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And here is a new plot for a scenario or campaign (based on Dmitry Kolosov's book "The Warrior")
"Well, hello there, my dear ones!" Zeus drawled sinisterly as the five rebellious gods approached the throne. The Thunderer was clad in a ceremonial golden chlamys and held perun in his right hand, and in his left—a small round shield covered in a mirror-bright alloy. At his feet lay the shackled Hera; slightly behind her stood Artemis, Ares, and Apho.
"I would like to believe that you have come to your senses," Zeus continued, not waiting for a greeting in return, "but the method you chose to enter the palace suggests otherwise. I warn you: you have lost your battle, and it would be prudent of you to surrender to my mercy." The rebel gods remained silent. Zeus's voice grew increasingly solemn. "The punishment I shall assign you will not be easy, but you have well earned it. My sentence is this—all who do not submit to me await the fate of Pan; others shall be imprisoned in Tartarus for a term sufficient to repent for their deeds. In other words, I have decided to part ways with my rebellious assistants. I shall create new ones for myself, more obedient and perfect. Do you wish to say anything in your own defense?"
"Only one thing!" Poseidon replied. "We haven't lost yet!"
He thrust his interlaced hands forward, from which a bright blue beam shot out. Zeus made an imperceptibly swift movement with the shield and reflected this lunge. Bouncing off the shiny surface of the shield, the energy cluster hit the painted vault. One of Tacon's frescoes shattered into pieces, showering the floor with multicolored fragments.
Zeus remained unperturbed and merely noted:
"Impolite."
In the next moment, he had to reflect three more energy clusters sent by Athena, Hades, and Hephaestus, as well as a gold-tipped arrow smeared with love-poison from Erot. The Thunderer handled this task with incomprehensible ease, after which he struck back, unleashing an energy squall upon the insurgent gods. At this signal, Artemis and Ares entered the fray, while Apho, whose energy capabilities were small, hurried to hide behind the armored back of the throne.
The hall filled with shrieks and crashes. The gods hurled energy clusters at one another and reflected them with hastily created shields. There were more rebels, but despite this, they were weaker than their opponents. The power of Zeus's energy field many times exceeded the capabilities of the entire enemy coalition. Furthermore, fighting on his side were the battle-fierce Ares and Artemis, and Apollo, who had suddenly appeared in the Throne Hall after previously checking the integrity of the light streams. At first, the picture of the battle seemed chaotic. The gods threw energy clusters in all directions, trying as best they could to dodge shots aimed at them. They did not always succeed, and then an energy cluster would slam into a defensive contour and explode in a fountain of fluffy sparks. Such tactics favored Zeus—he possessed a strong protective field and could strike his enemies of his choosing. Therefore, the insurgent gods hurried to break the battle into several duels, where they met face to face: Athena and Ares, who had long disliked each other; Artemis with Hephaestus; Poseidon with Apollo, who dreamed of occupying his throne. Hades and Erot fought against Zeus, as well as Hera, who had somehow freed herself from her bonds. Not long ago they had feasted at a common table, but now they fought not for life, but for death.
Whether by chance or as fate willed it, the fighters in each pair proved to be roughly equal in strength. Athena, experienced in military affairs, was inferior to Ares in power, but he knew how well the goddess of wisdom wielded any weapon and therefore acted with caution. Without speaking, both opponents collapsed their energy fields and drew ordinary weapons from nothing: Athena—a five-pound spear with a leaf-shaped steel tip and a lezeion[240] with a convex image of an owl, and Ares—a heavy double-edged sword and a shield with a torch. It was a glorious duel that brought the combatants much pleasure. Eventually, they both became so engrossed in the fight that they stopped paying attention to what was happening around them. Only a prick, a parrying movement with the shield, and a counter-thrust.
Artemis considered herself a more experienced fighter than Hephaestus, and if they had fought on the same terms as the previous pair, the goddess of the hunt would surely have achieved victory quite quickly. After all, there was no armor that could withstand her arrows—forged, by the way, by Hephaestus. But a duel with energy clusters made their chances approximately equal. Artemis had a steadier eye, but Hephaestus's clusters possessed not only impact force but also burned with fire, and he moved quite well for a lame man. Several crimson rays, fired from the intersection of the index and middle fingers of the lord of fire elements, touched Artemis's skin, and whitish blisters swelled in those places.
The battle between Apollo and Poseidon was characterized by wild frenzy. The gods showered each other with a hail of energy pulses; Apollo's orange rays left bloody scars on the body of the lord of the sea, while Poseidon's accurate shots, saturated with the energy of the ocean, hit the enemy with such force that muscles crumpled and bones cracked. Soon Apollo began to cough up blood. Several times he was a hair's breadth from death, saved only by the intervention of Zeus, who at the decisive moment unleashed his perun upon Poseidon.
