That's a hell of an update. Of all the times for Medea to be bond-locked. Also, Chiron...
Blackbeard looks at you out of the corner of his eye. "For the right audience, aye." He winks, then chuckles. "The crew are cowards, cut-throats, thieves and liars but they fear Blackbeard more'n they love gold or their own lives, to a point. Yer a good boy - Hargrave, wasn't it? - an' you have the look of a man that can keep a secret. Men are scared half-shitless of ya too. So... here an' now, we can be Edward Thatch and Rostam Hargrave, but out there in front 'o the scallywags we're Blackbeard an' the insane whoreson that beat a man half to death with 'is whole back missin'."
He reaches out and offers you the bottle.
"Savvy?"
He's not an idiot. He knows the state of your hands. He looks you in the eye and you don't break that gaze. You snatch the grog bottle from his hand and slam back a gulp of the amber liquid. It burns your throat going down, sears your sinuses, but after the swigs you've taken from Shuten's brews this is downright pedestrian.
Niiiiice. I really want to bring Blackbeard along now. For all that we can draw parallels between Jason and Rostam, Blackbeard also leads a crew of assholes with poor communication skills - they're just less prestigious.
" 'course not. What are yeh, mad?" Blackbeard replies lightly. "We'll look for it tonight, just us Servants without those rum-blind rats stumblin' around behind us. We shift it closer t'shore wherever it is, make a big show o' huntin' it down at first light - y'know, make a wee game of it."
Penthesilea's expression rides the line between disgust and disbelief. "You treat your men like children?"
"I treat 'em like pirates. One of 'em's a lot worse when 'e gets cranky." Blackbeard starts moving around the circle of Servants, clicking his fingers and pointing at people in turn as he speaks. "Penny, Pollux, two of you stay here. Know you sure as shit ain't in the mood fer a treasure-hunt and we need you back here holdin' the fort anyway. You, Twink Tucker-"
"Is that my pirate name?" Astolfo exclaims excitedly.
"-sure. Scout the place out, top to bottom. You lass-" he points at Marian "-ground level, got the look of a proper woodsman about you." He points at Luvia next. "You, pick some fights. Ain't no one gonna want to fuck with you tonight once the grog starts flowin' then." He points at Marche. "You..."
The silence stretches on just long enough to be awkward.
"Prob'ly best you stay on the ship an' look after our guest," he finishes, glancing at the rest of you all again. "One of you'll go fetch 'er when the grub's done, yeah?"
See? He's even English as well! Practically Rostam's spiritual twin.
The water's purer than anything you've tasted in a long time, fresh and sweet and ice-cold. You immediately refill your cup.
Walter Shrewing's translation of the Odyssey said:
The goddess ushered them in, gave them all seats, high or low, and blended for them a dish of cheese and of barley meal, of yellow honey and Pramnian wine, all together; but with these good things she mingled pernicious drugs as well, to make them forget their own country utterly.
Pain shoots up your spine. You arch it to the limit, screaming in sudden agony as it feels like every nerve fires at once. Your fingers shudder and flex randomly, clawing at nothing, grasping at the air as a pair of invisible hands grip your skull and squeeze. The world distends around you. You're a puppet, your strings savagely yanked this way and that by a cruel, unseen puppeteer. You're nothing but clay, being moulded into something more to the sculptor's liking. You're twisting and crunching down into something... strange...
Having given them this and waited for them to have their fill, she struck them suddenly with her wand, then drove them into the sties where she kept her deine. And now the men had the form of swine - the snout and grunt and bristles; only their minds were left unchanged.
Sorry, I literally had lessons on Circe two weeks ago at Uni (talk about good timing), and I had the book out to look over once I read the book.
"If it's too long I could always try twisting it into a sorta braid-bun arrangement. Trendy and practical! Just need to uh, find a pin."
Oh, the Artoria hairstyle? Hmmm. Yeah, I think that'd look good. Also, Marche's perspective! This is super new. Also, good that we brought her along - we may have ended up as Fourstam, which while adorable, would have been somewhat limiting.
In the centre of it all stands a woman. Olive-skinned and looking like an absolutely stunning early-mid forties, though you're sure she's plenty older than that underneath. Her lambent golden eyes and back-length hair like spun sunlight is a big clue there. Her dress is an Ancient Greek-style thing in white and gold, shimmering through a hundred other hues as if pearlescent as it flutters around her hips, stretched taut over the pregnant swell of her stomach. In her hand she grasps an ebony staff topped with a sunburst wrought from pure gold.
So, quick primer. Circe, sister to Aeetes (father of Medea) and Pasiphae (mother of Asterios), daughter of Helios and Perseis (a sea nymph), so she's basically a Divine Spirit/Elemnetal? She's also a powerful sorceress, thought that may be helped by her status as an Elemental/Divine Spirit giving her a little bit of additional access to Gaia . She has an interesting role in the Odyssey, in that she is both an obstacle that Odysseus must overcome, but also a guide who reveals the path Odysseus must take to get home. Of course, you can also read her telling him to go through all this dangerous shit, like the Underworld, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, ending up on the Isle of Helio's cattle, as her trying to fuck him and his crew's day up. OTOH, AoG Greece, she could have been literally been telling him the best possible route to Ithaca from her Island.
Potentially useful, if we can get her friendly to us, is that she knows basically everything that happens on the Mediterranean - or at least most of its mythic geography. She might be able to guess where Jason is going/give a more precise descriptor for Euryale's location then "over in that direction." Like being at Crete.
[X] The rapier Leonardo made for you. You haven't exactly taken fencing, but it's not rocket science right? Stick them with the pointy end. Plus the other surprise inside.
[X] Something from Astolfo's bag. He left it in his room like a prat and you can't shift it yourself, but maybe you'll get something good from the lucky bag?
[X] Rope. When
isn't rope useful?
[X] Fourstam. He
is your teacher and the leading authority on these things after all. Sure his vocabulary's distinctly limited at this point, but maybe he can still figure out ways to offer you advice? But then again, you'll never hear the end of anything he sees you do.
Look, you need to take the mystery box. It's just the done thing, especially in a quest based off of a gacha game. Rope is rope - it's useful to have. Fourstam is nice because he's probably read the Odyssey - maybe he knows about
moly? The rapier may not be strictly necessary - the creatures Circe surrounded her house with were tame
Outside, there were lions and mountain wolves that she had herself bewitched by giving them magic drugs. The beasts did not set set upon my men; they reared up instead, and fawned on them with their long tails.
but better safe than sorry.
Also, I am reluctant to say Circe's got everyone - Marian has Herblore and Druidcraft, and is an adept woodswoman, she has the best chance of being undetected and noticing the drugged food/water. Since it doesn't explicitly mention her being caught, and I remember the last time we wrote off a Robin Hood as having lost...
That and if she hasn't been caught, she gets to see Fourstam, which will be hilarious.
