The Third Life: Jake's Odyssey: Pt. 2

Well, I finished Odyssey, and now I feel empty, incomplete. There was no definitive ending to the game, nothing to lead it into the next entry. All we have is Layla down there in Atlantis, still seeing Kassandra's memories, though there isn't much left since I've completed the Odyssey, Atlantis, and the Cult, and all the side quests and locations.

There is literally nothing else for me to do in the game. I'm just hoping there's a New Game Plus addition coming with the next update.

Oh, and for some reason, Olouros Fort won't complete, even though I've done all objectives several times over. Any theories or suggestions?

Also, I'm surprised no one wanted to argue about the duel between Jake and Chrysaor. I had this whole essay planned out and everything.

Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or AC

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Inspired by historical events and an over-active imagination, this work of fiction was designed, developed, and produced by a single-cultural team of one religious faith and belief, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

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Aegean Sea

Somewhere Back in Time

Jake was concerned. An Apple of Eden explodes, and suddenly the fog is gone, revealing bright blue water, and bright blue sky, and distant islands, and an approaching trireme bigger and grander than Chrysaor's had been, with a majestic mainsail and a crew of people in strange silver armor with purple plumes on their helmets.

Seen from the spyglass, of course.

Chrysaor's ship was gone, as was its grappling lines, but the scuffs in the wood of the Running Frenchman were still there, much to Jake's ire. All of this weird stuff happening, and the universe couldn't fix his ship?

Anyway, no one of the crew had any idea what was going on, or what the approaching ship wanted, but no one detected any hostility in the air.

That didn't stop Jake from giving orders to load cannons and wait for his signal.

The trireme got closer and pulled up next to the Running Frenchman, the rowers of the older ship halting forward movement while the silver-clad crew pulled in the sails.

"Hello down there!" Jake said amicably.

"Greetings," the man presumed to be the captain said.

He wore a grey chest plate with a black scarf, leather sleeves around his wrists tied down with white straps, a metal plate on his left forearm. He wore the skirt-looking thing whose proper name escaped Jake, and grieves the same color as his chest plate. His skin was tan from the sun, and his black hair was pushed back, and he had stubble about his cheeks, chin, and lips. A sword hung at his waist.

"I have never seen a ship like this before, and your clothes are strange to me. From whence do you sail, stranger?"

"The West Indies."

"I have never heard of such a place."

"I figured you wouldn't. You know what year it is?"

The captain blinked. "Pardon me?"

"The year," Jake said. "What is it?"

"It's the second year of our King Archidamos. Or the thirty-fourth year of Perikles, if you go by the Athenian calendar."

"…ah."

Beside Jake, Mr. Biggs was pale.

"How do you not know this?" the Greek captain asked.

"We're not from around here," Jake said.

"I see. Well, I welcome you aboard my ship, so that I may educate you on where you are."

Jake didn't like the look in the man's eye, and he wasn't blind to the body language of the armored crew.

"No thanks. You can educate me from down there."

"Pity," the captain shook his head. "Unfortunately, I like this ship of yours, and I will claim it for the Cult of Kosmos."

That was all that Jake needed to thunder "FIRE!" and duck to avoid the splinters. The Running Frenchman's cannons spewed their loads, shredding the trireme not twenty feet away. Wooden shrapnel shot in all directions, and enemy bodies were tossed into the sea, or if they were lucky, were hit by a cannonball and killed instantly.

For the life of him, Jake never understood why sailors didn't learn how to swim.

The captain of the trireme was fortunate enough to take a cannonball to the face, and he lost his head. A very quick death, if not a little messy.

The trireme, in shambles, started sinking, its crew dead or drowning.

"Someone fish the captain down there out of the water," Jake ordered.

Harpoons with line attached were grabbed and hurled, spearing the captain's body through. The line was pulled in by hand, and the captain grabbed when in range. The corpse was presented to Jake on the deck. After a quick loot, a little triangle fragment was found—a clear Piece of Eden, given the metal, the work, and the design on the fragment—and a scroll with a message on it:

"You have set fire to the waves, as Kosmos commanded, but soon peace will come. When it does, you must rise above your wayward ambition to be controller of the seas. Imagine the world Kosmos has shown me: None shall sail without sailing under you. You will own the seas, and I the land, as king and queen, ruling over the entire world."

