Chapter 9: A new Mission
After seeing how the Oracle of Athens was dragged off by two harpies Kratos was not exactly in a good mood. He had hoped to get this done quickly: Find the oracle, talk to her, acquire whatever was necessary to kill Ares and finally kill the God of War. But at the moment it looked like the job had become slightly more complicated.
As he balanced across the remains of the bridge, he could not help but wonder it Ares knew about his presence in the city. Maybe capturing the oracle was part of Ares' plan. Maybe the God of War himself wanted to know about that weapon, too. Or maybe the harpies had just been looking for some delicious food. If so, Kratos would make sure they had no chance to enjoy their meal.
Why was he even thinking about this anyway? It was not helping him to accomplish his goals at all and only the Fates knew if the capturing had been a coincidence or not.
Kratos ran up the stone stairs. He could hear the clang of the kids' armors behind him, indicating they were still following him. The stairwell ended and the oracle was nowhere to be seen. Kratos glanced up at the dark night's sky but the smoke arising from the besieged city was far too thick. If the harpies were somewhere up there he had no chance of making them out.
Before him lay a narrow path which had obviously been carved out of the rock long time ago. It was dark, the only light coming from the burning buildings below. The Spartan started running again. He followed the path around a curve and a group of undead sentries came into view. While running, Kratos pulled out the Blades of Chaos which instantly blazed up with orange fire.
The Undead drew their swords and charged forward. Kratos counted at least five of them. This would not be too much of a problem.
As soon as Kratos was in range, he swung the blades in a wide arc without even slowing down. The reaction of the first Undead was way too slow, causing it to be sliced in half. The other creatures backed up, but Kratos launched himself into the air and landed on the second monster's shoulders, crushing it with his sheer weight. As soon as it was on the floor, he stabbed the Blades into its chest. It dissolved and he got up again. In one swift motion he knocked the sword of the third undead sentry out of the way with one Blade and sliced its throat with the other one.
He heard the sound of colliding weapons behind him. The kids were most likely dealing with the fourth monster. The fifth had stayed in the background till now. It was slightly bigger than its companions. Maybe it had a higher rank than the others, Kratos guessed.
The Undead charged. Basically it used the same attack as the first Undead he had killed. Kratos was about to use his Blades the way he had before, when the monster surprised him: It tried to copy his jump attack. Suddenly its sword lit up with blue light. Kratos sidestepped and slammed one of his Blades into the skull of the Undead as soon as it landed. The light faded and the monster collapsed, turning into black smoke as it did so.
Kratos turned to check on his companions. They had killed the undead sentry successfully and had no major injuries. He turned again and headed up the path. Every delay made it more likely to find a dead Oracle in the temple, or wherever the harpies had taken her.
After a few hundred meters another flight of stairs came into view. Kratos sprinted up the steps as fast as he could.
When he finally reached the upper end, he found himself at the end of a long bridge. And it led right to the temple. Kratos felt a hint of nervousness. Finding out about that weapon… That was what he had worked for during the last ten years. And now he was so close to finding it. The Spartans yaw twitched and he darted off towards the temple.
"Holy… shit…" groaned Ray when he finally reached the end of the stairs.
"Yeah…Is that the Temple… of the Oracle?" Jana wiped some sweat off her brow and pointed at the building in the distance. She and Ray were both panting. Kratos had set an extremely brisk pace. As they watched he was already half way across the bridge.
"Yes. Come on… We've got to hurry." Ray followed Kratos as fast as he could, Jana in tow.
To Kratos the bridge seemed incredibly long. He growled. In the air above the courtyard in front of the temple wheeled a swarm of harpies. Two of them were carrying the oracle towards the building. She screamed and struggled against their claws but to no avail. The Spartan reached the end of the bridge in time to watch her being dragged into the temple.
"Kratos! Help-" The rest of her scream was drowned by the screeches of attacking harpies. Kratos rolled to the side as the first bird-creature shot towards his face, claws stretched out. He drew his Blades and sliced it in half. Blood splattered as the dead monster hit the floor.
When Jana and Ray finally left the bridge and stepped onto the court yard, the battle was already raging. Kratos had slain around half a dozen harpies and was currently fighting a gorgon which had appeared only an instant ago. The Spartan got out of its field of view as fast as possible. Instead of turning him to stone, the snake-woman's deadly stare hit a group of harpies behind Kratos. With a flash of white light they were petrified. All of them tumbled from the air and shattered into a million pieces once they hit the floor.
Kratos kicked the gorgon in the back, gripped some of the snakes it had instead of hair with one hand and cut its head off with the blade he held in the other hand. A fountain of blood sprayed skywards. Kratos ignored the crimson liquid raining down on him, while he proceeded disemboweling the next harpy within range.
Seconds later the battle was over. Kratos slid the Blades back onto his back and looked around one last time. There were no enemies left.
Ray and Jana caught up with Kratos when he set off towards the stairs in front of the temple.
"You should really try to keep up with me." Kratos growled.
