Greek Realm / Mortal World (Mist Boundary of Theskar): Unknown Date.
It was a ugly day for the world.
Not because the sky was grey.
Not because the wind coming off the coast was sharp enough to make weak men hunch their shoulders and call it the wrath of gods.
Not because the mist beyond theskar's boundary still clung to the trees like something dead had learned how to breathe and refused to stop.
No.
It was ugly because dawn had arrived and with dawn came decisions.
And decisions, from what I knew in both lives now, were usually just prettier names for the kind of mistakes that buried people faster than graves could be dug by man.
(Kairo's POV)
Kairo was currently standing near the outer fire pits of theskar with a half eaten strip of smoked meat in one hand and a ugly look on his face while staring at the pale morning mist rolling through the trees and thought "Yeah…this looks exactly like the type of place where people vanish and then the village blames spirits instead of their own stupidity."
Kairo had slept badly.
Not because he was afraid.
Fear was useful. He had no problem with fear.
No, he had slept badly because the people of theskar were loud sleepers, louder whisperers and even louder watchers.
Every time he had closed his eyes one of them had been staring from across the fire.
Like he was either a miracle.
Or a problem.
Most likely both.
A couple steps away myrine was tightening the leather wrappings on one of her forearms with her one good eye half narrowed and a spear leaning against her shoulder while theron stood near the gate with that same holy bitch face he seemed to have been born with.
Halion wasn't there yet.
Of course he wasn't.
Men like halion never arrived early.
They arrived when everyone else was already uncomfortable enough to call it timing.
The ash eyed girl from the hall last night was also there.
She sat on a low stump near the wall with her silver bowl in her lap and her fingers moving slowly through the water inside it like she was petting something invisible.
Kairo stared at her and asked "Does she do anything else or is staring into soup her full time occupation."
Myrine didn't look up and said flatly "That's thaleia. She hears what the mist doesn't say."
Kairo chewed his smoked meat and asked "Can she hear how annoying that sounds too."
Thaleia didn't look offended. Didn't even look up, but said softly without lifting her head "Yes."
That made kairo pause for a second and then bark out a short laugh through his nose and think "Well…at least one of them has a sense of humor"
Theron looked like he wanted to put a spear through his tongue.
Good.
It was comforting when a man's face matched his usefulness.
Myrine finally finished tightening the wrapping and looked at kairo and said "You're smiling again."
Kairo swallowed the last of the smoked meat and said with a shrug "I'm alive, fed and walking into cursed woods with idiots I don't trust. What's not to smile about."
"You talk too much." Said theron from by the gate.
Kairo looked at him and said pleasantly "And you talk too little for someone with such a loud face that screams be my bitch."
Theron's jaw tightened.
Myrine sighed.
Thaleia's fingers paused in the bowl.
Halion finally arrived.
Of course.
Perfectly calm.
Perfectly clean.
Pale blue robes untouched by mud like the ground itself knew better than to stain him.
He carried the same carved staff from last night and his pale grey eyes moved over everyone once before settling on the mist boundary beyond the gate.
"Open it." Said halion calmly.
*CREAK*
The gate opened.
Cold mist rolled in low across the dirt like something invited that had no intention of behaving.
Halion stepped forward first.
Theron followed.
Myrine lifted her spear and jerked her chin once at kairo while saying flatly "Try not to die too early."
Kairo smiled and said "You say the sweetest things to me in the morning."
Then he followed her through the gate.
…..
The mist boundary was not a wall.
Not really.
It was worse than that.
Walls were honest.
They told you where danger started.
This place didn't.
It just slowly stopped being normal.
The grass became thinner.
The trees grew black streaks under the bark.
The air tasted metallic.
Birdsong vanished.
Even the sound of footsteps got swallowed too quickly like the forest didn't approve of being walked through and was trying to eat the evidence.
Kairo kept one hand near the rust knife at his waist and his narrowed eyes moving constantly while halion and theron led the way toward a line of carved boundary stakes half buried in wet roots and old ash.
There were twelve of them from what kairo could count.
All rough cut wood.
All wrapped in white feathers and bronze thread.
All carved with storm marks.
And three of them had black rot climbing up from the base like veins.
"There." Said thaleia softly from behind them.
Halion stopped.
