AN: I decided to write sooner rather than later, gonna be busier soon with assignments and stuff. At least for a bit. Also, I was bored and 'in the writing mood' as it were.
Leaving in a non-suspicious manner was slightly harder than entering. The lord of Mars moved to a nearby corner and while out of sight folded the robes into a ball. Now with only a small visual indicator, the deity moved the balled-up robes to the edge of the plateau before going down it. From this position, it was unlikely anyone would see the robe clearly enough to question it.
They then began to move with great speed away from the city ascending higher into the air and set themselves back on course towards Olympus. Eventually, they left the stream of faith. The further they got from the city the lighter it felt, but once they left the faith it was quite satisfying. Like they could finally breathe again. Odd considering the lack of physical lungs.
The land passed rather quickly again. And to think it was only in the afternoon currently. They had not spent too much time in Dimitis that morning. And even the time in Athens was less than an hour. 'Rapid progress is necessary, we must act before these "Righteous" gods catch onto our existence and plan' these thoughts were brought on by the few myths the deity remembered then, no matter if they were true or not erring on the side of caution was best.
Towns, cities, roads all of them were below. 'Some gods are better than others but the sheer amount of myths that show the gods being spiteful over petty reasons making us think it isn't some collective vendetta of the mortals. Especially since they still worship the gods, then again the threat of angering them seems to be a constant fear…. No wonder they were so wary of us. Claiming to be a god openly could lead just about anywhere in the minds of humans.'
The lord among lords saw it now. A tall mountain, the streams were becoming difficult to avoid as they all intersected the closer the Machine God to the destination of their paths. Eventually, they simply sped up and blocked out faith as much as possible as they dove straight towards the mountain, it was odd. 'For a mountain, it seems rather regular. I see no palaces or structures. Are they hidden within the mountain rock? I doubt it. Something else is happening.'
They were finally at the mountain snow on its peaks and shone in the sun. As they flew the deity knew something was off. They stopped and looked around, extending their senses. There was nothing but the feeling of a peculiar sense in the air. The cold air of the mountain registered in their senses. They did not feel the cold so much as knew the temperature and knew that to a human it would be quite cold.
'Deeper, there is something here.' they extended their senses. This time not outwards but in scope. Aside from mortal senses, they broadened those slowly to find the source of the feeling. They saw more colours, experienced deeper and higher sounds. Smelled the rock below, felt the air vibrate even as it stayed still, and yet further as it moved. Tasted the elements comprising each bit of air. 'Where is it?'
Their senses were broader and kept becoming so to find the point where they could discover what was going on. But nothing came until the lord of all knowledge paused as a memory flashed. There were no images merely voices, "-here, the Xenos are invisible!"
The voices continued, sounds rattled as they shouted, "Foul sorcery! Omnissiah I beseech you to give me strength! Your enemy is before me! Grant me the sight to se-" the voices cut out into whispers. Their mind took it all in. Only speaking after a moment had passed.
"Foul sorcery indeed." the world around them seemed to ripple as the answer came to them, through this ripple palaces and buildings were partially visible. Lush gardens, villas, artificial lakes. All together larger than the top of the mountain actually was, "A place outside conventional space, hidden by magic. We'd be impressed if it weren't annoying to find."
The deity began to probe at the vale that hid the dwellings of the Olympians. Testing it, its strength, and flexibility. They found it rather resilient, but bendable. 'We shall have to be careful, lest we bring the wrath of their mountain down on us.' The lord of all knowledge reached out with their mind. They began to bore a hole in the vale, it was small incredibly so.
They slowly increased the size of the hole into this space without allowing any change in pressure or temperature to reach the other side. Once the size was about the size of two fingers in diameter the lord of all machines entered and unravelled the robe to slip through before they closed the vale back up.
Once through the lord of Mars had to shore up their defences against blocking faith. As it was the thickest they had ever seen. The effort need to move felt as if walking through syrup. 'Wonderful, we better act quickly. A whole day of this would be mentally exhausting to endure.'
'Regardless of that though, now that we're in, we should keep as unnoticeable as possible.' they examined their surroundings. They were in a place that frankly didn't look like the mountain outside at all. There were slopes like a mountain and the palaces were built unto them. With plenty of space between but there were no similarities to the slopes within real space.
'If one were to make an entire space separate from the truly physical then why bother conforming to what the closest physical place is?' these thoughts came to them as they descended to the ground. There were paths of stone that twisted into places that led to another palace. Aside from the palaces, there were smaller buildings.
The lord of Mars did their best to keep their bundled-up robe out of sightlines as they explored. They moved to the closest of the palaces which were seemingly the lowest in terms of height, 'There is not necessarily any meaning to that, after all, it has a large open field seemingly unique to it and the geography.' The outside showed all of this and the colourfully painted marble that seemed omnipresent in the palaces and temples of 'Hellas'. Here it was primarily painted red.
Inside there was various iconography on the walls floors and ceiling. Whether painted with plaster, laid in as tile, or cloth banners. There were many pictures and scenes, all of which centred on war. Battles, bloodshed, weapons, and death. Most of the objects around seemed to be in red, black, white, or gold.