The crew listened intently to Jake's reciting of the scroll, and after he was done, Jake spoke to Mr. Biggs. "Those years Mr. Hydra mentioned…what do they mean, exactly?"

"Perikles was the leader of Athens, known as the Father of Democracy. Archidamos was the king of Sparta. They both ruled during the Peloponnesian War, roughly at 429 years before the birth of Christ."

Jake paled considerably. "Oh…well, shit."

A somber air fell over the Running Frenchman as they all realized that they had been flung over two thousand years into the past, and there was no clear way to get back to their own time. Effectively, they were stuck.

Until Jake got wind back in his sails.

"Alright, enough moping. We've been through hard things together, and this thing ain't no damn different. We're going to make a plan, and we're going to execute it. First off, since we're in lovely 429 B.C. in beautiful Greece, ammunition for our guns is nonexistent, so we need to avoid naval combat as much as possible. Second, we stick out like sore thumbs, so we need outfits to blend in. Thirdly, a Piece of Eden got us here, and it'll get us out. This guy is a member of the Cult of Kosmos, and he has this little doohickey on him, and I imagine other members do too. So, find more Cult members, find more of these triangles, and somewhere on the way we're going to find a Piece."

"Great plan, Captain. Where are we going to start?"

"Excellent question, William. These Cultists remind me of the Templars, and if the Cult is anything like the Templars, that means they're going to have people in high places, like politicians."

"Like Perikles," Jose said.

Jake nodded. "Set course for Athens. This ship is conspicuous, aye, but I ain't letting her by herself in this time."

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From the maps and the best guess they could make, the crew of the Running Frenchman managed to find the mainland where Athens was at, the region of Attika. As fate would have it, the beach they arrived at was also occupied by a trireme, and everyone aboard was looking at the galleon with bewildered expressions.

No other ships had been sunk by the Running Frenchman, as none had crossed her path.

The galleon dropped anchor a fair way away, and Jake gave orders to his crew to hold the ship down and let no one aboard, leaving Mr. Biggs in charge. The boy pirate hopped off the bowsprit and into the water, and swam to shore, intent on finding Perikles and gathering information on the Cult of Kosmos to find a Piece of Eden that could hopefully get him and his crew back to the West Indies during 1716.

Jake didn't get four steps onto the beach before he was called out.

"Excuse me!"

The pirate looked to the speaker, a woman in her mid-twenties wearing armor, a red scarf around her breast, and a helmet with a red and black plume. A sword hung at her belt on the left and a dagger at her right hip, and she had a spear, a staff, a heavy bludgeon, and a really big axe at her back, a quiver of arrows, and a bow. And when Jake said spear, he meant an actual spear, as he couldn't see the broken one.

He was wondering how this person was able to move with all that weight on them, and then he remembered how he and Edward could move just fine with swords, guns, ammo and utilities all over them, and how the old Assassins Ezio and Vergil could do the same wearing full suits of armor, and concluded that the woman approaching him had Assassin blood in her.

The pirate blinked once, and suddenly all the weapons were gone except the sword and bow.

"Hi," Jake said shortly.

The woman, after jogging up to him in full gear, was not winded. "Chaire, friend. I've never seen a ship like yours before, and your clothes are strange, as are your weapons."

"Yeah, the last guy that said that died, because he got stupid and tried to take over my ship. Please don't follow in his footsteps."

"I'll try not to," the woman said with a grin, putting her hands on her hips, giving off an air of friendliness. "I am Kassandra."

"Jake."

Kassandra adopted a confused expression. "I've never heard such a name before. Where are you from, if you don't mind me asking?"

"The West Indies."

"Where?"

"A few thousand miles in that general direction." Jake pointed west.

Kassandra followed the finger. "A few thousand…that would put you over the edge of the world!"

"The world is round," Jake said shortly.

"It is? Incredible. Do all people from the West…Indies sail ships as magnificent as that, and bear weapons and clothes like you?"

"Yes," Jake said flatly. He wasn't sure what the relationship between him and this woman was going to be, but he had a time period to get back to, and he didn't want to make friends that he would have to leave behind.