Theron frowned and looked at the nearest corrupted stake with a ugly expression and said "It spread further."
"No shit sherlock." Said kairo calmly while walking past him a little to crouch by the wood and looked closer.
Black residue clung to the carved lines.
Not smoke.
Not blood.
Not sap.
Something between all three.
It moved too slow to see unless you stared at it and too wrong to mistake for anything natural.
Kairo lifted one finger and hovered it above the rot without touching and thought "This isn't just infection"
It felt organized.
Hungry.
Like it knew what it was eating and had decided wood was only the beginning.
Halion looked at him and asked "What do you see."
Kairo didn't look up and said "A bad sign."
"You're full of insight today." Said theron coldly.
Kairo glanced at him and said with a scoff "And you're still alive despite yourself. Miracles everywhere."
Myrine snorted once under her breath.
Theron's face got uglier.
Kairo couldn't be any happier.
Halion crouched beside the stake and pressed two fingers lightly against one of the storm carvings.
For a moment nothing happened.
Then pale light spread through the carved lines.
*CRRRRK*
A faint crack of white electricity jumped across the stake and the black rot recoiled from it like flesh flinching from fire.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
But then it came back.
Slowly.
Not retreating.
Learning.
Kairo saw it first and said with squinted eyes "Your lightning hurts it."
Halion nodded once.
"But not enough." Said kairo with a sigh.
Halion's expression shift just slightly.
Not much.
Just enough.
Enough for a smart man to know he had hit something real.
Theron said sharply "It is corruption. Corruption can be purged."
Kairo stood up and looked at him and asked "Then why is it still here."
Theron gripped his spear harder.
Thaleia stirred the silver bowl once and said softly "Because it was invited."
That made everybody go still.
Even the mist seemed to pause.
Myrine looked at her sharply and asked "What do you mean invited."
Thaleia lifted her pale eyes from the bowl and said in that same quiet voice "Storm marked. Rot marked. They touched the same place."
Kairo looked from her to the stake and thought "There it is"
Not separate problems.
Same path.
Different footprints.
Halion's pale eyes narrowed and he asked "You are certain."
Thaleia's fingers moved through the water again and said "No. I am afraid."
That answered enough.
Fear was honest.
More honest than certainty most of the time.
Kairo stepped closer to the corrupted stake again and looked around the surrounding tree line with narrowed eyes and said "If this thing spreads by contact then one beast shouldn't have made it this far alone."
Myrine immediately caught on and asked "You think something drove it."
"I think something made a path." Said kairo calmly.
Theron scoffed and said "Based on what."
Kairo pointed at the ground.
The wet leaves.
The roots.
The earth around the stake had been churned, but not by paws alone.
There were impressions there.
Half washed by mist and damp.
Not boots.
Not animal tracks.
Dragged wood maybe. Or a sledge.
Or something carried on poles.
Myrine crouched and pressed her fingers against the disturbed earth and her one eye hardened a little while saying "He's right."
Theron looked annoyed enough to bite through bronze.
Halion rose slowly to his feet and said "Follow it."
No one argued.
Even theron knew when authority had finished tolerating his stupidity.
…..
The trail led deeper.
Not far.
But far enough that the boundary stakes disappeared behind the trees and theskar started feeling like a rumor instead of a place.
Kairo walked a little behind halion now with myrine near his left and theron half a step ahead like he was trying to prove his courage to the leaves.
The forest got worse the deeper they went.
Trees with bark splitting open in long black seams.
Roots veined with rot.
Dead birds hanging from branches without any sign of what had killed them.
A deer carcass half collapsed into itself like the flesh had decided to give up before the bones did.
Kairo looked at it once and thought "Yeah…something is definitely breeding rot on purpose"
Then he smelled it.
Rain.
Not fresh rain.
Not coastal rain.
Divine rain.
That same smell from the hall.
Myrine noticed it too.
Kairo saw it in the slight narrowing of her eye and the way her hand shifted on the spear shaft.
Good.
She wasn't stupid.
They reached a small clearing maybe twenty heartbeats later.
And there it was.
Not a shrine exactly.
Not a camp either.
Something between both.
A rough wooden frame had been built between four trees and wrapped in storm cloth now stained black at the edges.
Bronze bowls sat around it.
Feathers.
