Greek Realm / Mortal World (Southern Coast Settlement of Theskar): Unknown Date.
It was a ugly day for the world.
Not because the sky was black.
Not because the wind was cold.
Not because the forest behind it still smelled like dead wolf blood, wet roots and the kind of silence that made lesser people think monsters were watching them from between the trees.
No.
It was ugly because mankind had finally started building things.
And mankind, from what I knew in both lives now, had a habit of building their own graves first and calling it progress after.
Let mankind build. What they raise today will become the ruins I judge tomorrow.
(Kairo's POV)
Kairo was currently standing on a rocky rise overlooking what had to be the first actual settlement he had seen in this world so far and thought while squinting his eyes a little, "Well…this is definitely civilization if civilization was made by people who just learned mud, wood and paranoia"
Below him sat a wide settlement made up of timber walls, hard packed earth, smoking huts, animal pens, storage pits and one large central hall built from thick stone and dark wood that looked newer than the rest.
There were people moving everywhere.
Men carrying baskets. Women skinning animals.
Children running around barefoot with dirty faces and sticks in their hands like they were born ready to stab something.
Old people sitting near fire pits with looks on their faces that said life had already beaten them enough so they were just waiting to see what came next.
At the center of the settlement stood a tall carved pole wrapped in bronze rings and storm colored cloth, with a crude symbol carved near the top that looked suspiciously like a lightning bolt splitting a crown in half.
Kairo stared at it for a second and thought with a ugly smile "Yeah, this is definitely his doing"
Zeus.
Or at the very least people already moving in his name.
Kairo adjusted the ragged cloak on his shoulders and glanced down at the dead miasma wolf he had dragged half the way here by it's hind leg and sighed loudly while muttering "I should've skinned you first."
[DING!]
[Mission = Reach The Civilization of The First Humans]
[Status = Completed]
[Reward = Pending evaluation]
Kairo looked at the screen in front of him and said flatly "About time."
Then he started dragging the wolf down the slope toward the settlement like a man arriving with a gift nobody wanted but everybody was going to notice.
…..
By the time he reached the outer gate three men with spears were already staring at him like he had personally insulted their bloodline.
One was tall and gaunt with a scar over his nose.
One was broad shouldered and looked dumb enough to lose a fight with a tree.
And the third one was older with a grey beard, hard eyes and enough scars on his arms to tell kairo he had actually lived longer than the other two by being less stupid.
The old one narrowed his eyes at him and said "Stop there."
Kairo stopped. Not because he respected him.
But because there were four more men on the wall above with slings and sharp rocks already in hand.
The broad one looked down at the dead wolf and asked with suspicion "What is that."
Kairo stared at him for a moment and asked back "What does it look like."
The younger spear man took a step forward and said with a sneer "A dead beast."
"Good. So you aren't blind." Said kairo calmly.
The broad one immediately got pissed and gripped his spear harder.
The old man, thankfully the least idiotic of the three, kept staring at the wolf instead and asked "Where did you find it."
"In the mist woods behind me. It tried to eat me. I disagreed" said kairo while letting the carcass hit the dirt.
*SPLUT*
The younger one spat on the ground and said "Ptooh…nobody hunts in those woods alone"
"I wasn't hunting. I was surviving." Said kairo with a smile.
The old man studied him harder.
His clothes.
His knife.
His hands.
The blood on him.
Then his eyes shifted to the black blood still clinging to the wolf's torn eye and his whole face changed slightly.
Not fear.
Recognition.
"Weren't natural." Said the old man lowly.
"Obviously. Do you usually have wolves that bleed black smoke and scream like they swallowed a curse." Said kairo with squinted eyes.
That made the broad one take half a step back.
Good.
Fear was faster than persuasion.
The old man asked carefully "Did it bite you"
"No." Said kairo Immediately.
"Scratch you" Asked the old man Immediately.
"No." Said kairo immediately.
He stared a little longer and then nodded once toward the gate and said "Bring the carcass no further than the ash trench. If the blood touches the inner well I'll have your tongue cut out myself."
