Divine Intervention IV: The Wisdom of Pericles

On the new continent that had risen from the seas, Ashus and his legions stood waiting for Kryptos. This was a fitting place for a divine showdown, and Ashus hoped it would minimise the chance of innocents being caught up in the battle.

The wait did not last long...

"I have come for you" roared the God of Secrets, his hideous Frog-headed form appearing out of nowhere. "You were never fit to hold divine power, Ashus. You lack the true instincts of a god."

"I mean, look at the pair of us" Kryptos sneered. "You came into this world with immense power, but have succeeded only in weakening yourself. At the same time, I have risen from almost nothing to become the unstoppable force that now confronts you."

"You stand here surrounded by your minions, afraid to take me on directly. I come alone, safe in the knowledge that my own power will be sufficient to best a coward like you."

Kryptos now raised himself to his full height, and spread his arms wide, as if inviting the so-called 'God of Terror' to strike at his chest.

"At the very least you could go down fighting, Ashus. Come on! Give me your best shot!"

Tracnar knew now, the beast had indeed risen, he felt it in the very fabric of the world. His plan is nearly ruined, if only he had more time.

If only....so many things had not happened.

His black form slowed and waited, he would come.
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Tracnar looked with softly golden eyes surrounded by white divine being. He felt the beast, in order to be any help, he needed to make peace with his more dark self. He turned around and sped away toward the other Tracnar.
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"What now?"

"Well, one of us needs to be in control."

"May the best God of Aether win?

Tracnar smiled. Tracnar bowed. They both rushed into one another, and the island was rocked.

@Tracnar

Ashus stood stoically, and his shadowbeasts reacted, surging forward against the Trident.

I am not afraid to take you directly, Kryptos. It is your own fear that speaks for you - I cannot feel fear, Kryptos. I am the God of Terror, the Lord of Gold, and you are a glorified pickpocket. But this is not the way.

A great bull-demon roared, leaping at Kryptos - but in a flash of light the beast was dissolved, a trident spearing it into dust. A great serpent slithered near, but a mass of tentacles lashed and it was no more.

Do you not understand what Winston spoke of? Has your rage blinded you? Of course it has. Ashus was calm. Resolute. But I have learned better. I have learned that rage, terror, violence, and revenge are not the way.

Are you afraid, Kryptos?

Kryptos' amphibian eyes flickered for a moment, betraying an uncertainty that had previously remained hidden.

"Afraid? Me? Never!" he roared, somewhat unconvincingly. "I am invincible!"

No, Kryptos, you're a fraud Ashus replied. And I'm going to make sure that everyone knows it. So why don't you just give up the act, and go back to whatever stagnant pond you first crawled out of.

At this moment, something appeared to snap in Kryptos' mind.

"I'll kill you!" he yelled, charging towards Ashus, waving the Trident above his head.

As Kryptos crashed into his enemy, the two sets of tentacles thrashed wildly against one another, beast against beast. The Trident stabbed right and left, aiming at Ashus' torso, but never quite finding its mark. The Terror God landed a brutal jab on his opponent's frog-like mouth, and Kryptos toppled backwards, dragging Ashus down to the ground with him.

The pair of them rolled along the desert floor, a mass of limbs and tentacles, until they reached the great well at the centre of the continent. Summoning all his reserves of strength, Ashus thrust Kryptos away from him, and over the edge of the bottomless pit.

But the God of Secrets did not fall...

...because the trident kept him suspended.

With a sickening crunch, the weapon tore through Ashus's torso, and his eyes widened. In the background, tentacles and tendrils whaled away at each other, still fighting weakly as Kryptos hung above the pit, holding for dear life.

But don't you see, Kryptos? You are powerless without me.

Damn you! You're dead! screamed the beast, but his position was precarious indeed.

You can't be blamed, Kryptos. You are a creature of deceit - but I have seen the truth. The light of the truth is so much brighter than even I.

Ashus began glowing - his radiance unearthly. The heavens swirled above him and the stars glimmered, as the storm brewed. The golden tentacles overcame their foe, and the beast was pinned, entangled in a the radiance which burned and seared at his skin. He tried to let of the Trident, but it was no use.