"Maybe you shouldn't run off like-" Began Ray, but a light chuckle cut him off midsentence. Kratos drew his blades as everyone whirled around to face the source of the noise. At the left side of the courtyard someone had been digging a hole. A small lantern placed on top of a pile of dirt was illuminating the scene.
"Good, my boy, good!" An old man emerged slowly from the hole. He was carrying a shovel, had grey snarled hair and wore a long, dirty robe. It was impossible to guess what color it might have had once. "Athena has chosen wisely. I knew it was so!"
Jana darted Ray a questioning look but he only shrugged and indicated her to listen.
"Who are you?" Kratos demanded. He had lowered his weapons slightly and was now glaring at the old man. The Oracle was still waiting for him.
"So you have the Blades, the skin as pale as the moon… You are the one, indeed. Perhaps Athens will survive, at that." The man chuckled again. Still a smile on his face, he continued. "But be careful. Don't want you dying before I'm done with this grave." He pointed at the hole behind him and resumed digging. Kratos put his blades away and stepped closer. Ray and Jana followed slowly, a bit unsure about what to do.
"A grave, in the middle of a battle? Who will occupy it?" Kratos furrowed his brow.
"You will, my son." The gravedigger looked Kratos over and shook his head slightly, chuckling when he saw the surprised look on the Spartan's face. "Oh, I've got a lot of digging to do, indeed. All will be reveled in good time. And when all appears to be lost, Kratos, I'll be there to help." Whit that, he returned to digging the grave.
Kratos turned and hurried back to the entrance of the temple.
"I wonder who that dude is." Jana mused as soon as they were out of earshot.
"A senile, old gravedigger." Kratos shrugged and the chains of the Blades jangled silently. "You saw that yourself."
"Hmm… I don't know." She thought for a moment. "He sounded pretty serious about digging your grave. Senile would be an explanation, sure, but…" She trailed off, the entrance of the temple looming in front of them.
A long flight of stairs, lit up by oil lamps hanging from the ceiling, led into the building. As in the temple of Zeus the walls were beautifully ornamented. As they raced upstairs Jana wished she had had more time to inspect the different pictures. Some of them reminded her of photos she had seen in books.
The main chamber of the temple was bigger than the one in the Temple of Zeus. Parts of the ceiling had crashed down, corpses and blood puddles were on the floor. In a far off corner of the room some wood had caught fire.
"Over there!" Ray pointed at a grille on the left wall of the room. It was decorated with a blue owl, the Oracle's symbol. An instant later the sound of flapping wings and the screeches of harpies filled the room.
Kratos growled angrily and pushed the door open. Everyone dashed through the doorway and the Spartan slammed the door shut just as the first harpy was about to follow them. One of the metal bars hit it straight in the face with a loud crunch. No one of them stayed long enough to watch the unlucky creature die.
Kratos stormed up the spiral staircase leading to the temple's upper floor with Jana and Ray in tow. It seemed like this part of the temple had been only used for maintenance or something similar, as there was no proper floor. A grid of bars had been built over the main chamber's ceiling. It was – in contrast to the ceiling – mostly intact. There was a doorway at the opposite side of the room.
Getting to the other side of the room took some time. Kratos went first, testing the stability of the ledges first before stepping on them fully. Jana and Ray followed carefully. At one point Kratos tested a loose bar. It broke away under his foot and took a part of the ceiling with it. Wood and stone hit the floor beneath with a resounding crash. Ray hoped the rubble had landed on a random harpy's head. Apart from that they encountered no major problems.
As they entered the hallway at the other side they ran right into about two dozens of undead soldiers. Once Kratos saw them, he increased his speed even more and launched himself into the air just before colliding with the first row of monsters. The jump carried him more or less into the middle of the group. He landed and unleashed the Rage of Poseidon, frying close to every Undead in the corridor. The few survivors were killed mere seconds later by the Blades of Chaos or Ray's sword. Jana hit another monster in the face with a lightning bolt.
They took another staircase and finally left the building, just in time to see two harpies fly across the garden of the temple, the Oracle in their claws. She struggled against their iron grip.
"Kratos! Kratos, help me! Help-" She screamed in fear, as the harpies suddenly dropped her about a hundred meters above the floor of the garden. To Kratos time seemed to pass in slow-motion as she fell. But before he could react, she had gripped a rope hanging down from a random crane and clung to it for dear life. "Hurry! Please!" Her screams echoed through the garden.
Kratos frantically searched the garden for a way to rescue the Oracle. There was not much to work with: stone walls overgrown with vines, a fountain and a huge stature of the goddess Athena carrying some kind of serving tray. He calculated the distance between the edge of the tray and the Oracle's location. It would take a giant leap to cross the gap, but it was his only option to save her.
He dashed through the garden and started to scale the stature as fast as possible. The oracle screamed again. "Please! Get me down!"
Ray glanced up at the rope and cursed under his breath.
"Come on!" He shouted to Jana and roughly gauged the location where the oracle would land in case she would fall before Kratos could rescue her. They positioned themselves under the rope, ready to catch the Oracle, even though Ray doubted his plan would work if Kratos failed.