But the Thunderer himself did not have it easy. His calculations were thrown off by the suddenly freed Hera, who deftly cast a sticky loop around her husband's right leg, which slowed his movements and prevented him from concentrating for the decisive blow. The mischievous boy Erot also caused much trouble, firing arrow after arrow. Zeus had no desire to fall in love with the monstrous Hecate—for this was the sentence Erot accompanied each of his gold-tipped projectiles with—and therefore he had to remain constantly on guard. Perhaps the weakest link in this trio was Hades. The underground god diligently unleashed all his power upon the Thunderer. Long black streaks dug into Zeus's defensive contour one after another but could not pierce it, as the nature of Hades' energy clusters was very close to the cold essence of Zeus.
Taking advantage of the fact that Hades had slightly slackened his onslaught and the loop cast by Hera had lost its former strength, the Thunderer struck first, blocking Erot's consciousness with a will-impulse. Before the boy could fall, Zeus unleashed two powerful clusters upon Hades. The latter did not expect such a powerful lunge and was overthrown. A pink liquid—drops of energy plasma—oozed from the breached contour of his body. Dealing with Hera now proved to be as simple as can be. She understood her husband's power better than anyone and trembled before him. Thus, seeing that Zeus had overthrown two of her allies, Hera instantly released the loop and freed Zeus's leg. The Thunderer limited himself to casting a four-meter net over his rebellious wife, from which it was impossible to free oneself without outside help.
After this, Zeus allowed himself to catch his breath—not without purpose. It suited him to weaken those fighting: both opponents and allies, before he delivered the decisive blow and began to dictate his terms. The opposing gods fought with inextinguishable passion. Multicolored rays flew in all directions, plunging with a shriek into the walls, from which pieces of frescoes and marble friezes broke off. Then one of the columns collapsed exactly on Ares' head. Athena helped the stunned god rise, and they continued their duel. Zeus greeted her gesture with a crooked smile. Now it was time to effectively end this clearly prolonged dispute, and the Thunderer sent a telepathic signal, summoning the hekatonkheires into the Throne Hall, after which he sat on the throne and watched as Poseidon methodically beat Apollo with his blue clusters, turning him into a piece of well-beaten meat. To be honest, this sight brought him pleasure. But then the doors swung open and in appeared... No, not the hekatonkheires. These were those whom Zeus did not expect at all...
* * *
For countless years imprisoned on the Isle of the Blessed, the heroes led by Cronus built their endless ladder and finally reached the sky. And hammers beat loudly, scattering crimson marble dust in all directions. And the boisterous Ajax laughed, striking the celestial vault with such force that it shuddered from these blows. The heroes broke through the wall separating them from Tartarus and freed the titans. And now, when they had united their power, there was no force capable of stopping their onslaught. A monstrous vortex, created by the will of the titans, destroyed the walls separating the prisoners from the world of men, and they went free.
Scaring away wild beasts and minor demons who had heard of the quarrel between the gods and were rushing to Olympus to join the victor in time, the titans and heroes entered the palace and stood before the one who had condemned them to eternal imprisonment.
They stood in a row.
Eight titans—huge, mighty, indestructible.
Strong-jawed, sun-haired Hyperion. Previously he commanded the course of the luminary, and then he was cast down into gloomy Tartarus.
Blue-eyed Coeus, whose daughter Leto Zeus was once in love with. At least so it was believed. Coeus was Apollo's grandfather.
Iapetus—father of four mighty sons, one of whom, Menoetius, stood nearby. Behind Menoetius stood two of his sons.
Distrustful and suspicious Crius. He was especially fierce in battle.
And at the head stood Cronus—the most powerful and own same to Zeus, for he had managed to subdue time itself.
By the sides of the titans stood twelve great heroes, shining with the magnificence of armor and shields. The sharp stings of their spears looked threateningly forward.
At the appearance of such unexpected guests, the gods ceased fighting and froze in confusion. Then they began to back away toward Zeus's throne—step by step, picking up the lifeless bodies of Hades and Erot along the way. Soon they huddled at the Thunderer's feet, like chicks seeking refuge under a hen's wing. Zeus was no less surprised than they were, but not in the least discouraged.
"How dare you come here?!" he exclaimed thunderously, raising perun above his head. His voice rolled through the hall like a mountain landslide, making the walls tremble.
The titans and heroes answered the Thunderer with daring looks, and Cronus shouted:
"Return what belongs to us by right—our power!"
In strength of voice, Cronus was in no way inferior to the king of the Olympians.
"You, who only yesterday begged me for freedom, speak again of power?! I shall destroy you! I shall lock you in such a dungeon that there will be no road back!..."
