Forsaken 337 BC

by Sharon Leslie

  "These two smaller temples here, one is for the worship of the goddess Athena, while the other used to be for the worship of the goddess, Hemera, goddess of daytime. Recently though, Erebus supplanted her and he is the god of darkness and shadow."

  "How did Hemera get supplanted by Erebus?" Toni asked. "Is there any difference between what the gods and their worshippers were like here in Agiasobele?" Myrina stopped walking and pointed to the Hemera's former temple.

  "You can see the carvings on the door panels. These show the risen sun, casting its light over creation, over all of mankind. Hemera's main priestess vanished, unexplained around three months ago, around the time of the monsters arriving. She was not much older than me. Because it was a small temple and had no other priestess it became vacant, empty of even the fifty plus former worshippers; a mixture of females and males.

  "Around a week after Helena vanished a priest of Erebus turned up, cleared out the religious items of Hemera, burning them in the street. Once he'd cleared the temple, he brought Erebus's worship here. I don't know how many use Erebus' temple, though I have only seen a few furtive looking men supposedly worshipping there; but no women. I often used to go visit Helena, she was funny and the light of her goddess shone in her face."

  Myrina turned and took a few steps toward Cybele's temple, built at the highest point of the citadel's compound. They could hear a booming voice call out to them. Toni turned her head and listened as a male was shouting, bellowing from inside the darkness shrouded interior of Erebus' temple.

  "That is right you whore, move on to your own mewling female goddess' temple. Soon the strength of Erebus will pull down the weak Cybele and even weaker Athena. Full of whores, serving as a priestess, not pure as us male priests of Erebus.

  "You, man, why do you associate with those weak females? Are you happy as they fill your mind with days spent loving, not fighting which is the province of men? Come, join the strongest god on the island, leave those mewling women goddesses behind. Do as I bid you now come and join us and worship here in Erebus' temple."

  Cain could feel his anger rising, anger, at listening to such pathetic weak willed reasoning. There was something about the man and his voice, he could not put his finger on it. When the priest spoke those words 'Do as I bid you now,' a pulse of dark magic burst from the temple. A corrosive darkness, a dark magic trying to turn Cain or any other man's minds, pulling them in through the doors, capturing them.

  ^T^ Cain I recognise that voice. It's from the cavern, the one telling the Satyrs what to do. I had a flashback of us standing around the corner with that voice telling the Satyrs to despoil Myrina. ^

  The magic held no sway over Cain, though he wanted to rush the temple to kill the priest. Toni kept a firm grip on his left arm, Daphne his right. Myrina broke the tension by hurrying them along, "Cybele's temple is not far," she said.

  "I looked toward the door, but saw no Gamer Tags, for either NPCs or players, so we don't know who the priest is. Without a Gamer Tag name, we don't know if the priest is a player or an NPC," Cain said.

  Myrina led the group past Erebus' temple, past a large house which Myrina said belong to a local trader, A'lan Cukor. The house was surrounded by a high wall with a guarded bronze gate, which allowed entrance to the small estate behind.

  At the top of the incline they had been walking, stood a large temple with a richly coloured, colonnaded portico. The friezes and wall panels were like the main temple, on the side of the mountain, except they had been brightly coloured.

  Entering the temple, the hum of the population stopped as they entered the wide-open double doors. It seemed Cybele was not keen on the population spoiling the tranquillity of her temple space. Inside, they stood waiting for Myrina to move beyond the white line set into the floor. They each turned their heads at the sound of footsteps drawing close; hands went to weapons, ready for action.

  "Welcome, welcome, please come follow me. The high priestess is waiting; welcome home twenty-six," said the greeting priestess. Myrina shrugged her shoulders as she'd previously told them that was her previous appellation, a number, the twenty-sixth ranked acolyte in service to Cybele. Cain asked why she had not entered the temple. Myrina replied.

  "I am no longer an acolyte, I am like the rest of you and am not allowed to cross the white lined box inside the entrance. We can only cross when a priestess or priest welcomes us into the temple. The rules are the same for each god or goddess. Spells restrict people from entering without a priestess of either god or goddess.

  The welcoming priestess did not speak after she had welcomed them inside, asking the party to follow her. She led them across the front wall of the temple, reaching the inner wall she led them down the side and through a doorway, entering a wide passage. Daphne was surprised how long and bright the side passage was. There were coloured reliefs set between doorways which punctured both sides; it was lit by light slits, set high near the ceiling. They passed doorways on their left into the temple as they walked to the door at the furthest end. The guiding priestess knocked on the door, holding it open for them to enter as she heard.

  "Please enter, take a seat," said a woman in the room. "Would you like a drink? We have either pressed juice or cleansed and blessed water," The high priestess asked, then shouted for a priestess to bring juice and water for her guests.

  "My goddess tells me you have killed all the Satyrs who were stopping worshippers using the trail to the main temple. She said there is also a new shrine in the cavern, a shrine which people are already visiting and using.

