Fundamentally, no one but me actually liked Kassandora. She was respected of course, she was loved at times and others she was feared. Her lack of power turned into her greatest strength. Heroes would die during their prime of course, whether through glorious duels or assassinations, until Kassandora started the marshalling of mortals under Divine Leadership. The Dwarves tried to conquer the surface, until Kassandora thought up of the ocean drain. Fer and Anassa created beastmen, their invasion was unstoppable, until Kassandora militarized magicians. Whereas Divines excel in the creation of tactics that rely on themselves, whether through serving as a centrepiece of the army or the final weapon to be used, Kassandora went the other way. She is a weaver’s mill for battle plans, each one designed to be reproduceable in mass. There is no ‘Perfect’ with her, but everything is ‘Good Enough.’ Yet all it takes to win is enough.
When we saw Arascus approach Kassandora, there was ridicule and laughter. I myself was part of it. Kassandora turned her nose up at grander Pantheons already. It was unconceivable that Kassandora would willingly enter a Pantheon in any permanency, there was no precedent and the Goddess of War did not share her demesne freely. To fight on Kassandora’s side, her payment was ultimate authority until the end. But then there was another reason too. We could only laugh and ridicule, because the alternative was unthinkable. It took them more than two decades to grow together, but then, the alternative option became reality.
In one day, War died and War was reborn. No longer was it a Divine art, it became a structured, scalable and utilitarian mortal industry. The entire world took a collective breath as it realised what happened. Just as with the marshalling of mortals and the magician’s militarization, the advent of kingdom-ending tactics such as the ocean drains, we knew that something was going to change.
Kassandora joined the ranks of Daughter Goddesses.
Two year later, the newly formed White Pantheon was already marshalling forces.
Excerpt from ‘The Leadup of the Great War’, written by Goddess Allasaria, of Light, kept within the White Pantheon’s Closed Library
Kavaa felt her hand tighten around the hilt of her blade as she started at the Tartarian Rune. She rarely found herself in flat disbelief, terrible things happened, they would have to acknowledged, embraced and moved on from. She had fought against Arascus and his family in the Great War, the amount of times Kassandora had outwitted her was pointless to even keep track off. At least once a week, there’d be a spy caught, once a month a battleplan would have to be re-written, once a year the entire front had to be changed because it was cracking.
And yet, as she stared at that rune, she felt her lips tremble into a smile. She didn’t know why she did it, but she laughed. Laughed in the same way she did when she healed Fer and Kassandora brought her back from the edge of death in the scorching sands of the Sassara. Why was Tartarus even on Arda? They left after the signing of peace. Did Allasaria recall them? But then why did Kavaa not know?
She stood there and sighed as puzzles re-arranged themselves. The abandonment of underground exploration, the clearing and sealing of holds. Maisara and Fortia had always been against it, they should have pushed the advantage on the kingdoms under the surface whilst they were still reeling from World-Core sealing. But a century had passed. Then another. A third.
And eventually the problems of yesterday became the unsolved mysteries of history. The dwarves had been defeated, a few had defected to the surface, the rest had retreated. The issue of under-kingdoms became less pressing as the act of maintaining Pantheon Peace took on priority. Kavaa realised she had shut down when she saw Iliyal take a step through the doorway and heard Fer sniff the air. The Goddess of Health blinked the shock away, she could deal with the questions in her mind later, there was surgery to attend to now.
“Well…” Fer spoke up first. “That’s something.” Kavaa took a breath as she realised the woman was still trying to keep the five already crowding in the small resting in the dark. There was a corridor, there’d be a small barracks, most than likely a small armoury, a bath. Certainly all of them would be empty.
That would explain why there was no tracks of animals in the dwarven hold they had entered through. “Can you smell anything?” Kavaa asked, although Fer was already sniffing the air.
“Nothing, just stone. Trace amounts of iron, but its in the walls.”
“These mountains are rich in iron!” Olonia chimed in. Kavaa, Fer and Iliyal all gave the Goddess a flat look. Did they look like they were on a geological expedition here?
“It says stop.” Iliyal said as he shown his torch directly onto the rune carved on the wall. It was beating like a slow heartbeat, although with the torch on it, the pale red was barely visible.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“You can read that?” Kavaa burst out in shock.
“Malam translated their script.” He took a sigh and turned to the five Goddesses. And then stopped. He looked to Kavaa, she merely shrugged. Frankly, she had no clue on what to tell them.
“You’re here for the thinking.” Fer replied. Iliyal nodded as he drew his sword and pointed it at the rune.
“This is a Tartarian Rune.” He said. “It’s what demons use to mark their territory.” Kavaa looked at the different Goddesses. Olonia’s jaw dropped. Kavaa quickly grabbed Agrita as she realised the Goddess was about to faint and poured some healing into her to wake her up. Paida blinked, her hands started to shake. Saksma had no reaction, then her mouth cracked into odd laughter. Aliana leaned on the wall to support herself. Iliyal monitored them too, as Fer went to inspect the rest of the room, the flashlights strapped to her wrists forcing her to wave her arms around. “You took it better than I expected.” Iliyal said. “Demons are not all they’re made out to be.”
