Path To Godhood Session 11: The Rekindled Sun

Characters:

Ajax Karo   -   Gregarious Hunter and Aspiring Kostis, God of Death and Plagues
Neilos   -   Aspiring God of The Sun and Plants
Steidis   -   Aspiring God of Fire and Smiths

The Missing Assistant

Ajax tried to pick up Rini's tracks, but it had been 3 days since she'd gone missing, there had been a heavy storm, and it was a swamp, so he found nothing.  The gods asked around Syrinth as to what might cause someone to go missing in the swamp.  Boring explanations like "if your light source goes out it's really easy to get turned around" weren't much help, but then they found a "swamp fisher" who claimed that there were beguiling lights out in the swamp that only showed up in pure darkness.  You're going to want to walk towards them, but you have to resist, because those who followed the lights were never seen again!

As the god of "the sun" (which is, allegedly, a bright light), Neilos wanted more information about the lights, and the swamp fisher told him what he knew, which wasn't much.  He'd once seen them while out harvesting swamp fish way into the darkness, with all his light sources turned off.  Ajax asked whether groups could be affected, and the fisher figured they probably had been, otherwise how would people know that the ones who'd followed the lights had never been seen again?

They discussed what to do with this information, and Ajax noted that Syrinth's unnatural darkness seemed to be more absolute than the starlit desert.  Neilos decided to ask around if there were any other gods in town, but didn't turn anything up.  While they were walking around the city, Steidis momentarily saw a vision of a cresting wave gently rolling into the shore in twilight.  He told the others of this, and put forth a theory: the swamp eats people and then moves the remains to the sea.

The gods decided to head out into the swamp.  They tied themselves together with rope, blindfolded Neilos and Steidis, and then Ajax led them in the darkness in an attempt to bait out the beguiling lights.  Sadly, an indeterminate amount of time later, they'd only managed to get themselves lost, and Ajax and Steidis were growing tired.  They made camp, as best they could, and Neilos, who is so godly that he no longer needs to sleep, kept watch.  No lights appeared.

Lost in the Dark

Figuring Neilos might be able to detect the beguiling lights with his powers, he took the lead for the "day", and it paid off, when they came to a hill, over which a steady glow could be seen.  While this didn't sound like the beguiling lights, they climbed up to get a better look anyway.  At the top, they saw that the "hill" was actually a circular rim around a crater, in which an enormous glowing sphere sat submerged beneath the swampy water.

This matched with one of Neilos' prophecies, so he wanted to see if he could interact with it.  An attempt to lift it up with his control over plants didn't work; it was too heavy.  Some more pondering over his prophecy made him think it might have been a good thing.  The phrasing suggested that he had to reignite it before raising it up.  With that, he swam down to the sphere, and cut open his arm to let his "divine essence" spill onto the orb.

Daybreak

Night turned to day.  Ajax and Steidis had turned away, and though the lip of the crater caught most of the light, enough bounced off the clouds to light their surroundings.  On the edge of consciousness, Neilos swam back out of the swamp and onto land and, blood still pouring down his arm, used his control over light to throw the orb up into the sky.  The Land of Night was no more, and for the first time in generations, the sun rose over the swamp.

The familiar golden glow enveloped Neilos, and he gained new memories.  He had been born to his parents who were... still foggy.  But he knew that he, like all the gods, had been born in the Golden City.  And his weapon, the staff, was all wrong!  He wielded a shepard's crook!  Also, it felt like it had been years since he'd taken a bath.  Utterly disgusting.  Of course, he also remembered how to concentrate light into a deadly beam, how to cause plants to instantly bloom, and how to teleport between any two places on which the sun was shining.  The other two noticed that Neilos had spontaneously gained an astonishing amount of weight.  

