After another day of marching with my new meatshields, I found myself disappointed. Greatly disappointed, at that. While yes, there was some improvement in their stances and spear handling, it was not the thing that they were discussing and reviewing for the whole day. No, they were rather more interested in my magic and how pretty it was.
Quite frankly, what was I even expecting from them? That they would listen to my orders like professional soldiers? That clearly was not a case and I should have noticed it sooner. I would need to drill obedience in them, to the point, it became their second nature. And that was what it would be for the next several days of our journey, only the drills, marching and training with their spears!
During those days I had enough time to think about sharing my magic with them. Clearly, magic existed in this world and if history from my second life was to be trusted, it was only a matter of time before someone discovered it. On the other hand, it would not be as advanced as the formulae I knew and optimized over the centuries.
In the end, I did not know, if they were mages in the first place, and had no means to measure it, as the necessary technology did not exist yet. At most, I could teach them principles and see who would be able to use magic. But only after I made sure they were loyal to me and obeyed my orders without questions. Teaching them magic otherwise would be irresponsible.
The day and nights blurred together as he, the Weaver, and everyone else from his cult, were spending all their conscious time in the whirlwind of passion. There was no other way to describe it anyway. The women of this island were more than eager, maybe even too much, for some of his fellow cultists, who passed unconscious from all the physical activities.
And even worse, he had no time to spread the beliefs about their Lady Arachne. Every time he would find enough strength to start talking, attempting to explain how great Lady Arachne is. He was interrupted by another round of raw desire. It was unacceptable! He needed to make sure to ascertain dominance and make a clear statement!
"Queen Hypsipyle, I have something I need to tell you!" said Laios of Lesbos, with all the strength in voice, his tired body and mind could muster.
"Oh, you are awake?" said the surprised queen.
"Brilliant," continued the queen of Lemnos before the Weaver could even answer.
And from the fact that several other women entered the room, he would not have much time or strength and probably not the courage to say anything in several next hours, or maybe even days. But next time, he would certainly introduce his cult to the women! Even they would not be able to keep this up forever. His unwavering faith in Lady Arachne would keep him strong in the meantime!
Surprisingly, he was already on his way to the throne room of Olympus, when he received a message about the Argo being found, which was indeed good news. at least some good news. Unlike everything that happened during the last week.
Entering the throne room, he was almost flattened by the explosively opened doors. Very angry Artemis marched out, with the murder in her eyes. It seemed that Athena must have gotten better since Artemis was free to go on a warpath. But apparently, Zeus did not have any good news for the girl.
"What do you want, brother?" asked Zeus cradling his forehead in his palm.
"No good news for Artemis?" Poseidon pointed out to the doors.
"No, Nike did not find the monster, apparently it is clever enough and got away before Nike arrived on Lemnos," explained the king of Olympus.
"I mean that is good, right? Hades likes intelligent women, after all. So our spider lady would hopefully make for a good conversation partner," tried to lighten up the situation Poseidon.
"Not for my doors," pointed out Zeus.
"Not for the doors. Don't worry brother, Artemis will calm down... Eventually..." kept his good spirits the king of the seas.
"Hopefully, the hunt should calm her down," commented Zeus.
"Oh, where is she planning to go for a hunt, this time? You know, which place I should avoid for the foreseeable future?" asked Poseidon.
"I think she mentioned Thracian Chersonese," Zeus went through his memories.
"What a coincidence, Argo has been found there," said Poseidon.
"Really? How did it get there?" asked a surprised Zeus.
"Your guess is just as good as mine," shrugged his shoulders the older of the brothers.
"Sending Argonauts there, when Artemis is on a hunt... That would not end well," contemplated the king of Olympus.
"Don't worry. I'm having it towed to the exit of the Underworld," explained the king of the seas as he sent a command to tow the Argo.
"Thank you, brother, at least we won't have to revive those numbskulls again," sighed Zeus.
"Hopefully," chimed in Poseidon.
The last week was very bad for the High Weaver. Not only their Lady Arachne left the island of Lesbos. The pursuing party also did not return, those traitors! And worst of all several of the cultists disappeared without any trace, even one Weaver was gone!
Traitors! All of them must have been traitors! He as a strong leader the cult needed and purge all of the other remaining traitors, amongst them! He would deal with them once and for all, remaking the cult in his image, as it always should have been. With those thoughts in mind, the High Weaver fell asleep.
That was why, he could never hear the slithering noise of fabric dragging along the floor and over him.
S̵͕̱͓̉͋̋̀o̷̧̢̦͉̲͖͕̗̮̖͚͎͊͊̏̅̈̌̈́̿̎͝͝o̶͕̩͎͖͍͓̹̐̽̒̈́̓̏́̑̈́̆͐͘̕͠͝ͅņ̸͔͚̯͈̘̞̺͂̍̉̌!̷̧̙͚̱̐̃͝͠
The last week has been a punishment for her. That she has been certain of. First, she could not get to her daughter in time, to finally meet with her after centuries. After which she has been reassigned to be a babysitter for this group of utter morrons, otherwise know as Argonauts.
The group was designated to be the "legendary heroes", who would retrieve the Golden Fleece. She knew not, what the golden sheepskin was supposed to be exactly, as it was older than her, but going by the Hades' words it was dangerous to her and other Olympians. Now, if she could get her hands on it, she might have some leverage against the Olympians. So, she and Aphrodite might have their revenge on the god pretenders.
Alas, it was time to discipline the Argonauts again. Namely Pollux and several of his peers, who decided it was a good idea to try and wrestle with Cerberus. Did those morons have a death wish? Regrettably it was now her job to keep them alive.
Hopefully, this whole ordeal would be over soon. The exit from the Underworld was near and if the message from Poseidon was to be believed, their ship Argo, would be there prepared for them along with supplies for the whole journey, shortly.