Old Gods Crusade [ic]

[Achilles]

ooc || reference

CURRENT CAST

@sing o muse (GM):
Joseph Lemke || Alexander the Great

@Kat (Co-GM):
Alexandra Vasilakis || Cleopatra VII

@KasaiVictoriano :
Cassidy Capone || Diogenes
Surko Huo || Sappho

@TheDevil'sGame :
Arthur Nicholson || Augustus Caesar/Octavian
Giovanna Mascen || Queen Gorgo

@The Dapper Mog :
Liam Russo || Pericles

@Rook :
Lenora Volkova || Hypatia of Alexandria
Lance Nocton || Mark Antony

 

[Dusk]

Lance shifted to settle comfortably against the wall as the young man became the first (and only) person to greet him. It was a friendly welcome with a promising compliment attached. At least one of his new companions was going to be sociable. But there was an eagerness about the youth which caused his brow to arch as he watched him hurry over toward the cabinet – only for the youth to stumble on his way over. A portion of his drink sloshed unceremoniously to the floor.

"Fair enough," Lance responded with a grin as he straightened himself out and took a step toward the liquor cabinet. Before he made it any further, he caught sight of the enchanting blonde in his periphery. She was leaving the room. He had the half-second thought to follow after her but decided better of it. After all, nothing says talk to me like walking off alone. Halfway on his way to the liquor cabinet, another man entered the room. Lance was not the last to arrive then. The newcomer was a charming looking man with a neatness about him. Lance's amused expression persisted as the newest arrival talked about keeping his crazy scheduled, as if it were ever that easy.

The oldest man in the room seemed to take on the role of bartender as he addressed various members of the room, one of the younger girls remained by his side. When it was offered, Lance slipped forward and took the glass of whiskey. He'd watched the man pour it and wasn't worried about tampering. In a single swig, he downed the liquid and set the empty glass down on the counter, pouring himself another as he waited. He didn't have to wait long before the older man was sharing his own dream. That was fast. Faster than Lance expected. The man continued on about aspects of his life as they related to the dream. Lance sipped at his drink and waited patiently. The neatly dressed man was speaking again, this time mentioning spiked punch and shared delusions.

He had a point. The letter did make it sound far more important than the current reality. Although Lance could hardly complain when he had access to free booze and was surrounded by lovely ladies. One such lady was the next to speak. And she sounded pissed.

And then the door slammed open.

Another handsome lad joined the group. However, his striking features weren't the most standout thing about him as he was dressed in a purple toga and a fucking crown. Immediately, Lance knew this man was Julian. And he could tell by the man's vivacious greeting that he was going to be anything but boring. Without delay, he went into a tirade about the woman's absence – something he apparently knew about. Lance raised his brow at that. But without warning, Julian's demeanour quickly shifted into a pleasant one and he introduced himself, confirming what Lance already suspected. The older man leisurely waved in a greeting of his new companion.

When Julian prompted someone to fetch the woman, the youth who'd greeted Lance was quick to volunteer. He seemed an eager sort – or maybe he was just someone who needed to be doing something. In any case, the distant sound of him calling out reached Lance's ears as the older man settled against the wall again with his half-full drink in hand.

"You mean our dreams?" Lance asked rhetorically – as if there was some other reason this particular group would travel to the middle of nowhere together. "Sure, I'll share. Why not?" They weren't going to get any answers until the other two came back, so Lance might as well make the most of the time he had available. Plus, he was interested to see where this was going to go.

"I'm sitting there drinking wine when this woman enters the room. My heart jumps at the sight of her; she is beautiful and elaborately dressed. Two children are with her – they're supposed to be mine, I think. She speaks sweetly to them, but I don't understand what she is saying. I reach out to them, but before anything else happens I wake up." Recalling the dream brought a fondness to his voice. But before anyone – Julian or otherwise – had a chance to reply, a voice called out from down the hall.

"Got her, she's coming!"

As the two returned to the room, it was immediately obvious that the blonde woman was not pleased. Beneath raised brows, Lance took a drink of whiskey as he listened to her chastise Julian. He could understand why she was upset, but personally couldn't find the situation to be anything other than amusing. Even if he was just some kid pretending to be an emperor. After her tongue lashing, Julian's jovial tone slipped away as quickly as it came. He seemed a different man. One who was used to getting what he wanted. He turned on her with a fierceness to rival her own as he berated her. She didn't seem arrogant to Lance, only annoyed. He'd bet that statement annoyed her more, too.

After Julian said his piece he was all smiles and pleasantries again. Looks like crazy is hosting, he thought remembering the politician's earlier comment.