Now that they could see further than several feet, the gods took stock of their surroundings.  To the east, beyond the swamps, a great mountain range rose up, divided by a wide pass.  To the west, far in the distance, they saw the entirety of the ruined city of Syrinth, by far the smallest they'd been to.  In search of some way to heal Neilos' grievous wounds, they headed back, and a long days march later, the gods arrived in Syrinth.  The people were overjoyed, and celebrating throughout the city, throwing lanterns into the street.  The dripping water had dried, and the muddy streets seemed more solid.

Ajax pointed out that, while the common folk would likely give them a warm welcome, the 12 merchant princes who truly controlled the city had made their fortunes by controlling the trade of oil, tar, and other light sources.  Neilos resolved to keep his mouth shut.  They tracked down a healer, a crazed old man named Euclides who wore a headdress made of a great lizard's head decorated with feathers; he immediately set about affixing swamp leeches to Neilos' wounds.

While Neilos rested, the gods went over their remaining leeds.  They could always go try to track down Rini again, though it was now uncertain if the beguiling lights would show up given how bright it was now, but Neilos assured the others that the sun would set, and the night would be dark enough.  Ajax had a prophecy that referred to giving "the weeping man" a "fortune beyond kings" but didn't know what that referred to.  He decided to go out at night to find some sacrifices, either animal or human, to accelerate Neilos' convalescence.

Neilos attempted to reshape his plant staff into a crook, but passed out from overexertion, so Ajax cancelled their excursion.  While he slept, Neilos could hear faint voices.  Some were praising him, while others seemed to call for aid.  When he finally came too, he found that his wounds had healed faster than expected.  The gods heard a commotion outside as the sun rose again, and were surprised when it persisted.

Rivals

Carefully, they went outside and followed the stream of cityfolk to a public square, where a man was standing on a raised platform; Ajax and Steidis recognized him as the Neilos candidate from the group they'd fought in Mantea.  The other Neilos, a round Mantean man, claimed responsibility for bringing back the light, and was surrounded by his three companions (apparently their Chelak hadn't been conveniently knocked out of commission).

The crowd roared Neilos' name, and the other candidate was suffused with the a golden glow, though lesser than usual.  Ajax suggested they try to sic either the merchant princes or a Circle's End cell on this other group, but was waved off.  Once he was satisfied, the other Neilos announced that his fiery-haired companion, the god Steidis, was searching to wed the finest rose, and suggested that any eligible women should step forth.

While a bunch of women in the crowd stepped forward ("marrying a god can only be good"), Steidis got another vision, this time of inscribed knucklebones being thrown for ossomancy.  He couldn't make sense of the results.  The gods retreated, and Neilos successfully changed his staff into a crook in case of a fight.  Eventually, they decided to go out into the swamps at night to find either a swamp fisher to life drain or the beguiling lights, whichever came first.  As they left, they noticed that the other Neilos had requested a grand feast be brought before him.

Beguiling Lights

It was trivial to follow a fisher into the swamps, but he noticed them when they tried to ambush him deeper in the swamp.  Initially, the gods didn't care, and went to drain him anyway, when suddenly a group of flickering lights in a rainbow of colour appeared to their left.  Neilos and Steidis were beguiled ("Being the god of light doesn't get me any bonuses?"), and started following the lights as they retreated away.  In a stroke of luck, Ajax was able to convince the swamp fisher to help ("Oh, you were just here to stop the lights, I get it").

Ajax was able to restrain Neilos despite his flailing with his crook, and covered his eyes to break the lights' spell.  The fisher was surprisingly willing to help Steidis, given his horrific burned appearance, but couldn't stop the god.  Neilos fired off some blinding flashes directly in front of Steidis' face, which brought him out of his trance, and the lights stopped moving, though they still pulsed.  Ajax took this moment to betray the fisher and drained his life into Neilos.  By the time they'd finished, the lights were gone.

Neilos couldn't detect the lights with his abilities in any way, and failed to create supernatural light, leaving them in darkness.  After feeling around on the ground for a while, Ajax picked up fresh tracks, which must have belonged to the source of the lights, but they were very odd.  The thing appeared to leave connected, thin prints, that went back and forth as it moved.  Perhaps it was a strange type of worm, or insect that rolled around?  

