Welcome to Gaia! ::

||運命 Kagami n o naka no aoi tsuki ha uragawa
Miorosu machi ha sameru koto nakihitom u r e

Five thousand years ago, superstition and the sword ruled. It was a time of legend, it was a world of power, it was the age of the goddess.
Protectors by day, watchers by night, we were betrayed by the humans we had sworn to protect, entombed by the demigods for nearly four thousand years.
Now, here in Greece, the spell is broken and we live again! We are avengers of the truth, we are the Goddesses!

-Athena's log, November 12, 2008


Way back before Mayans and Aztecs, there were the titans. Elemental creatures which battled for control to form the worlds as we know it today. From these titans a single figure stayed to give us all life, Gaea. Known as the Mother Goddess, or the Matron Diety, she gave birth to the seas, the plants, animals, and of course, her daughters. These Goddesses were born quickly after each other, and were named Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. Gaea wanted to give birth to humanity, which was to worship and respect her daughters. In return, the daughters were to protect the life of the planet from corruption and pain, ensuring the natural order of things. The three sisters formed what Gaea created, the "Panthenon", a group dedicated to the safety of all life.

Before too long, the sisters had watched human kind rise from it's pathetic origins, and they taught how to love, feel, and think, giving them gifts of magic, strength, and intelligence, clothing and weapons, and human civilization grew. But the sisters were lonely, having watched the mortals love, bear children, and grow in number, and quickly begged Gaea to be given the same opportunity. And so, the Gods were born from Gaea's busom, hand picked by the three daughters.

The big three, as they were soon to be called, found that there was simply too much to handle with human civilization, and begged their mother yet again, and she gave rise to more gods and goddesses, such as Artemis, Ares, Apollo, Hades, and others, whom were considered part of the "lesser pantheon". The Big three focused on human life, while the others focused on the balance of the world. And all was good.

But, like all good things, it was not to last. Zeus's infidelity and poor self-control angered Gaea, who in turned blamed Hera for not handling the situation better, as the head of the entire circle of gods. Hera defended her husband, but when Gaea finally went silent, Hera was incapable of doing anything more. She blamed Zeus, who in turn denied his role, only infuriating Hera more. In heated sorrow, Hera killed her husband. It was not long before the great bloodbath hit Mount Olympus. Ares killed Apollo, who was in turn challenged by Artemis, and slain by Athena. Hades was poisoned and killed by Persephone, who channeled his power into herself, before arrogantly attempting to drain the nexus's power, saved only by Aphrodite and turned into the feared and ever more powerful Goddess of death. Eris, Goddess of Dischord, grew greedy and sought to absorb the power of Persephone as well as her own and challenge the Big three for the entire world's power, before Poseidon subdued her and absorbed most of her power as his own, leaving her at barely above a demi-god as she ran away, vowing vengeance but secretly in love with him.

As the dust settled, the worn Goddesses settled down in their temples, using what power they had to try and set up new gods, finding only demi-gods were produced. Hera drained herself with her amazons, Artemis her huntresses, while Aphrodite poured her energy into cupid. Athena did little, instead resting in athens, reviewing the last battle. The Mortals, whom felt the battle the hardest with destroyed crops and homes, offered poisoned sacrifices, weakening the goddesses enough to rally the demi-gods to their side. However, immortals cannot be killed, so the mortals bound the deities into gravesites never to be opened again. The amazons, though strong, were incapable without their leader, and enslaved as giant courtesans for rulers, while the great heroes became the stuff of legend, rewriting history....

Now, the seals are broken on the ancient tombs, as modern day archaeologists know not of what to make of these creatures…

01.// Intro
02.// Rules
03.// About
04.// Reserved.

||運命 Kagami n o naka no aoi tsuki ha uragawa
Miorosu machi ha sameru koto nakihitom u r e

About
This RP:
This RP is a Literate- Advanced Literate RP. What does that mean? It's not very fast to post. Quality, not quantity, makes for the action and adventure. It's also very thought provoking, each action you take will have consequences which will probably affect you later on. If the goddesses go on murdering rampages, they'll have to suffer the stings and inquiry from a distrusting base of worshipers. This is a real world, a real action. For this reason, there is an OoC thread designed to help in case you find yourself lost. It's located here:


The Goddesses:
The Goddesses are from ancient Greek pantheon, and probably will react as so. They know not of the concept of electricity, flight, and whatnot. Due to their power, they can alter their size from their max height to around 6 foot, which back then was still pretty large, but at least capable of disguise. Each goddess has a unique kind of personality, and different goals. Where Athena might just want to be worshiped and help advance wisdom, Hera may choose to go for world female domination. Obviously, in regards to the RP, women and men alike are more likely to resist the drastic changes Hera may bring, but also may be unable to stop it. It's also notable that there tends to be power through prayer, and so, those goddesses which hold more favor may in fact become more powerful.

