Wrath of Gods

Introduction

One-night high on top of Mt. Olympus in the pantheon of the gods there was a game of chance going on between 5 gods.  And of course the usual boasting and competition began.

“Zeus will be awarding me the great city” Apollo says referring to the new city that was being founded that is to be the greatest in all of Greece.

“If he does it will be out of pity since all you have to show is Delphi” Athena, the patron of Athens laughs.

“Maybe he will give it to you after my Sparta conquers Athens.”  Ares says drunkenly as he takes a heavy gulp of wine.

“Seventy sixth time the charm then.” Hephaestus jokes always ready to harass Ares due to some past indiscretions.  “I don’t want to deal with the headaches I am not sure why you all like this other than to boost your own egos.”

“Everyone knows people would always prefer to come to my places so if you want to fill up a new city with people I am your god.”  Dionysus, protector of Thebes says.

The jokes and boasts went on for a while longer.  Each god too proud to back down and admit someone else may be better.

At that point Aphrodite, Hephaestus’ ex, comes through the door to the room.  She is the most beautiful being in existence and rays of light follow her into the room.  But even with the rays of light and overall beauty everyone in the room could tell she was upset.  And as with what happens whenever a she walks into a room she commanded everyone’s attention.

Dionysus as the one who always tries to liven up the party go up to Aphrodite with a drink in hand.  “What is wrong my dear will this liven up your day?”  He proceeds to hand her a drink.

“No not today.” She says as she shakes her head.  “I got some bad news from Zeus.  I will be given control of the new city.  I did not want it and when I told him that he said that’s why I got it.” 

The others are too shocked and dumbfounded to respond.   Although Hephaestus is having a lot of fun watching everyone else’s suffering. 

Aphrodite takes a deep breath.  “But at least he did say that if another God who does not have a city wanted to help me run it we could be partners and share it.  But we would have to be partners in everything is my rule.” 

Hephaestus immediately says “Don’t look at me we tried that pairing and it did not go well.”

“I know.” She says “and everyone else here already has their own city, oh well I guess I have a little time to find a partner.

With that she left the room.  With that though all the gods but Hephaestus looked at each other each with a sly grin.

Ares, not the sharpest of the bunch, said what they were all thinking but knew better than to say.  “Ya know if somehow our cities happened to have a problem and disappeared we could be her partner.  Days in power and amazing nights.”

Athena looks at Hepheastus. “Can we trust you to not say anything?”

“You mean that you 4 are about to start something really dumb that Zeus will hate and punish you for?  And that you will need to sneak around to try.”

“Yep” Says Apollo.

“This will be the funniest thing to watch in years.”  Hephaestus laughs.  “Good luck being terrible protectors.”

With that the group broke up to start their planning.

Ares

Ares walks into the secondary control center smiling.  Around the pedestal are those who are in the game and Hephaestus who insisted to watch to keep his silence.

Athena starts “So what hair brained idea did you come up with to destroy your pathetic city?”

“WAR.”

“Surprise”. Dionysus laughs. “Pay up”.

Apollo hands him a coin, Athena looks at Apollo like he is an idiot.  He says “It was a 3-1 bet I figured maybe he would do something else.”

“You laugh but I have arranged it beautifully. So my Spartans have no chance of winning.  They will attack Corinth and its allies jointly.  They will be outnumbered 2-1 and attacking uphill after a rain storm.”  Ares smiles.  “And after they lose the battle, Corinth will take Sparta like it has wanted too for years and then Aphrodite will join with me.”

“And how did you get them to do this.   Even your dumb Spartan generals are not that incompetent.” Athena asks.

Ares “Oh, that was easy I went into all their dreams to make them see a great victory and as they were announcing the plans great omens were seen by the men to calm their nerves.”

Hephaestus nods.  “So your plan is to lead your follows to the slaughter, in a terrible battle that you encouraged, let you enemies enslave your people then you expect Aphrodite to take you in and let you help her lead a new city.  Hmmm.”

Ares not noticing the sarcasm “Yes” with a big smile across his face.

Athena just nods her head wondering how they share the same father.  Or maybe he was dropped off Olympus as a kid and landed on his head.

“At least there will be an epic party to watch over.” Dionysus says although he was not much a fan of bloodshed.

“The battle is about to start.  “Lets watch.”  The viewer comes to life and shows the battle field.  The Spartans 100 yards from the bottom of the hill with their general giving the standard speech about the gods supporting them and such.   To this those watching all laughed.  Then the Corinthian general gave his speech telling his men how once the Spartans are halfway up the hill they will charge and mow them down and sack the city. 

The Spartans in formation started to bang their spears against there shields in unison to get pumped up.  The rain splashing into puddles shakes with the sound. Ares laughed “They have no idea.”

