11:45 pm, A car on a lonely road, travelling northwest of Athens
Yanni Iole drove down the lonely road by himself, only occasionally passing by cars moving in the opposite direction. Classical music drowned out the sputtering of the old navy blue Cadillac and the jostling of the wire cage in the trunk, but could never dream of touching the pouring rain or deafening thunder that defined the atmosphere. In the darkness of midnight it was impossible to tell where the storm clouds began or ended in the pitch black sky.
Beethoven's symphonies eased his lonesome self, only a small wooden box to keep him company.
Yanni appeared fairly typical for his age. Being middle-aged, he was pudgy, bald, and very clearly a native, having square features with a dominant nose. He even dressed his age, though it was technically just his uniform: a blue polo shirt and khakis. He was an archaeologist, though he didn't work in the field. Rather, he studied the artifacts and relics that were brought to him, or, more specifically, to the Archaeological Museum of Athens. He was rather good at his job too, in part thanks to his magecraft, a sensory art that dabbled in elements of Psychometry, though he was certainly no mage. No, calling himself a mage would imply that he came from a mage family, that his life was devoted to the furthering of magecraft in an endless search for power and immortality, but none of these things described Yanni Iole. He knew of magecraft, and possessed a magic crest of his own, but this hardly made him anything more than a civilian; he was just a normal person aware of things that others weren't.
His crest, which gives mages their power, was given to him not by his biological family, but by a 'found family' that he had only come across a mere decade ago. The group welcomed him as one of their own, but they were gone now. Most of them were killed in a desperate attempt at revolution, and the remainder fled, leaving only Yanni and the group's late leader, an elderly man in his last throes of life. After transferring the crest and leadership to Yanni, he died at the ripe age of 160 years, leaving Yanni to rebuild the family from the ground-up.
-But Yanni had failed.
He had failed to rebuild, he couldn't find anyone to join his family. This was in part because of his job and the other necessary time constraints, but also because of him- as a person. He simply wasn't an evangelist. He was too passionate, he couldn't recognize those that would welcome his lifestyle, and he wasn't an effective or charismatic communicator, nor could he simply put up advertisements. This was first because of the group's magical connections; if they openly talked about magecraft the Clocktower would immediately mobilize to silence them. Second, because of the aforementioned revolt, the group was irrefutably tied with terrorism in the eyes of the government.
Put more simply, revealing the group to the public would result in the group's immediate end. He was also forced to admit that his own cowardice contributed to his failure: he feared the social ostracization that would come from talking about his family in public. He didn't want people to look down on him, or call him crazy; he wasn't crazy. No, no, it was them who were crazy for being so dismissive and presumptuous.
Modern people- they were the problem. People nowadays didn't have any respect for tradition, or history, or even loyalty. It was all about themselves. Of course people as self-centered as that would refuse the very concept of family, or any manifestation of social unity or responsibility. They were cowards, and worse, they were stupid, arrogant cowards.
Yanni, at least, was just a coward, not a stupid coward like the rest of them. Only he understood, he and his family, the truth, the meaning of life. Only they knew the freedom of being beholden to something beyond yourself; something the modern man would reject as nonsense, or worse 'regressive'. That was their problem, they were so focused on moving forward, on being 'progressive' that they didn't bother to ask what they had left behind.
Fools, fools, fools, the lot of them were fools, and he would show them for the fools they were. For tonight, despite their mockery, despite their rejection, he had succeeded. After a decade of planning and waiting, the dreams of his family would be realized.
Yanni couldn't help but laugh. The glee and gaiety of that moment were indescribable. The joy of a job done, a goal achieved, and the spiteful pleasure of proving your detractors wrong, and not just that, but being able to assume power over them and reveal them for the fools they were; as he would soon be able to do. It was a good day.
He only wished he had someone to share that joy with.
...
Yanni arrived at the mountain cabin only minutes before midnight. He had hoped to perform the ritual at exactly midnight, but 'just after' would have to do. The cabin itself was small to the point of being pitiful, and would be better called a shack- or, God forbid, one could go so far as to call it an outhouse. Even from the outside one could very clearly tell it was a single story building with at most two rooms, but what it lacked in space it made up for in its seclusion. There was no road leading to the house, meaning no address, nor was there any official record of its existence. For miles there was almost no civilization, though Athens wasn't terribly far. Thankfully, most of the suburbs outside the city were fairly small, scattered across the vast valley and separated by mountains that jutted suddenly out of the earth like the valley's own olive trees. Tour guides would often boast of the geological diversity of the Grecian peninsula and its surrounding islands, but in truth all of the country could be simplified down to these barren valleys and verdant hills. This cabin was atop one such mountain, hidden by trees, rocks, and, right now, darkness. It was so rugged that one could forgive someone for mistaking it as a part of the rock face in the low light.