  "They not only worship Cybele but also the blessed, Joseph and his DreamBabes at the golden altar. Welcome twenty-six, I am saddened that you left Cybele's service, but Joseph has or will soon take you as one of his wives. First let us deal with the quest Cybele gave you. I can confirm you have finished the quest. Cybele offers you an extra reward for saving twenty-six. When you go outside Agiasobele to collect the Amazon warriors in the morning, they will give you a small chest of gold bars, one for each warrior.

  "You will need to hand them a token of completion, I left it in your temple quarters arranged by Cybele. A pleasing extra no doubt. This temple has two quests for you to fulfil if you want to take them? One, purely a local matter, there is a sacred grove to our sister goddess Athena. Her grove is located outside of the city, an arachnid queen has claimed the grove as her own.

  "The queen and her troops have stopped humans from worshipping and harvesting the sacred fruit. If you complete this quest, you will receive another one hundred Amazon warriors. The other quest is for Cybele, she would like you to open the main road for trade and people, direct to the city of Pappabele, and our main temple there. Once you have completed that quest you will receive more Amazon troops.

  "How many you receive depends upon a variety of factors, like how long it takes to complete, how many Amazons you already have. A main factor will be do you have a leader for the Amazons, a leader bound to you. Once you have completed Cybele's quest opening the road for trade and people, you will receive more Amazon troops. In Pappabele there is another quest where you need to clear the lowland area of Centaurs before you break the siege and open the port town. There you will receive, or should I say have to capture from the Pirate King, a fleet of ships, manned by more Amazons, who are held as oar slaves. That will be all the quests on the island for Cybele."

  Books Galore

  Cain looked at his women, they each nodded and together they accepted the local quest,

 

  With their talk finished the high priestess called
one of her priestesses, to take Cain and his women to the guest quarters situated under the temple. Once there in a large sitting room, they fastened the bronze panelled wooden door, they stacked two sofa type seats behind blocking and securing the doorway.

  There, placed on a low table in the middle of the room, was a small chest. Someone fastened a note to its lid, it was held in place by a bronze token. Bethany scooped and handed the token to Cain before she read the note out.

  "Joseph, as promised here are a few things which should help you and your beautiful females. Treat them well, C," Cain opened the chest, inside there were six skill books. Lifting the chest from the table Cain held it open offering it to Toni.

  The first two books she removed and passed on to Bethany were, one for gaining the Blacksmithing skill, the other for gaining the Armourers skill. Reaching inside again Toni pulled out the next two books, one was to gain the skill of Animal Companion, the other was a special Alchemy skill book. That book came with three levels of the Alchemy skill upon reading.

  The final two skill books Toni took were,for receiving the Enchantment skill, the last was to receive Wind magic with two levels. Looking at the bottom of the chest, Toni noticed under a cloth cover where the books laid twenty gold bars placed in a single layer. She quickly removed the gold and placed them into her inventory.

  "We need to discuss these gifts somewhere else, don't you think? I think we've had a good bounty given us," said Toni as she took Bounty out of her inventory. She dropped Bounty in the cleared space and pressed the button. Once Bounty was up they all entered and Sophie took a stunned Myrina by the hand, leading her inside.

  "Does anyone else think this is all so convenient, all these quests on the island? Clear the trail, free the city, clear another road while breaking a siege to free a port. How has Cybele, since she is the system, allowed things to get so far out of hand?" Lesley said.

  "Perhaps things were not initially out of hand here before the update. If someone messed with the code and made the zone of 337 BC, more like a cursed ancient Greece, it would count for the problems," said Toni.

  "You have a better clue than us, T. Is this something Jason would do, mess up the program he was working on, is he that perverse?" asked Cain. Toni was not sure but thought Jason could do something like that.

  "If he can slip me a psycho drug, scan me and make a template of my body for players to use, then yeah. I'm sure he could put a chunk of new code into the game, changing an exploring zone into a cursed mythological fight for your life zone.

  "I know from what Vince told me, code for a simple bird in the game took nearly eight thousand lines. What we have seen so far isn't a simple hack to find data, it is a huge addition of code. So huge especially with all the mythological animals here in the zone, it took over sixteen hours to load all the updates," she told Cain.

  Everyone sat in silence, trying to contemplate what Toni said. Together they agreed, Jason had planned this change a long time ago, a change even the system had to run with. Toni said,

  "I think the addition of the Amazons, now as a quest reward, must be Cybele's attempt to help rectify what Jason managed to do. We need to think how we can used these skill books Cybele has gifted us. We each can get a major skill, including Myrina, but that is for the morning," while Cain said.

  "What are we going to do with all the time we have until it gets light and we collect the troops, we received for completing the quest?"

  Sophie said, "I can think of something to do with our spare time, don't you," as she laughed and disrobed. Cain kept his eyes on her body as it was slowly revealed, he felt blood rushing south in appreciation of seeing her beautiful form.

  It was not long before everyone, including Myrina, was naked and on the large bed now in the centre of Bounty. Cain slid between Sophie and Toni as they kissed, his hands touched each of them. Soon they were all making love as they welcomed Myrina into the Harem and becoming a DreamBabe.

