On a sunny day in ancient Thrace, this day was not like any other.
Today, a village of farmers is in peril. "Man-eating horses!" a farmer cried, as he tried to warn the others to avoid getting torn apart by an angry, foaming herd of red stallions. He ran with the other survivors to a fortress for safety, but he could not catch up with the vicious beasts, and they crushed him under their hooves and stripped his body of his flesh and his life.
Such was an exciting day for these stallions, having being released from weeks of boredom and fights deep in the dueling pits under the palace of the giant-king of Thrace, Diomedes the Wrathful, for Diomedes wanted to put a gruesome end to a longstanding rebellion over burdensome taxes and sacrifices. For now they need not tear up some cowardly prisoner or prey brought into their cells as usual, and then paw and gnaw at the worn orichalkos bars after; they instead ran free to hunt for whatever humans and livestock they can pursue and eat to their bellies' and jaws' content.
One of the steeds sniffed at the air. He raised his head towards a forest, and beckoned his followers to go with him. After much browsing through the undergrowth, they found several humans hiding behind several bushes. One of them advanced towards the humans, but a male human in tattered armor quickly grabbed a spear and stabbed his eye and head. Another horse bit the human by his chest, pulled him out, and several others tore him to pieces. Just as dark clouds gathered in the skies above them, the other humans held on to their weapons and started to pray.
Before these monsters could sink their jaws into the other humans, all of them were struck by lightning, causing these stallions to writhe and melt into puddles of yellow ooze and twisted, charred skeletons. The humans stopped praying as they looked up at the dispersing clouds, and praised Sabázios and Zálmoxis, the greatest Gods of their realm, for Their role in slaying the beasts who would have eaten them.
But there was more than divine intervention that saved the Thracian villagers that day, and not all of the monstrous stallions were slain. Apparently, some of those humans noticed one stallion who did not leave a rotting skeleton bathed by a puddle of vile, scorching yellow acid on his spot: that stallion disappeared in a bright, blinding flash. Although they also left the terrible and strange events of that day behind and went on with their usual lives, one red-headed farmer sought to know more.
He attempted to collect some of the yellow paste, but they scorched his hands and ate up any vessel that contained them. The yellow paste slowly dissipated in weeks, but they poisoned that particular forest, and every animal fled from that accursed place.
Many months later, the Kingdom of Bistonia was thrown into chaos, after their king Diomedes wrestled against Herakles the Hellene and was eaten by some carnivorous mares. Now the kingdom is under siege from the neighbouring tribes, the Edonians, Sapaioi, and Cicones, and the farmer took his family to settle down to a mountainside plain further to the Skirmiadioi Kingdom to the east, where they lived and worked for several years.
However, on one autumn's night, someone knocked at the door of the farmer's home. He opened and found a strange being in the shape of a man, with an armored body of what appeared to be shining blue rock and gems. Whatever face he had was covered by a screen of greenish-gold.
Such a sight as this startled the farmer for a little, but he asked, "Dear soldier, what are you doing in my doorstep?"
"You wanted to know what exactly is this lightning, yellow oil, and the disappearing horse, right?" the strange blue stone man asked back in the farmer's Thracian language. "I know all these, and I can help you."
"Surely, I do!" the farmer said. "Wait here, I need to get my wife and my son, to prepare a meal for you." He hurried upstairs to wake his family up, and they prepared a little, hearty feast for their strange guest. When the family and the blue man sat together, the blue man tapped a button on his right shoulder, allowing him to take off his helmet. The farmer, his wife, and their son noticed the man's features: he is a bearded man with a balding head crowned with long, silver hair; but the strangest thing about him is that his wrinkled skin is blue. Not tan, or peach, or any color of any human skin, but as blue as the tablecloth for their feast.
"What are you?" Reskoutourme, the farmer's wife, asked.
"And where are you from?" Their son, Roulouzis, added.
"I am just a man from another country," the blue man replied. "Just that my country does not belong to your world."
"Are you a Demi-God?" the farmer asked.
"No, I am just flesh, blood, and bone, just like you." the guest responded. "Without my suit, I am just a weak old man, and nothing more."