Then again, nothing said he couldn't bring people back to the future with him.

Unless that would create some kind of cosmic catastrophe.

There was so much revolving around this time travel crap that Jake's head hurt.

"Could you take me there?" Kassandra asked.

"Why would you want to go to the West Indies?"

Kassandra's face tightened, and Jake could tell she had an underlying motive that she didn't want to reveal. It was the same kind of face Jake saw on Mary when she was performing Assassin stuff and wanted to involve him but was trying to figure out how to put it on the table without bringing out his inner philosopher.

"Let me guess," Jake said, "you are on some great quest to save the world or a little bit of the world from some threat in shadows, and the promise of a bigger ship and better weapons has created visions of success in your head."

"More or less," Kassandra admitted.

"And what is this shadowed threat?" Jake asked, though he was already sensing the answer.

"If I told you who they are and what they are doing, you would not believe me."

Jake produced the triangle fragment from the Hydra, causing Kassandra's eyes to widen.

"They wouldn't happen to be called the Cult of Kosmos, would they?" Jake's eye gleamed manically.

"Where did you get that?" Kassandra asked.

"That guy that wanted my ship? He called himself the Hydra, and he had this little thingy on him, along with a scroll from the Ghost of Kosmos. Apparently, the Ghost is a woman."

"That narrows it down to only several thousand people," Kassandra muttered. "So, you know of the Cult, and you have one of the pieces I need to upgrade my spear—"

"Your spear?" Jake asked.

Kassandra reached behind and pulled out the weapon hidden behind her back, attached to her quiver. "This is the broken Spear of Leonidas."

Jake blinked. "I've heard Leo-NIGH-das before, but not Leo-NEE-das."

"No, I'm pretty sure my grandfather's name is pronounced Leo-NEE-das," Kassandra said stiffly.

Sensing such an argument would go nowhere fast, Jake moved on. "So, is that just a broken spear tip, or does it do things?"

"It does things."

Jake reached out for it, and as he did, the spear tip started glowing. The pirate retracted his hand. "A Piece of Eden…" he said quietly.

"A piece of what?"

"Haven't you ever heard of the Garden of Eden?"

"No…"

"Adam and Eve?"

"Who?"

Jake blinked very slowly, trying to comprehend how someone on Planet Earth hadn't ever heard of the oldest Biblical story, and then he remembered he was in 430 B.C. The Bible was still being written during this time, and it wasn't exactly available in a corner store. Now that Jake further thought of it, he doubted anyone in 430 B.C. Greece even knew what a Bible was.

"Never mind. The short version is that Pieces of Eden are things left behind by an ancient civilization."

"You should talk more with my friend, Herodotus."

Jake blinked once again at the unfamiliar pronunciation of a word he knew. "Yeah, I'll get on that one eventually. In the meantime, considering we've crossed paths as we have and we both know of the Cult of Kosmos and we have an aligned interest—"

"How so?"

"The Cult may have knowledge of something that I need, and I intend to hunt them down until I find that knowledge."

"I intend to hunt them down and kill them, so I suppose it makes sense for us to travel together. You can interrogate them for this knowledge you seek, and I can cut their throats after you're done."

"Perfect. I was heading to Athens to talk to Pericles to see if he knows anything."

"What a coincidence, so was I."

…

Jake could feel the universe actually working in his favor, and it felt good.

There was a screech, and an eagle of all things unceremoniously lit atop Kassandra's helmet. "Ah, this is Ikaros, my eagle."

Just then, Jake's own flying companion lit on his shoulder. "This is Larry, my sparrow."

Kassandra' brow furrowed. "I guess Larry is a name native to the West Indies, as is a 'sparrow.'"

"Correct."

"You never said whether you would take me to the West Indies."

"Oh, the answer is no, because I'm here, I'm all you're going to need."

Now Kassandra looked dubious. "You are all I'm going to need? A boy a head shorter than me?"

"Yes."

Jake said it with such finality and seriousness that Kassandra blinked, as if she had been struck by an acorn. "Oh. Okay, then. I guess we'll be travelling together for a while then. Plenty of time to trade knowledge over the Cult and get to know one another better."