The Demigods:
The Demigods are a lumped category. While they originally were helpers for the Deities, like eros was to Aphrodite, this eventually became encompassing to heroes as well, such as Hercules, Theseus, and others. They originally helped take down the Goddesses, but since then, have long been dead. Now, demigods will probably be elevated mortals through the use of ambrosia. On the off chance that someone can convince Persephone to bring a soul back, a demigod may be resurrected; however, due to the sheer age of death, this is rare. Even so, Demigods are perhaps some of the most difficult characters to play, having specific rules to follow, and weaknesses that binds them all.

The Mortals:
Humans. It's modern day. Do you see people running around half animal, half human? Not really. The Mortals in turn killed the demigods, enslaving them to their wills, and after three thousand years, are perhaps the only form of life there is. They're powerless humans, just prime for the spotlight and prostration. But they're not weak; resistances against the intruders are beginning to prop up. For that, they must indeed try their best to make do.

01.// Intro
02.// Rules
03.// About
04.// Reserved.

The biggest archaeological study of the century had been a mere fluke. The scans for something under the Greek soil, however, revealed the largest goldmine of information this century had ever seen. Buried under a layer of iron, for some strange reason, there revealed to be a hidden site, a quarry perhaps, or a holy shrine. Until further investigation, the site would remain a bit of a mystery however, leaving only a bit of confused men to scramble for funding from various international organizations which relished in the chance of meeting and beating down various people. Who cared what it was? It probably wasn’t anything, but the concept was too tempting for some, as the international funding poured into this new dig site from several key corporations, who intended to make quite a bit of profit on the work. It would take months to begin to uncover the site itself, much less begin to surface the entire facility.

The work had started in early 2004, as digging continued through 2005 and 2006, to slowly skim away the various layers of dirt and move it to a new location. Come 2007, the progress slowed to a crawl, as large machinery was unable to dig further without having any ability to keep the dig undamaged. Instead of backhoes and dump trucks, entrenching tools and wheelbarrows took its place, until the entire site revealed the largest stone temple built in Greece.

Larissa didn’t seem like an important place really, and the fact the site was only thirty miles north made little impact. It simply thrived on the newfound amount coming in and out and hoarded the profits of weary diggers and scientists, all who were here to indulge their desires within the trove of information they had dug up. Of course, now it seemed to be nearing November of 2008, it was time to start getting further and further into actually “opening” the find, and getting some return on all those investments made. The man in charge was Dr. Patrakis, a Greek man who operated in Athens primarily as the head of research of ancient civilizations.

“Dr. Petrakis! Dr. Petrakis! Over here! Over here! Come quickly, we might have found something!” A student called out. In fact, with the likelihood of finding something relatively genuine and ancient, more and more of his protégés were beginning to really join in the dig site, partly for extra credit but mostly to pad their resumes later in their life. What better way to do so when you could be part of the original party that unearthed this monumental discovery? The doctor rushed over as well as an old man can, with Dr. Meilius in close pursuit. Unlike Petrakis, Meilius was a medical doctor, but the lack of injuries made a repetitive job of heat stress and the occasional dehydration rather tedious, and so, he was more than willing to join in the observation too. Petrakis began to witness the largest stone door he had ever seen in his life for quite some time reveal its full splendor to him. Around the edges, runes and various symbols decorated the frame, giving the ancient entrance an even more archaic feel to it. Calloused fingers traced the text, as he mumbled along in Greek, a most interested tone awaited him.

“This doesn’t make sense…” he said, starting abruptly to a smiling face. “This isn’t an ancient greek civilization, but the ancient of most ancient civilizations! This is nearly five thousand years old, one of the oldest civilizations ever to be found with the bronzen technology. Class, when was the bronze age?”

