Holy High: Pax Deorum (IC/OPEN)

[Luminesa]

Patriah - The Brunch Club

Azcoatl and Vix had taken their time finding the classroom, though luckily some of the class was still moving to the new classroom. Both the storm god and the fox goddess nearly collapsed at their tables as they arrived. One was too tired to move, the other was frustrated over...something. Patriah could not pretend to know what went on in her head or anyone else's, especially given that all of the gods of the various pantheons seemed to think in almost alien ways from one another. Then again, perhaps that gap was more relevant to the older gods. Most of the students still acted much the way any young students might, tolerating each other or finding ways to work together to survive school. Only Astrid seemed to dislike making connections with most of her classmates, and even she had gaped over her Nintendo DS with Illara.

Patriah smirked at Azcoatl as he collapsed in a seat nearby, and then he looked to Bana as he sat to him on one side. "Yeah, I don't know what Hyp was thinking about having this challenge be near the water, when so many of us control the weather." He then realized that despite his own wind and lightning powers, he had not used much of either abilities in his own challenge. Instead, he had used one of Senu's firearms. The gleam in his eye from experiencing the thrill of the recoil was still present, but now he wondered if he could really claim that success if Senu was the one who led their teamwork. "...Maybe I'll be able to knock something over with a windstorm in this class. The room's big enough!"

Speaking of whom, Senu then made his presence known by slamming his belongings on the desk. The desks were far too small for most of the gods, and some of the items thus fell on the floor and laid in a heap. The young Egyptian god did not care very much, as he also made sure to sit away from his classmates. Pat did not blame him. If he had been feeling less social today, he might not have come to Athena's class at all. "Hey, diplomacy only works if you've got a sword to back it up though!" He twisted his body to call to Senu, grinning over at him.

He then whirled back to look at Athena, smirking with some renewed energy. "So when do we get to demonstrate how good diplomacy works?"

Athena - In Desperate Need of Tylenol

Athena's immediate mental reaction was to groan loudly, and to take her sceptre and to slam the bottom of it on the marble floor. One, two. "You'll learn fast enough how this class is meant to be. Now, I see some of our classmates are not yet here, but given...you are young gods, you are capable of learning quickly, and many of you no doubt were exhausted by Hyperion's...behavior in your previous class, we're going to make an introductory lesson which allows you to jump-in as it benefits you. Now." She held her sceptre in both hands, much like a ruler. No doubt, she would use it to bonk a student-such as Patriah-upside the head for interrupting her.

"Power Management and Diplomacy tend to go hand-in-hand. You are here for Power Management, but keep in mind. Power Management requires responsibility, not simply brute force to acquire what you want. Here I will give you your first assignment, and as you all see fit, I will have your instructions presented to you and you will demonstrate what you are capable of doing."

Athena held her sceptre out before her, and she summoned a whirl of colorful light. It melded itself into something like a large half-orb, and on its surface was an unshaped world. The land was largely green and flat, a huge chunk-like Pangea, and around it was a large ocean. "I want to see what you create from this little world, with the powers that you have. This activity is entirely interactive. You will be graded in the following manner."

She began to create written instructions, which floated in the air as individual letters before forming large words on a whiteboard behind her. Every student would be able to read them, regardless of their first language.

"1.) Each student has three chances to create, to change, or to destroy.
2.) The students must take turns. Once a student has gone to add something to the interactive world, they will give another classmate a turn.
3.) Your grading scale is as follows:
5: Student's actions create something significant to the function of a world, whether complex or simple OR student's actions destroy something which is harmful or significant to the shaping of that world. Student demonstrates exceptional respect for the creations of others. Student's changes make the world particularly unique to their own powers. (Ex. Creating a unique weather system or ecosystem or breaking apart the landmass into unique continents.)
4: Student's actions create something important to the function of a world, whether complex or simple OR student's actions destroy something harmful or important to the shaping of that world. Student demonstrates notable respect for the creations of others MOST OF THE TIME. (Ex. Student creates life or landforms or destroys parts of the earth by making craters. Student in one instance destroys another student's work on accident.)
3: Student's actions create something functional OR destructive, but do not change the nature of the world. Student demonstrates respect for the creations of others SOME OF THE TIME. (Ex. Student creates or destroys in a small-scale manner, and intentionally destroys one or more of another student's works on purpose.)
2: Student's actions create something functional or destructive, but do not change the nature of the world. Student demonstrates respect for the creations of others AT LEAST ONCE.
1: Student's actions do not create something functional or destructive, student also shows NO respect for the creations of others.
0: Did not participate."