Kairo smiled politely and said "That sounds fair."
The younger one scowled and muttered "We should take his knife first."
Kairo looked him dead in the eyes and said calmly "Try. You'll love a tongue before I do dumbass."
The old man lifted his hand before the fool could make an even bigger mistake and said sharply "Enough. Let him in."
*CREAK*
The wooden gate opened.
Kairo dragged the dead wolf through it and the smell of smoke, sweat, wet livestock and cooked grain immediately hit him in the face.
"Ah. Human misery. There you are" Thought kairo while glancing around.
…..
The inside of theskar looked even worse up close.
The huts were low and crowded together.
The roads were just muddy paths full of boot prints and old straw.
There were small shrines everywhere.
Some to the earth.
Some to the sea.
Some to nameless household spirits.
But the newest ones stood out immediately.
Bronze bowls filled with rain water.
Bundles of white feathers tied to poles.
Little clay symbols of lightning.
Storm marks.
Sky marks.
Hope marks.
Kairo clicked his tongue softly and thought "So he really has started moving through mortals first"
A skinny boy with a basket of shellfish stopped dead when he saw the carcass kairo was dragging and immediately screamed "HE BROUGHT A BLACK ONE"
Half the nearby people turned to look.
Then almost all of them stepped away.
Women pulled children behind them.
A bent old man made a sign over his chest.
Some girl dropped a clay bowl and it shattered on the ground.
*CRACK*
"Relax. It's dead." Said kairo said dryly.
That did not help.
Of course.
A woman with braided hair and a scar down one arm hurried over holding a hooked bronze blade and stared at the wolf with disgust before looking at kairo and asking "Who let you bring that inside."
"The old one at the gate. Take it up with him." Said kairo with a dismissive shrug.
She looked like she wanted to.
Instead she pointed toward a long trench filled with ash and old burnt bones near the wall and said "Throw it there."
Kairo dragged it over, dropped it in, and the moment the black blood touched the ash it hissed and let off a thin cloud of dark smoke.
*SSSSSS*
That got even more eyes on him.
Kairo grinned a little and thought "Good. Keep looking"
People talked more when they were scared.
And when people talked, smart men listened.
[DING!]
[Observation Function Active]
[Notable settlement indicators detected:
-Storm worship increase
-Sacrificial behavior present
-Mortal fear of miasma corruption high]
[Continue]
Kairo ignored the screens and started walking deeper into the settlement like he belonged there.
Nobody stopped him. Not yet.
The central hall was the real prize.
That was obvious from one glance.
Bigger structure.
Better guards.
Fresh stone.
Bronze fittings.
Too much importance for a place this primitive.
As he moved through the crowd, he heard enough muttering to piece together what the place was.
Food storage.
Council hall.
Guest hall.
Judgment hall.
And recently, a place where sky-marked visitors were being welcomed with a little too much fear and a little too much respect.
So naturally he decided that was exactly where he needed to be.
…..
Kairo didn't get close before someone blocked his path.
A woman.
Tall.
Broad shouldered.
Hair tied back with copper wire.
One blind eye.
The other one sharp enough to cut cloth.
She looked him up and down once and asked calmly "Who are you."
Kairo looked at her and said "Hungry."
That made a couple nearby men snort.
The woman didn't even blink. She looked at him for a long moment and said flatly "Then be hungry somewhere else."
Kairo smiled a little and asked "Do you usually turn away men who drag corrupted beasts out of your woods or is that a special kindness you reserve for strangers."
The one eyed woman stared at him without blinking and glanced once toward the ash trench where the dead wolf was still hissing and said "I usually turn away fools. The beast only makes this conversation slightly less boring."
A couple nearby men laughed under their breath.
Kairo liked her immediately.
Not because she was pleasant.
But because she didn't smell like stupidity.
Kairo tilted his head slightly and said "Good. Then maybe you're the one person here worth talking to."
That earned him a sharper look.