“Two thousand BC, nearly a thousand years later,” one student piped up.

“Very good, this means that we have now to consider what technologies these ancients had possessed… How did they get such advancements yet so early in their lives? And yet…” Petrakis continued. He watched ever so slightly, until someone came running up.

“Telegraph for you, Dr. Petrakis.” The doctor gave a look at the small sheet of paper, as his eyes rolled back and fainted.

~~~~~~~~
“Mr. Petrakis!” A voice said, waking the good doctor up. “Glad you can seem to be ready to get up.”

“I don’t believe it!” Petrakis stated, counting his blessings. “That note cannot be right. But…”

“I know! It is absolutely marvelous, isn’t it? Who would have thought that within this little mountain we’d find a temple that dates back nearly eight thousand years! This predates everything! The inscriptions are just recently made, hastily scribbled on, but the actual building is in 6000 BC! Even animals weren’t said to be domesticated at this point, even before the great flood mentioned in all the ancient texts!” The voice belonged to another student, Corydon, the prized pupil of Dr. Petrakis. It was one thing to simply unearth the biggest find in a decade; what had been four years in the making, now undid nearly all of written history in one day.

“This will piss off a few Catholics, I imagine,” Dr. Petrakis said rather flatly; he wasn’t entirely sure if it was blasphemy or scientific fact anymore. “Even the scientific community would be rather irate. This defies sociological concepts of oral tradition, for sure. We must proceed, however. Science waits for no man.”

Within minutes, Petrakis was back up on his feet, and returning to the great door, where the crowd had gathered round and begun to stare at things which would raise anyone’s curiosity if one found himself fighting through his own people. Petrakis shuffled his way to the front of the mob, and found what everyone was staring at. The main door seemed to have inscriptions which everyone could read, yet seemed too old to make sense as to why anyone could understand anything.

“Abandon hope all ye who enter here… Anyone know what that’s from?”

“Dante, sir. It’s the sign that sits above the gates of hell,” Corydon responded.

“Well, it seems we found Mr. Dante with a bit of copy write infringement. Either that, or we’re where my mother-in-law lived,” Petrakis said, with a hearty laugh which was echoed by the rest of the diggers. Gear was already getting moved into place, but the problem was the door. Upon a second glance, he continued to read the rest. “The ones who rule all, sleep here they will, ‘till first light hits their corpse, and all shall rise again with at terrible… yadda yadda yadda. We know curses don’t exist. What’s next? The door opens with the words ‘open sesame’?”

As if by magic, the stone door began to creak and groan, as the vibration was felt by all who stood nearby. An eruption of dust blew from the vacuum sealed door, as a terrible gust blew into the crypt, threatening to suck all inside. Yet, it did not, and as quickly as it came, it had gone, the stale air wafting about as it had been for so many years. It was a sense of death, but the chill of life seemed to echo from within the tombs.

“It wasn’t me,” Petrakis stated rather simply.

~~~~~~~
A sonar device had been brought to the main entrance of the tomb, as its active pinging mapped out the entire building. Several corridors had caved in, but three rooms were what really caught his eye. Petrakis divvied up the teams accordingly, as they turned on their flashlights and entered, two minor teams for the two minor halls, and a team with the good doctor to the main hall. Every hand grabbed what it could, be it paper, ash, chalk, ladders, lights, the whole shebang, as they entered. The smooth walls much like the tombs of the pharaohs glistened with the same cryptic words, as several began to copy down and photograph it all for records. But Petrakis was undeterred. He was heading for the main prize. The central hall seemed to be the best place to find everything he had ever asked for, but now, he began to realize this was no ordinary tomb. Unlike in former lifestyles, they did not bury the dead in coffins and with various nooks in the wall, but only a single large coffin sat in the middle, the lid on the floor.

“Maybe it’s like one of those stackable dolls to the nth degree,” one student ventured.

“Or, it’s simply a giant case for a bunch of bodies to go together,” Corydon said back. “I’m going to look inside.” The young lad hopped up, much to the utter dismay of his professor, and turned pale. “Professor, doctor, you’re not going to believe this.”