 

[Achilles]

THE FIRST DREAMS (cont.)

ASHER ALESSI

You are making your way, slowly but surely, down a dim corridor. Your arm is wrapped firmly around a man's waist, and he leans heavily against you, carrying less of his own weight than you are. He smells strongly of wine, and every so often, you let out a distinctly frustrated sigh. As you make your way further down, he seems to give up on walking entirely, groaning and pressing his face into your shoulder. By the way he turns into you and slings his arms around your shoulders, it seems that this grown man is expecting to be carried. You laugh stiffly, nudging him off of you with what sounds like an admonishment, though you do not recognize the words you are using. His response is equally foreign to your ears, perhaps more so due to the heavy, heavy slurring. You reach a room eventually -- a beautiful bedroom, decorated elaborately with silks and paints and marble -- and lead him carefully to the plush bed, where he flops down unceremoniously, still fully dressed in purple robes. He tugs you closer and you lean in; you get a closer look at him now. He is lovely, blond-haired and blue-eyed, and smiling languidly at you. He leans up just enough to press his lips to yours softly, both hands sliding up to your cheeks as if holding you prisoner there. You let him, though it is not a terribly pleasant kiss. He tastes of wine just as much as he smells of it.

@Rook

 

[Achilles]

EMPEROR JULIAN​

After the brief moment of tension, Julian seemed eager to return to their regular conversation. He turned to Lance, who had been sharing his dream before the interruption, clapping his hands together excitedly. "Lovely! Lovely. Thank you for sharing. A beautiful dream, that one is. How lucky you are! I do hope your dreams remain so sweet." It was a slightly ominous thing to say, but he did not seem to pick up on that. He looked thoughtful for a moment before continuing on, speaking almost as if he was talking to himself, though he was certainly loud enough for everyone to hear. "A presumably powerful man with a pretty lady-friend and a beautiful family -- this does not narrow anything down much, I'm afraid. Lady-friends come cheap for a powerful man! And, naturally, the little babies. Those come all too easily, some may say! But the gods are not obligated to make things easy for us, are they? In due time, my friend, things will become clear. Those are your babies, though, I am sure of it. I can see it in your eyes." He smiled, a genuinely kind smile -- sympathetic, perhaps -- before turning his gaze to the rest of the room.

When no one else volunteered immediately, he continued without missing a beat. "Ah, but none of this will make sense to you all yet. I am getting too excited again. As I have said, I am Julian. I was born in a little village in Italy, near to Rome. Years ago, in my childhood, I began to realize I was different. I had the craziest dreams -- similar to you all, I am sure. My mamma would drag me to the priest every time I told her of one!" He laughed. "I did not yet understand the irony in that.

"But this is not important. What is important is that, a few years ago, I remembered everything. Who I was before. Imperator Flavius Claudius Julianus Augustus. This is who I was when I died. Emperor of Rome -- with the world at my feet. 'Julian the Apostate', they call me now! Can you believe this name? Anyways, back then... it was the fourth century, when I first lived... I was born a Christian, just as I was born a Catholic this time around. Christ did not feel like home to me, either time. I came to love the old gods so deeply, and the empire... They could worship who they pleased, as always, but they abandoned the old ways. They rejected the old gods. I could not stand by this. I went back to the gods and tried to bring my people back with me. I did not succeed.

"The night I remembered, the gods came to me. Jupiter himself! Zeus, to the Greeks undoubtedly among us. He said to me: Julianus, you must try again. You must bring them back to us, just as we have brought you back to your world. I promised him I would. And they have come to me nightly since -- a different god every night, with something new to say. Oh, the things they have planned! I have spent these last years making preparations -- oh, there is much to do. You would not believe, but you will, in time! I will succeed now, with your help. I am sure of it. Which brings me to why you all are here.

"The gods have led me to you, and I do not expect you to share this sentiment, but I have much love for you all. I am so grateful to meet you, and will be so blessed to meet who you will become. The gods... they chose me, and they chose you as well. You see -- how can I explain this well? -- you have been brought back as well. You are all, as I am told, powerful men and women from a time long in the past. Followers of the old ways, and favorites of the old gods -- then and now. If you are here, that means you are favored by one or all of them -- a privileged place to be. These dreams... they are not dreams, but I am sure that most of you suspected that already. They feel too real, yes? The details, the tastes, the smells... the way you feel when you awake. These are memories of a past life, a life where you were more you than you ever have been in today's godless wasteland. It is you, trying to break back in. They are not dreams. You will experience more, in time -- they will all feel just as real. They will continue to terrify you, or break your heart, or bring you great joy. Embrace them -- the quicker you do, the quicker you will remember who you are. And when you do -- we all have a purpose here. We are all here to bring our gods back to the people. And there is much to do."

