Welcome to Gaia! ::

The knee-high grass on his wonder rippled like waves in the wind. This visit delivered him a few feet from the rocky fissure that sprung up from the ground. The gasses that usually flowed from it seemed less thick today. Getting to close to it usually left him light-headed and dizzy at the best of times. While initially Hierapolis supposed it was carbon dioxide gas caused by underground geologic activity, the effects and lack of odor seemed more like NO2 - nitrous oxide. Not that he had any way to test. He sure wasn't about to throw a match down there or anything like that.

For all the amazing sights that made up his 'wonder,' Hierapolis had little pull to any of it like he did here. Hearkening back to that indescribable feeling of instinct and intuition, he couldn't explain in any other way how he simply knew the place he had to protect and serve was down below in an inexplicable underworld. It wasn't the large structure with it's fractured mosaics of hunting dogs a deer that over-looked the white cliffs dotted with crystalline pools, topped with that mystery gas, nor the fields and forests that filled in the rest of the protective bubble that cut this land off from others, save for the Princess Cybele herself.

No.

Hierapolis trusted The Code when it said it would help them find it. He knew where to look. He had to descend, somehow. Through the gasses, into the unknown.

Today the gasses were not as thick or high as they normally were. Hierapolis couldn't help but wonder if this was because of The Code's assistance. He took a deep breath as his pale hazel eyes looked at the fissure with resignation, determination. Then he took the first step.



Stairs, that little piece of instinct whispered, and not but a few steps later, Hierapolis was met with them, though he could not see it for the thick coverage of gasses that seemed to be being pressed down to knee-height.

The stairs seemed to go forever, with a few flat spots interspersed throughout. Winding, down, down, down. Eventually the sound of water reached his ears as the stairs ended in a water-filled cavern. Light shined down from a small crevice up above looking like the thin slit of a cat's eye. From the height of it, they had to be a good half-mile or so under ground. The air that also came from the small crevice swirled the gasses that hovered over the water like ghosts. They were thinner now, and it seemed whatever intervention The Code had given was less necessary now.

Hierapolis would have been perplexed on how to proceed if not for the small amount of light that let him see the small boat tied at the edge of this body of water.

Not being a dumb man, the page checked the boat over before cautiously stepping one foot and then another inside and grabbing the long-handle of the paddle. Maybe it was dumb luck or maybe it was magic that the boat was still usable. He didn't question it too hard. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, the saying went. Beginning to row, he couldn't tell how far the body of water went, but he seemed to know the direction he needed to go.

It felt like he had rowed forever, but eventually Hierapolis reached the other side. He had the passing complaining thought that his arms were rather sore now, and hoped he wouldn't have to do this every time he came down here. The other side of the pond, or whatever that body of water qualified as, was largely empty. There was a wide space of nothingness, but the sound of gently falling water brought his attention to the pillars that cut the area in half and diverted the water that flowed from the cavern walls and fell like waterfalls and mini-rapids down either side, filling the body of water that he had just crossed.

It was hard to see much with what little light this side of the cavern got from that small opening at the top, but it did catch glints on the water and little metal loops on the walls that look like they might once have held torches of some sort, but time had worn them away to nothing but their holders. The small wall made by the pillars and waterfalls further cut the other half of the empty space off from light. Being shrouded in darkness, however, seemed fitting for the large and imposing door which Hierapolis now stepped towards with equal amounts of awe and solemnity. Made of heavy metal and carved stone, it had withstood the test of time with remarkable endurance. Hierapolis' hand traced the details of it, searching his memory, trying to will something but receiving nothing - no glimpse of the past, no whispers.

"What have you done!?" Aidoneus growled with a flash of teeth and rage in his pale hazel eyes as he looked upon the grey-haired figure that was his father, now surrounded by himself and his six other half-siblings. His father, Kronos, old but nowhere near feeble, stood in front of the great silver tree, having just cleaved an axe into its pristine trunk.

It had been just a few moments prior when his youngest brother and come bursting in to his quarters with a wild panic in his eyes. His youngest brother, Epoptes, who was not known for his sense of urgency who was now frantically yelling;

"Father is trying to kill the tree!"

Aidoneus, who had been laid in bed reading, leapt in to action, rage boiling - not that it took much to move him. He was wrath. His brother had been correct to collect him last, for Aidoneus would not have waited for the others, and still he rushed past them to head the group's rush through the commons and to the tree.

"What have you done!?"

Kronos, pulled the axe from the tree which now spewed a deep red ichor from its silver bark. Axe in his hands, he turned to his oldest child, the one who looked most like him in his youth; the one he both loved and hated the most;

"I am putting an end to the order, Aidoneus. None of you are fit to inherit it. All my sons - disappointments. Only I am fit to rule and pass judgement, to keep order in my vision! And if I am to die then I will make sure this order dies with me!"

Days earlier Kronos had received the news that he was dying. Disease was taking him, slowly. It had started with his mind. Kronos had not told any of his children this, however. Not out of any concern for their emotions or well-being, but because of his own pride.

Pride. Kheiron, perhaps the most level-headed and stable of all of the siblings stepped towards their father, arms out stretched; "Come now, father, don't do this. Put down the axe. Let us sit down and discus th-"

Blood. So much blood as in one swift motion Kronos split his son's head open.

Shock. They all stood there in shock for what seemed like an eternity while Kronos turned, coldly, from what he'd done and slammed the bloody axe into the tree again, deepening the crevice he'd already created.

Aidoneus was the first to lunge at the back of their father with his dagger and a pained yet wrathful roar, but did not get far when Agoraios and Epoptes leapt in to action to hold him back. It was a struggle to do so, for Aidoneus was so tall, and his anger so great.

The others had no such interference as they rushed their father. A knife found its way in to Kronos' shoulder, but it was to Sito's end. Aidoneus screamed as he was dragged back towards the commons area. The chaos got the attention of the others in the order - those not of the Family. They rushed in, but soon stood stunned to see Kronos deliver another deadly blow, this time to Krys, then Pothe, and hear their deranged and bloodied leader shout something nonsensical and blasphemous, but sometime during all that Aidoneus' hearing had gone to nothing but a shrill ringing. He couldn't hear his own screams, couldn't hear the pleading, and soon he couldn't see the bodies of his fallen brothers, nor his father, as the numbers of other members of the order rushed past him and descended.

Kronos couldn't fight them all. Whatever significance this tree held was worth dying for, not just for the Family, the Inner Circle, but all of them. What that significance was, Hierapolis was not privy to as the memory, vivid as if he had been pulled in to a reenactment himself, faded. And there he sat, before that very tree. The code that sat in that crevice that an axe bathed in the blood of his brothers, had created. The piece of code seemed brighter now, sparkling, yet solemn and mournful. The scorch marks were gone, however. The tree itself still seemed very much barren as it had been before, save for the tiny glimmer of mini buds on the spindly branches.

Hierapolis sat staring for a good while longer, trying to catch his breath and process what he had just seen and felt. He had so many questions, but was tired. He would have explored more, but he was weary. He'd done what he had come to do, however, and there would be another day to explore. For now, he needed to go home. Go home and give his brothers a call to tell him he loved them. They'd be confused, but Recks and Marks wouldn't pry too hard. They knew their brother dealt with a lot of morbid stuff, and write it off as that, no doubt.

With the thought of home, he left, and the piece of code settled in, shining brightly in the crevice in the tree.