sunslammers

1.82

The Son of Rome

After three days and four nights spent wandering the boundless lands of Thrace, we found our first true city. More than just a collection of brutal nomads and whatever burdens they could carry - like a haggard Roman legion with no clear chain of command - or a system of mountain passes and caves overflowing with hulking redheads, this was a permanent settlement. One built to last.

Unsurprisingly, it was a Macedonian addition.

Even less surpri...

1.81

The Young Griffon

On the third day, we sent the sea dog home.

The lands of Thracia were an unmarked expanse of snow capped mountain ranges and lush river valleys, with civilized settlements slim to none. My own Scarlet City had nestled itself between two mountain ranges and straddled a river, but the monuments and workings of stone that a city state required had altered that landscape in a profound way. Made it difficult to truly compare the land of my birth to th...

1.80

The Son of Rome

The Thracian kingdom could hardly be called as such. In my time I had seen some truly dilapidated capitals, and borne witness to some heinously destitute kings, but they had always carried with them a sense of primitive weight. The Celtic kings were at least properly crowned, the hulking Gauls could at least build serviceable walls, and for all that the Egyptians disgusted me in a deep and personal way, I could not deny the magnitude and grandeur of thei...

1.79

The Young Griffon

For the concept of a greater to exist, a lesser was also required to give it meaning. For a man to be notably tall, a distance notably far, a body of water notably deep, there had to be a corresponding norm that each of them surpassed. It followed, then, that for a greater mystery cult to exist, there would have to be a corresponding lesser. Something profound enough to inspire virtue, and opaque enough that no living Greek had ever u...

1.78

The Son of Rome

“The kyrios of the Raging Heaven was a Hero before he was the Tyrant riot,” Scythas spoke softly as we rode beneath the light of stars. “And before that, he was only a man. Dutiful, and later wise, but ultimately no greater or lesser than any other mortal soul.”

A half moon rose steadily up above while we traversed the Thracian countryside. Griffon led the way with his virtue, rosy pankration hands hanging like lanterns around our heads and...

1.77

The Young Griffon

Our objective in Thracia was clear. It was also nearly worthless.

A golden cup filled with spirit wine. That was all the Gadfly had given us, along with a vague marker on an endless charter of land to find it in. The belligerence in my heart urged me to take him at his most literal word, dip my toe into the vast expanse of Thracia and fill the first golden cup I found with the cheapest spirit wine available. Accounting for the time wasted sailing...

1.76

The Son of Rome

Thracia, otherwise known as the nation with no definite boundaries, was a barbaric land in every sense of the word. Its cultures were unrefined, its peoples were savages, and its treatment even of allies was brutally cruel. My father as well as Aristotle had both told me stories of the Thracian tribes when I was a boy, and the Greek perspective had differed little from the Roman perspective.

Northeast of Macedonia and separated from the Aegean Sea ...

1.75

The Young Griffon

As a boy first learning how to sail beneath my father’s watchful eye, the Eos had seemed to me a daunting vessel. She was large for what she was. Not a trireme, not even a true war galley, but larger than any trade ship. My father had designed her in the Phoenician style - rather than the four-to-one ratio of a merchant vessel, or the eight-to-one ratio of a war galley, she was six-length to one-width. Too small to be a fighter, yet too larg...

1.74 [Athis]

Athis

The Caged Dove

Life in the Rosy Dawn Cult was miserable.

Athis knew it was an ungrateful sorrow. From the very beginning, her prospects had been hopelessly bleak as a slave. That she had survived a year and then half a year again without any scars to show for it was miraculous enough already. When an initiate of a greater mystery cult considered even the natural born citizens of their city to be a lesser existence, it went without sayi...

1.73

The Son of Rome

We moved with purpose through the dock city. It was a good day for sailing, as far as I could tell - though admittedly I was far from an expert. The abundance of blue-backed tuna, mackerel, and vibrant dorado on display spoke to good fishing if nothing else. I even spotted a few mongers a bit further down the beach hauling swordfish as large as their torsos. The sight alone was enough to provoke my hunger, evoking vivid memories of the roasted filets Gri...

1.72

The Young Griffon

I collapsed onto my back in the sand, breathing heavily. My body ached fiercely, satisfying as it throbbed. I ran my tongue over my bottom lip and prodded the split flesh. Sol had given it to me good with the first punch, I’d allow him that much. Of course, I’d given him twice as much in return.

I swallowed down blood and saliva, stretched my arms over my head and sighing as tension unwound from my body along with my soul.

“I think I ...

1.71

The Son of Rome

Having aired his frustration, Griffon seemed to shake the worst of his foul mood. Whether it was relief after admitting it, or irritation with himself for letting it show so clearly, he throttled his violent intent and restrained himself to his usual provocations. We both took a dip in the Ionian, and then while we waited for Scythas to secure us a ship we spread the map out on the sand and discussed the task ahead.

“Bakkhos lived a full life, if...

1.70

The Young Griffon

Olympia‘s western dock town was as I remembered it, though it felt downright decrepit after weeks spent in the grandest city in the free Mediterranean. Stout wooden constructions were the standard out here, no amethyst-veined marble or towering bronze doors. It was refreshing, in a way. The beaches were teaming with fishmongers and their patrons, a cool breeze of waning winter offset by the cheerful warmth of unclouded sun.

The port’s rubble ...

1.69

The Son of Rome

Anastasia‘s shadow pulled away deliberately from mine beneath the wood-carved table, an active separation that was impossible to see and nearly impossible to feel. I nearly hadn’t noticed it at all, the sensation for some reason so much deeper now than the last time I remembered feeling it that I’d almost mistaken it for something else entirely. If Anastasia’s eyes hadn’t given her away, smoldering flames flickering in response to Griffon‘s s...

1.68

The Young Griffon

I leaned back.

Six Heroic cultivators crowded around the table alongside Sol and I. They had been at the furthest edges of the room when the story began, but now each of them leaned forward on elbows and crossed arms to get as close to the fading papyrus as they could.

In the dull silence that followed the story Chilon had gifted me, the world seemed to lose a certain quality that I hadn’t known it possessed before. Without the warmth of ...

1.67 [Aetos - END]

Youngest of the Convocation

Tribulation lightning.

There were as many explanations for it as there were thinking cultures on the earth. From the truly ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and golden Egypt, to the lowest barbarian hovels in the east and west, every cultivator knew a singular truth. Regardless of what we cultivated, how we cultivated, where we did it or why. One thing remained the same.

We were all reaching madly up to he...