It wouldn’t be long until they too had gathered around the coffin, staring in at the largest body draped in flax they had ever seen. Burns and dirt covered everything, as they all began guessing what it really was.

“It’s a giant.”

“It’s a mummy.”

“It’s a Jotun.”

“It’s a nephilim.”

“It’s a giant jotun ninja mummy from hell.”

“I don’t care what it is…,” Petrakis started, his light shining upon the body.

“It’s in perfect condition,” Dr. Meilius stated.

“I know, I’ve never seen an embalming so good so loose,” Petrakis began.

“No, it is if it died only moments ago,” Meilius said, as the lights were brought against the pale skin of the feet. A shout could be heard from the torso region.

“Would you cut that out Dimitur!” Corydon shouted, the prankster giving a shrug. “What do you think this is? A horror movie set?” Corydon looked down, seeing a finger twitch. A loud yelp left his mouth as he nearly fell off his ladder.

“Oh, so you can act scared, but I can’t?” Dimitur stated with annoyance.

“I swear I saw its hand move!”

“First off, ‘it’ has been here for quite some time, it must be clearly dead. And second,” Dr. Meilius started, “It is really a ‘she’. And rather beautiful, I might add.”

Of course, as what goes through every normal teenager’s mind, they scurried towards the head, the thought of giant breasts and sex flooding their minds like a moth to flames. They stared and joked, pulling the wrapping off of the face, when suddenly, a small jet of air seemed to be loosed from the nose. And then they heard the dull thumping, rhythmic and slow, echo throughout the stone tomb. First, there was a heat of confusion from everyone, nobody sure what the sound was. It wasn’t until they watched the chest move slowly up and down that it began to piece itself together, as the flashlights began to shake. Fear gripped the team, as Dr. Milieus moved the flashlight down upon the face once more. Staring back at him was the largest brown eye he had ever witnessed, it’s pupil contracting, and it’s ire now glaring at the bright source of light that bothered it. Cries of panic to run, to flee echoed throughout the walls, but as the giant began to pound upon the ceiling of the tomb, escape became inevitable. Stone and flesh blocked the exit, as the crypt collapsed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Outside, crews were wondering what all was going on, their team of scientists and doctors now trapped within the entire settlement, as shovels, picks, and other equipment began to try to dig out what survivors may still exist.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A dull thudding. Pounding. Some higher pitched tones and dust fell upon a rather sleepy goddess of 'wisdom and war'. Hera was always a serious case to deal with due to fury, wild and untamed. But the warrior goddess? If there was someone who could possibly rival the queen with equal passion, and outdo her in effective destruction, it was Athene. More crumbling debris fell upon her casket, bopping into her closed lid. Another piece, after another. Irritation grew as the goddess kept being tapped by such minor annoyances, which compounded larger and larger, until her very fury woke up a semi-bloodshot eye. Raising her arm, she noticed she couldn't swing back... nor could she even extend it fully. Instead, she placed her middle finger upon the ceiling, and forced up with all her might, giving a resounding thump throughout the land. The ground above cracked with the first punch.

"It's so dark," she muttered. "I must have been buried alive... Dank air so stale and moist, yet warm and sticky. And something is making an awful racket outside. By Zeus himself, did he and Hera get into another fight? Why am I even down here?"

So long was she buried, such questions bored her head annoyed. A bloody headache made it hard to recall what had all happened, but she was intelligent and sharp to piece things very quickly together. Drawing a palm again, another thump of the fist pounded at her tomb's ceiling, as she began to force her way out...

"I doubt Kronos himself could handle three of my punches, I must be getting weak in my slumber," Athena grumbled to herself, as she lined up for a third punch. It's pressure fractured the tomb ceiling, as the hand dove through the top, and a hand erupted from the earth, spewing rock nearly two thousand feet in the air from its force. A delicate, though firm and now somewhat soiled hand, appeared relaxing for but a moment. Almost like a living creature, it rotated around to the left, then to the right, before slipping into the earth once more. She needed her spear.. her aegis... her helm... but first, the bonds.

Pushing tightly, the aged wrappings cracked and snapped, as Athena placed her hands in similiar fashion again, fingers tuching her cieling, giving a deep breath. With the force of explosion, the earth was pushed up in a fell swoop, revealing half of her sunken tomb to the bright air. Cool air blowed over her skin, as she began to wipe the dirt from her body and face. Dark locks of curly hair drooped down, as a less than pleased Athena gave a half-lidded glance outward.