Just then a small crack appears at the top of the hill and in an instance the ground beneath the Corinthians gave out taking most of the army with it.  At the end of the slide they landed at the foot of the Spartan army mostly mangled or dead.

The Spartans considering this a sign from Ares attack and slaughter them Corinthians before they can move.  The rest of the army at the top of the hills retreats in panic.   The Spartans start to praise Ares and the fortune he brings to them.

All Ares can do is stand there mouth agape watching.

Several  other gods had wandered over to the pedestal to watch the battle happen and congratulated Ares for his brilliance.  Who can only fake happiness, otherwise he may give away his real intention

“This moron got lucky” Athena says as she storms out.  Pissed that people may think he is brilliant but also a little happy at his incompetence.

Dionysus pulls out a hearty flask and announces “Drinks all around to celebrate.”  Apollo grabs the first swig and passes the flask around 

Just then Poseidon bursts into the room coming from the main control room where the big 3 sit.  “You” pointing to Ares.  “I will make you pay, you crushed my favorite general in your landslide.”  And as quickly as he came he left.

Ares was smart enough not to smile, a threat from a major god was nothing anyone would be happy about.  But maybe this victory would turn into the defeat he desired one day.  Or possibly just some terrible pain.

Dionysus

Dionysus was sitting disguised in center of his Thebes when Hephaestus, Apollo, Athena and Ares joined him.

They sit at the table with him.  Athena sees the dozens of giant jugs in the middle of the town square.  “I am guessing those have something to do with why you called us here.”  She says pointing that them.

“Maybe” Dionysus says with a smile. “There is a yearly festival in Thebes.  And I just may have spiked the wine with a touch of ambrosia extract.”

Ares shrugs to no ones surprise.

Apollo fills him in.  “Its basically going to make the humans react non stop with their most primal ambitions.”

Hephaestus still finding this whole thing funny.  “So your plan is to make people love this city and procreate to destroy it.”

“Please I am not an idiot.”  He puts a sly glance towards Ares.  “There is so much of it here that they will party and play till they are so exhausted they die.  And with no adults the city will die.  And of course Aphrodite will love that I created so much love in the world and there will be poor innocent children to protect.”

The citizens of Thebes start to file into the square and begin the celebration.  It starts to play out how Dionysus planned.  

Ares gets up “I am going to join this party, that little lady over there looks like she will be a good time, with those tattoos down there.”  Ares walks towards the Thebian he pointed at.

As soon as he is out of earshot Apollos asks rhetorically “Do we tell him that that those are not tattoos, and that his good time now will turn into a really bad time later?”

They all laugh.  And say nothing.

As the party continues into the middle of the night the gods partake at times.

Around midnight they hear horns blasting outside the walls.  Barbarians were at the outskirts of the city.  The party goers don’t even react as the army charges in.

Apollo looks at Dionysus knowing he lost and the city will be gone.  “You make some amazing party juice.”

As the raging army hits the center of town they crash over some of the large jugs but before they slaughter anyone they stop.  They can’t seem to understand why no one is running in terror or coming to face them in battle.

A few see the jugs and take a swig and start joining in the fun.  Then the rest take part also.  It all becomes one giant party.  Luckily for balance these Barbarians are equal opportunity warriors and came with their women.

The gods, other than Ares who is still partying, gather off to the side.

“I think this army would have been strong enough to sack Thebes on its own.  But after a party like this they will probably just leave in the morning assuming the party stops.”  Athena says.

Apollo laughs.  “At the rate the part juice is going with the extra bellies and what they spilled I think most of them will survive, albeit quite sore for a long time.”

Hephaestus just laughs.  “You would have actually lost your city if you had done nothing.  And instead the barbarians will leave peacefully, your city will be known for its parties and with everything going on will have a population explosion. Haha.

Dionysus just sits there nodding his head in disgust not even able to enjoy the most epic party in history.

Athena

Athena was sitting in the secondary control room talking to Hephaestus as Apollo, Ares and Dionysus joined.

Apollo asks. “What is your strategy, a good war, a natural disaster or something else?”

“Oh please I have something a bit smarter than your direct methods.  Attacks from the outside are fought tooth and nail and rarely destroy a city completely.  But if it falls apart on its own then it stays destroyed.”  She says smiling.

“Too much exposition just tell us.”  Dionysus says

“Expo… what” Ares says.

The others ignore him.

“I have gone into the dreams of 3 of Athens politicians to have them believe their leader is a traitor.  They will then go to investigate him but there is no proof so it will create a political division destroying Athens from within.”

“Too many moving parts, but should create a nice show.”  Hephaestus says. With Apollo nodding in agreement.