The family noticed that his speech does not match the movements of his lips. "But you appear to be speaking our language, when we cannot hear your real language." The son inquired, as he sipped a cup of wine. "Only Demi-Gods could do something as impossible as this!"
"That is just the technology of my country, without which I will have to waste time, taking months to learn your Thracian and Greek." He pointed to a black stem from the back of his armor suit, around his neck, to his mouth, which receives his words. "That device, or tool, translates my words into any language. I could switch it to Greek, Dacian, or Macedonian if you want to."
"We can help you and interpret your speech anyways," the wife answered.
"But that is for an unimportant time. I need to speak with Blaisos regarding an urgent matter."
This shocked the farmer. "How did you know my name?" he asked.
"My friends told me about you after inquiring with the townspeople. Currently they are studying the dead horses' remains, and watching chariot races and stage plays."
"So, noble soldier," Blaisos' wife asked, "you wanted to talk with us, about the melting horses and the burning yellow oil? Please, explain."
The guest cleared his throat. "All of this was caused not by Sábazios, but some other factor at work. If Sábazios had struck those flesh-eating horses, they would not have melted into that burning yellow acid you found on their fried corpses."
"Then what is that yellow acid for?" Blaisos' son asked.
"A weapon. Normally it only poisons the ground and scorches skin for a few weeks, but when heated in high temperatures, that acid will shine very brightly, and quickly melt and burn any flesh or plant. A hundred heated gallons of this liquid, when released in a flood, would destroy an entire town in three hours."
This shocked Blaisos and his family. "Then who were those who released it, and why did they do so?" Reskoutourme inquired.
"An empire that wanted to collect creatures and warriors from every possible world," the guest replied. "Their soldiers who were flying on a ship selected one of the fierce horses, and shot the yellow acid in the form of lightning to quickly kill the other horses. At least they did rescue you and your friends from danger."
"Perhaps they are doing it for their king, right?" Rouzoulis asked.
"Certainly. It is for a game of exotic creatures and warriors. The man-eating horse that disappeared that day will be one of the contestants."
"I would like to know more about that empire, and the worlds it has visited," Blaisos requested. "I also want to stop them from using that yellow acid on my world: who knows if it can kill off all life and reduce all countries to wastelands? Shall I follow you?"
"And to honor my father and Ares of my people," his son Rouzoulis added, "I wish to go with you, and at least go on an adventure!"
"But what about me?" Reskoutourme asked her husband and son. "Who will tend the house and keep our family line without you two?"
The blue man paused for a while. "Perhaps Miss Reskoutourme is right," he responded. "After all, the worlds where my country was located in are more dangerous than your world, and it is a better thing to be safe, and live well lives like your neighbors."
"We honor Ares, so we must not back down from any challenge," the host replied. "I and my son are going with you. At least my wife can tend my relatives, if we would never return from our journey."
"That would be unbearable!" Reskoutourme complained and sobbed. "We escaped from danger years ago, and you wanted to leave me in the hands of some abusive nobleman? What a husband you are!" She turned to her son. "And you, too, are a dishonor to our family for leaving me behind and alone!"
The guest was distressed by the ensuing quarrel. "Alright," he shouted. "Then Reskoutourme comes along with the both of you!"
All the Thracians, even the farmer's wife herself, were shocked upon hearing this. "But she is a woman," Blaisos objected. "She is too soft and frail for combat, and the best she can do is only to support soldiers in the battlefield."
"So was I, and all my brothers and sisters too," the guest responded. "Until they were soldiers, many of which were killed after defeating many enemies. Come with me, all three of you, and you will all be great warriors. Your son, especially, will honour you through his future endeavours."
Much of this took place in the Kingdom of Bistonia in southern Thrace near the Aegean Sea, and the rest somewhere at the Skirmiadioi Kingdom at eastern Thrace, 501 B. C. The Bistonians worshipped Dionysus and Ares, the latter who was regarded as the father of their people's founder.
Sábazios is the Thracian (and Phrygian of Asia Minor/modern Turkey) God of the Sky, and the Divine Horseman of Heaven in their mythology.
Zálmoxis is the Getae (another tribe in Thrace) God of the Underworld, and of Immortality. He is equated by some Getae with the handsome Thunder God, Gebeleizis (Zibelthiurdos in Thracian mythology).