Kavaa sniffed in humour. Only someone who had fought in the Great War would say that, Tartarus and Paraideisus had both been mythologized during the era of Pantheon Peace, but it was true. If they were even half of what the stories said about them, then either could have won alone. “I…” Aliana said. “Are you not lying?”
“I’m walking proof they’re not.” Iliyal said. Kavaa let Agrita go and took position next to Iliyal. He could rally, that was true, but he could be too heavy-handed in his talk. The man explained what he thought would need explaining, and that was it.
“I fought by their side.” Kavaa said. “They’re much like humans or elves. Stronger slightly, but it’s not comparable to Divines.” At least the grunts weren’t. They had their own equivalents for Divines, and nothing on Arda as it was now could match even a single Archdemon. Fer returned, walking easily as she left, sniffed the air again and turned to look deeper into the tunnel.
“I’m here.” She merely growled. “Don’t worry about it.” She turned to look back at Iliyal, that golden mane shining with the ambient light of the torches. “Are we going deeper? This…” She gestured to the rune. “Well we’ve all heard bad jokes before.” Iliyal walked to the rune and touched it. It didn’t react whatsoever to him.
“True, is it even real?” He asked then chuckled. “I’ll be honest ladies, I think we all panicked for a moment there.”
“That was you panicking?” Paida asked.
“You get used to it.” Iliyal said and turned to Kavaa. “I assume you won’t know, but I have to ask anyway. Was there a plan to inscribe fake runes simply to keep people away?” Kavaa stood there in shock as the man finished. That was so unlikely… and yet now that he said it, was he wrong? This was exactly the sort of plan Allasaria would conjure up. And Elassa could manufacture runes like this, the lifespan wouldn’t matter then, the Goddess herself could go and renew them every now and then. Maybe at the bottom, there’d be an energy powering them.
“I don’t know.” Kavaa said honestly. “But…” Frankly, she was impressed. An idea like that would have never crossed her mind. But just because it didn’t cross hers did not mean it wouldn’t cross Allasaria’s. “Well, I see it.”
“It’s a possibility.” Iliyal said as he left the room and started following after Fer. Kavaa quickly caught up to two in the front as the five in the back started to slowly meander behind them. Iliyal lowered his tone, but kept on looking straight as they kept on marching. “But the chance of that is low.” He whispered, Kavaa’s perfect hearing barely caught. “If it was a fake, it doesn’t explain the lack of signs of wild animals in the outpost.”
“But if it is them.” Fer’s voice was barely a purr. “Then there’d be the smell of sulphur.”
“Unless that rune isn’t for us.” Iliyal said. “And it’s just for them.”
“Or it could be that they developed new runology at the end of the war.” Kavaa said quietly. “And they’ve somehow managed to get around the leaking problems.” That was a possibility too. It existed for all of ten minutes. They reached the next resting room. Iliyal and Fer entered, Kavaa stood outside and waited for the five to catch up. They were talking amongst themselves, obviously terrified. Each one tried to remain quiet, none had any real practice in stealth. Every fifth word out of their mouths sent an echo down the tunnel.
Olonia saw Kavaa’s face, saw the Goddess of Health keep her hand on the blade, and shut up. “Keep quiet.” Kavaa said. “There could be something here, watch, if you see movement, then call.” And Kavaa entered the rest-room where Fer and Iliyal had disappeared into.
And she stopped the moment she got through the doorway. Fer and Iliyal were both inspecting a series of runes that had burned out. The elf turned to see who entered, the pointed at the lettering. “This I can’t read.” He pointed to a collection of jagged symbols in the middle. “But that says ‘go no further’.”
“I’m impressed you can read anything.” Kavaa said. Tartarus and Paraideisus both had fought on her side, but they only provided logistics and direct military support. Fortia could read both scripts, Allasaria could too, but Kavaa had not been privy to the strategy council.
“I was fluent.” Iliyal said. “This is new words they’ve invented. There’s traces of old ones, but I can’t.” Kavaa only smiled, nothing would surprise at this point.
“You were fluent?” Why did she even have to ask? Frankly, she didn’t even doubt him.
“Malam even wrote some poetry in their script. I was fluent.” Iliyal said definitely. Of course Malam did. Of course Iliyal was fluent. The man was a walking encyclopaedia of anything that could even be tangentially related to warfare. Fer leaned it and touched one of the words they knew. It did nothing. She dragged her finger onto the unknown calligraphy.
And the calligraphy set alight. It didn’t burn Fer, it simply sparked like a crackling flame, and then it burned out. “Well that is definitely new.” Fer said.
“That obviously wasn’t good.” Kavaa said, she felt like laughing again.
“Well at least it didn’t burn me.” Fer said, chuckling. She turned to leave, took a step, and stopped.
Fer sniffed. She looked to Kavaa, her nose wrinkling, her ears jumping. There was no need to even ask, she didn’t need Fer’s absolute pinnacle of a sense of smell to know what the woman was referencing. Frankly, she didn’t even need a single drop of Divinity, even a human child would be able to notice this.
The rank smell of sulphur.