"Well, hello there, my dear ones!" Zeus drawled sinisterly as the five rebellious gods approached the throne. The Thunderer was clad in a ceremonial golden chlamys and held perun in his right hand, and in his left—a small round shield covered in a mirror-bright alloy. At his feet lay the shackled Hera; slightly behind her stood Artemis, Ares, and Apho.
"I would like to believe that you have come to your senses," Zeus continued, not waiting for a greeting in return, "but the method you chose to enter the palace suggests otherwise. I warn you: you have lost your battle, and it would be prudent of you to surrender to my mercy." The rebel gods remained silent. Zeus's voice grew increasingly solemn. "The punishment I shall assign you will not be easy, but you have well earned it. My sentence is this—all who do not submit to me await the fate of Pan; others shall be imprisoned in Tartarus for a term sufficient to repent for their deeds. In other words, I have decided to part ways with my rebellious assistants. I shall create new ones for myself, more obedient and perfect. Do you wish to say anything in your own defense?"
"Only one thing!" Poseidon replied. "We haven't lost yet!"
He thrust his interlaced hands forward, from which a bright blue beam shot out. Zeus made an imperceptibly swift movement with the shield and reflected this lunge. Bouncing off the shiny surface of the shield, the energy cluster hit the painted vault. One of Tacon's frescoes shattered into pieces, showering the floor with multicolored fragments.
Zeus remained unperturbed and merely noted:
"Impolite."
In the next moment, he had to reflect three more energy clusters sent by Athena, Hades, and Hephaestus, as well as a gold-tipped arrow smeared with love-poison from Erot. The Thunderer handled this task with incomprehensible ease, after which he struck back, unleashing an energy squall upon the insurgent gods. At this signal, Artemis and Ares entered the fray, while Apho, whose energy capabilities were small, hurried to hide behind the armored back of the throne.
The hall filled with shrieks and crashes. The gods hurled energy clusters at one another and reflected them with hastily created shields. There were more rebels, but despite this, they were weaker than their opponents. The power of Zeus's energy field many times exceeded the capabilities of the entire enemy coalition. Furthermore, fighting on his side were the battle-fierce Ares and Artemis, and Apollo, who had suddenly appeared in the Throne Hall after previously checking the integrity of the light streams. At first, the picture of the battle seemed chaotic. The gods threw energy clusters in all directions, trying as best they could to dodge shots aimed at them. They did not always succeed, and then an energy cluster would slam into a defensive contour and explode in a fountain of fluffy sparks. Such tactics favored Zeus—he possessed a strong protective field and could strike his enemies of his choosing. Therefore, the insurgent gods hurried to break the battle into several duels, where they met face to face: Athena and Ares, who had long disliked each other; Artemis with Hephaestus; Poseidon with Apollo, who dreamed of occupying his throne. Hades and Erot fought against Zeus, as well as Hera, who had somehow freed herself from her bonds. Not long ago they had feasted at a common table, but now they fought not for life, but for death.
Whether by chance or as fate willed it, the fighters in each pair proved to be roughly equal in strength. Athena, experienced in military affairs, was inferior to Ares in power, but he knew how well the goddess of wisdom wielded any weapon and therefore acted with caution. Without speaking, both opponents collapsed their energy fields and drew ordinary weapons from nothing: Athena—a five-pound spear with a leaf-shaped steel tip and a lezeion[240] with a convex image of an owl, and Ares—a heavy double-edged sword and a shield with a torch. It was a glorious duel that brought the combatants much pleasure. Eventually, they both became so engrossed in the fight that they stopped paying attention to what was happening around them. Only a prick, a parrying movement with the shield, and a counter-thrust.
Artemis considered herself a more experienced fighter than Hephaestus, and if they had fought on the same terms as the previous pair, the goddess of the hunt would surely have achieved victory quite quickly. After all, there was no armor that could withstand her arrows—forged, by the way, by Hephaestus. But a duel with energy clusters made their chances approximately equal. Artemis had a steadier eye, but Hephaestus's clusters possessed not only impact force but also burned with fire, and he moved quite well for a lame man. Several crimson rays, fired from the intersection of the index and middle fingers of the lord of fire elements, touched Artemis's skin, and whitish blisters swelled in those places.
The battle between Apollo and Poseidon was characterized by wild frenzy. The gods showered each other with a hail of energy pulses; Apollo's orange rays left bloody scars on the body of the lord of the sea, while Poseidon's accurate shots, saturated with the energy of the ocean, hit the enemy with such force that muscles crumpled and bones cracked. Soon Apollo began to cough up blood. Several times he was a hair's breadth from death, saved only by the intervention of Zeus, who at the decisive moment unleashed his perun upon Poseidon.