Ajax took the lead, with Neilos and Steidis donning their blindfolds again, and managed to follow the tracks until they went into the bog and the trail went cold.  Neilos Revealed Secrets, and a golden outline appeared around a shoulder-width hole under the water.  He declared that if the lights had gotten Rini and brought her back to its lair, she would definitely have drowned.  Understandably, nobody wanted to crawl into the hole.  Neilos asked if Steidis could use his fire to get rid of the water, but he didn't want to try.

They ultimately decided to buy a blue dress, "drench it in swamp muck", and show it to Agathi.  Rini was (probably) dead anyway so why bother dealing with the lights when they could just get the results they wanted with a little creativity?  They headed back to Syrinth to rest, and this time, the voices in Neilos' head were quieter, and his wounds didn't heal as quickly.  Ajax opined that it may have been due to the other Neilos getting credit for bringing back the sun.

The Mirror Shards

Figuring that they needed to take out the other gods to make progress, Neilos teleported to Pan Metaxas' estate in Urbos to grab the shards of the twisted mirror, landing in the hot springs right beside Pan.  The tetrarch jumped in shock, but quickly recovered, and Neilos asked how things were in Urbos.  Pan started to explain that there had been no more trouble, but then facepalmed and pointed up at the sun.  Neilos told him that it had been his work, and asked for help spreading the word.  Pan agreed, but lamented that the sun still went away half the time; Neilos whispered that he'd work on that.  He then went to go grab the mirror shards, but accidentally touched one while handling them, and was knocked unconscious.

Meanwhile...

When Neilos didn't return after several hours, Ajax and Steidis figured that he'd failed to teleport back, and would have to take the 7-day sailing trip instead.  They checked in on the other Neilos and found that his feast-ival was still going on.  Now, though, he was requesting animal sacrifices be made in his honour, if the people wanted bountiful crops.  The merchant princes, who would have the finest animals, were still holed up in their estates and rumours were starting to spread.

Ajax did some sneaking and discovered that the other Steidis was isolated from the rest of the other gods, holding "auditions" for his potential wives.  The two figured they couldn't capitalize on this in any way, and discussed one of Steidis' prophecies:

    In the Forlorn Marsh He Erred, and was made King by The Rose

Going by the other Steidis, they figured The Rose might refer to a woman he had to marry, and that the Error he makes might be marrying the wrong woman first.  But still, they had nothing concrete, and figured it'd be good to get some hints from Agathi.  Suddenly remembering that the astrologer hadn't eaten in three days, and that it had been another two, Ajax went to the market and delivered some food to the astrologer, more out of a desire to keep an asset in play rather than out of any worry for her life.  Agathi asked about Rini, and Ajax just said that they hadn't found her.

Notes:

Prophecy Scoreboard:

Neilos    4

Steidis    2

Ajax       1

Missing Memories:

Neilos     Family, Mortal Name, The Last 5 Years, Childhood

Steidis    Mortal Name, Family

Ajax       Mortal Appearance

Ajax Life Expectancy: 10 days

Neilos takes a wide lead in the prophecy scoreboard.  It makes sense; as they complete prophecies, they get drastically more powerful, and he's been consistently lucky in the dice rolls where it mattered.

At the mention of Steidis 2 seeking a wife, there was a brief diversion into joking about the greek myths of gods turning into geese or cows and seducing mortals.  Honks seductively.

The slang term for using Ajax's Life Drain ability on someone is "giving them the succ".

There was some discussion of how their rival god candidates' prophecies related to theirs.  Neilos mentioned that the other Steidis had sabotaged his belt project in Mantea, which suggested their goals might be the opposite.  He cautioned Steidis to not just imitate the other candidate when pursuing his "swamp wife".

Ajax's player realized that one of Neilos' prophecies referring to a "fish that flew over sea and land" probably referred to the flying boat they saw when they first came to Syrinth, and it was probably in the mountains they'd seen to the east.