sunslammers

1.52 [Jason]

Hero of the Alabaster Depths

What distinguished a hero from a man?

[Leave it be, leave it be, leave it be.]

Back then, he’d been certain that he knew. Every time they took up oars, each of those among his crew, and heaved against the fickle waves. The tang of the air and the rolling of the ocean, randy sea shanties and laughter filling the sails. On days like those, he could have sworn that his epic was just over the horizon.

But all he’d ...

1.51

The Son of Rome

Jason fell to one knee, staring down at the mess I’d made of Selene’s floor. For her part, the Scarlet Oracle only slapped me lightly on the shoulder for the damage I’d done and rolled her eyes when I mouthed an apology.

“Solus,” Jason said hoarsely. “I’m sorry, I - there’s no excuse for my cowardice. Nothing I can say-”

“What cowardice?” I asked him.

He looked up at me, his eyes still wide. The ocean-blue flames b...

1.50

The Young Griffon

The ideal of the institutions that we called the greater mystery cults was camaraderie in pursuit of greater understanding. These were learning places, yes, as well as fonts of overwhelming strength in times of strife. But their central purpose was not to uplift, nor to make war.

The mystery cults were a timeless reminder that every man was equally worthless under the sun.

“You’re certain that you can’t tell me anything about it, seni...

1.49

The Son of Rome

Solus. The wind carried my name to me, a whisper with no visible source. I grunted and stood up, shrugging the weight of command off my shoulders.

“Ninety-three?” Selene asked, disappointed. She was perched on her scarlet tripod, legs kicking beneath her while she kept count of my repetitions. “I was sure you’d break a hundred today.” One hundred repetitions of any given exercise was the mark Socrates had set for me and my physic...

1.48

The Young Griffon

“The old man you’re here to punch,” whispered the little king, Leo, “it’s the Gadfly, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“We’ll help you,” the little king decided. “Won’t we, Pyr?” His loyal sentinel nodded.

“I don’t recall asking for your help.”

The boys shared a look behind my back, still clinging to me like monkeys as I ascended through the various estates of the Raging Heaven Cult.

“Where we’re...

1.47

The Son of Rome

“You were right to seek out Aristotle first.”

I watched death lance towards my heart, a spear with a dull wooden tip that was better suited for a stage play than combat. And yet the rules of nature clung to its tip, and I perceived its simple truth through the lense of my Sophic sense.

A man dies from a spear through the heart.

I knew, like I knew that the skies above were blue on a cloudless day, that his spear of dull oak...

1.46

The Young Griffon

“Lio! Teach-”

I slapped the little king upside his head. He yelped.

“When did I say you could call me that?”

“Griffon,” he amended, rubbing at the spot where I’d struck him. “Teach us.”

“I refuse.”

“What- You can’t refuse!”

“And why not?”

“Because he’s the king,” his older brother said, doing his best to impart authority through a ten year old’s voice. “When the king ma...

1.45

The Son of Rome

When I was a young boy, my father took me into the city of Rome to see a marching band.

“There are as many approaches to cultivation as there are stars in the sky,” Socrates spoke, his voice a distant thing.

It was my first clear memory of the great city. I had grown up sheltered even by the standards of a young patrician. My mother rarely let me out of her sight, such was her anxiety, and so I languished in my early years with only the m...

1.44

The Young Griffon

“Observe,” I whispered, as I hunted the Huntsman, ”the coward in his natural state.”

Lefteris’ nameless boys crept after me, bolts of forest green cloth wrapped around their heads to hide their distinctive red hair. There was no hiding their eyes, though, wide and intense as they tracked the Heroic Huntsman himself. Their focus was commendable, though their tracking skills left much to be desired.

I smiled as I saw a muscle in the...

1.43

The Son of Rome

As a young patrician of Rome, and later an attendant to the general of the west, I had grown used to being in the presence of powerful people. Those with physical power, those with political power, up and down the spectrum of influence within the Republic.

“Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine,” Selene counted off dutifully while I pressed against the gold and ivory mosaic floors of the late kyrios’ courtyard. ”Forty!”

I let go o...

1.42

The Young Griffon

I wondered what Sol was up to.