There was a certain suggestive tone in Kassandra's voice that reminded Jake of when Mary got wasted.

It took a lot for Mary to get wasted, but when she did, she got…flirty.

Jake's skin crawled. "Woman, I am sixteen. You are somewhere in your twenties."

"And? The gods are several thousand years old, but that does not stop them."

"We're not gods," Jake said flatly.

"You might not be," Kassandra said, teasing, "but they call me the eagle-bearer, the mighty misthios, a goddess in human form."

"Fascinating," Jake said flatly. "I think I left my fucks to give somewhere back in Cuba."

Chrysaor intimidated Jake, because Chrysaor was an actual mythological figure who had centuries of combat experience under his belt. Kassandra was nothing like Chrysaor, and Jake could tell by her movements that he could fight her to at least a standstill, and thus was not affected by her bragging, teasing or not.

"I take it Cuba is in the West Indies. Very well then, Jake of the West Indies, sparrow-bearer, let's go to Athens and meet with Pericles regarding the Cult of Kosmos."

"Do let's."

Kassandra whistled, and from over a hill a horse came trotting up.

Jake's face screwed up. "Has that thing been there the whole time?"

"Actually, I'm not sure where Phobos goes when I'm not riding him."

"You named the horse Phobos," Jake said. "You know, the last horse I had, I called him Roach. Nice horse, strong, dependable, always followed me, but God forbid he ever swam."

"Which god?" Kassandra asked.

Jake was once again caught flat-footed at someone not knowing about God.

'Dear Lord, these people and their lack of modern intelligence is going to drive me up the damn wall.'

Jake also didn't know how he was going to explain an entire religion, a monotheistic one at that, to a person from a time period of polytheistic pantheons every corner you turned, and so he didn't bother with trying.

"All of them," Jake said. "Where I'm from, instead of having a bunch of temples and rituals for dozens of deities, we decided to roll them all into one supreme being, and simply call him 'God.'"

Honestly, not an entirely inaccurate statement.

"I see. I've never heard of such a thing."

"Of course, you haven't. Now, going to Athens and meeting Pericles?"

"Yes. Get on."

Kassandra mounted Phobos, and clearly expected Jake to get on the space behind her. With no other alternative, the pirate did just that, and ignored his sense of embarrassment at having to hold onto a grown woman's waist lest he fall off.

"What do you know of the Cult?" Kassandra asked loudly over Phobos' running across the terrain.

"They're in positions of political and military might, controlling the actions of both sides of the war, all with the end goal of them being the victors with the world under their feet."

"Oh. Spot on. I think you have more knowledge on the Cult than you let on."

"Oh, please, Kassandra. Organizations like the Cult of Clocks are all the same. A bunch of people working in the shadows with delusions of power of prestige running through their heads. Once you drag them into the light, they'll give you some self-righteous spiel about their actions, intentions, and visions, trying to convince you that they're somehow right in what they're doing, but you'll just end up cutting their throat open anyway."

Jake waited for a rebuttal or some warning about how the Cult was different, but instead he got a question.

"What's a clock?"

"A device that tells time. Think a sundial, but without the sun."

"How can you keep track of the time without Apollo passing overhead? Have you come into the power of Kronos in the West Indies?"

Jake sighed at having to deal with someone with a lack of knowledge regarding modern technology, but he instantly perked up when he recognized the opportunity for endless mind-fuckery.

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The whole horse ride to Athens, Jake messed around with Kassandra's head, playing with her ignorance. Karma took care of him for his meanness though, because his ass was really sore from riding on Phobos as the horse went up and down hills and hurdled low enough obstacles.

Now, one might be wondering why Jake is so relatively calm being over two thousand years in the past, and the reason for that is simple: the time periods were drastically similar. Both eras had no electricity, plumbing, heating, air conditioning, wi-fi, lighting, fast food, cars, trains, nothing. The only real differences in the times were the weaving and metal working, and gunpowder.

Besides that, everyone smelled. Baths were rare. Animal shit was all over the ground. Swords were common. Hygiene was terrible. Living conditions were borderline deplorable. Food took forever to prepare. Bad language spewed from everyone's mouth. Hairy people at every corner. Class differences. Social strife. Rich vs. poor.