He had been to this cabin more times than he could count, and the drive up the mountain was easy for him, even without streetlights or a road to follow. This was where his family had held their meetings, and it was where he would often escape to whenever he had the chance. Tonight, the shack served two distinct but important purposes. First, it was the place where the ritual he had been preparing for the last decade was to be held, and second, it was an ideal place to hide from the fallout of his actions.
Yanni emerged from the car and immediately felt the rain rattle his bald head. The storm he had paid for was far more violent than he had expected, not that he would ever complain about that. Smuggling a relic into the hands of that mage was no simple task. He had to request a personal examination, which was far from guaranteed to be granted, and then trust that no one would come looking for it before he was to return it. With enough time or thought, perhaps he could've staged a robbery, but he would never be free of suspicion, and would likely be held financially responsible for the loss of the priceless artifact. He had a hard time believing the mage understood the significance of his request; he probably assumed it would be possible because he thought of Yanni as a mage. His request was only possible because he had planned to steal another artifact anyway, and had already made preparations for a life on the run, though he still hoped that wouldn't be necessary.
Regardless, he couldn't deny that he had gotten his money's worth. The storm wasn't just necessary to the ritual, but it was so severe that it ended up causing a power outage at the museum. Naturally, it sent the place into a lock-down as the emergency power cut on, but that just gave him a reason to ask the security guards to open doors. It allowed him to bluff his way into rooms he otherwise wouldn't have had access to, and a perfect excuse to vacate the premises. For the moment, he was above suspicion, though he knew enough to know that it would change once he didn't show up for work, and would cement itself as soon as the missing relics were discovered. But none of that mattered, his past life was already behind him.
Walking with some haste to the trunk and popped it open to reveal a thin, wire cage, the two chickens inside still and quiet. He had put them in there this morning, having taken them from his own coop, so that he wouldn't have to circle past his house on his way out of town; this was to avoid leaving any trace, or making any slip ups. He wanted to disappear, as if he simply vanished off the face of the earth.
The chickens had long since calmed down, and were now either dead or otherwise in a state of unconsciousness, but that wouldn't matter. He needed their blood more than anything else, and it ought to still be fresh, even assuming the worst. Circling around the passenger side, he opened the door and placed the small wooden box on top of the cage, and began inside the cabin after fumbling a bit with the keys.
The inside of the cabin was only slightly less pathetic than the outside, two rooms divided only by small sections of wall on either side. The door opened into a kitchen area with a counter, an ugly and rusted sink attached to a well underneath the shack, a small table and chair shoved in a corner, and worn wooden cabinets, each with hinges that creaked and squeaked uniquely among the others, as if they were keys on a piano. The second room housed only a twin-sized rickety bed and a dresser with drawers that were missing most of their knobs. Yanni wasn't particularly tall, but he still felt cramped with the shack's low ceiling and limited floor space, not to mention the sheer drabness of it all. The only decorations in either room were rugs, a large blue square in the kitchen and a small red circle in the bedroom, and the only lights were half-melted candles scattered across various flat surfaces, and through the cracks in the walls you could feel the chilled wind of a stormy Autumn and the mist that rose from the rain-soaked earth. Despite all of this, it was still the only place he felt truly at-home. Forcing open a stuck kitchen drawer, he removed a matchbox and began lighting the candles one-by-one. Some candles needed to be replaced, but he'd have to worry about that another time.
Stripping off his already-drenched clothes, he held the uniform in his hand and stared for a few moments, wondering what to do with them. He didn't need them anymore, and wearing them in public would only bring unwanted attention upon himself. There was a clothesline outside, not that it would do him any good right now, but he already had plenty of clothes. For the moment, he folded them and placed them on top of the dresser.
He opened the bottom drawer, which was already filled with clothes, and removed the ritual garb hidden underneath various pants. To assist in his "vanishing", he had taken clothes here incrementally as opposed to all at once in a suitcase, and so he was essentially already moved in. The only thing left to bring inside was his laptop, which he would probably discard anyway so that it couldn't be tracked- he didn't know if that was something that could happen, but he didn't want to take any chances. It had been a while since he had worn the old toga, stained by time, with the ornate red and gold sash, and even longer since he had worn it for its intended purpose. He sometimes wore it when he came here as it made him feel more comfortable, though never the sash. It was the leader's sash, and wearing it for something so childish was disrespectful to the family's long history. -But tonight was indeed special, and he felt his soul darken as the toga's history and responsibility weighed on him. He cast the red rug aside dramatically. His hand like a claw, he pried underneath one of the floorboards, pulling it up to reveal a steep staircase carved into stone; the light underneath barely visible from the floor.