But the Thunderer himself did not have it easy. His calculations were thrown off by the suddenly freed Hera, who deftly cast a sticky loop around her husband's right leg, which slowed his movements and prevented him from concentrating for the decisive blow. The mischievous boy Erot also caused much trouble, firing arrow after arrow. Zeus had no desire to fall in love with the monstrous Hecate—for this was the sentence Erot accompanied each of his gold-tipped projectiles with—and therefore he had to remain constantly on guard. Perhaps the weakest link in this trio was Hades. The underground god diligently unleashed all his power upon the Thunderer. Long black streaks dug into Zeus's defensive contour one after another but could not pierce it, as the nature of Hades' energy clusters was very close to the cold essence of Zeus.
Taking advantage of the fact that Hades had slightly slackened his onslaught and the loop cast by Hera had lost its former strength, the Thunderer struck first, blocking Erot's consciousness with a will-impulse. Before the boy could fall, Zeus unleashed two powerful clusters upon Hades. The latter did not expect such a powerful lunge and was overthrown. A pink liquid—drops of energy plasma—oozed from the breached contour of his body. Dealing with Hera now proved to be as simple as can be. She understood her husband's power better than anyone and trembled before him. Thus, seeing that Zeus had overthrown two of her allies, Hera instantly released the loop and freed Zeus's leg. The Thunderer limited himself to casting a four-meter net over his rebellious wife, from which it was impossible to free oneself without outside help.
After this, Zeus allowed himself to catch his breath—not without purpose. It suited him to weaken those fighting: both opponents and allies, before he delivered the decisive blow and began to dictate his terms. The opposing gods fought with inextinguishable passion. Multicolored rays flew in all directions, plunging with a shriek into the walls, from which pieces of frescoes and marble friezes broke off. Then one of the columns collapsed exactly on Ares' head. Athena helped the stunned god rise, and they continued their duel. Zeus greeted her gesture with a crooked smile. Now it was time to effectively end this clearly prolonged dispute, and the Thunderer sent a telepathic signal, summoning the hekatonkheires into the Throne Hall, after which he sat on the throne and watched as Poseidon methodically beat Apollo with his blue clusters, turning him into a piece of well-beaten meat. To be honest, this sight brought him pleasure. But then the doors swung open and in appeared... No, not the hekatonkheires. These were those whom Zeus did not expect at all...
* * *
For countless years imprisoned on the Isle of the Blessed, the heroes led by Cronus built their endless ladder and finally reached the sky. And hammers beat loudly, scattering crimson marble dust in all directions. And the boisterous Ajax laughed, striking the celestial vault with such force that it shuddered from these blows. The heroes broke through the wall separating them from Tartarus and freed the titans. And now, when they had united their power, there was no force capable of stopping their onslaught. A monstrous vortex, created by the will of the titans, destroyed the walls separating the prisoners from the world of men, and they went free.
Scaring away wild beasts and minor demons who had heard of the quarrel between the gods and were rushing to Olympus to join the victor in time, the titans and heroes entered the palace and stood before the one who had condemned them to eternal imprisonment.
They stood in a row.
Eight titans—huge, mighty, indestructible.
Strong-jawed, sun-haired Hyperion. Previously he commanded the course of the luminary, and then he was cast down into gloomy Tartarus.
Blue-eyed Coeus, whose daughter Leto Zeus was once in love with. At least so it was believed. Coeus was Apollo's grandfather.
Iapetus—father of four mighty sons, one of whom, Menoetius, stood nearby. Behind Menoetius stood two of his sons.
Distrustful and suspicious Crius. He was especially fierce in battle.
And at the head stood Cronus—the most powerful and own same to Zeus, for he had managed to subdue time itself.
By the sides of the titans stood twelve great heroes, shining with the magnificence of armor and shields. The sharp stings of their spears looked threateningly forward.
At the appearance of such unexpected guests, the gods ceased fighting and froze in confusion. Then they began to back away toward Zeus's throne—step by step, picking up the lifeless bodies of Hades and Erot along the way. Soon they huddled at the Thunderer's feet, like chicks seeking refuge under a hen's wing. Zeus was no less surprised than they were, but not in the least discouraged.
"How dare you come here?!" he exclaimed thunderously, raising perun above his head. His voice rolled through the hall like a mountain landslide, making the walls tremble.
The titans and heroes answered the Thunderer with daring looks, and Cronus shouted:
"Return what belongs to us by right—our power!"
In strength of voice, Cronus was in no way inferior to the king of the Olympians.
"You, who only yesterday begged me for freedom, speak again of power?! I shall destroy you! I shall lock you in such a dungeon that there will be no road back!..."