A real-time example of the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Jake was more amused than anything.

Anyway, the two eventually found themselves in Athens, where it smelled, and they were drawing looks from everyone they passed.

"I think it's my skin," Jake said.

"Why would your skin draw such attention? Clearly, you are the son of someone from islands. People like that are all over Greece."

The pirate grinned, his joke having flown far over Kassandra's head. "Good point. I suppose it's my clothes, then."

"Yes. I think we should get you something for appropriate for this land. I take it you don't have any drachmae on you?"

"Quite the contrary," Jake grinned, recalling the riches on Chrysaor's ship, riches that now belonged to him. "I'm loaded, bitch."

"I take it 'loaded' is a West Indies term for wealthy?"

"Yes. Let's go find a shop."

The nearest shop was easy to find, and Jake made a fashion statement from the bowels of Hell itself.

He had kept his trousers and shirt, leaving his waist and forearms devoid of armor, and in place of his boots were ornamented gold Athenian shoes. Over his upper body he wore an adorned silver heavy Athenian breastplate, the tassels on his shoulders without the little nubs. His tricorn hat with the fancy feather was still upon his head, and he had redone his belts to accommodate his new gear.

"Could you have found a brighter chest plate?" Kassandra asked, raising a hand to block the rays reflected off Jake's golden torso.

"Probably," Jake said with a grin. "How do I look?"

"Less strange than when I first saw you, but still strange. Those…pants…look like they restrict movement."

"Nope. Free as a feather."

Kassandra shook her head at the oddity in her life that was Jake of the West Indies. "Come on. The Pnyx is on that hill. That's where Herodotus said to meet him."

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Getting up there, they found a small crowd, and a couple of old guys giving a speech about unity in hard times.

In Jake's mind, he repeated a mantra that went as follows: Who's the Cultist?

He wasn't sure just how Eagle Vision was able to that, pick out the object of your desire or your person of interest, but it was a very handy thing to use when looking for stuff in which you only had a vague idea of where to look. Anyway, Jake's world went screwy, and the guy in the white armor, glowed bright gold.

Jake just couldn't resist grinning.

"Same old, same old," he muttered.

Kassandra was too focused on the speech to hear him.

A man in a tunic approached. "Good, you came. Who's this?"

"My friend, Jake of the West Indies," Kassandra introduced.

"Where?"

"Don't worry about it," Jake said. "I take it you're Herodotus?"

"Well, that's close to how you pronounce my name, but yes, I am Herodotus."

"Pleased to meet you. Who's the old guy in the armor?"

"That is Kleon. Come, we have to hurry to Perikles before something happens."

The trio moved to speak to Attica's leader, but a soldier put his spear forward. After a quick exchange between Herodotus and Perikles, the heart of the conversation was met.

"I am Kassandra and this is Jake. We've come to talk to you about the—"

Herodotus cut in. "We must choose our moment wisely and speak our words more privately."

"Yeah, we're here for information on the Cult of Kosmos," Jake said blandly, inspecting his nails. "Bunch of men and women in high places looking to overthrow governments and establish their own rule. Ever heard of them?"

Herodotus looked like to have been slapped across the face with a fish. Kassandra's eyes were wide. Perikles' mouth was open in a perfect "O." Off to the side, Kleon was interested in the conversation.

"Hello~?" Jake snapped his fingers. "Anyone in there?"

Perikles blinked and shook his head. "Yes, yes. I've heard of the Cult. A bunch of hooligans with dreams of grandeur."

"Yeah, them. What'ch you got?"

"Nothing," Pericles said. "With the war against Sparta raging, I don't have time for rumors."

Jake hummed. "Well, the rumors have time for you. Now, Kassandra thinks you might have information regarding a Spartan woman, her mother?"

Herodotus cut back in, face pale and voice strained. "Ah, perhaps this conversation would be better hosted at the symposium, hm? Many prying ears, you see."

"Seeing and ears don't go together," Jake said flatly.

Herodotus frowned.

"Yes, the symposium," Pericles said. "I can get you in, but I cannot promise any worthwhile information."