Your power is within me, Kryptos. Last we met, I sacrificed all the gods to save the world from you. But self-sacrifice is so much more powerful. I forgive you, Kryptos, but I cannot let you live.

And the golden figure finally buckled, and fell. The never ending well flew past them as they descended.

ASHUS! RAAAAAAAGGGGHHH! screamed the Trident - and as they hit the earth an unearthly blast detonated within, gold washing over all the people and the gods - whispers, screams, prayers, and laughter.

Eldarion. I'm sorry.

A little piece of Tracnar died that day.....maybe not physically, but some part of him.

Tracnar drifted through the Aether of his home, ascended. He looked down upon the world and sighed, it is not over yet.

When that terrible battle took place, he was also in one too, locked in a stalemate between his two halves. Over thousands of years they became their own people, and now they are one again.


It was when that link, that bond, the oath was broken by Ashus when he.....Is when Tracnar was weakened and able to meld with his other self, whatever darkness their was left him. If only Tracnar could have gotten into the gate island sooner, if only he could have been at Ashus's side, maybe.... However, one thing still troubled him, why did Eldarion just, vanish....perhaps Tracnar could have ascended before the beast rose again. But it matters not anymore, Pericles will soon heal the world and ascend himself.

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Looking back on the day Ashus fell, Tracnar closed his eyes

***
Standing on the mountain top outside of Argos, Tracnar looked down, here was where he fell, met his...friend..., and will rise. Stepping over a pile of old bones he walked into the light of his Aetherian hub. After that battle he floated, not black, not white, not red, But gold, a beautiful golden glow emanating from his being. He was one again, and with the power that he had slowly gained over the last three thousand years, rose into the heavens.
***
Returning from his memory's Tracnar could only think about the most clear moment in his mind of Ashus, when he first allied and camped outside of Argos, he apologized for the meteor's effect on him. And all he could think at that time was whether or not their was still a shred of humanity left with in Ashus. Tracnar knew now, it only took thousands of years to find the answer.


"So it is over."
"Yes, finally...but we have been around long enough to know this cycle, it will return."
"We cannot risk going through with out plan now!"
"I have to insist upon our original plan, we still do not know if what we were about to do before we were scattered by the meteor would have worked."
"You cannot be serious, after all we went through, you still believe that Gods are not overall good?"
"We must do it, their is no other choice if their is to be peace."
"Indeed....If we deprive the universe of devine presence, then....their will be no beast, only the mortals......we must destroy all Gods."
Within his mind Tracnar argued the pros and cons of his plan, a plan five thousand years in the making....a plan that would radically change the very nature of reality...Tracnar had the power to reverse the effects of Aether to kill gods instead of giving them power, only in his home in the nether regions could he do it.

While Tracnar may have been united, his mind was still split....so he argued until days became years....years became life times...and all the world came to ruin and a new one rose in its ashes....he debated, and waited for his next intervention.

Edit:

A pair of eyes peeked over the edge of the well, looking down into the darkness below. Yellow, bulbous eyes...

"Goodbye, Ashus," the Frog chuckled. "I can't say I'll miss you, but you were a worthy foe. This battle has cost me almost everything."

"But, here I am, still in the game" he croaked gleefully, "thanks, of course, to my little insurance policy... Sophie!"

A blank-eyed neanderthal girl walked out from behind a rock. In her hand, she held the Sword of Eldarion - a sword named Vengeance.

"Not as nice a home as the Trident, but it'll do for now. Ashus really should have been more careful about what he threw away."

The Frog laughed, evilly.

"Master..." said the girl.

"Huh?" replied the Frog, surprised at the interruption.

"I know your secret."

"What?"

"But you don't know mine."

And, with that, the girl unceremoniously booted the Frog over the edge, and into the well. As the baffled amphibian fell to his doom, Sophie looked down at the sword.

"Are you sure?"

The sword shimmered a little.

"Very well" she said, and tossed the Sword of Vengeance into the well.