He paused and looked around again, before grinning widely. "Any questions?"

 

[junebug]

Alex Vasilakis

The meeting had finally concluded a few hours later. The muscles in Alex's face had softened, but she still remained frustrated. She appeared weary and given she'd been terribly stubborn about not sharing her dream, it was hopefully quite clear to Julian and the others that she did not want much else to do with a man younger than her and dressed in a purple costume and golden crown... and especially not a man who claimed to be some historical figure from the past who spoke to the Gods. What a bunch of bullshit. Regardless, he'd heard dreams that were amazing and that was good for others. They were far better than Alex crying over a dying man.

"Alright, now that this is over, I'm heading out. I'm picking up my kid from school. I can't delay any longer since I'm already going to be late and need to reach out to my kid's grandparents now. You folks have a good afternoon."

Alex left with the intention that she would not see them again. She didn't expect to. The dreams and all this hullabaloo meant nothing. She was silently glad Julian had not pulled anything on her and made a determination that there was no reason to investigate because nothing criminal had happened and the group of people she'd met seemed decent enough.

She slammed her front door and took a deep breath. The car turned on and she looked at the inside of her jacket. Her badge and gun were still nestled snugly in their sections. Sometimes, it was better to let sleeping dogs lie. Alex buckled her seatbelt when her phone began to buzz on the very little cell service she had with her work phone.

She backed out of the area and drove off, picking up her phone on the way.

"Alex."

A crime scene. She'd have to be efficient.

"I'll be over there as soon as I can."

She wasn't picking up her daughter from school today. An unfortunate circumstance, but duty called. She'd have to make it up later.

Three hours later, after Alex had gotten home and changed out of her clothing to something else, she arrived on scene at a familiar apartment building— her older brother lived here, but she didn't make much of it until she was led to the second story, around to apartment 332B where her older brother, Nyke, lived. Alex grew tense as she walked through the apartment, immediately wondering if her brother had been murdered by some unforgiving punk. She swallowed the fear and focused on the logic of why she was there.

Dark red blood splattered the floor and a terrible stench filled the air. Someone was definitely dead alright. Alex's feet picked up her pace down the hall and turned to the right where she saw a pair of legs and feet hanging out from the end of the bed, on the other side. She raised her hand to her nose and mouth, as she rounded the bed to the other side and her heart lurched.

"He couldn't have been more than around his late 20s to early 30s... It's been three days, so he's only just starting to decompose. Yikes!"

An audible gasp was heard and she immediately turned away, shocked and trying to gain her forbearance. Her eyes blurred and she immediately tried to regain herself from seeing a gaping slash from his left pectoral to the right side of his stomach. Blood smeared the wall beside him and whoever staged this got him good... It certainly wasn't her older brother though, so why was Theo found dead in Nyke's guest bedroom after three days? Too obvious... but Alex also found it strange that no one had been able to recover the weapon on scene.

"Alex?" Tina questioned. Tina was the forensic scientist of the team. She was always Alex's first point of contact when uncovering a crime scene, but for this, she really needed a moment. At least her gag reflex wasn't reactive anymore to this shit.

"You look sick... I know this must be crazy..."

Alex nodded, words unable to form as she tried to explain to Tina, "Need a moment."

Tina sucked in a deep breath and nodded before turning back to the dead body and taking more pictures. Broken sobs came from Alex's lips.

"Oh my god," she suddenly spoke up and forced herself to speak, as much as she hated to speak the truth right now. "It's my brother. My adopted half brother, Theo… And this… this is my older brother's apartment. What the hell?"

Her words came out quicker than anticipated, and more emotional than she'd wanted it to. Alex took a deep breath and blinked away another oncoming wave of tears. First Julian and his stupid "you are the chosen ones" hoax, now her brother gashed to death. This situation was much worse. This was... agonizing.

"Alex," the leader of the investigation had been talking to a neighbor who was good friends with Theo. "Go home. You need time to clear your head. Next few days you're off on my orders. We'll talk to you about this when you're in a better head space, okay? You know what will happen next. We'll have to talk to you as a private citizen connected to this case."

She nodded and sniffed, running her hand over her face. She called her friend and babysitter to make sure her child had been picked up from her after school activity. She had— On top of that, she'd asked her friend to take care of her little tyke for the next few days– if at all possible– because of Theo's death… which wasn't easy to spill. Her friend wasn't allowed to tell her child what was going on… Alex would share what happened to Chloe's uncle when she was in a better head space.