"This rubric is simple enough." Athena smiled at the class, ignoring for a moment that fact that Patriah was now squinting his eyes. "You do not need to use all three chances. However, using all of your chances improves your shot at the best possible grade. This world is yours to shape, mold, or destroy. However, remember that in my class, you are all one pantheons, and disrespecting each other has real consequences which I will enforce. If you have questions, please ask. When you have taken your three chances, I will grade you accordingly and you can leave. After all, wisdom also informs that students who are hungry and students who are tired often do not want to work. I believe I am lenient enough with your first lesson."

With her speech finished, Athena moved aside to allow students to begin when they were ready. She kept her eyes on the entire class, but especially on Patriah and Astrid. Patriah for his less-than-stellar academic abilities, and Astrid due to her previously-demonstrated disrespect. She hoped that at least her own presence would bring some of the best out of the troubled young goddess, but only time would tell.

[Luminesa]

Prometheus - Bonfire Bones

Prometheus allowed for the Shepherdess to stay near him as he began his frenetic work. For the first time since he could remember, since before any war in human history, he was able to move once again. And move he did. His body rushed back and forth around the beach beneath him, and though the Shepherdess was free to respond, he did not wait for her. The beach was full of items for him to use now. He found planks from a crashed ship, he found bones, he found muscles and tissues from the vultures he had killed. His thoughts were wild, disorganized, but ultimately led to a goal.

To consume, to heal, to create.

To burn.

An-almost crazed grin appeared on his parched lips. He first tore into one of the vultures, mouth-first, and devoured its muscles, tissues, skin, and bones. He was as primal and unhinged as he was the day he was made, perhaps a little more. He did not care for the blood and gore that lined his lips, as he simply washed it away in the seawater nearby. The sting of the salt on his still-healing wounds did not bother him either, due to the titanic amounts of adrenaline rushing through his veins. He smirked again, and spit whatever unconsumed bones he did not eat into the water. He then walked back onto the beach, grunting and panting as his impulse to create and burn overtook him. He gathered fresh bones, broken bones, old bones, any bones which he could carry.

He then grabbed two huge bones-the femurs of some poor creatures-and he began to rub them together over what was now a large pile of monstrous-looking material. He smiled up at the Shepherdess as he worked, sweat pouring into his eyes and giving him a crazed glow. "You see, Fair Lady...when I began my life...I was duly interrupted in making and spreading that which is the truest freedom. And now...you get to witness...the power of the raw birth of life."

The bones clicked and chipped, and as they continued to clip and shriek, a small fire exploded to life. Once he threw the burning bones into the fire, the blaze swelled and thickened, rising and throbbing all the way into the sky. Prometheus threw his fists in the air, and he released a roar that would echo for miles.

"AT LONG LAST! I. HAVE. FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE!"

[Weissa Major]

Kimiko - Metamorphosis
Being late for one class could be excusable. But two classes? That's pushing it. Kimiko hadn't seen most of the campus yet, but she'd be more than okay with not seeing wherever detention was held.

After she had finished her conversation with Boris, she made her way back to her dorm. Her clothes had almost finished repairing themselves, the spider-like threads reconstructing themselves and extinguishing any lingering flames. She had just enough time to touch up her makeup and apply some perfume before setting off to find her next class. It didn't take very long (being a Goddess of Beauty had its benefits), and thankfully the subtle, peony-scented fragrance was just strong enough to mask any lingering smell of brimstone.

Thankfully, she had made it just in time, right as Athena's introductory lecture began. She found the nearest open seat and listened attentively to the instructions. The half-orb Athena created definitely caught her attention. It was simplistic, but beautiful, a bubble containing near limitless potential; a perfect starting exercise for the students.

Kimiko stepped forward, looking straight ahead at the large half-orb. She moved her hands in a manner reminiscent of a harpist, summoning strings of silvery light. The strings circled around each other, forming a compact, opalescent sphere the size of a small fruit. Gently, the ball floated above the continent, before lazily falling to the world's surface, moving back and forth like a falling leaf.