"Thank you, Eldarion. May you rest in peace."

Pericles could not see the battles raging between the gods. Yet... somehow, he knew. The spark of divinity that was in Pericles felt it. His brethren were dying at each other's hands. Realization flashed through him...

"So many... have sacrificed themselves, where I only have sacrificed my divinity to save the world."

Everybody turned around. Was Pericles babbling again? Had all the warring led him to lose his sanity yet again?

"I must put a stop to the suffering. If I am to honor their sacrifice, I must not ignore their pleas, nor the suffering of Greeks, Indians, English and Spaniards alike. We must have peace. Send word to Asoka; we are to discuss peace at once!"

The advisors could only stare in wonder, as Pericles sent for the flagship of the Greek fleet to sail him to India. Had Pericles returned to his former benevolent self? They did not know, since the red colour in Pericles' eyes had not gone away.



"If you seek peace, I am willing to speak about it. I will give you your cities back, you will give me my cities back, I will make sure that Isabella stands down her armies, and you will never try this again. Okay?"

"If the gods wish it so."

And thus Greece returned to peace with India. India handed over the Greek city they possessed first, at which point Pericles first persuaded Isabella to make peace as not to needlessly anger her by giving India the resources to fight the battle against her...


after which Pericles made good of his own promise as well, and gave Asoka back what was his. Greece and India would have no more trouble in the future.



Pacal could not handle his large empire anymore by himself, so he enlisted governor Abraham Lincoln to become ruler of the desert lands.


The first signs of Pericles wanting to alleviate the suffering of his people was his cooperation with Queen Elizabeth to obtain the newest English medicines for the ill.


The passing of Pericles' brutal rule of the past and his genuinely benevolent rule in the postwar period would launch Greece in the First Postwar Golden Age. All of Greece worked together for a better future.

Within the Postwar Golden Age, Greek daily life was consumed with huge building projects all over the country. Pericles had dazzled his countrymen with tales of fantastic machines and institutions that would bring Greece glory: factories in every city, hospitals to guarantee the well-being of every Greek, laboratories to speed up scientific research, airports where Greeks could travel to all the outreaches of the world. Nidaros became the industrial hub of Greece, with the huge Ironworks facility dominating the harbours.

"A dam that could power the entirety of Greece, all by itself? This is madness!" one of his engineers
"Madness? This is Greece!" Pericles said. "We have not even begun to realize our full potential as a nation! Of course we can build a dam able to power the entirety of Greece! We aren't going to live on coal plants forever!"

And so it would be. In 1845 AD, the enormous dam at Athens was finished. All coal plants could henceforth be shut down, they were no longer needed to provide power. The Three Gorges Dam provided all of Greece with cheap hydroelectric power. In the wake of the success, another golden age would follow.



While Pericles was still unwilling to abandon his centralized industrial economy for a more environmentally friendly alternative, he chose for other alternatives to keep his people healthy. In Greece's fight against diseases Greek scientists began to seek out the structure of the human genome, finding a way to combat diseases more effectively than other people could do.



Computer facilities were commonplace throughout Greece, but a truly spectacular breakthrough would be achieved at the University of Nidaros. A group of promising young engineers got the idea to link their computers together to be able to work together more efficiently. That system proved to be an excellent way of communicating; as word of its usefulness was spread, the network started to encompass first the whole university, then the whole city of Nidaros, and finally the whole of Greece. This easy way of communicating allowed Greek engineers to obtain Indian and Spanish blueprints and ideas much easier than before. The Internet was born.



At the end of the Second Postwar Boom, Pericles decided to take a flight tour above Greece. As he looked down on the people, he saw the glory of Greece... a glory that had been bleak for so long, because of all the warring. This is what he should have been doing all the time: engaging in building projects, caring for the people, working together with those who had wronged him. Asoka was more forgiving than he thought; he could have learned from the man in the past.

"Yes" thought Pericles to himself, "this was what I was meant to do."

There was still the matter of the Creator to attend to, though. Would he really sacrifice himself, now he had decided not to sacrifice the others? Or would he flee this world? Greece had already built machines that could pass the sky; surely it would only be a small step from there to space?