Fish bones.
Burnt honey.
Animal hearts.
And in the center of it all stood a single carved figure of pale wood.
A crude man shape with no face.
Lightning carved down one side.
Black rot climbing up the other.
Kairo stared at it and said thought "Well…that's not good"
Theron stepped forward first and said with disgust "Blasphemy."
Halion didn't move.
Didn't speak.
Just stared with pale grey eyes that were reflecting too much again.
Thaleia's bowl started trembling in her hands.
"Was this ours." Asked myrine quietly with confusion.
"No." Said halion without looking away.
That was worse.
Because if it wasn't theirs, it meant somebody else had been working in the mist.
Somebody mortal.
Somebody close.
Somebody stupid enough or desperate enough to mix storm offerings with corruption.
Kairo walked slowly around the edge of the clearing with his eyes moving over everything and thought "This wasn't made by priests"
Too rough.
Too fast.
Too afraid.
This was made by people trying to bargain with two things at once and hoping whichever one won would remember the effort.
That was human enough to disgust him immediately.
The air changed.
It dropped.
Not temperature.
Weight.
Like the clearing had suddenly become aware of them.
Kairo stopped moving.
Myrine did too.
Thaleia gasped softly.
Theron turned with his spear raised.
Halion lifted his staff.
The effigy in the center cracked.
*CRACK*
Black liquid ran down the lightning carving.
The bowls around it started trembling.
Then screaming came from the trees.
Not one scream.
Several.
Human.
Broken.
Ragged.
And fast.
Something rushed the clearing from three sides at once.
Four figures.
No.
Five.
People once maybe.
Not now.
Skin split black at the throat and joints.
Eyes milky.
Teeth bared.
Storm cloth tied around their waists and wrists like they had once belonged to the settlement or one like it.
The first one hit theron.
*BANG*
He drove his spear through its chest on instinct and lightning cracked down the shaft.
*CRRRACK*
The thing convulsed.
Didn't die.
Just kept clawing at him until halion lifted one hand and sent a pale bolt through its skull.
*BOOOOM*
It dropped smoking.
*Boom*
The second lunged for thaleia.
Kairo moved before he thought.
Step in.
Knife low.
Up through the ribs.
*SCHLICK*
The thing twisted toward him with a mouth full of black foam and kairo saw enough intelligence in its ruined eyes to hate it immediately.
It grabbed his shoulder.
Hard.
Too hard.
Kairo slammed one of his miasma stones into its mouth on instinct again.
*BOOOM*
Black smoke burst out through its eye sockets and he kicked it off him and stabbed the knife into its throat.
*SCHLICK*
Myrine was already fighting the third.
No wasted movement.
Just ugly, efficient work.
Her spear took it in the side.
Then the knee.
Then the mouth.
She was better than most men kairo had ever seen and he liked her more every second for it.
The fourth and fifth came together.
One toward halion.
One toward kairo again.
Theron recovered first and shouted "DOWN."
Lightning jumped from the bronze ring at his wrist in a jagged arc.
*CRRRACK*
It tore through one creature's spine and blew apart the corrupted effigy behind it in the same instant.
*BOOOOM*
The clearing shook.
Black liquid sprayed.
Thaleia screamed.
Because the moment the effigy broke, the rot didn't die.
It moved.
All of it.
Every black strand.
Every drop.
Every stain.
It rushed toward halion's staff.
Not away from it.
Toward it.
"MOVE." Said kairo loudly.
Halion did.
Barely.
The black rot wrapped around the bottom of the staff and hissed like something trying to climb.
Halion slammed the end of it into the ground and a burst of pale lightning exploded outward.
*BOOOOOOM*
The clearing lit up white.
The remaining corrupted bodies burst apart like rotten fruit.
*SPLAT* *SPLAT*
For a second nobody moved.
The smoke cleared.
Kairo was breathing hard with black blood on his sleeve again.
Myrine had one hand braced on her spear and blood on her cheek that wasn't hers.
Theron looked furious and shaken.
Thaleia had dropped to one knee with the silver bowl clutched to her chest.
And halion.
Halion was staring at the black mark now burned into the lower length of his staff.
A spiral.
Black at the center.
White at the edge.
Storm and rot twisted together.
Kairo saw it and thought "There it is. Proof"
Not rumor.