The woman shifted the bronze knife on her belt and asked "You always walk into settlements covered in black blood and insults."
"Only the ones that look like they need both." Said kairo calmly.
One of the men behind her barked out a laugh and immediately tried to turn it into a cough when she glanced at him.
The woman didn't move for a moment and asked "What do you want in the hall."
"Food. Shelter. A look inside. Not necessarily in that order." Said kairo with a shrug.
She stared at him and asked "And why would I allow that."
Kairo looked past her at the hall doors and said with a ugly little smile "Because whatever sky marked bastard has your people tying storm cloth to poles is the same reason those woods started birthing black things. And if I can see the first then maybe I can help with the second."
That made the small noises around them die immediately.
The one eyed woman didn't react much.
Just enough for kairo to notice.
Which was all he needed.
He leaned a little closer and asked quietly "That hit something didn't it."
She finally moved.
Not back.
Not forward.
Just enough to stand between him and the hall in a way that made the point without speaking it and calmly "You talk too much for a dead man."
Kairo smiled and said "Dead men don't usually bleed this much."
The woman looked at the blood still drying on his side and shoulder and said "No. They usually stop."
That made him laugh.
Actually laugh.
Then he winced a little because laughing with half healed bullet memories in your soul apparently still felt disrespectful to the body.
[DING!]
[Observation Function Active]
[Notable subject detected:
-Female
-Settlement authority figure
-Combat trained
-Probability of direct access to information: High]
[Recommendation: Maintain engagement]
Kairo ignored the screen and asked "So are you going to keep staring holes in me or are you going to tell me your name first. I like to get close to my type in women but closer too the intelligent and competent."
The woman said nothing for a moment and said with half squinted eyes "Myrine."
Kairo nodded once and said "Kairo."
"I didn't ask." Said myrine Immediately.
"I know. I'm a bad flirt, don't rub the woune more." Said kairo with a wave of his left hand.
That made one corner of her mouth move.
Barely.
But he saw it.
Good.
Not stone then.
Just hard.
Hard was workable.
Stupid was not.
Myrine looked him over one last time and then jerked her chin toward the hall and said "Come with me. If you lie to me inside there I will cut your throat before the sky guests can ask your name."
Kairo stepped forward beside her and said pleasantly "That's fair."
The men around them looked annoyed.
Nervous.
Curious.
One little boy with a dirty face and a reed spear whispered to another "He's the one who killed the black one."
Kairo heard it and didn't bother turning around.
Let them whisper.
Fear made better introductions than names ever could.
…..
The closer he got to the hall the more obvious it became that the whole settlement revolved around it now.
The central path leading to the entrance had been swept cleaner than the rest.
Fresh rush mats had been laid over the mud.
Clay bowls of smoking herbs lined the steps.
Bronze dishes full of grain, fish, and something that looked like honey cakes sat near the doorway like offerings.
Not to the hall.
To whoever was inside it.
Kairo took one look and thought "Yeah. He's already got them kneeling"
The doors themselves were thick dark wood banded in bronze, each one carved with rough images that had not been there long.
Clouds.
Waves.
A crown broken in half.
A spear of light.
Symbols changing faster than faith could stabilize them.
That interested him.
It meant whoever was influencing this place wasn't just gathering reverence.
They were rewriting imagination.
That was more dangerous than an army.
Myrine pushed the door open and the smell hit him first.
Roasted meat.
Burned fat.
Wet wool.
Ash.
Old stone.
And under all of it, faint but clear, the smell of rain just before a storm.
Not real rain.
Divine rain.
The kind that arrived in places gods had looked at too long.
The hall was bigger than it had looked from outside.
A central fire pit burned low beneath a smoke hole in the roof.
Long tables filled the room.
Half the settlement's better armed men and women were already inside pretending not to look toward the raised stone platform at the far end.
That was where the real problem sat.
Three figures.
Not gods.
Not fully.
But touched.
Changed.
Marked.
One was an old man in pale blue robes with a forked beard bound in bronze wire, thin hands folded over a staff carved with storm spirals.