He did not know. Actually, he hoped that once the Creator saw what his offspring was capable of, he would have mercy on them.

got it ...

The God of Luck had watched Pericles bring Greece truly into the modern age. Across the nigh on six thousand years he had watched the Greek's twist the path fate had laid out for them to their own advantages, even when they had to bounce back from the worst of setbacks.

As the time had passed, Pericles' eyes had always looked up, first to the Gods, then to the stars. Now, with the quest fulfilled, the God of Luck was ready to load the dice in the Greek Immortal's favour. New veins of Aluminium were found in the hills of Nidaros as mining vehicles found themselves pushed slightly off course. New areas of maize grew, seemingly caused by a shift in bird migrations due to a change in weather which had dried out the hills, making them more productive. A small landslide in the hills in just the right place caused the great river to shift its cause and the eager residents of Nidaros built a levee to take advantage of it. Small pushes with divine power shifted the world exactly to how the God of Luck wished it.

The Greeks were ready.

Anybody else with edits? If not, I'll finish DI IV and hand it over to Tryn. I can only imagine what it would be like with Monty of all people....

Taking a peek. Got the save.

First, some recommended listening

Stalin. Ashus. The Frog. Eldarion.

The well of the world, and the minute essence of the Creator at its heart, absorbed the sparks and threads of the divine from all those who fell into its depths. Once again, the attention entity which both had created and now sustained the existence of all the universe had its attention drawn to this world of men, immortals, godlings, and gods.

Pericles' wish was granted - the entity saw.

It saw all that had been on this world, and it witnessed the redemption of those who had first caused its essence on the world to be awakened. It saw all that the immortals had done, and the changes they had wrought in their civilizations. It saw, but to a being that exists in all places at once, such things are barely as significant as a drop of water in the ocean.

The entity was not satisfied. It would not return enough of its own presence to this world to save it from destruction.

To the immortals and the gods, it sent its message in a vision: the sacrifices of those who had been absorbed by the well of the world had bought this planet time, but not continued life. The continent shook, and all upon it perished... and soon too would the rest of the world, unless the immortals which led the nations would agree to sacrifice all but one of themselves to the well.

To Pericles, the choice was clear: either he must unite the world, or escape it.

I'll take the save. The game will probably be finished tonight.

Pericles awoke. The dream of last night had been troubling... the Creator would still destroy the world even with all the sacrifices of immortals and gods, and he would go with it unless he would unite the immortals behind him, or flee the world.

But how to convince the other immortals and their peoples to unite behind him? Only one immortal had the technology to reach out to all the people... Pacal. He had found a way to communicate on large scale and reach out to all the people in his empire. Pacal held on to this technology under the flimsy pretext of 'having his reasons' for keeping the knowledge of Mass Media a secret.

"What if the other immortals keep squabbling about petty grievances? What if they will not unite?" a concerned Socrates asked. "Everyone is now happy with your leadership, all right, but others still dislike each other. Isabella is still after the guts of the other continent, whether we like it or not." Pericles' decision was quick. He signed pacts with both Pacal and Asoka to come to their aid in case of attack, essentially guaranteeing world peace. Plus... there was a plan B, in the case the other immortals would not be quick enough to rally to the Greek flag.

Thankfully, the God of Luck was with him. His main production centre at Nidaros had gained enormous amounts of production power because the God of Luck had granted him aluminium mines there. It would be essential to head for space, and to put the first Greek on the moon. India and Spain had been before him in that respect, but Greece had the knowledge to make up for the head start India and Spain had on Greece in the production of the spaceship. Nidaros was thus tasked with building a ship that could take men to the moon; a task quickly accomplished by the grace of the God of Luck.




The invention of satellites to view the whole world led to a rather odd discovery. A man named Montezuma and his people, the Aztecs, were discovered in the ice. The man pretended to be an immortal just like the others, but Pericles knew better. The Aztecs were simply not relevant to either politics or divinity.