"How do we get in?" Kassandra asked.

Jake cocked a brow at her saying "we."

Pericles began to give a list of tasks. Go check on his colleague, Metiochos; escort the sculptor Phidias out of Athens; and an ostracism, or exile. Kassandra nodded.

"We'll get to it."

"You'll get to it," Jake said. "There's something I want to take care of. Find me after you're done."

"How will I find you?" the misthios asked.

"Use your eagle's vision."

With that, Jake went on his way, blending into the crowd.

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Kleon, Sage of the Delian League of the Cult of Kosmos, was hurrying to his private quarters up by the Parthenon. He needed to get correspondence out to his subordinates, warning them of the presence of Kassandra the eagle-bearer, and a new player in the game, Jake of the West Indies…wherever the Hades that was.

Kleon reached his residence, pulled the curtain closed behind him, and went for his desk upon which scrolls and ink jars and feathers lay waiting. He sat down and before he began to write, he slowly turned his towards the window, where someone was casually sitting, flipping a pyramid fragment about his fingers.

"Hey," Jake of the West Indies greeted curtly.

Kleon stared in shock, before he regained his sense and to draw his sword. A loud click made him stop. Looking up, he saw one of those strange devices being pointed at him.

"Funny. You don't even know what this is or what it does, and yet you inherently feel threatened by it, almost like you know you're fucked."

Kleon swallowed, and tried the tactic of the mouth. "Do you know who I am?"

"Kleon the Everyman. Member of the Cult of Kosmos."

The Sage turned as white as his beard. "H-How do you know that?"

"Eagle Vision."

Kleon's brow furrowed. "What?"

"The short version is that it's a gift from the gods that grants me the insight of Athena herself. It lets me find who I'm looking for, and when I was looking for Cultists, I found you."

"What do you want?" Kleon asked, keeping his voice steady. "If it's money you desire—"

The smirk on Jake's lips and the way his eyes gleamed made Kleon gulp. "Why do you people always think money is the question? Do you ever stop and think that maybe, just maybe, there's more to life than gold?"

Kleon's eyes darted in that way your eyes do when you don't have an answer.

"No, old man, what I want is information regarding an object you or your fellows might know about. It's an orb, a little bit bigger than an apple, usually bronze, and covered in strange markings, like this triangle. Ring any bells in that head of yours?"

"…I don't have any bells in my head," Kleon said hesitantly.

The phrase was lost to the Everyman.

Jake sighed. "Look, you know anything like I described, or not?"

Kleon felt most strongly that his life depended on his answer, and therein lied the problem. He didn't have any knowledge of anything like Jake described. An orb bigger than an apple, covered in markings like the pyramid fragments? Not a clue. However…

"I don't know of anything exactly like you seek, but…" a bead of sweat trailed down Kleon's face, "…there's rumors, powerful beasts guarding treasures. Perhaps…perhaps in those troves, is what you seek…?"

Jake jerked his head left, and then right, popping his neck. "I suppose that's a good enough start. Where would these powerful beasts be, exactly?"

Kleon was now thankful for the ridiculous reports he was forced to read as demanded by his job.

"To the west is an island off the coast of Boeotia, called the Isle of Thisvi. Strange stone and strange sounds, like an angry god. To the southeast, in Messara, the ruins of Knossos Palace. Statues of the Minotaur guard a sealed entrance in the ground. The Island of Lesbos to the northeast. In the Petrified Forest, a creature they call the Writhing Dread lives in an area of fog."

"Is that all, or is there more?"

"That's all I know. I swear to Zeus."

"Well, I hope you're being truthful," Jake grinned.

Kleon gulped. "W-Why do you say that?"

"Cause I'm going to alter history."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Essays suck. Especially when you have to write seven pages of an essay, and then you get told by the professor that only half the essay is good, and so you go back and rewrite half the essay because your parents instilled in you a godlike work ethic. However, the essay is done. I'm not redoing any more of it, and I'm finally done with the first semester of my freshman year of college.

Now it is on to Chemistry and Calculus come January 22, 2019.

Anyway, if anyone has any info on the Olorous Fortress completion glitch, please share.

Fav, Follow, and Review please!