It was a surprise to them when their father, their creator came suddenly to visit them. Usually, when he had some quest or adventure for them, he would send a message to the queen and she would then prepare the campaign according to their father's request. But not this time. This time their father came to them in the middle of the night, waking them all up, requesting a handful of them to depart for a quest immediately. Their queen had to calm their father down a little bit and coax out of him what was the actual request. Or so she heard from her close friend, Princess Antiope.
And she was glad that their father was quite specific about the quest this time. Or rather, that their queen managed to pull all the necessary information out of him. The quest was beyond her imagination. It was so brilliant, too brilliant in fact for their father to concoct this plan on his own. So it was clear that Aphrodite was using him and in turn them for this.
Yet it was a quest that would bring them all the glory and write their names in history. They were to capture a monster, which looked half spider half woman, alive. The harder part was the fact that this monster managed to kill Heracles and even maim Atherna quite badly. Which was a great bonus by the way. All of them, the chosen warriors were still snickering about it. So much in fact that their party leader, Princess Antiope had to admonish them. Several times already.
And so she went back to collecting supplies, polishing her armor and sharpening her spear. They had a monster to hunt after all. And they were ordered to capture it alive. One could never be too prepared.
He was dreaming about a beautiful woman. About a beautiful, strong and tall woman. She had everything that he could ever dream about. Not that he could anyone about his preferences in a partner, they would have laughed at him. He could not tell anyone that he fell in love with now-extinct Amazons.
That was why, he felt so sad, right now, even in a dream. Because the woman of his dreams was exactly that, just a dream and nothing more. He would never see her again, lest he dreamed about her. Amazons were all dead after all. Heracles made sure of it. Thus he, Theseus, missed his chance to marry an Amazon by the unfortunate of being born too late.
He woke up with a small tear in his eye, and quickly wiped it away with the back of his hand. Better not to be seen as weak in front of others. He could not afford it, after all, he was soon to become a king of Athens. He had to appear strong and decisive.
But one thing did surprise him this morning. Right in his bed, to be precise. He was not there alone. No, it was not another person keeping him company, but rather a scroll. A scroll he did not remember taking to the bed with him. Not that he would ever do that! He would not be so irresponsible.
And yet here it was. By his side, all shiny and new. Maybe too much shine in his eyes. In fact, it almost looked otherwordly. No, it certainly looked otherworldly. He had never seen a scroll of such quality. Taking it in his hands, he weighed it and to his surprise it was light. Lighter than one would expect such a scroll to be.
Any and all doubts about the scroll's otherwordly origins were dismissed that instant. But this could only mean one thing, he was sure. This scroll was some form of mandate, or perhaps instructions he received from Olympus! And while this certainly would throw his itinerary out of the way it was set. He had to look at what the gods wanted from him.
Opening the scroll he read: "Beautiful women and where to find them!"
Theseus instantly set to the quest after he finished reading the scroll. He was going to get himself a bride of his dreams. And none would stop him.
With the Amazon problem taken care of, she was given a bit of free time before her lover inevitably returned back to her. This though left her alone in her place with a giant amputated spider leg. Aphrodite did admit to herself that spiders were her weakness, her one and only weakness. And she always blamed it on their uncanny multiple unmoving eyes. But apparently, that was not the real reason. Certainly not the only one.
Therefore she was now confronted with her lover's child's mutilated mutated spider leg. All alone, with no one around. She would not cry, nor scream, even if she wanted to. She would not admit her unreasonable fears of dreading that the leg would move on its own, at any moment and attack her. No, she would not! She, Aphrodite, the goddess of love (and war) would not be afraid of it at all.
Or rather she could not be, at least not for too long. Her lover, Nike, asked her to hide it along with the white silk cloth, that she returned with from the unsuccessful search for Arachne. It was certainly too bad, that she missed her child just by several hours as it seemed. Aphrodite has been excited to finally meet Arachne after all those centuries.
She herself might have had a little help, in Arachne being alive, but it was so miniscule, that she could not even call herself Arachne's mother. Rather than anything, Arachne was the almost exact copy of Nike, with just a little bit extra that would make her healthier, more clever and beautiful. That was all that Aphrodite could afford to give her. That was all she was reduced to. Damned Zeus, tricking her!
But she would one day get back on him and restore all her powers. Restore herself to what she once was. And in order to do that, she had to be patient, but more importantly, she had to hide the spider leg in a safe place, where none of the other Olympians could find it. Maybe if she wrapped it into the white silky cloth? That way she would not have to touch it directly.
So she did so. Unfolding the cloth, she noticed how smooth it was. The quality never seen before, at least not made by any mortal, or a monster in this case. She had to give it to the Arachne, that she mastered her craft, like none other. Smirking, she realized that not even Athena would be able to compete with this. After all, where would they even get this amount of spider silk in the first place?