As the fusion engine was invented, another great engineer of Greek descent came up with a plan... the so-called 'Space Elevator', which would aid in Greek construction of the spaceship. While he was not able to finish it himself, he contributed a great deal to the project.



Pacal completed a building and an organization where the leaders could discuss the problems of the world together. At the first meeting, Pericles was named eligible for Secretary-General as the leader of the most populous nation, and was subsequently elected by the others.



It was then in the year 1882 AD that the fate of the world would be decided. The five immortals met in Mutal to discuss the problem of the creator, and voted on whether it was possible to have the world led by one immortal, and who that would be. Despite the fact that it would save the world, the meeting was in silence. How many immortals were prepared to rally behind another to lead the world, and sacrifice themselves?



The votes were read in deadly silence as well. As builder of the UN, Pacal read the votes, contributing to the tense atmosphere.

"For the English Empire... Pericles."
"For the Greek Empire... Pericles."
"For the Indian Empire... Pericles."
"For the Mayan Empire ... Pacal."
"For the Spanish Empire... Pericles."

"The decision has been made." Pacal said. "All the immortals save myself agree that it should be the Greeks to lead the earth in the years to come, and I will abide by that as well. Pericles... the other immortals are prepared to sacrifice themselves to save the world. Your wisdom will lead the humans in the space age."



The sun was setting over the well. A plane landed, carrying the five remaining immortals to the place where the last sacrifice had to be made. Pericles had agreed to accompany them.

Pacal went first. "I still resent the decision, Pericles. I think I would have made a better leader than you did, after all it was my initiative to unite the world. But still... the other immortals have spoken, and by their will I shall abide. May divine light shine on our path to space. Farewell." With these parting words, Pacal leapt into the well, followed by Asoka and Elizabeth, who both chose silence over last words. Last of all went Isabella... leaving Pericles the lone immortal alive. No screams of fear came from the well... for none of the immortals feared. Their sacrifices would not be in vain.

With their fall, each immortal imbued a bit of their power in Pericles himself. And as Isabella had sacrificed herself... a wondrous thing happened. Pericles briefly fell flat on his face, overcome by power... then when he got up, another divine being was standing by him. A spectre wearing grey robes, with a scythe in his right hand... a forgotten God. The power of the sacrifice did not only act to save the world... it finally gave Pavlos his divinity back.

"Who are you?"
"I am Pavlos. God of the Underworld in a past cycle, with a long backstory and a long explanation of why things went this way. But that is a story for another time."

"Fear not for the fate of the other immortals, who have sacrificed themselves to save the world. If I cannot bargain with the Creator to bring them back to help you rule the world, they will at least be given honorary positions in the Elysium. You are now free to do as you please, Pericles... There is enough wisdom in your actions to lead humanity to greatness. Good luck on leading the world, Pericles... you can finally make your dreams about a better world come true. "

"And yes, you probably deserve divinity more than I do... but I, having lived with you for over five thousand years, know of your desires. You wish to lead humanity away from suffering and towards a glorious future... that wish will be granted. Farewell."

After Pavlos' departure to the grey Underworld, Pericles beckoned for the plane and headed to his palace in Athens, from which he would for the first time address the world... as its leader.

He held a speech from the balcony, delivering a stirring eulogy about the accomplishments of Pacal, Asoka, Elizabeth and Isabella. He emphasized that it was the time that humanity forged its own fate, and that Greece would take every measure to ensure peace and freedom in the world. His final words were of outer space... it would not remain unknown for long. A Greek mission would soon be under way, as well as an Indian and a Spanish mission.

He spoke of the gods. Mantis, lasting friend of Greece and worshipped at the Hanging Gardens until today. Winston, forgiving even in death. Ashus, a vengeful god who had redeemed himself. Arsonist, whimsical and demanding but helpful. Tracnar, difficult to understand but ultimately goodwilled as well. NoDot, bringer of the Viking victory. Many more forgotten gods. And finally, the Creator... to have mercy on the world, and let the humans live out their days.

And everyone knew that things would only become better from here.

After all his trials and tribulations, the wisdom of Pericles had finally prevailed.

Nice finish

The saga continues...http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=304841