"You could have helped," she muttered, "and this better be good, Hera. I hate getting rudely awoken by petty squabbles. The trojans know all too well what happened the last time I was raised early. Where is my Aegis and my gear?"

Except, as the brunette goddess stared around, Hera was not to be found.

Hundreds of senors went off flipping on lighted alerts and long strings of security code. A room filled with hundreds of people filled with activity each one in front of a computer each doing an individual job. All this was summarized on a larger screen on the wall in front of them. It spanned the height and length of the room. It showed a map of the Earth with thousands of small dots and lines crisscrossing each and every way. However as new information was collected from alerted senors a dot appeared and grew far larger then rest. It began a bright red blip and grew larger still as the digital map zoomed in on the area. Information was being compiled over resent events in Greece. Teams were soon called for to be sent in and assess what was really going on and if it was a threat.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Wait up! All this gear takes sometime to get on guys!" David pulled on his boots then twirled his gun the right way around. "Hurry up Christ, David we are going to miss our flight." Sgt. McLock said in frustration, the large Scotsmen was rather use to David being late, but it still got on his nerves. David ran as fast as he could jumping on board the large cargo plane just as it began to move. "Reporting for duty." "s**t down you damn git." This didn't wipe the little smile David had on his face as he took a seat in the darken empty space of the plane.

There were only three dozen of them heading out just a simple scouting party. A lot of strange information was coming from a dig-site somewhere in Greece. Reports were all over the place, all that was 100% was that there was a collapse. However what had caused the collapse was a bit of a mystery. Not that, that alone would permit a scouting party. No it had more to do with some of the reports. Reports of a giant of some kind that pulled itself from the rubble. Was this true? Well thats what they were going to go find out. The planed rumbled a little as it hit a little turbulence. It would be a few hours till they arrived so the teams got some rest before the mission.

After a short time, Nikolaos's report came in, Colonel Antoni entering his office, saluting, and placing the papers upon his desk. Looking down, the Brigadier General takes them in his hands and scans over them, his brows raising the further he got in.

When finished, he lowers them in annoyance. "What kind of joke is this, Colonel? You know I have little room for humor when it comes to my duty."

"I'm terribly sorry, sir, but this is what has been witnessed by people in the surrounding area, from what we can gather from the first troops to arrive there. I really wish I it were a joke, sir," Antoni replies apologetically.

Able to tell Antoni was as much in disbelief as himself, Nikolaos dismisses him with orders to give another report shortly, and looks over the current report again.

If it was to be believed, some kind of giant woman looking straight out of Greek mythology had risen from the mountain, and then almost as quickly as she appeared, shrank down below the level of the surrounding terrain. The main brunt of the forces were about halfway there, with the first batch of troops setting up roadblocks around the area and filling in as much of a perimeter as practical with their limited numbers. The helicopter was just arriving as well, it seemed, and so the next report would thankfully debunk all this giant goddess nonsense. Until then, though, the general decided to keep the plan as-is. A ridiculous rumor was not going to get the best of him.

In the relatively short time she had been able to talk to the digcrew, Athena had learned of the immense changes that had been created. Computers, electicity, the gasoline engine... well that last one still confused her about "horsepower" since she didn't see a horse anywhere. All while the crew continued to dig furiously to save people. She helped as well, since they had given her quite a bit of her favorite offering: knowledge. Of course, to them, she was a herculean feat, moving aside boulders like mere rocks, her goddess strength powering through the rubble. A few were saved, most had died including Dr. Petrakis. She could sense her weapons nearby, and while the few were being tended to, she dug into one of the collapsed tunnels.

"At least I found you," she said rather motherly, picking up her spear, helm, and aegis, before shrinking them down to her belt.

"Can you do anything for them?" a brunette man said.

"I'm a goddess of wisdom and war, not of healing, but I can try," she said astutely. "But you'll probably owe me quite a bit of information before we're through."

"Anything," the crew began to say.