...
The cavern was about forty feet in diameter, the curved ceiling peaked at about thirty feet, but was so cluttered with stalactites that it was functionally much lower. To the left of the staircase-tunnel from the ground floor was a pool, a pipe emerging and stretching into the rock above, leading to the sink. In the center of the room was a crystal ball with intricate glyphs and lines carved into the pedestal and floor around it in a radius of about ten feet. The room, like the cabin above, was lit by candles on the floor and wall, but, unlike the ones upstairs, these were magically lit such that the candles would burn indefinitely. The opposite side of the room was where the eye was immediately drawn: a massive marble statue of a naked young man with well-defined, angular features and muscles. His right held a lion's hide and his left a club, and the ivory statue glittered in the candle light due to the gold dust inlaid into it, mainly centered on the hide over his shoulder. At the base of the statue were offerings of fruit, drachma, and other valuables, all clean and fresh despite their age. This place held in it a certain magic that kept the offerings as pristine as when they were first given- the pomegranates looked delectable, and were perfect for eating, not that he would dare to do such a thing. Some of the offerings had been cleared to make room for a circle drawn directly in front of it, as well as the stone pedestal in its center. He opened the small box he carried with him, and examined the contents once more. It was the claw of a big cat, a lion, and appeared not only fresh, but polished like obsidian or jet.
-The claw of the Nemean Lion.
He couldn't describe the overwhelming joy he felt when it suddenly arrived at the museum, and his coworkers could only marvel as tears flowed from his eyes at the sight of it. They hadn't understood its significance, they couldn't see it for what it was, not without his knowledge or magecraft.
His family had once possessed this claw long ago, millennia, but it was lost to time, hidden and never found. He shuddered in the majesty of it, the power that radiated off of it. Naturally, such an item would garner a similar reaction from anyone, but it was far more than even that, far more than even the Clocktower would've suspected without inspection.
In most people, though it was becoming more uncommon with every year, there are three core ethereal organs that allow for the use of magecraft. Magical Circuits that spread through the body like nerves, and then two others connected to the heart and brain respectively that generate and regulate the energy contained in such circuits. However, those of Divine heritage possessed a fourth organ, simply called the Divine Core, that stored and regulated the divine aspect of the energy flowing through them. Like any organ, these would decay after death, but could also be removed, stored, and even transplanted. And, since these organs didn't exist physically, they could be transplanted into objects, not just living things. When transplanted into an object, it became known as a Divine Origin.
The ancient worshipers of Heracles, having recovered his holy corpse, had removed the Divine Core from the body and stored it in the claw for safe keeping, allowing a dual importance for the relic. Now, the essence of Heracles, his Divine Origin, was here, he was holding it, a dream come true.
With shaking hands he gingerly placed the claw on the stone pedestal. Taking two steps back, he didn't even notice the strained smile that had cracked his stoic visage. He fell to his knees and bowed, forehead to the floor, towards the pedestal and the statue behind it, and continued to fall up and down, revering the statue in dramatic fashion.
'This is what modern people don't understand', he thought to himself, 'the joy of serving others, of recognizing and revering those superior to himself.'
His heart seemed to still in his chest as he placed his hands together, closed his eyes, and began the ritual.
Yanni spoke in an ancient dialect lost to time, one that even he couldn't understand. In this language he beckoned to the Reverse Side of the World, beseeching its residents to return to the mortal plane, to return the world to the Age of Gods. He could feel the air surge with energy, but he didn't dare to open his eyes. It was as if the earth itself was responding to his calls, as if the ground was shifting beneath his knees, and his breath had turned to fire. The air swelled around him like raging rapids, and he could no longer pay attention to what he said, only his immediate environment. Having memorized the rites, the ritual continued to its conclusion without any problem except for Yanni's ever-increasing fear and discomfort.
He opened his eyes to complete darkness, the magical flames extinguished. Even so, energy filled the room, clogging his throat and impairing his ability to breathe.
-He felt a presence, and knew he wasn't alone. Gazing up, his eyes fell upon two blazing sapphires far above him. Blue energy swelled from the figure, illuminating the contours of his body. Lightning shot out from him and crackled across the walls. The magical candles once again began to come alight, and the form in front of him was illuminated in all its majesty. Awe gripped his very soul as a shaking smile came across his face, and tears touched the corners of his eyes.
It was more than he could've ever dreamed- his goal was in sight.
....