”I swear by the Physician, and all the gods and goddesses as my witnesses, that, according to my ability and judgement, I will keep this oath in this contract.“

I laid my hands in Anastasia’s, the backs of my hands pressing into her open palms. She stared into my eyes and I stared right back in hers. She was uncharacteristically serious, the somber glow of her caustic green eyes casting shadows ...

1.41

The Son of Rome

I realized very quickly that my time as Gaius’ shadow had spoiled me. My conception of what a mentor - or a patron - was, had been heavily skewed by years on campaign. In the legions, every lesson was eminently applicable to the task at hand. The skills taught were concrete, readily contextualized, and though they weren’t all easily learned, the reason I needed to know them was always clear.

As I invoked gravitas as viciously as I coul...

Interlude 3.2 [Myron Aetos]

The Little Kyrios

In the aftermath of his discourse with his eldest cousin, Myron realized something that should have been evident to him from the beginning. Actions had consequences. He’d been enlightened, that was true, but his parents didn’t see it in quite the same light that he did.

For an entire week, Myron languished in his mother’s care. He wasn’t allowed to see his eldest cousin, let alone speak to him or seek his guidance, and most of his time wa...

Interlude 3.1 [Myron Aetos]

The Little Kyrios

The first day after Lio left the Rosy Dawn was the longest, and the most difficult. There were tears, anguish, frustrations, and above all else a horrible fear. After that first day, they stifled their tears and hid their anguish, putting the fear for their cousin out of their minds as best they could. The second day was not easier, but it passed quicker.

The third day was even quicker than that. Finally, they made it through the first week. And ...

Interlude 2.2 [Old 'Zalus] [OLYMPIA ARC: PART 1 END]

Old ‘Zalus

The room was large but modestly furnished, barren by the standards of most made men. Its floors were polished marble, pure and unblemished by gemstone veins. What furniture that there was, a massive cypress bed frame and side tables of the same wood, was all finely kept but notable for its lack of adornment. There were no paintings, no statues or sacred treasures. It was as humble a home as any man could have.

And yet, that did not change what it was....

1.40

The Son of Rome

“Tell me, Solus, what do Romans do for fun?” Selene asked, resting on her stomach in the late kyrios‘ bed while I paced slowly around the room. Her legs kicked idly behind her. We had been speaking for hours while I waited for Sorea to return with news of Griffon’s survival.

The Scarlet Oracle was borderline ravenous for tales of life outside of the Half-Step City. She eagerly listened to my description of the city of Rome as a Roman knew i...

1.39

The Young Griffon

The second rank of the Sophic Realm felt much like the first.

The difference was enormous by the standards of a Civic cultivator, of course. My reservoir of pneuma - the sea of my vital soul - had deepened an outrageous amount. The saying went that one rank above was worth ten below, and though my perceptions were skewed by excessive blood loss and a staggering depletion of strength, that felt nearly in line with what I had experienced.

I h...

1.38 [Lefteris]

The Gold-String Guardian

Names were strange things.

Eleftherios. Lefteris for short. Neither name had been given to him at birth, but his mother had told him from a young age, over and over until he was old enough for the sentiment to stick, that his name was too dangerous for the world to know. That it was a secret between the two of them that had to be kept at all costs.

They moved often, early on. Each place was a new home, and each home meant a new name....

VS 1.37

The Son of Rome

“Arrogant, belligerent child,” Socrates muttered as he stalked out of the rugged chamber with its shard of tongues. “I’ll box his ears until they fall off. Split foundations. Split foundations!”

For a long moment, I continued to stare at the shifting text chiseled into the man-size tablet, incomprehensible to me with both eyes open. I still felt that primordial shifting behind my eyes, in my skull, even in my tongue. But the bulk of ...

1.36

The Young Griffon

What is the nature of tribulation?

Back when I had leapt from the top of the eastern mountain range with Sol at my side, in the throes of my ascension to the Sophic Realm, I had experienced a moment of perfect weightlessness, freedom in the truest sense. And then, when reality had asserted itself - as it always did - my stomach had risen up into my throat, a giddy and exhilarating sensation in its own way. It was enough to put a smile on my face ...