With an unfolded spider silk sheet in her hands, Aphrodite cautiously approached the dismembered giant spider leg. But not being able to witness the sheer hairiness of the thing, she closed her eyes and after a second of doubting her intention and subsequently the whole life, she wrapped the giant spider leg in the silk. Only after that, she allowed herself to see the world around her once again. Not having the spider thing in sight made her sigh in relief. The horror was over and she did not even have to cry, or lengtly convince herself to do the deed.
But that was exactly why, she felt surprised when a liquid was rolling down her left hand. Did some stray tears fall after all? Aphrodite did not feel a wetness in her eyes and yet there were several, drops rolling down her forearm.
Closely inspecting the liquid, her eyes widened in shock. It was not possible what she saw. It could not be possible. She herself was not hurt in any place, she would have noticed that! And yet, here on her left arm, several viscous drops of silver were rolling down. But if it was not her silver blood, then whose it was?
After a whole day of marching, high on the adrenaline, the sleep did not come easy to me. In fact, it did not come at all. Adding a paranoia about what Being X had next in store for me. Taking anything longer than a short nap with half my senses still awake did not work. And while resting was important to function properly, ever since I became a monster, several centuries ago, sleep became less of a necessity and more of a suggestion. Of course, to keep some form of sanity in my situation I decided to keep the typical circadian rhythm, with very few exceptions, for moments when being awake took priority.
Because of this and all other reasons, I was able to think of a plan to increase the value of my new human resources. Concretely speaking about how to effectively train them. Given that they all possessed freakish amounts of stamina and did not seem to wither even after the full-day march with the added weight of supplies, I decided to add the training on top of travel time. Do some easy exercise in the morning along with the theory and then reinforce it in the evening, with a whole day reserved for the travel in between.
Of course, acquiring additional supplies would have to be done when possible, and either training or the march would have to be interrupted. I could not afford to reserve a specific time of day for supply acquisition only to realize that the place where we were located did not have natural resources to exploit. While an encounter with human settlements was almost given, I still could not completely trust my new meatshields not to do something unreasonable. Like robbing the human settlement. While I was certain that the pirates we met on the seas were more than enough of an example of what could happen to outlaws. My newly acquired human resources needed to prove themselves to be reasonable and loyal enough to obey my orders.
Seeing as the temporary camp has been almost all packed up, while the freshwater was also replenished. I decided to give my soldiers? They were not soldiers yet, but they could be in the future. For now, they were just trainees at best. And since I was such a great teacher, being selected in military school as the senior cadet and then making my 203rd the cream of the crop. I would train my new trainees to be the best of the best, should they prove to be capable of doing so of course. Also, it was necessary to be prepared for any unforeseen eventuality, when Being X finally decided to throw some monster my way again.
Therefore the first order of things, for today, was to examine base skills with a spear or several selected candidates, since reviewing everyone would be impossible due to time constraints. And point out the most obvious mistakes I could see.
Alas, my plan almost failed in the very beginning, when I selected the group that would be training and ordered them to attack me one by one. But they refused. They vehemently refused! So far they have been following my orders without as much as a word of resistance, that was why their refusal to listen to my order shocked me. It seemed that my honed military instincts got rusty from the relative safety of my third life. I would have to retrain myself as well.
After a short investigation and questioning I learned that they refused to attack me, because of fear that they would hurt me. Therefore I was forced to explain to them, that I would not be hurt and reapplied protective film, over my body, in a slight shimmer of light so they could see it for themselves. And even then, Penthesilea who I chose to go first, as she was their leader and hopefully my eventual second in command, was hesitant at first to strike me with her spear.
That left me with no choice but to force her to strike me. And with Penthesilea's strike, the protective film lightened up a little, while the striking spear bounced off harmlessly. After she overcame the initial shock and awe, realizing that she could indeed not hurt, which addressed her grievance. The trainee-hopeful struck again and again.
Targeting almost all non-lethal spots intentionally. She was not fighting to kill, but rather to incapacitate, or maybe to maim. Which would be good in case the target of her strikes were to be interrogated for information. In other words, her spear handling was not efficient in killing a potential enemy. Rather her style looked more pretty as a performance, than effectively lethal.
Yet not all hope was lost, while her technique was not ideal by any means. Penthesilea seemed to understand how to handle the spear, probably even better than me, just not in a lethal way. That would have to be corrected before anyone else takes on these bad habits. Which, I showed in the next round and commented on all the mistakes that were made, correcting them.
I wondered, how well they would fare in the evening after a long day of marching. They better review the knowledge I explained to them, or I might be forced to explain it more forcefully.