'This palace likely belongs to Ares then. Given the pure emotional disgust that Korban showed when he spoke of the god. I can see why the other gods might not like him.' The deity's thoughts were not judgment, in fact, the various banners and red felt homely.
This was a palace and as such, it had quite a lot of space. Rooms were seen before the lord of all machines moved on. After they were nearly done with the palace the deity was about to leave when they saw him. In the small garden was a man... a god. This god had brown skin and silver hair cut at the sides, his eyes a visible red, and the clothes he wore seemed comfortable. 'This is his palace, comfort is often normal in one's own home.'
He was smiling slightly as he spoke with two women who were excitedly talking to him. The three of them sat on the ground which was cushioned by grass. The deity kept their robes out of sight and got closer to listen without strain. "-ell I don't know Eileithyia. It isn't exactly my specialty. Maybe you should ask Hebe here, I bet she knows all about-"
The lord of all knowledge recognized the name from the tale of the birth of the twins Artemis and Apollo. Their mother Leto was initially stopped from giving birth because Hera kidnapped Eileithyia goddess of childbirth. 'We are unfamiliar with who Hebe is, some other god? A question for another time.'
Still hidden the deity began to move from the palace when a thought struck them. 'Do the gods notice the taking of faith?' they were silently thinking as they observed the gods before them. Reaching out, the lord of Mars began to siphon small amounts of faith from the Olympian's stream and held it apart from themselves. He showed no visible signs of difference so they took more in greater quantities.
As the lord of all machines gathered this faith in a temporary container. 'We have felt what absorbing some of Athena's faith was like, is it the same for all Olympians?' the deity then took in some of this faith. And nothing beyond the same feeling happened, but as they took in just a bit more. The difference was clear, visions of battle, death, destruction, war.
They felt an intense bloodlust overtake them, they needed to kill, maim, and- They stopped absorbing immediately, it had been even less than the amount they accidentally absorbed from their visit to Athens. 'Clearly, where her faith did not affect me, Ares' did.'
The temporary pool of faith kept expanding during this, short discovery. As more faith was collected the lord of all knowledge could still see no difference.
After a moment of more observation, Ares put his hand to his head and his face showed the expression of a minor headache. "Ares? What is wrong? Are you all right? Brother?" Hebe spoke with a tone of worry and concern. Ares waved off her question before he started to speak.
Before the god of war could speak a thought ran through the Machine God, 'So he is her brother. Not a complete answer but better.'
"I am fine just a drop in mortal worship and sacrifices, nothing unusual. I'll just be a bit tired is all." he smiled and the pair of goddesses moved on with slightly sad smiles on their faces.
'So it has to be a sizable amount, and minor discomfort is the result. It would be best to end the test here we have seen enough.' they were about to release the captured faith when a thought occurred to the deity. 'What happens with more?'
Deciding to act on it, they began to skim on the other gods' streams from afar, making sure to take very little by the standard size of the streams. Now with a rather sizable amount of faith, they mix it with Ares' faith. And feed it into the stream of the war god.
At first, there was no noticeable effect but then Ares' seemed to brighten, not physically but certainly in posture and tone. He was more energetic and seemed to recover to his previous state. Though that too steadily climbed. And that is what his companions noted.
"Ares, you seem much more energetic than a moment ago, are all right?" this time it was Eileithyia who asked. "You have been acting weird brother." At these words, Ares paused and then looked contemplative.
"I hadn't noticed, but I just got a large amount of worship and sacrifices. I guess I am just unused to an upturn so quickly so it hadn't felt familiar enough to notice. Though, I don't think that makes any sense." the god paused for a moment.
"Well, I am not going to turn down a good sacrifice while I'm getting it. It's just unusual to get a sacrifice from anyone that isn't the Spartans, I'm rather sad there aren't more of them. They make up most of my favourite mortals." as the god bemoaned his lack of numerous worshippers, and wished for more Spartans the invisible deity moved away from the palace.
'I still have a whole mountain to see.' the palace of the now cheery god was behind them moving them noted something. Having worked with each of the Olympians' streams of faith had made it much easier to identify whose palace belonged to who.
At the moment all of the Olympians were in their palaces from what they could tell, 'Interesting. Do they not have domains to rule over elsewhere?' however there was one palace that was empty, they had not touched the faith of whoever resided there. 'I shall have to see what the mystery's answer is.'
The lord of manufacturing moved in stealth to the palace and entered it. Immediately the Machine God was struck by the lack of art in the form of paints. But the sheer abundance of pottery, tilework, and sculptures. Not only that but there were many… machines. Almost immediately as the lord of all machines saw them they knew their purposes and the process of their creation.
'Ah, Hephaestus. This is his palace, though he doesn't seem to be here right now. We shall have to help ourselves to his craft, his contraptions may stir some memories.'
AN: I yanked the idea of Ares having a good relationship with some of his sisters from another fic called 'Ares and Athena through the years'. If you're wondering why I was reading that, I wanted to see what was in the Greek mythos section and since I was bored read some of it. It's fine.