The moment the ball touched the ground, it erupted, spewing forth ribbons of light that raced across the landscape. As the ribbons danced across the grass, they left dewdrops and budding flowers in their wake, with the grass itself taking on a more dynamic range of colors. Golds, sages, and vibrant greens painted the landscape, with long blades swaying in an almost dance-like way. Some of the ribbons raced to the shorelines, leaping across an ocean that grew more colorful and enchanting with each passing moment. A handful of ribbons rocketed towards the sky, painting it with ethereal strokes of teal and purple.

While its initial start seemed chaotic, there was an underlying pattern that guided the world's transformation. No stone was out of place, no thorn was too sharp, everything had its place and purpose. It was orderly, and it was undeniably beautiful.

As the ribbons dissolved into a shimmering light, one latched itself onto the underside of a leaf. Twisting and curling around itself, it took on the form of a hardened, rounded shell.

A chrysalis.

With the shy emergence of a blue butterfly, the world's metamorphosis was complete. Sure, it was incomplete (and with the other students, it wouldn't last long), but Kimiko was still proud of her work. Wordlessly, she returned to her seat, curious as to what the other students would have in store.

[Hallownest Eternal]

Chapter III: Diplomatic Complications

Athena's Room

The Factory had parted ways with Cepha shortly after they re-entered the building-something about her wishing to go check up on a sibling-while the iron god had continued on to the classroom of Athena, who seemed to be markedly more professional than the Solar Titan. They shouldered open the door shortly after Kimiko's entrance, molten eyes taking in the half-dome and the trailing end of Athena's lecture as they walked over to a lone desk and sat, awaiting further instruction.

---

The Library/Athena

Eidolon accepted the Fae's departure gladly, before exasperatedly diverting its attention to Cepha. She would need to be educated on matters of the Fae soon. But that did not matter, for now. It bid her adieu as the two parted ways, slithering towards the Goddess of Wisdom's domain and oozing through the gap between door and floor, shuffling over to a vacant corner and residing there, witchfire eyes locked onto the floating hemisphere.

[Ceystile]

Tomila/Timofei
Athena’s Class

The young goddess was sitting in the very back of class, long red hair veiling much of her face with black and flame colored feathers sticking from it in every direction. Her plain black and white Slavic style garb must’ve stuck out like a sore thumb compared to the other godlings and their flashy robes woven of every conceivable universal material. Tomila looked around the classroom, seeing no sign of of one of the reasons she even came to this school in the first place, though did it really count as “came” if the other alternative was execution? I wonder where Boshi is…I haven’t seen him. The other Slav was one of her only friends during childhood, she’d heard he was at this school and she’d hoped to find him…maybe he didn’t have this class. Tomila seemed to be staring into some sort of hand mirror, anyone would think she was checking her hair but she was actually trying to divine Boris’ location. However, she was cut off when a clearly irritated Athena came and gave them their assignment.

A young Asian goddess with long flowing hair was the first to get up and contribute to this simulated world, painting the barren landscape with grasses and flowers and flowing ribbons of all colors, it was truly a sight to behold. A blue butterfly emerging from the cocoon completed the set and after the goddess returned to her seat, Tomila stood up and went over to the interactive world herself. As she bent over she ignored the ocean entirely, choosing instead to focus on the vast land that covered the hemisphere, covered with the flowers and grasses that the previous goddess had created. She thought of making a volcanic island, but it’d be a shame to accidentally burn all the flowers so soon.
The red-haired goddess cleared her throat, cupped her palms and breathed into them, a shower of glowing red-orange sparks and hot smoke spewing from her mouth as she closed her hands around them. When she opened them again, a bright flickering flame filled the room with an amber glow, another squeeze rolled the ball of fire into a small sphere that Tomila gently released, letting it hover above the world as it bathed the small continent in heat and light. Dusting the soot onto her apron, she then headed back to her seat.

Althea
Athena’s Class
When her aunt came up and started giving instructions to the students, Thea wasn’t surprised at all that she seemed irritated. Typical Aunt Thena, annoyed by the irresponsible behavior that the more traditional Greeks liked to partake in…although, was Thea herself much an exception? She had a drinking problem as well, but she liked to think she hid it far better than Hyperion did. The healer leaned back in her chair, the end of her braid nearly sweeping the floor as she listened to Athena’s instructions…but her skin grew ashen under its bronze tan as the goddess of wisdom instructed them to either create or destroy a simulated world she created. Thea prayed nobody noticed her expression, or the peony petals that floated to the ground from the blooms in her hair drooping slightly.
I can’t create anything! I can only impact existing creation…well technically that still means I can destroy, but that’s the opposite of my job! What am I going to do?!

