bounced on the balls of his feet. He seemed eager not just to prove himself to the people, but probably also to his father. From the way he looked over at the older man, there was clearly some kind of daddy issues going on, and I hoped my involvement in today's events didn't cause any undue problems.
On my end, I decided since this was going to be an advertisement of my skills, I would put my best foot forward. 2B lacking pigmentation and having white hair was my using a bit too little of the locally sourced ingredients, and Enkidu having green hair was obviously my using too much. Galatea looked like a proper Power Girl, while wearing only a skimpy tunic. That blonde hair was colored just right. "Galatea, I'd like you to wrestle Alexander. Don't cause any fatal damage, if you will."
"Understood, Mistress." She walked into the ring and readied herself. The clothes I had provided her weren't very good; they were just spare scraps that I had left over, so it didn't make much a difference between her wearing them or stripping herself of them and revealing her sleek, flawlessly sculpted wax muscles or her rather perky aspects.
On the other hand, Alexander had reddened when he readied himself. He did have decently musculature compared to most boys his age, and this was helped by his approaching maturity. In truth, he ate more proteins than the average boy his age, so it wasn't a surprise that he had more strength and a better physique than most of the boys in our city.
Nevertheless, there was a difference between a recently maturing boy having slightly above average strength and an emotionless construct with artificial strength. Perhaps the difference wasn't much; just a difference between Alex's around 12 STR and Galatea's around 16 STR… but I wasn't going to risk it.
As they closed in and Alex's expression became grim with determination even as he watched her chest sway, I called out to Galatea. I needed to, because as a puppet she didn't have the capacity to think excessively for herself, and she needed instructions. "Dodge him, Galatea! Don't let him catch you on his terms!"
"Yes, Mistress," she called to me even as she ducked passed him. It was a close call, and this showed that Alexander had probably almost equal dexterity to her.
Alexander ducked low and tried to tackle her midriff again. His experience in the competition showed in how he measured his steps. Not once did he stand and complain that she didn't meet him straight or head on, showing that he was above that kind of childish upset.
"Use your leverage," I called to Galatea. "Throw him off his feet!"
This time, before Alexander could pick up his speed or make proper use of his more experienced footwork, Galatea tackled him and met him shoulder to shoulder. That clash didn't last long—Alexander pressed and went forward, but due to their closeness and his slight disadvantage in height, found his face buried in her chest and one of her legs wrapped around his waist.
Now he showed that he was a consummate wrestler by using his footwork again. When they were both off balance, it was clear that he knew what he was doing even with less physical strength, he was capable of throwing her on her back and pressing down against her.
"Aw," I pouted. "Can you get up, Galatea?"
Galatea struggled, and nearly threw Alexander off of her, but he had already gained the leverage to hold her down. It was clear that he was being pressed with how tomato red his cheeks were, but even as his nostrils flared and he growled like a wolf, he didn't budge much more than a few inches.
The friction was such that Galatea could almost bounce herself up and she could find some areas to struggle in. This is because she was, again, a construct with the augmented flexibility in her joints that were humanly impossible. After about a minute of struggle, she answered automatically when the immediate order had receded. As well made as her artificial magical spirit was, her intellect was artificial too and she could only enact her 'wisdom' within the constrains of the orders given.
In this way, she couldn't actually have some kind of free will, all she had was her orders and the more complex, permanent instructions I had programmed into her much like someone might into a rudimentary artificial intelligence… basically, she wasn't a thinking-for-herself type construct, at best she was like Amazon's Alexa.
She turned her face towards me and replied, "I cannot stand, Mistress."
"Ah, well. You win, Alexander," I announced.
After that, he released Galatea and stood to get his clothes. He seemed incredibly excited for some reason, and he couldn't meet anyone's eyes. With a sort of scruffy grumpiness, he muttered, "It was alright. I guess it was pretty strong… I had to trick it."
"Still, skill is a strength onto itself," I acknowledged. "Good job."
As the crowd slowly dispersed, Eleni approached me with a sort of scandalous look on her face. "You need to get your, ahem, creations some new clothes. Those little bits of scraps can't cover everything, and you're making the, ah, boys uncomfortable."
"Ah. Because of how inhuman they are, right? That uncanny valley effect. I should work on that. Yeah, I can see that. I guess that'll be something I can test their dexterity and skill in. Unskilled laborers using aid other could…" I noticed my friend's eyes were starting glaze over from my rambling, so I quickly grew embarrassed and apologized. "Sorry, I just mean it'll be a good time to put them to work."
"That's good. Oh yeah, also, your father and mine told me to tell you that the men of the city decided to make you in charge of the peace keeping in the market square and the other parts outside of the city walls. It seems you're getting more responsibility, huh?" She patted me on the shoulder.
"What?" No. No, no, no. They were going to take all my free time! Nooo!
