PAGAN - 412 BCE

Part 1:

In the embrace of Mount Parnon, amidst chestnut trees as aged as the myths they whisper, the village of Kastanion carves out its existence. Here, where the ground reaches towards the heavens, a community thrives, not far from the newly erected Temple of Apollo Epicurius around 412 BCE. Though most villagers speak of the temple in awe, few have an interest to lay their eyes on its grandeur. The villagers' lives are interwoven with rituals that honor Aletheia, a deity presiding over truth, rather than the brilliant Apollo.

The premier couple of Kastanion, Dorothea and Nikandros, keepers of this faith of truth, welcome each new day with an act of devotion to Aletheia. One intricately connected with the forest that surrounds them. They offer fresh chestnuts to the shrine of the goddess, a practice steeped in tradition, the origin of which has been lost, while reciting the story of Lycaon's transformation into a wolf—a tale reminding them of the thin line between the seen and the unseen.

Part 2:

However, as the seasons turn, misfortune casts its shadow over Kastanion. The chestnut trees, the village’s source of pride, bear scorched and withered fruit. Their fields lay barren, and the livestock, once full of life, succumb to unexplained pestilence. A hunger begins to take root, one that threatens to erode its foundations.

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In desperation, the villagers turn their prayers towards Aletheia, not as the benign guardian of truth, but hopefully as a deliverer from their plight. They don cerulean cloaks, faces hidden behind masks adorned with crimson eyes, and gather in a clearing surrounded by the withering chestnut trees. Their chants, a plea for mercy, rise into the night, a desperate attempt to seek divine intervention.

But their pagan ceremony does not yield the response they desire. It is not the Aletheia of their lore that appears before them. No. Instead, a colossal avatar, skin marbled blue with eyes that burn red, emerges—a manifestation of judgment. The being’s very presence shatters minds and breeds chaos. Dorothea and Nikandros are the first to see beyond the living statue, and peek at Aletheia's true form: an entity of spiraling titanic hands, each palm harboring a cycloptic eye, capable of ensnaring the minds of mortals. One by one, the villagers glimpse this terrifying truth, their sanity eroding at what lies beyond the scope of their understanding.

Part 3:

What was intended to be salvation transforms into a moment of reckoning as the villagers, confronted by this avatar, realize their pagan beliefs, their grasp of the divine, was merely superficial. The true Aletheia, revealed in their ever-encroaching madness, rules not as a guardian but as a sovereign of terror, her realm one of unimaginable truths.

When dawn breaks, Kastanion finds itself in a grim state, its essence irrevocably changed. Aletheia's avatar, a marble symbol of retribution, leaves behind a message not of deliverance but of the humility required when seeking the truth in a universe filled with maddening secrets. The village survived, barely, and is now woven into the tapestry of myth. For beneath the watchful eyes of chestnut trees on Mount Parnon, there lies a fine line between the solace of ignorance and the burden of truth—a line as delicate as that which divides night from day and the finite from the eternal.