[Zei-Aeiytenia]

Astrid & Aemilia
The Cradle of Life's Rebirth



A simple assignment. On it's surface this was child's play, quite literally. A calm morning on any day in an elementary school where toddlers did their arts and crafts together. The base reality of this situation is... that's all this was. Truly, though, it was more complicated than such simplicity, a fact which both girls knew but for different reasons. Both knew it for what it really was - a test of character. If it were a mere simple test of control, then no doubt the Storm Goddess would trounce all others, such precision was unbeatable in contests like these. A simple test of diplomacy, and Aemilia or perhaps Boris, wherever he was, would be unassailable. This was about who you were, and how that becomes what you do, why you do it, and how you react to change and the others around you. Give one the power of gods upon a sandbox, and he shall show you who he truly is.

Why, Kimiko had already laid bare this reality, whether she realized it or not. Quiet, graceful, orderly, and beautiful to its end, its simplicity the very birth of its grandeur. Precisely what anyone would likely have expected of her, a calming reassurance, but the thrill of such simple tasks with deep meaning was to find answers you did not expect to receive.

Aemilia took place before the little world where Kimiko had once stood, for a moment she marveled up close the gentle magnificence left on its surface, a delight the rumbling storm oft in the corner could partake of with ease from so far away. Though a pleasant from any range had you the eyes to look upon it, the world was still, and in time following this manner, it would become lifeless. A Goddess of Rebirth could certainly stop that, but simply cascading the miracle of life onto the surface would not a living planet make. For that, the essence and soul of the skies and winds and the waves themselves must stir, a ballet of harmonic chaos in perfect balance. For such requirements there was only one choice, how wondrous that she may well be of assistance to the Roman's machinations after their own. With a gentle smirk to Athena, her own mother who she will most surely not disappoint, Aemilia's body half turned, and her head threw backwards to gaze into the hooded ones corner.

"Astrid... your aid, please? I cannot well bring life into a world which is itself devoid of lifes changes." She smiled gently to the Hunter, who returned with a dull and piercing gaze of silence. This was a test of character, one where cooperation was rewarded and anti-socialiality punished. The position forced upon Astrid by such events left her little option, the Wise one knew full well her predicament.

"Aren't there like... half a dozen people who can do that for you?"

"Of course, but, these are not just local weather patterns. Something as delicate as a living world to share its life with it's surface and seas requires a precision that can't just be asked of anyone." Though a blatant act of flattery and appeal to ego, the Roman was not wrong. Any of the many storm of weather gods could easily perform this task, and achieve more or less the results desired. But only one could bring it with such detail and precision that it could flow in perfect harmony with nature, as it does on Earth. There was little choice for either of them, Aemilia's plan was too grand for merely good, and Astrid's temple of paranoid predicament too unstable to risk the aggressive and perhaps even violent refusal and ignorance of the path she would prefer.

Reluctantly, the hooded godling brought themselves forward, just beside Aemilia. The clear and slicing air of aggravation worn on her face interrupted, for a fraction of second, by a sudden tick. With the senses possessed by the Hunter, she need not actually move to notice new phenomenon, yet even the slightest deviation from her typical focus would be noticed by a cautious observer, or a wise one at all. Though she noticed the tick, the Wise one could not see it's source, only its effect - an unexpected one. A sudden calm rushed over the commonly explosive and frantic goddess next to her, for a reason only that goddess - or perhaps one who could see living dreams in the waking moment - could bare witness to. An entity invisible and unknowable to almost all, but familiar to the Norse godling, reunion two years in the making.

It became apparent to her that the training in Hyperion's class, and the force put into it, had awoken the slumbering force embedded in crystal. She was in many ways the very spitting image of Astrid, though she was taller by several inches, hair longer and more moderately adorned in a long flowing dress. The blonde of the blue of the warrior replaced by silver and green. Her hand moved upwards gracefully, gently taking hold of Astrid's forehead, and spoke softly, "Less with this, more with this." Gesturing toward her heart, before gently vanishing once more.

With a gentle sigh, a hand engulfed by storms raised over the world, a steady but gentle imbue of it's force weaving its way down below. As clouds began to form and rains began to fall, the lightning over her hand became incredibly fierce, centering near the knuckles of each finger. Aemilia watched in mild shock, even concern, finding a strange solace in her worry from the focused and calm eyes of the War Goddess beside her, who despite such expectation, bore no intent of violence or anger in this moment.