Growth 2.3
*
Just like how oral tradition had transformed a Roman general into King Arthur and the common ideals of medieval 'fuck the police' into a single, central figure in Robin Hood, lack of records and oral traditions had most likely created Heracles and Theseus. There was probably no way of finding out who they were, since they drew historicity from before the Bronze Age Collapse, or in the ensuing centuries afterwards where total world trade and written records mostly disappeared due to an ancient version of everything going to shit.
While finding out the truth behind the myths was nigh-impossible, what was possible in similarity was that anyone could see the results of the historical Heracles and historical Theseus. For anyone could look towards Sparta and see that in their twin lines of duo-kings, there were the two descendant lineages of Heracles. The Houses of the Heracleidae were like Naruto and Sasuke in that they kept returning to struggle for dominance in their village politics, and in a similar format to this, even Athenian politics were dominated by men who were descendants of ancient lineages despite their support of 'democracy'.
There was no aversions to dynasties in Athenian democracy; the greatest and most populist of Athenian leaders, such as the up and coming Pericles, were all descendants of this or that mythological figure. They thrived on it, and derived much of their mystique—their 'why I'm better than you' aura—from this. Pericles himself claimed lineage from the House of the Alcmaeonids, the descendants of the mythological Alcmaeon, great-grandson of Nestor, an Argonaut who joined in the similarly mythological Trojan War. Right now, Pericles was only 7 years old, so who knew what would happen later on in the future.
Of course, the truth of history shrouded such men and events from accuracy, but the clues available to modernity told us that this was probably fan fiction, similar to the creation of Lancelot by a Frenchman, or King Arthur's round table being a rip off of Charlemagne's paladins.
Alcmaeon, by the best estimates, lived only around 900 BC to 700 BC, whereas the supposed historical skirmish in the then-backwater region known as western Anatolia and the even more backwater region known as Greece that was later called the Trojan War happened around 1200 BC. So how the fuck would any Roman historians know shit about this if their time was six times further away from the era compared to modern historians' distance from the American Revolutionary War?
At the time, the events that grow into the poetic traditions passed down of the Trojan War were not even truly a war between great powers. It wasn't a war between the might empires of the Hittites and the Egyptians, or between the Assyrians and the Babylonians. In truth, the Trojan War and much of its mystique were created as fan fiction of truer events. And why wouldn't they be made, when local rulers used their supposed connection to said myth as a form of legitimacy?
In the end, it allowed each Greek region and each major Greek city to claim a sort of self-righteousness and self-proclaimed superiority. So, from those hundreds of years ago, the Greeks hated each other more than any other outsider, including peoples like the Persians and the Egyptians. After all, if your mythological ancestor had a grudge against a nearby neighbor, who gave a shit about some faraway empire?
We were so far apart that the linguistic drift of our dialects made entirely new languages of us. The similarities between our Phrygian language and the Athenians' Attic Greek was like the similarities between Sicilian Italian and Brazilian Portuguese. The Epirots spoke their northwestern Greek, and Phrygian Greek split into Ionic Greek of the Ionians and the Aeolic Greek of Thebes and Lesbos. Spartans and the Cretans started using various forms of a Doric Greek, and of course Arcadians wanted to feel special so they had their own Arcadian Greek with the Cypriots. That wasn't even taking into consideration for the lesser derivatives like Demotic Greek!
Perhaps Attic Greek and Ionic Greek were the only two that were of value if I took the point of history. Attic Greek would grow to dominate Greece much in the way of the spreading influence of Athens. In Anatolia, Ionic Greek would grow in influence. These two languages would then converge into something that people knew as 'Ancient Greek', though even one thousand and five hundred years from now, historians like Anna Komnene, Byzantine Princess, would still use Attic Greek.
In the end, there were many dialects, many cultures, and many myths just within the sphere known as 'Greek'. We were so diverse, having grown so in a thousand years, that sometimes I couldn't see ourselves as one people but many different peoples of many different tribes that only came together due to a mixture of local hegemons and Persian adventurism.
The point?
I took my responsibilities seriously. It wasn't a thing of 'with great power comes great responsibility', I had always felt the comic book writers who wrote that line never wielded 'great power', so how could they know? At best, it was powerless peons begging powerful people to exercise some moral fiber, but morality itself was something constantly in flux with the passage of time and the waxing and waning of cultural beliefs. In the end, it was a matter of personal discipline for me; I couldn't be some kind of ignorant border guard who couldn't even ask incoming traders questions. I was going to know where everyone was from and I was going to understand them all. Mommy didn't raise no quitter.
Therefore, the time I spent in gaining said knowledge was not insignificant. Arcado-Cypriot Greek, Attic Greek, Ionic Greek, Aeolic Greek, Epirot Greek, Doric Greek, all their culture, all their stories, I had to familiarize myself with it all, but how could I? There were no public libraries, no private libraries, and certainly no records. No single wise man could be such a polyglot in an age where information traveled slower than a snail.
The closest available collection of information laid in Smyrna, which had replaced Sardis as the regional capital of the Persian province of Anatolia, or as it was called locally, Asia Minor. Perhaps the Satrap's own archonic collection could prove valuable, but in the end, I decided against it. There wouldn't be any instructors available for a little girl, and maybe, I decided, I could learn on the job.