That evening, Alex sat on her couch with her third glass of red wine in her hand. She sobbed for a while, in what felt like many days until she was simply staring at the tv screen, dead to the world. She wished at that moment that she could tighten her fist around the wine glass and break it because of how angry and heartbroken she was. She felt empty, if empty was even an emotion, but she knew she was grieving. Her brother Theo had given her so much to live for and she couldn't find any reason or motive as to why someone would kill her brother… not even her older brother, Nyke, who had some jealousy over her and Theo being intimate at one point in time.

The thing was that the situation where Nyke had threatened her and Theo was in the past. There was no way he had suddenly decided to murder him in cold blood but it was in the guest bedroom. Christ, she should've drunk herself silly when she'd had the chance at Julian's little meeting. She wouldn't have heard about Theo's murder in the first place then, would she? The mere prospect of drowning herself in wine sounded fantastic right about now as she took a large gulp of red blend to finish the glass off and poured another. Whatever bastard did this to Theo… she would make sure he was brought justice in court. She'd kill them so they wouldn't show up and testify being innocent when they'd clearly killed Theo. She set down her wine glass a little too harshly, the alcohol sloshing around a little too quickly and gripped the edge of her couch.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry and shout. Alex could feel her emotions penting up until she couldn't take it anymore. She stood up and screamed at the world, the God everyone believed in, and most of all, she screamed at herself for letting this happen. It was her fault for not protecting him. That was her duty afterall. To serve and protect the citizens of Fortuna, to always uphold the community she served. It was in her blood to protect and she'd turned a blind eye to what reality she truly lived in now. People would kill anyone for personal gain or on account of a grudge, revenge, or another distressing motive.

Alex hunched over on the floor, tears slipping down her cheeks as she clenched her fists. They'd fucking pay. They would.

---

Over the week, Alex was taken on the case as a private citizen who had familial connections to Theo. She could not pinpoint why anyone would want to kill Theo, much less her older brother. She would never share her secret… Yet, she'd also sworn to be honest, loyal, and uphold integrity. Was she willing to toe the line and not indulge on the matters of perpetual incest? Alex played on the whole situation as being foreign to her, particularly with the fact that Nyke was the number one suspect and noted that living together with both of her brothers, Nyke and her adopted brother had a great relationship, like many siblings would when a new brother or sister entered the world.

It would take weeks, perhaps even months, before they'd conclude who the killer was, yet all signs seemed to point straight to her older brother, merely because of the convenience that it was in his apartment with one of his knives, as they'd soon found out— a bread knife with a serrated edge. No wonder that damn crime scene was so messy. For now though, Nyke was in custody until his innocence was proven… one that Alex wasn't sure she could help with. The whole situation felt helpless with her being on the backend now but she refused to believe that her older brother had any part in the murder. He was compassionate and supportive, hardly one to let a stray cat starve if he could help it.

Nyke was lucky though. He had a defense lawyer on hand the moment the tables turned against him. She didn't know who the defense lawyer was— she was going to meet him because Nyke would introduce him and tell her that he was in good hands, even when she doubted that. Nyke spoke highly of his lawyer, so at least she could find some comfort in Nyke being confident that his lawyer would fight to the death to prove his innocence. Nyke and his lawyer arranged a meeting for a few days later in the morning for Alex to meet him and while she had expected a well-groomed, handsome man with a passion for justice and court, she hadn't expected Lance.

No, this was the LAST thing she expected. A part of Alex wanted to throw herself at Lance's feet and beg him to ensure that Nyke would be okay, but the other part of her wanted to turn around and run away because what the fuck? Alex tried not to let the palpable awkwardness move forward anymore. She stuck her hand out to shake Lance's and formally introduced herself as Alexandra Vasilakis, but he could just call her Alex. The nickname had kind of stuck over the years and she wasn't about to adopt her long name back in exchange for the simple one.

The meeting would be simple, she hoped, simple and kind of a "one and done" sort of task because she really needed to re-evaluate her plans to move with Chloe to Mykonos, Greece where Chloe's grandparents and other relatives were. She wasn't sure if she could really handle Lance being her brother's lawyer, primarily because Lance was now stuck in the middle of her family drama and he was still a complete stranger to her who'd gone to the same damn meeting that wacko had put up. They had to talk after he did his defense lawyer magic and figured out what was going on… If she could. Or at least get his number so they could talk later. At this rate, her brain was frying at one hundred and twenty degrees fahrenheit per second. It would be gone by the time they sat down and discussed Nyke's options… if her brother had any at all. Alex was hardly in police mode at this point.