Caesar and I were about equal in power and ability, if I had to contend with just him and his Legions, I thought my chances of prevailing were rather good. The problem is the man was a toad, and the minute I had decapitated the General, he had ordered his hidden troops to attack.
That in and of itself was expected, but then he invoked his Olympic champions, Furies that were sworn to protect any Caesar, Senate member, and the ruling Emperor, Pisistratus.
The Furies were similar in nature to the Wild Hunt, able to be called and unleashed on Oathbreakers. And although they were considered minor goddesses, they could still be directed. Caesar had invoked Tisiphone, the embodiment of vengeance and destruction.
She was pale, her skin as flawless as any Seelie or Unseelie. Her eyes deep pools of the darkest night that contained and reflected the void and spoke of her relationship as a daughter of Nyx, Goddess of the Night. Tisiphone wore a dress drenched in the blood of her victims. Wet squelches followed her movement as the sounds of dripping blood splatter fell to the granite stone of Caesar's palace.
The Sidhe Redcaps had evolved with a similar effect. They had first been named redcaps based on a practice of their warriors, dipping their hand in the blood of their enemies and smearing it on their heads. Neit the Tuatha de Danaan Goddess of war had become enamored by that practice and gave it permanence. A constant flow of blood that was released from their heads, the rivulets running down their face only to be re-absorbed. It was a stark reminder of the delight they take in slaughter and Neit's approval of the practice.
Her opening attack caught me off guard and almost cost me my life. Unlike the Sidhe, the other Pantheons made judicious use of silver and iron for weapons. The Sidhe could use silver, but iron was poison to most of our people, gremlins being the sole exception. But where Tisiphone held sway and domain over vengeance and destruction, I embodied and controlled the domain of metal. Metal in all of its forms including the iron that was so deadly to most of my people.
That ability granted me the same immunity as the gremlins, for it would be inconceivable for any element of my Domain to poison me. Tisiphone attacked using steel daggers, crafted by Hephaestus. They had been enchanted to align with her affinities and the flickering auras of her attributes played along each knife's edge. But while Hephaestus might be the greatest Blacksmith in existence, his power was limited to the ability to form metal.
My relationship with metal was so much deeper, and as Tisiphone prepared to strike again, aiming to thrust those daggers into my heart, my magic called the metal. Part iron, part adamantium, threaded with Silinium, there was no part of the daggers that were not mine to control, and so the metal responded to my call.
The enchantment Hephaestus had imbued on the daggers, the artistry that he had exhibited could not stand before my command, and the daggers simply ceased to exist. Instead, they formed shields that blocked Tisiphone's attack, shields that moved at my command.
I invoked [Shield Bash], one of my martial skills, and commanded the shield to slam into the Fury, sending her crashing into Caesar and destroying his throne in the process. My next move might have seemed cowardly to those watching, but I couldn't care less what Olympians thought.
I turned and ran, opening walls easily as the gold also responded to my domain, destroying anything that stood between me and my escape.
I could have stayed and gone toe to toe with Tisiphone, but she was a minor goddess, and I would have to fend off her attacks and Caesar's legions. While there were other people in my vanguard, they had not signed up for this. They were innocent people, bystanders as I'd taunted Caesar into action, they may choose to fight, but I wanted to give the opportunity to stand aside if they had no desire to become embroiled in the skirmish I had initiated.
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As long as I was running, I saw no reason not to do as much destruction to the city as I could. If Caesar wasn't worried about damages by summoning the Fury who controlled the domain of destruction, why should I? I ripped apart buildings, roads, and vehicles as I ran, leaving a wake of my own destruction in my path.
Tisiphone followed as quickly as possible, easily finding me by following that wake of destruction. She leaped into the sky once she had exited the palace, giant wings of black and purple sprouting from her back. They were formed from the void and blazoned with the power of chaos. All three Furies were born from the merging of night and chaos, as a consequence, each could channel the smallest aspect of both.
I had to admit, her ability to fly gave her a decided advantage. If I remained out in the open, I would be an easy target. But I wouldn't, and Caesar's city of gold made it possible for me to create openings and close them behind me when I thought it was time to obscure my trail.
As I ran, I continued commanding the metal that was used to build Ephesus. The city was a glittering jewel of burnished gold, a means to honor and worship Apollo, but for all of that glitz and gold, it was constructed on a foundation of girders and beams using steel, even mithral in some places to anchor that gold.
I continued adding gold and the mithral I came across to the stockpile that I had pilfered earlier, storing it as part of the structure holding my torc together. The steel, I reformed into a net, creating a mesh of wires that would shred anyone that attempted to pass through it.
It was effective as I watched Tisiphone ignore the nets that I had anchored, adding just enough Silinium from my personal stock to add heft and sturdiness to the wire that increased the tensile strength of steel exponentially.
Tisiphone exploded through the first opening, instead of breaking, and the nets held. She was dissected into millions of pieces, her body detonating into a shower of blood, flesh, and bone. It caused some of those watching to lose their lunch, some of Caesar's more powerful Legions breaking off at the sight of a goddess shattering.
Unfortunately, even though she was a minor goddess, she was still a goddess, and the shredding of her body only worked to elevate her anger. That and slow her down long enough to reconstitute her form, giving me plenty of time so that I could continue running and, leaving more of those wire mesh traps in my path.
She was forced to expend her Divine will to restore her body. For a major God, the expenditure of their Divinity was easily replaced. But for a minor goddess with no worshipers of her own, the ability to refill her Divine pool required time. If I could force her to expend enough of her Divinity, she would be forced to return to Olympus relying on ambrosia until her energy levels were restored.
Zeus and Odin were major Gods. They could battle until the Universe ceased to exist and never run out of Divine energy. But for the lesser gods, they risked their very existence by battling Immortals. Perhaps if she had taken a moment to understand who she was dealing with she might have refused Caesar's summons. But she hadn't, and although I wasn't a goddess, I was a Power. And an Immortal.
[Quest Notice: You have instigated a confrontation with the Fury Tisiphone. Survive for a week while she stalks and attempts to kill you.]
[Reward: Information about your daughter's death.]
I almost tripped when I read that notice, almost stopped to verify that I had read what I thought I had, but there was no time. I accepted the quest with a new sense of hope and resolve, and a change to strategy. I had planned on getting enough of a lead to open a portal to the Summerlands and simply leaving Rome. Another portal to Talahm and all of this would be behind me. But I had come for information, and if this is what I had to do to get it, I would.
As I continued to evade the Fury and Legionaries following behind, I realized that this made a certain elegant solution to my problem. Tisiphone was the goddess of vengeance, and ff anyone would be able to direct my path, to allow me to get my own vengeance among the Olympians, it would be her.