What's the worst that could happen? I had thought. It was during this time that my next challenge came to me.
*
… As the Babylonians raise their fists in revolt for Xerxes' pillaging of religious sites to fill his empty coffers, the Egyptian Throne raises one of their own against Achaemenes, Brother of Xerxes and Prince of Persia. The Libyan Priest of Set follows the False Pharaoh with Dark Grimoire in hand. Intervene before Egypt becomes Land of the Dead.
"Motherfucker." I muttered. This day just couldn't get any worse, could it?
"What was that?" Eleni asked as she walked into my workshop.
"Uh, nothing, just…" I looked back at my quest log within my mind's eye and wanted to choke on my own invisible vomit. This was what I got for not preparing enough! "I might need to leave the city for a while."
"Oh no, what's wrong?" She asked in concern.
I ran a hand through my hair. "It's… it's nothing. Just… troubles."
"Ah." The smile on her face stopped wavering and disappeared completely. "Like the time with the giant monsters…?"
"… yes." I didn't lie to her. It was going to be known anyway.
"That's not good," Eleni looked down, lost.
"Yes, but I'll get over it. It's nothing that I will have to solve on my own. I'll just need to send a word to Xerxes that I'm going to go to Egypt to see his brother. I will need to make preparations to travel…" I turned back to her, the thoughts already fluttering through my head as my puppets packed things up. "What was it that you were here for anyway?"
"Oh, well it seems like nothing in comparison, but, ah," She shuffled her feet on the ground and seemed almost uneasy at the thought of another quest. Maybe it was best I didn't bring her along for this ride, considering how dangerous it was going to be. "Well, I'm just going to say it. Your mother is giving birth."
"Ah." Months of nothing happening, and then a week where months happen. Next time I saw the Bastard, I was going to talk to it about its awful timing. "I won't need to leave immediately. Maybe I'll make one last gadget before I go, so… I suppose I will see mother first."
*
It felt rushed. One moment, events held so little tension that I was deciding to learn dying languages, and the next moment, I was telling my puppets to prepare to pack up.
Giant spiders could stay in a single spot and multiply all they wanted, but if some unknowing muggle got their hands on a dark grimoire, then shit was going to turn sour sooner rather than later. I could be looking at a zombie apocalypse or an invasion of aliens, or demonic summonings, or whatever the else fuck was going to happen. Monsters were just monsters, but people? People fucked shit up too quickly for me to feel safe.
Mother gave birth to a healthy boy that Father named Polydamas. I had half thought that I was going to get an ugly look at the ancient era's mortality rates, and I thanked even the fucking Bastard that I didn't have to see that after meeting the pudgy little cheeks of my new little brother.
I knew then that I was going to burn all of Egypt to keep him safe, even if I couldn't cast a single fucking fireball.
I bid my farewells to my family and told them I would need to leave the city for a while. I was sure I had also said something about dark gods, the dead escaping the underworld, and the shitfest going down in Egypt, but I had been rambling by that point that I wasn't keeping track of my own words. Thankfully, my father didn't attempt to join me on my adventure this time.
My puppets had readied a wagon cart of my design; a simple thing that was still pre-industrial era, but sturdy enough to travel quickly and with a hood up so I didn't have to endure so much sunlight, being the nocturnal shut-in that I was. I had packed up my half dozen metamagic rods of extend spell, my tomes of spell scrolls, my two amphoras of haste and cure light wounds, and my odd fifty or so wands of lightning bolt.
It wasn't much in way of preparation, but it was all I had. And then Alexander showed up.
"I heard you're leaving," He said.
"Just a short while, probably," I replied.
"I'm coming," the boy, already a man, declared. He was prepared, with his armor, his Doric helmet, his three spears and a long blade and a short blade, and a bag of rations.
I was going to argue with him, but then I saw Eleni's pleading gaze. She was clearly asking me to take her brother with me, poor girl. It was a favor I'd do for her anyway, but it was strange that he cared so much about this sort of thing. Oh well, I could use another hand. "Sure."
"I can do many things, I… oh, oh. Oh. Alright then, good." He nodded and looked over at the cart. "Should I drive the cart? Where are the horses?"
"Oh, right." I didn't want to deprive our city of more. The last time we went to fight the giant spiders, we lost a good heavy horse then, in the final fight there. The horse that Xerxes gave us afterwards was father's only steed. I didn't want to take that from him, so I cast Phantom Steed. "There, magical horses. We're off, then."
"Come back soon!" Eleni called out after us. "Or better yet, take..."
What was that? She faded out before I could hear the rest... whatever it was, it was probably just a last farewell. That was nice of her to care so much.
Of course I was coming back soon. It was just a person with a book. Even if they were casting spells, they weren't going to have the time that those giant spiders had to build up. I was coming down on them hard. How bad was it going to be?