In the meantime Kratos had climbed the stature. The oracle had been watching his every move and had finally stopped screaming. Kratos calculated his jump one last time, sprinted across the tray and launched himself into the air.
He grabbed the Oracle, who instantly let go of the rope, and turned in midair - otherwise he would have landed on top of her as soon as they hit the ground. The woman screamed from the top of her lungs as they fell.
Jana watched as Kratos jumped off the tray from below. "Wait. How are they going to –"
Crash. The Spartan and the Oracle impacted on the floor not far from the door through which they had entered the garden only a minute ago.
Ray ran through the garden, past the fountain to the spot where the two had landed. If he wasn't mistaken, the game did not show that part for some reason. Kratos and the Oracle were on the floor, both of them blood-smeared and bruised up.
"You okay?" Ray asked as he helped the Oracle of Athens to her feet. Quite contrary to the game her clothing was ragged and bleeding cuts from the harpies' claws were visible on her arms and shoulders.
"I will be fine, thank you." She turned to face Kratos who had also gotten up. "Kratos. As Athena herself has foretold. But you are late, perhaps too late to save Athens. Or is it Athens you have come to save?" With these words she stepped forward and placed her hands on the Spartan's temples. Kratos tried to get away from her, but her hands started to radiate an electric-blue glow.
"No! No I-" He stopped midsentence and Ray saw his eyes widen. Whatever the Oracle was doing took only seconds. She removed her hands from the Spartan's face and stepped back.
"By the gods! Why would Athena send one such as you?" She sounded confused and shocked by what she had seen. In the game a cut-scene would have reveled more of Kratos' past, but his bloody memories were probably much more disturbing in real life than in a game, Ray guessed.
Kratos grabbed the Oracle by the throat. For an instant it looked like he was about to snap her neck, but then he simply pushed her to the side and snarled, "Stay out of my head!"
"Choose your enemies wisely, Kratos." Athena's Oracle wasn't impressed at all by Kratos' behavior, that much was clear. She walked over to a door in the wall. The symbol of Athena was engraved in it. She touched the picture of the owl and said "Your brute strength alone will not be enough to destroy Ares."
The owl lit up under her hand and the door slid open. "Only one item in the world will allow you to defeat a god."
Ray thought, he had heard Jana comment on that. He did not want to know what would happen if Kratos got his hands on a second all-powerful weapon or whatever Jana had been thinking about.
"Pandora's Box," The Oracle continued her explanation, ignoring whatever Jana had said. "which lies far beyond the walls of Athens, hidden by the gods across the desert to the east. But be warned. Many have gone in search of Pandora's Box. None have returned."
"Well, that desert sounds like the place to spend one's holidays at." Jana said jokingly.
The Oracle shot her a piercing glance. "This is no laughing matter. Do you know how many lives are at stake here? Do you know what might happen if Ares is not stopped? It is not only Athens that is in danger! If Ares goes on like this he might destroy Mount Olympus itself. And the consequences of an act like that are beyond your imagination."
"I know, I know… Sorry. Didn't mean to… Well…" Jana raised her hands. "Don't worry, I'm taking this seriously." The Oracle did not look too happy or convinced by the statement, but decided to drop the matter for now.
"You will need supplies for the journey through the desert. Follow me." The oracle turned back to the temple and led them to a door Ray had not noticed until now.
"There is no desert in Greece I do know of." Kratos stated.
"Yeah. Reaching the nearest desert, let alone find some Box in there, might take months, if not years." Jana said, seriously this time.
"For those, who serve the gods there are means unknown to others." The oracle opened the door and led them down a dark, narrow hallway. Ray guessed this was her way to say 'shut up and don't question my skills'. She stopped at another door and entered the room behind it. Ray got a short glance on crates, baskets and some amphorae. "Wait here." With that, the door closed behind her.
They waited in silence until the oracle reappeared a couple of minutes later. She was carrying three old looking backpacks.
"These contain enough water and food to supply you for a short amount of time." She handed the first one to Kratos. "Find Pandora's Box. It is the only way to defeat Ares. The only way. Keep that in mind."
She handed Ray and Jana each a backpack. "Remember, the consequences of your decisions might be severe. Consider that before you take action." She was about to add something but changed her mind. Then the Oracle led them back to the garden.
In front of the door with the owl engraved in it she stopped and turned around.
"This is all I can do for you. Go through the gates. There begins the path to Pandora's Box."
With this Kratos, Ray and Jana left the temple of the Oracle behind and stepped into another dark hallway. The massive stone door quietly slid shut behind them.
Ray shuddered slightly. Now they were officially on a quest to find Pandora's Box.
AN
Screw what I said concerning GoW IV a couple of chapters back. There have been some leaks lately showing GoW IV is most likely in development. HELL YEAH! *dances on table*
Okay, back to topic:
The scenes from Kratos' point of view were fun to write. Maybe I should do that more often. Thinking about how there were only really short parts told from his POV till now it would make sense, I guess.
Thanks to tarkatan for beta'ing!
I forgot about that one last chapter: Demetria is an OC and belongs to me.
/AN