  Several hours later with their sexual energies spent, Sophie and Toni kissed deeply before they settled on Cain's shoulders; both women held hands on his chest. The night passed as they slept on shoulders or spooning. Laying nearly in the middle of the bed, Cain could reach out and touch each of his women, he drifted asleep, a smile on his face.

  An explosion shook the room Cain was hiding in; he was sure nobody had seen him. The explosion was purely the random shelling the rebel group was doing. He looked through the LISS, Laser Identifier-cum-Spotting Scope, at a building one thousand two hundred yards distance. Adjusting the optics on his sniper rifle, which laid beside the LISS, Cain waited for the rebel leader to exit the building. He was going on an intelligence report which said the leader always came to the building every morning, between seven thirty and nine o’clock.

  Glancing at his watch and noticed it was 8:46. Cain watched with interest as a battered pick-up truck with a quad machine gun mounted on the rear, pulled up in front of the building. The barrels of the gun pointing down the street toward his position. Ten seconds later a camo-coloured armoured car pulled in behind the pick-up truck. He slid the sniper rifle into his shoulder and took aim. Cain watched as a man identified in the briefing pack as the rebel leader, exited from the open door of his car.

  It was the third day Cain had targeted the rebel leader, like before Cain did not feel it was right to take the shot. As he was watching, he noticed the driver exit the car and the rebel leader nodded his head toward the driver. His mind made up, Cain changed where he aimed and targeted the driver. He plotted in his mind where he would be two seconds after he caressed the trigger.

  The bullet's flight took slightly over two seconds to reach the target, the driver, not a person, a decoy dressed as the rebel leader. Cain reasoned the real leader would not have given a nod to his driver. By the time the bullet exited the driver's head, Cain had already left his shooting position, and exited the room as the drivers body was blown backward over the hood of the car.

  Using the zip line he'd set up during the night three days previously, Cain covered two hundred yards and was running toward the river where he'd stashed his one-man speed boat. The first howitzer rounds hit the building Cain took the shot from. As his feet pushed the speedboat out from its hiding place, a howitzer round hit the river its explosion drenched Cain as he boarded the speedboat.

  Cain woke as he jumped into the speedboat, his heart beat fast yet each breath was shallow. Blinking to clear his eyes, Cain slipped from the bed and walked naked to the kitchen to get a drink from the tap. He was tempted to look at where the water came from, but he left it alone the speedboat slowly dissolved in his mind. Toni came over as he sat, she joined him at the table, seated and holding hands they talked quietly.

  "According to my HUD timer, the sun will be up in less than an hour. We need to go collect the Amazon warriors, then clear out the spiders," Cain said. Toni shivered and commented on how she was not keen on spiders, but they should be easy to kill unless there were thousands, which made Toni shiver. Lesley joined them at the table, yawning, she said,

  "Myrina did well last night don't you think? She made the rounds and visited you twice Cain, you lucky dog," then guffawed.

  Lesley's laughing woke the other DreamBabes, soon they were all sat drinking and eating around the table. Cain looked at each one, a smile grew on his face. He told them how much he liked having them as his DreamBabes and wives, and what it meant to him.

  Forty minutes later, they all finished dressing and armed themselves, they exited Bounty. Cain and Bethany moved the sofa type seating from behind the door and he led the way as they left the room. Bethany shut the room's door and joined the others as they walked upstairs. They all knew they were protected from the gaming system's all seeing cameras, while inside the temple. Cain led the way and walked with Myrina at his side as she pointed the route to follow as she knew where the Amazon women camped. She told Cain earlier the Amazons had a compound outside the walls of the town. They were nearly at the citadel gates when t
hey each heard,

  "Whores, filthy whores, Hades spawn," said the same voice from Erebus' temple doorway. Cain would have stopped but Daphne pushed him in the back saying, "Leave him alone, his time will come you wait and see."

 

  Myrina led them out through the citadel's gate, then through the northern part of Agiasobele. Finally they exited the gate on the eastern wall as the sun was rising, casting fingers of golden light across the side of a small mountain. Walking down the twisty road, Cain and the others followed Myrina in double file. Walking for ten minutes they came upon a wooden palisade built at the head of a highland valley. Two Amazon guards crossed their Doru, forbidding them entry to the compound.

  Before they slept, Cain gave the bronze token to Myrina, who now presented it to one of the guards. Leaving the other guard to bar the entrance, the guard slipped past the gate and disappeared from Cain's view. Four minutes later the gates partially opened, as the first guard and two other female warriors exited, one held the token. Cain could hear the rest of the Amazons in the compound congregated around the gate, still inside the palisade but nearby if needed.

  "Who does this token belong to?" asked the woman who held the token. Cain inspected her closely. She looked physically hard, there was no trace of fat on her body. Her face looked stern, almost scowling as she spoke, though Cain could see fine laughter lines around her eyes. Her dark hair pulled back, fastened in a tight bun, making it hard for an opponent to grab during a fight.

  "It is the reward we received for completing a quest given to us by the goddess Cybele," replied Toni. "The goddess promised twenty-five warriors along with five support staff, to help us in our quests on her behalf."