"So be it," the canteen of water hanging off the crewmember's hip was drained over a few mouths, giving them what they could. Bandages and wounds were touched and placed (afterall, even without healing powers, she had the common knowledge of rudimentary first aid). While some may question what a goddess of war would do tending the sick, many fail to realize that the soldiers who died, the men who lost limbs and eyes... all were byproducts of war. Even worse was civilian causalities, something she had originally taught as wrong.

A loud hooting alerted Athena. Everyone stared and gawked, asking something along the lines of "what is that thing?"

"Oh, this is Archimedes. My little spy. I sent him out on the surrounding area to survey the land for me, but it seems we've got company," she said tenderly, as she closed the tent's doors and shrunk down to a normal six foot, dressed as normal as the rest, her new blonde hair done up in a bun, features slightly altered. When she exited, she stared at the men.

"What? A bit more fitting, don't you think? You know i turned Odysseus into an old man once, and then I turned into plenty of other things, sometimes statues, sometimes animals, sometimes even swords and armor. Quit gawking and spread out, we've got guests to entertain."


(It is important to note that these tents do rather look like humble peasantry abodes to the goddess, and greek tradition says to never turn away a guest knocking on one's door...)

The overly super human feats done before them by the woman stopped anyone from doubting why they had come. "Well I'll willing to bet she isn't human." David said. "No s**t? Was it the boulders she was lifting over her head or the fact she changed size the tipped you off?" David didn't answer the question posed by one of the guys in the team. This didn't stop someone else from chiming in however. "I've got twenty on witch." "Na, I doubt she's that human. I'm going with shape shifter." "I'm putting one-hundred on demi-godess." "All right all right settle done." Sgt. Mclock almost yelled, but remembered where they were and kept it quiet.

"How about we take guesses once she is back at lock up safe and sound instead." He said with a bit of anger in his voice the men just nodded their heads. "Alright now then lets get down to the nitty gritty." Sgt. McLock began to send men here and there. He wanted to make a small perimeter. And he wanted to do it before the local military got wise to what was going on. They were already swarming the place. After sending everyone to designated spots all that was left was him and David. "Well David it looks like you got the sh8*t end of the stick. You get to go knock and see who's home." "What...?" David said in disbelief. "I'm the damn bait." "Yep that about sums it up." "Again." "Hey kid if you stopped being such good at it I'd stop using you." He gave a rough smile before walking off.

"O this is great." David made his way to the tent not sure what to do. Should he knock, it was a tent after all, do you knock at a tent. Well here goes nothing he knocked on the soft canvass of the front of the tent. "Hello?"

Kanelos motions for everyone to calm down, saying, "Alright, alright, stay calm. Like I said, we have help, with proper equipment for searching out survivors in the rubble, on the way. They should be here any minute, they simply had to be dispatched from a bit further away than us. If we rush in now we'll only risk a further collapse of the area, and this would more likely ensure anyone trapped in there won't survive. In the meantime we need more information so we can expedite the process."

Looking over the crowd, he sees one person, and points to them. "You--I'll need you to come with me, and tell me everything that happened, since the person in charge is not available. I'll need you to mark on a map the layout of the dig site: where people were working at the time of the accident, where the areas most at risk of collapse are, and some other such information. This way, when the rescue team arrives, they can start immediately and work safely. We'll discuss things in... That tent, there," he says, pointing off to his left at one of the larger shelters. "We'll make that the base of operations."

Returning his attention to the rest of the group, he says, "Now, if the rest of you go with Sergeant Hatzis and his men, there, they'll begin by getting a head count and identifying who is here. At the very least we can know who is a confirmed survivor and extrapolate on the missing or dead based on that. To help them with this, please have any identification with you ready."

Looking to the Sergeant and his men, he nods, and then approaches his personal interviewee, extending his arm in invitation to the tent. "If you'll come with me, sir..."




Having received orders, Sergeant Hatzis calls out, "Alright, everyone form a line at any of these five men here, or myself. Provide your full name, and any identification you can. It is important we have as many positive identifications as possible! Afterwards you can rest in the tent over there and we will begin questioning on an individual basis."




High above, in the helicopter, the crew aboard finds what they see to be rather peculiar. Furiously making notes, photographs, and video, the patterns of the torn earth more and more indicate something other than an explosion. In fact, it definitely appeared that the ground had been pushed up from underneath, like a figure climbing out of a grave...