An force invisible to others crashed voraciously onto the world below, arcing its way in two halves toward top and bottom ends, focusing themselves on these chosen points. Across the surface of the world, the winds and clouds raced across the sky, straying high into the edges of its tiny atmosphere and deep within to every valley across it's canvas. Through the focused eyes and vision of a Hunter, she carefully built the layered systems of a living world. A spiraling cycle of natures wrath and love, to come from heaven and sea, the highest winds far above nearing an unknowable space from which came giants of this worlds creation, would be recognizable to any with the most basic knowledge of Meteorology. Jet Streams. High pressure, high velocity winds at grand altitudes racing eternally across the globe, their movement and very existence coinciding with the small Sun granted to them by another to create another phenomenon essential to a living world - Thermohaline Circulation and with it - global climate and weather patterns.

The invisible energy arcing top to bottom of the world slowly came to an end, as the engulfing storm of her hands followed suit. A last breath from the sputtering power send small tendrils of lightning arcing all across the colors of the sky, and in doing so, brought these hues to the clouds as well, combining their white and silver and black natural beauty with strings of woven light from the Goddess before them.

"Whoa... they look almost like a magic fantasy world! What, uh, what exactly was the whole lightning knuckles thing though?" Aemilia asked, in between bouts of leaning in to gain various angles from which to marvel at the now living and breathing atmosphere of the world.

"Magnetism." The Storm goddess held up her hand, iron rings on each of her fingers gestured toward, "You needed a global climate to have a living world to support your lasting life. Many of those creatures rely on the poles for navigation, just as much as the seasons, to have any chance to survive. Now you have both." With her blunt and factual response given, Astrid turned promptly to return to her corner, before facing interruption from the Roman.

"Didn't know you could get magnets from a storm! Wasn't uh, sure where i was going to even get that one! But, if you could stand here still, i need your help trying something." A slightly aggravated groan and a lumbering return of the hooded godling were her garnered responses, still, Aemilia raised her right hand towards them, "You don't mind right, i need physical contact for this one." The resulting eyeroll being taken as a reluctant yes, she laid her hand on Astrid's shoulder, engulfing both in the glowing green of Rebirth. Almost immediately the Roman was taken aback and shocked straight from her train of her thought, she had expected of course to sense the Goddess' life force but this was... far more than anticipated. She opted not to say anything, lest it cause some sort of problem she doesn't know about, bit it was impossible to ignore. Many of her questions were answered though, what her family had said about the rebellious Norse girl. She had wondered how all that could happen, perhaps it had something to do with her possessing the life force of two beings?

Weird circumstances of birth and personal details aside, to create the perfect harmony of life she desired, she would need the life which lived on the planet to be in tune with the life of the planet, and that would require the same precision and detail. Aemilia had tried and tested this fancy ability before, but never on something like Astrid, if it worked, she could likely bet on having a major headache later from the experience.

"Aura, Synesthesia Rebirth." Her hand gripped on Astrid's shoulder for dear life, the calm visage of the Roman suddenly transformed into one of complete awe and... more than mild pain, "HOLY FUCK.... owwwwww... woah... i-is this what everyday is like for you!?" She stared into the eyes of the Norse godling, who stared back in complete confusion, in this moment as it occurred to the wise student that she could hear the other girl's heartbeat. And her breathing, and see every slight flexing detail of her body, and... everyone elses too at that, in all directions without the slightest bit of effort. "I, uh, i'm using this borrow your senses so i could make life as precise as yours to flow together but i... clearly was not prepared."

Confusion's veil lifted from Astrid, her calm though empty and almost lifeless gaze from before returning, as she began pointing across the world. "Air pressure. Humidity, Magnetic fields, EM radiation from the sun, wind currents, and if you focus like you're looking at something far away that... is what the molecules in clouds look like. Can you follow that yourself or do i have to point out literally everything and basically do this for you?" For a time came no response, as Aemilia continued to gawk in awe, eventually shaking her head free of its shocked status.

