The city of Delos was an amazing sight to see. The city was filled with colorful streamers and brightly lit lanterns. People crowded the streets, singing and dancing. At the center of the city was a grand amphitheatre in the shape of a half circle filled with various performers and musicians.
Extending from the amphitheatre, stalls stretched across the sides of the streets, displaying all sorts of goods, from clothes and jewelry, to exotic beasts and rare materials.
As they had only just begun playing, Hades and Ares had no funds to purchase anything, but it was still an amazing sight. Hades stopped to view many of the stalls that sold jewelry and other accessories. His attention could be caught by anything sparkly or shiny.
Meanwhile, Ares and Thanatos paused at a few of the stalls that displayed weapons and armor. Ares even found a large broadsword that caught his eye, but when he glanced at the pricetag, he could only sigh.
Suddenly, a colorfully decorated shop came into view. Beautiful women dressed in extremely revealing clothes stood at the entrance, enticing men to come in to the shop. Hades turned towards it, confusion written on his face. "Hey, Ares. What kind of place is that?"
When Ares turned to see what building Hades was referring to, he had to stop himself from laughing. While he knew that Hades seemed fairly naive, he didn't think that he would be that innocent. With the sign above the shop entrance marked 'Fox's Kiss Hotel' and the skimpily clad women, it wasn't hard for Ares to figure out what the shop was. "Wow, I didn't think they'd even have these in the game." He mumbled under his breath. "That is a..." He paused, then quickly changed the subject. "Oh look! There's an amphitheatre up ahead. Want to go check it out?"
Hades nodded once and moved to quickly follow Ares through the crowd, with Thanatos following close behind. With the additional height that came from his elven form, Hades could easily see above the heads of the crowd. Because of both their heights, and Thanatos' demonic features, people tended to make way for them, allowing the duo to follow Ares through the crowded streets fairly easily.
Seeing this, Ares could only swear mentally and curse himself for not altering his height at all. He unfortunately had to push and shove his way through the constant steam of people.
As they entered the semi-circular amphitheatre, they were immediately surrounded by the sound of music. A large group of musicians played their instruments while several dancers performed on the stage.
The music being played was quite cheerful, and brought up mind the feeling of a celebration. The dancers spun and leaped to the beat, in perfect synchronization with each other. All around the theater, several other people were seated, watching the performance happily.
Noticing a few people on the stage, Hades spoke up. "Some of the performers are players." Ares turned to stare at him. "How do you know that?" Hades gestured at a few of the performers. "Don't you see the usernames?"
Ares quickly pulled up his status window to check his game settings. "Oh, hahaha, I had the setting turned off." He grew embarrassed when he thought back to the time he accidentally got Thanatos and Hades mixed up.
Glancing at the stage with the setting now enabled, Ares could see that the performers weren't all NPCs as he had first thought. Instead, two of the musicians were actually players.
Once the song had ended, Hades walked over to the other players to introduce himself. "Hello, I'm Hades." Ares quickly followed suit, and Thanatos moved to follow Hades.
The two musician players, a handsome blonde man and a shorter brunette woman, greeted them with a friendly smile. They introduced themselves as Apollo and Euterpe, with the classes of archer and bard respectively.
The two quickly explained that they were participating in a quest that they had triggered when they had asked if it was possible for them to join in on the performance. The quest gave them rewards based on their talent shown during the performance. They both knew how to play the instruments in reality, and it seemed the talent had been brought with them into the game.
Soon, the four players were sharing details about their experiences in the short bit of time they had been playing the game. Hades and Ares shared a few details about the quest they had received from the old man, though Hades left out the treasure maps, along with the fact that he had revived the three harpies and they were currently flying somewhere high overhead.
Suddenly, a large parade of costumed people entered the amphitheatre, bearing various masks. "What's going on now?" Hades watched as the masked actors jumped onto the stage, quickly shooing the rest of the musicians and dancers away.
One of the masked men paused, lifting up his mask, that resembled an elderly man with demonic horns, slightly to explain. "You must not be from around here. This is a festival for one of our gods, Boedromios. Following the ancient traditions, at the end of the first day of the festival, the people with masks like mine take part in a big show." The masked man quickly rushed to join his companions on the stage.
The four players, along with Thanatos decided to stay and watch the show. They quickly took their seats as others began to file into the amphitheatre, rushing to get good seats. Hades stared at everything with awe. Sometimes, he had to remind himself that it was all a part of a virtual game. He didn't expect the game to even have a festival being celebrated in one of the cities, especially since the game was still in the beta-testing phase.
A loud shout brought him out of his musings as several of the masked actors stepped forward, while the rest stepped back to form a semicircle around the few in the front.