1.35

The Son of Rome

“Bastard,” I snarled. “Vile old wretch. Low life latrine digger. I’ll put you on a cross.”

“I’m sure you will,” Socrates said, unimpressed. My vitriol did not slow his stride a single pace, nor loosen his iron grip on the back of my neck.

We walked in lock step down Kaukoso Mons. Socrates had evidently decided against a repeat performance of our rapid ascent, and with nothing else available I had no choice but to use ...

1.34

The Young Griffon

When I was seven years old I called upon Nikolas to face me in the marble octagon. He was exactly twice my age at that time, and his cultivation was exactly one realm above my own.

A Citizen of the fifth rank, challenging a Philosopher of the fifth rank. It was utterly absurd, and everyone involved had known it. Nikolas’ peers and his followers had laughed and urged him up. It was all a game to them, of course, a play fight between the elder an...

1.33

The Son of Rome

We flew.

There was no other way to describe it. The old man in his rags of unassuming filth held tight to my hair and pulled me up to heaven, faster than sound could travel. The city of Olympia grew small beneath us in the blink of an eye.

No man can ever truly fly, of course. That had been hammered into my head long ago, as it had into every cultivator. It was the core conceit of those that pursued divinity. A natural desire, one felt anytim...

1.32

The Young Griffon

“Right, you just happened to cross paths after the funeral, and just happened to come to an accord on the topic of insurrection out of the goodness of your hearts,” Elissa said skeptically, throwing a wet towel at Kyno. He didn’t bother opening his eyes, reclined as he was at the edge of the hot bath, only grunting as the towel slapped against his face.

“To think that you marked us all from the start,” Jason murmured, shaking h...

1.31

The Unkindness

“Violence is an art.”

The Heroic huntsman, clad in his midnight black rags, twitched and looked over his shoulder. As he did, he palmed another man’s head as easily as one would an apple. The hunting crow regarded the hungry raven on the right, lounging above, in a dip between two conjoined archways.

The raven reached up, twisting his hand as if to grasp the moon the same way the hunting crow had grasped his unfortunate prey. As...

VS 1.30 [Scythas]

Hero of the Scything Squall

Slayer of monsters. Champion of humanity.

Scythas hadn’t been either of those things in a very long time. These days, he hardly remembered what it felt like to be that man.

The Tyrant Aleuas, as a venerated elder of the Raging Heaven Cult, enjoyed the privileges of his own estate at the foot of Kaukoso Mons. A winding series of cobblestone buildings with sloping clay-shingled roofs that flared out at the edges, with several cour...

1.29

The Son of Rome

We parted ways after the immediate plans had been made for sundown, Griffon and Elissa heading back to the ruined residential streets while Jason and I made for the Raging Heaven.

For the most part, Jason was quiet. Every so often he would ask me a question that I had no desire to answer, and so I wouldn’t. Questions about the demons of Carthage, about the campaigns against them, and about my role in those campaigns. I had offered both of them as...

1.28

The Young Griffon

As a child grew old in body and soul, walking that crucial transitory bridge between adolescence and adulthood, the first iteration of their identity finally cemented itself. In those formative years a human being laid the foundation for who they would be in their highest highs and lowest lows. Just as the bridges between realms were the most crucial for a cultivator’s development, so too were those formative years critical for the mundane growth tha...

1.27

The Son of Rome

Griffon and I made our rounds through the streets of Olympia, seeing what there was to see and balancing political intrigue with simple curiosity. The Half-Step City reminded me of Rome in many ways, more than Alikos had. The people, visibly gathered from all over the continent. The energy of ambition, felt in every conversation. And most of all, the tongues spoken.

My mentor had taught me the Alikoan dialect well. I hadn’t had much use for it in...

1.26

The Young Griffon

“Ho, so the young aristocrat slipped away from punishment after all,” I mused, walking through the streets of Olympia. “Leaving his subordinates to suffer the full consequences. How surprising.” The markets were stirring to full wakefulness as the dawn broke, society’s undesirables crawling back to their shadows.

For our parts, Sol and I had changed back into our daywear after a thorough cleansing at one of the city’s many public bath...