Not theory.
Proof.
Zeus's influence and corruption had touched.
Whether by accident or design, it didn't matter anymore.
The hall smell.
The boundary.
The effigy.
The staff.
Same thread.
Different knots.
Myrine was the first to say it out loud.
"WHAT IN THE HELLS WAS THAT." Said myrine loudly with surprise.
Halion didn't answer immediately.
That was answer enough.
Theron looked from the mark on the staff to the ruined clearing and said with a shaken anger "This is contamination. Someone brought a cursed thing into a storm site."
"No." Said kairo calmly while wiping black blood off his knife and onto the grass.
Theron snapped toward him and said "You don't know that."
Kairo looked him dead in the eyes and said "Actually I do."
Kairo pointed at the burned mark on halion's staff.
"If the rot hated the storm it would've fled it. It didn't. It recognized it. It wanted it." Said kairo plainly.
The silence after that was real.
Heavy.
Honest.
Myrine stared at halion.
Thaleia slowly rose from her knee with wide pale eyes and said softly "They are being tied together."
Theron looked like he wanted that to be a lie badly enough to fight it with his bare hands.
Halion was silent for a long moment and finally said "Nobody speaks of this outside the hall."
Kairo smiled immediately.
Not because it was funny.
Because secrecy was fear with a better cloak on it.
And fear meant leverage.
Myrine's eye narrowed.
Theron had a angry look on his face and said sharply "You would hide this."
Halion turned to him and said in a voice that could've frozen boiling water "I would contain panic until I understand the hand behind it."
That shut him up.
Kairo filed that away too.
Noted: Halion is not blind.
Just cautious.
Maybe smart enough to be dangerous for real.
[DING!]
[Main Mission Update]
[Mission 2. = Learn where zeus's forces are gathering]
[Progress = High]
[Additional note: Contact confirmed between storm influence and miasma corruption]
[Continue observation]
Kairo didn't react outwardly.
Just tucked the rust knife away and looked around the ruined clearing one last time.
One of the dead corrupted figures had rolled enough for him to see the neck clearly.
There was a brand there.
Not a storm mark.
Not fully.
A half finished spiral struck through by a crude lightning line.
Home made.
Recent.
Mortal.
Kairo crouched for exactly one second, memorized it and thought "Somebody in theskar is already deeper in this than they should be"
Interesting.
Halion turned toward the path back and said "We return now."
"And the bodies." Said myrine with a sigh.
"Burn them." Said halion Immediately.
Theron moved immediately like he was grateful to be given something simple enough for his skull to handle.
Thaleia looked sick.
Kairo just watched the black smoke rise when the first corpse caught on fire and thought "Yeah. This place is rotting faster than they know"
…..
The walk back to theskar was much quieter.
Not because anyone had calmed down.
Because nobody liked what silence was saying.
Myrine fell into step beside kairo halfway back and didn't look at him while saying flatly "You saw it faster than the rest of us."
Kairo shrugged and said with a yawn "I don't trust blessings. They rot faster than curses most of the time."
Myrine actually looked at him this time.
A long look.
Not soft.
Not suspicious either.
Weighing.
Measuring.
"You're either useful or a disaster." Said myrine calmly as she gazed upon the horizon.
Kairo smiled and asked "Can I be both."
Myrine's mouth moved slightly. Barely while saying "Probably."
Kairo liked that answer more than he should've.
Ahead of them halion never looked back once.
But kairo knew he was thinking.
Good.
Let him think.
Thinking men were easier to trap than proud ones.
You just had to give them enough truth to walk into the wrong conclusion on their own.
By the time the settlement walls came into view through the mist kairo already knew three things for certain.
One.
Zeus's influence had reached theskar.
Two.
The corruption in the woods had touched that influence somehow.
And three.
Somebody inside those walls already knew more than they were pretending to know.
The gate opened.
People rushed toward them from inside.
Questions.
Fear.
Noise.
Too much of all three.
Kairo ignored most of it and glanced once toward the central hall where storm cloth still hung and bronze bowls still waited and thought with a ugly little smile "Yeah. This place is going to get very interesting very soon"
Far above him where no mortal eye could see, black mist shifted once.
And something watching through meaning smiled without a face.
…
THE END…