One was a girl no older than sixteen with white ash painted over her eyelids and a silver bowl resting in her lap.
And the third was a broad shouldered man with a shaved head and a cloak lined in white feathers, standing beside the platform with his arms folded and his face carrying the kind of holy contempt kairo had seen before on men who thought the universe personally liked them.
"Ah. There you are" Thought kairo.
The platform itself held one more person.
A heavyset elder seated in a carved chair of black wood and stone.
Settlement chief.
Or something close enough.
Grey hair braided back.
Bronze neck ring.
Tired eyes.
He looked like a man who had spent his whole life arguing with weather and had finally met weather that argued back.
Myrine stopped halfway to the platform and said clearly "He came from the mist woods dragging a black beast."
That got all the attention in the room.
Kairo rolled one shoulder and said nothing.
Let them look.
The old man in blue on the platform leaned forward first and asked in a mild voice "A black beast."
Kairo looked at him and said "Big. Diseased. Teeth like broken bone. Bled smoke. Smelled worse than rotten lungs."
The ash eyed girl tightened her grip on her silver bowl.
The feather cloaked man sneered and said "Then he should've been burned before being allowed through the gate."
Kairo looked at him and asked pleasantly "Do you always introduce yourself like a bitch or only on important occasions. I find it very fascinating all the same."
The hall went dead silent.
Myrine shut her eye for exactly one second like she had expected this and was already tired of it.
The feather cloaked man took one furious step forward and a faint crackle of white electricity jumped across the bronze ring at his wrist.
Interesting.
Not a god.
Not even close.
But carrying borrowed current.
The old man in blue lifted one hand without looking at him and said "Peace, Theron."
Theron stopped. Barely. But he stopped.
Kairo saw it and filed it away instantly.
Noted: blue robe speaks, feather boy obeys.
The elder in the chair adjusted his throat and said calmly with a rough and tired and honest in a way none of the others had been so far "What is your business in theskar."
Kairo looked at him and said "To not die hungry."
That got a few quiet laughs.
The elder didn't smile. Not in the slightest.
"And maybe to understand why your woods are rotting, your people are hanging storm cloth, and your hall smells like something from the sky has been sitting in it too long." Said kairo honestly.
The old man in blue studied him a little more carefully after that.
The ash eyed girl tilted her head.
Theron looked like he wanted permission to hit him with weather.
Excellent. Perfect mood for a bitch.
Kairo did his best work around men who mistook rage for leverage.
"You know the source of the corruption." Asked the elder with squinted eyes as he stroked his long white beard.
"No. But I know it isn't natural." Said kairo plainly.
The old man in blue finally rose to his feet.
He was taller than kairo had expected.
Still thin.
Still calm.
Eyes pale grey and a little too reflective in the firelight as he came down from the platform one step at a time and stopped a few paces away and asked "And what makes you so certain."
Kairo looked him dead in the eye and said "Because natural things want to live. That thing in the woods wanted to spread."
That made the room quieter somehow.
Even the fire sounded smaller.
The old man nodded once and asked as he stopped stroking his beard "Have you seen any others."
"Not yet. But if one made it that close to your walls, more will." Said kairo calmly.
The ash eyed girl was silent for a moment and said a voice that was too soft "He's telling the truth."
Kairo looked at her.
She didn't look back at him.
Her fingers were inside the silver bowl now, stirring water that hadn't been moving before.
A seer then.
Or whatever passed for one in this age.
Theron scowled and said "He could still be marked."
"The gate leader asked at the gate if he was bitten or scratched. He wasn't." Said myrine flatly.
Theron looked at her and snapped lYou trusted a stranger's word."
Myrine looked back and said "No. I trusted my own eyes. Something you should practice."
That got a couple more choked laughs from the tables.
Theron's jaw tightened.
Kairo was enjoying this immensely. He liked a good ole feisty, rough woman.
The elder in the chair sighed and rubbed his temple and said "Enough."
Silence again.