“Mortals rarely react how you expect and I am the specialist on that.” Dionysus says.

“Just you watch.  They are about to confront him.”  She points as the viewer comes to life.

On the viewer they see 6 men enter the home of the leader.  And the jockeying starts the three who had the dream are clearly accusing the leader but the other 3 are defending him believing that it is a political power move they are making.

The leader is trying to calm the three down asking them why they believe he has done anything against the best interest of Athens.

They all mention the same dream which must have come from the gods and thereby must be true.  One of them then implies if the other 3 did not have the dream there may be something wrong with them.  And that has not helped the discourse.

“And of course the three who I sent the dream too are of a different ideology that the others.  Just to add to the conflict.”  Athena laughs.

During the argument though the leader keeps taking slide glances to a pot in his house.  One of his supports though picks up on it and walks over too it a bit suspicious and pulls out a piece of paper from it. 

The Leader sits down knowing what will come.  His support reads the paper sighs and hands it to the others.

Apollo laughs “This may have just gone sidewise.”

“This is why I just have people get stabbed.”  Ares says matter of factually.

The leader stops them from reading and speaks.  “I should never have betrayed my city, I should have known the great Athena would stop this. The Persians captured my son and said they would kill him unless I gave up Athens.  I worked alone you need not go through and purge anything.   I will take the hemlock and save the trial.  And I will give one last piece of help.  The Persians have a fleet waiting a short way a way waiting for me to send the army out in the wrong direction.

The other 6 there agree that what happened should not be made public or it would damage the city.  They also arrange to launch a sneak attack on the Persian fleet.  The leader would die in battle to save face.  They also decided that the three who received the dream were the chosen ones and would lead the city as a triumvirate.

Athena walks out grumbling even though Zeus would likely reward her for saving Greeks from dying to Persians.

Hephaestus keeps laughing “This keeps getting funnier and funnier, you guys can even fail properly.”

The others are just relived that Athena failed and go off to plan their next moves.

Apollo

At an outdoor courtyard on Mt Olympus Hephaestus sees Athena, Ares and Dionysus sitting down looking terrified.  He assumes some of the major gods found out what they were trying.

“I am gone for a few days and you guys messed up, I was hoping to see it.” He laughs.

“We don’t really know yet how much Zeus knows but Apollos is with him Hades and Poseidon.”  Athena says.

Ares shakes his head “The idiot messed up.”

Hephaestus sits down “Fill me in.”

“Two days ago Apollos told us his plan.” Dionysus starts. “He figured that instead he would go simple to destroy Delphis people with a touch of plague.”

“Was not a terrible idea really. He often does do some cleaning of cities with a touch of plague to kill of the weak.  So he figured he would make it a bit too strong and when it got a bit out of hand he could just blame it on a miscalculation.”  Athena says. 

Hephaestus nods.  “So what happened?”

Ares points to Dionysus “Dipshit over there sabotaged him.”

“After he told us his plan I may have gotten him a bit drunk when he was making the plague.” Dionysus shrugs.  “And I don’t think he realized that.”

Athena annoyed. “So Apollo overdid the strength of the plague and released it in a nearby field.  But Boreas got wind of it and even he got sick.  So he rushed back here and told Zeus.  Who immediately rushed out saw its strength and burned the field to the ground.”

“Apollo has been in there for hours.” Dionysus sais scared “All I can do is hope that he does not spill the beans and that Zeus assumes it is just incompetence and nothing more.”

At that moment they see Apollo approaching hunched over and moving very slow.  He then vomits up a lightning bolt.

“I know that one.” Hephaestus says.  “I made that one with extra barbs and twists.”

“Thanks.”  Apollo murmurs.

“How far down your throat did that go?” Ares asks with an almost gleeful tone.

“It started on the other end.”  Apollos says as soon as he catches his breath.

The rest of the group cringe knowing that it will be month before that stops hurting.  Ares from firsthand experience.

Athena asks the question on their minds. “Do we have a really big problem?”

Apollos shakes his head.  “We are fine they just assume I was careless and made an honest mistake.  Trust me I know if I spilled that it would not have stopped with one lightning bolt.”

Apollos starts shuffling off as the others breathe sigh of relief. 

Hephaestus in his head does a little tally of what transpired in each gods first attempt.

·        Ares won a major ware but did piss off Poseidon which may help him. ·        Dionysus had an epic party and a is going to have a lot of little kids popping up which may or may not be good. ·        Athena solidified Athens position and stopped a Persian invasion. ·        Apollos will just be in pain for a long time

It seems like Ares at least made a powerful enemy.  Dionysus and Athena would have been better off if they did nothing and Apollos just lost.

Stage 1 end