Date: The Titanomachy – Year One: The Arming of Gods
Our journey up from Tartarus was nothing like the cautious descent. We moved now with six immense figures of primal might accompanying us, their tread shaking the lightless tunnels, the shadows themselves seeming to part before them. Stealth was a forgotten notion; our passage was announced by the raw power of our new allies. Campe, if she still lurked near the chasm's edge, made no move to bar our exit. Perhaps the sheer, combined aura of our united force, or the echoing roars of the Hundred-Handed Ones, was warning enough.
We emerged back into the dim, ashen wastes of the Underworld's upper reaches, then further, until the first, faint rays of the upper world's sun touched our skin like a forgotten caress. The giants, who had known only the gloom of Tartarus or the even deeper darkness of their imprisonment, blinked their great eyes, a mixture of awe and ancient pain on their craggy faces.
When we finally reached Ida, Hestia and Demeter stepped forward slowly, their apprehension at the sight of our new allies warring with relief. As Zeus spoke of our venture, a look of profound, tearful gratitude spread across Demeter's face, while Hestia offered a rare, luminous smile. Rhea was there too, her relief a palpable wave that washed over us. Hera, by contrast, stood a little apart. Her gaze wasn't fearful, but sharp, moving from the Cyclopes to the Hekatonkheires and back to Zeus, a subtle tightening around her eyes the only outward sign of the intense calculations I sensed were occurring within her as she assessed these new pieces on the cosmic board.
"They will need a forge," Brontes rumbled, his voice like the shifting of tectonic plates, once the initial reunions and explanations had been made. His gaze swept over the idyllic grove. "A place of fire and metal, worthy of the work to come."
Zeus, ever decisive, indicated a series of deep caves on a more remote, volcanic slope of Ida. "There, Uncles. Carve your workshops from the mountain's heart. We will provide what you need, if it is within our power."
And so, the Cyclopes began. It was a spectacle of creation unlike anything I could have imagined. My Achieves, my internal drive to catalogue and understand, was thrown into overdrive. Brontes, Steropes, and Arges did not merely smith; they commanded the primal elements. They drew fire from the mountain's molten core, their great hands shaping divine metals – adamantine, stygian iron, Olympian bronze that seemed to sing with latent power – as if they were soft clay. The clang of their hammers was the heartbeat of the coming war, each strike a declaration of defiance against Cronos. The Hekatonkheires, with their hundred arms each, became their assistants, their guards, their tenders of the impossible heat, their strength making monumental tasks seem trivial.
I watched, for days that turned into weeks, utterly captivated. This was not just craftsmanship; it was an act of pure, focused achievement, a bending of reality to will and skill. I recorded every motion, every spark, every incantation murmured in the ancient tongue of the firstborn.
Then, one turning, as the first of the great works neared completion, Brontes called me forward. His single, molten eye seemed to pierce through me, seeing not just the young god Telos, but perhaps the ancient soul of Alex within. "You, nephew Telos," he said, his voice softer now, though still a rumble. "You see patterns. You seek understanding. Your brothers desire weapons to command the storm, the depths, the darkness. What does a god of Truth and Achieves require to make his mark upon this war?"
I had not expected this. I had assumed my role was to observe, to advise, perhaps to find the 'leverage' in future confrontations. A weapon for me? "I… I seek to understand the path to victory, Uncle," I said carefully. "To know the means, the methods, the achievements necessary."
Steropes let out a crack of laughter like dry lightning. "He wants a library, Brontes, not a spear!"
Arges, his bright eye twinkling, nodded. "A weapon that grows with knowledge, perhaps? One that holds the essence of what is, and what can be achieved."
Brontes looked at me again, then nodded slowly. "A difficult forging. Not of metal alone. But we see… a shape for it."
For three days and three nights, they worked on my… weapon. They gathered strange materials: stone from the deepest roots of Ida, imbued with the mountain's ancient wisdom; solidified light from the heart of their forge-fires; whispers of truth drawn from the very air; and a single, perfect, unblinking star-fragment that Arges claimed fell into Tartarus eons ago, a piece of the outer dark, cold and eternal. They wove these elements together with chants that spoke of endings and beginnings, of knowledge gained and futures shaped.
When they presented it to me, I was speechless. It was a book. Not a scroll, but a bound tome, its covers crafted from a dark, obsidian-like material that seemed to drink the light, yet pulsed with a faint, internal luminescence. It was cool to the touch, yet thrummed with a barely contained energy. Intricate, ever-shifting symbols, reminiscent of those I had seen in the pure void of knowledge before my birth, chased each other across its surface. It had no title, yet I knew, with a certainty that resonated with my core divinity, that this was the Tome of Attainment.
"This is no mere collection of pages, nephew," Brontes said, his voice filled with a smith's pride. "It is an echo of your soul, a vessel for your domain. Within it lies the potential for all achievements, all paths, all attacks learned or yet to be conceived. What you understand, what you master, what you achieve – it will find its place here. Its pages are infinite, its knowledge bounded only by your will to seek it."
"Turn a page when you seek a method," Steropes added, his eye flashing. "But be warned – some knowledge, some achievements, demand a heavy price."
Arges simply smiled. "May it help you find the truth of victory, Telos."
I took the Tome. It felt impossibly heavy, yet also light as a thought. As my fingers brushed its cover, a surge of raw information, of pure conceptual understanding, flooded my senses – not overwhelming this time, but slotting into my mental Achieves as if it were finding its natural home.
Then came the weapons for my brothers. For Zeus, a thunderbolt, the Keraunos, crackling with untamed celestial fury, a weapon that sang of absolute power and sky-shattering judgment. He hefted it, and the very air around him sparked, his eyes blazing with a terrifying, exultant light. This, I knew, would be the symbol of his reign.
For Poseidon, the Triaina, a trident of gleaming Olympian bronze, its tines sharp as winter ice, humming with the untamed power of the deepest oceans and the earth-shaking fury of quakes. He gripped it, and a wild, triumphant roar burst from his lips, the scent of salt and storm suddenly filling the forge.
For Hades, a Helm of Darkness, the Kyneē, forged from the solidified shadows of Tartarus itself, imbued with the terror of the unknown and the power of oblivion. When he placed it upon his head, his form seemed to dissolve into the surrounding gloom, his presence becoming a chilling whisper, his silver eyes the only points of light in an abyss of his own making.
We stood there, four brothers, newly armed, the raw, terrible power of our divine birthrights now given focus, given edge. The Hekatonkheires looked on, their hundred arms rippling, their fifty heads nodding in grim approval. Rhea watched us, a mixture of pride and profound dread in her ancient eyes.
The Tome of Attainment was a strange weight in my hands, its surface alive with symbols that my mind strained to grasp, yet felt an undeniable pull towards. It wasn't a weapon in the way my brothers now held, yet I knew its purpose was deeply tied to my own. The war ahead was a raw, uncharted territory, full of unknown variables. As I looked at the unwritten pages within this book, I wondered what knowledge they would come to hold, what truths of that conflict I would be compelled to record, and if within that record, the path to achieving our aims would become clear.