Then the old man in blue turned his gaze back to kairo and said lI am Halion, speaker for the sky marked. This settlement is under the protection of higher powers now. If corruption is moving in the woods, it will be judged."
Kairo nodded slowly and said "Good for you."
Halion's expression barely changed.
"And yet. If your protection was enough, I wouldn't have had to kill the first one myself." Said kairo with a dismissive sigh.
There it was.
A direct hit.
Theron's face went ugly instantly.
The ash eyed girl's fingers stopped in the bowl.
Myrine looked away for half a second to hide what might've been approval.
Halion just stared at him with that same maddening calm and said "You speak boldly for a man without tribe, god, or standing."
Kairo smiled and said "Wrong. I have standing. I'm still standing. That's more than your wolf can say."
Theron moved.
Fast.
Not lightning fast.
Not divine.
Just trained and angry.
His hand shot toward kairo's throat.
Kairo moved on instinct.
Turn.
Step in.
Catch the wrist.
Drive the rust knife hilt into the inside of the elbow.
*THOCK*
Theron's arm buckled with a sharp grunt.
Kairo twisted, shoved him past his own center and sent him crashing shoulder first into one of the nearest tables.
*BANG*
Bowls shattered.
Meat hit the floor.
Three people jumped up shouting.
The white feather cloak tangled around theron's legs and he hit the rush mats hard with a curse.
The whole hall erupted.
Weapons half drawn.
Chairs scraping.
Myrine's knife flashed into her hand.
The elder was already on his feet.
The ash eyed girl clutched the bowl so hard it almost bent.
And kairo.
Kairo stood there with the rust knife low at his side and a grin on his face like he'd finally found a conversation worth having.
Theron started to rise with murder in his eyes.
Halion lifted his staff once.
The air cracked.
*CRRRACK*
A thin line of pale lightning hit the floor between them.
*BOOOM*
Not enough to kill.
Enough to command.
The hall froze.
"Sit down, Theron." Said halion coldly with his right finger raised lightly.
Theron stared at kairo like he wanted to remember the shape of his bones.
Then he spat blood onto the floor and obeyed.
Kairo looked at halion and thought "There you are. The real leash"
Halion turned back to him and said "You fight like a desperate man."
Kairo shrugged and answered "Most men worth anything do."
The elder let out a long slow breath through his nose and said "Myrine."
"Yes." Said myrine immediately.
"Find him a place near the outer fires. Feed him. Keep two eyes on him even if one is yours." Said the elder calmly with his arms behind his back.
A little snort escaped someone at one of the tables.
Myrine ignored it.
The elder sighed and said "At dawn he walks the mist boundary with halion's people."
That got a reaction.
Theron looked furious.
The ash eyed girl looked curious.
Kairo looked pleased.
Perfect.
Exactly where he needed to be.
Kairo tucked the rust knife back down and asked "And if I say no."
The elder stared at him and answered lThen you leave now. And if the woods don't kill you, the things in them will."
Kairo smiled and said lThen I guess dawn sounds good."
[DING!]
[Main Mission Update]
[Mission 1. = Reach The Civilization of The First Humans]
[Status = Completed]
[Mission 2. = Learn where Zeus's forces are gathering]
[Progress detected]
[New sub-objective = Gain access to the sky-marked]
[Reward = Pending evaluation]
Kairo didn't react outwardly.
Just looked from halion to theron to the silver bowl girl and thought "Yeah. Now we're getting somewhere"
Myrine jerked her chin toward the side door and said "Move."
Kairo followed her without complaint.
Not because he trusted anyone here.
But because he'd gotten exactly what he wanted.
Food.
Shelter.
A way in.
And if he played it right, by tomorrow he'd know exactly how far zeus's shadow had already spread across the first bones of human civilization.
As he stepped out of the hall, halion's voice quietly followed behind him "Watch that one."
Kairo smiled to himself without turning around and thought "Too late, old man. I'm already watching you"
And something below kairo. An eye on his shadow closed.
…
THE END…