"No... i got it." She gulped, closing her eyes to take a slow, deep breath, doing her best to imitate the focus she had witnessed in Astrid's own doings. Her left hand raised, the light of Rebirth engulfed all the little world before them, and with it she delicately and meticulously crafted a growing wildlife. With weather and climate patterns to follow, she could now be sure to treat each biome precisely. Rainforests, deserts, tundras and temperate lands, steppes, marshy wetlands and so on. She recreated as much as her knowledge could remember, everything from plants, to insects, to animals big and small. Each given varying pieces and levels of Wisdom from Aemilia herself, the wisdom to live and survive.

She had not planned it initially, but with the temporary and excruciatingly painful, mind blowing gift of Astrid's senses, there was one last thing she wanted to try. It was unlikely to be fully successful, afterall, even giving them all her Wisdom while still an immense gift, was only hers. It wasn't Athena's level not even close, but still, humans were crafty little beings, and perhaps for these miniature look-alikes, the gift she was able to give would be enough to come close to their ability. With her work done, she finally let go of Astrid, the green light fading back into her body.

"GAHH!" She keeled over almost instantly, as the vestigial experiences of the connection vanished, "I didn't know it included your pain tolerance too... what the hell!? Do you even HAVE a stomach? And why does everything hurt so much..." Aemilia groaned, rising slowly to her feet and gripping her head as the pains that were not hers faded, left only with the worst migraine she'd ever experienced, as she stumbled back to her desk.

"Enjoy the rest of your trip in my typical Tuesday!" Astrid said in a, very clearly, snarky impression of Aemilia herself, rolling her eyes as she walked to the back of the room she was previously posted to, leaving the now newly living and breathing world to whomever would come next to shape it.

[Dogutrakya]

Senu

"Okay, this is a lot less boring then I thought," he said quietly. He observed as the other gods transformed the barren rock into a living world; one, a miniature of the sun, winds and currents, and wildlife to inhabit the new world. He was unsure at first on what to do to follow Athena's instructions. Gods of the Desert - Seth, particularly, has always been viewed as agents of chaos and ruin, destroying habitats, covering fertile soil and ruined livelihoods. His line was not remembered fondly by the people of Egypt. He wondered how this could tie to the diplomacy class. It's quite unfair to those who domains entail destruction and chaos, he thought. Nevertheless, Senu stepped forward, now facing the green and blue half-orb, now teeming with life. As he raised his hand, his expression became more focused.

From all corners of the large continent came dust; a massive amount of dust, swirling across the half-globe's skies. It then carefully subsides as the dust split and moved into various parts of the world, following the wind currents that Astrid previously formed. It fell on massive rivers and lakes, turning the blue color of the streams into brown, as the dust added tons of sediment into the world's rivers. Deltas and floodplains began to form, and Senu directed small wisps of wind to bring vegetation to colonize the swamplands. Animals, naturally, began to move in, creating a thriving and diverse habitat. Next, he gathered more dust into a secluded, but large portion of the continent. The green meadws changed color as dust storms raged across the region. Lakes dried out as they are filled with sand and sediment. The remaining animals raced to escape.

This cruelty only intensed further as he created constant dust storms that periodically ravaged the region, particularly on its dried-up deep lakebeds. Senu did the same to other similar parts of the world. But then, the wind currents blew towards these deserts and picked up so much dust, blowing it to and across the ocean. When the dust settled on another landmass, the minerals and phosporus it carried turned the soil very fertile; the world's rainforests are created just like how Sahara dust perpetually feeds the Amazon. Deposits of dust began to form, and as wind currents changed, it turned into fields of loess - the richest soils of the world. In the middle of these deserts Senu carved valleys and basins for rivers to go through, and the land around them became very fertile, allowing the rise of sentinent civilizations. Xerophyte plants and animals began to settle into the desert.

The dust and sediments guaranteed regeneration of nutrients, thus growth of life. It was a complex system, yet beautiful in its own right - and he wondered himself on the fact that the desert can create and support life. As the cherry on top, he thought, Senu decided to recreate his home on this hemisphere. He filled a large lake with dust and sand, and used the dust storms to erode a range of mountains to the south of the dried lakebed. Four rivers bursted out of the range, flowing down to the lakebed below, where the rich lake soil and sediments from the mountains allowed a very fertile landscape to form between the rivers. Next, he dammed the rivers until they merged into one stream, similar to Mesopotamia's Shatt al-Arab, and when it meets the ocean it formed a massive delta larger in scale than the Nile's. It would be the perfect spot for anyone looking to start an empire. He was content with his work, and returned back to his seat.

[Luminesa]

Athena - Worldbuilding

The class of students was very creative, a quality which she gave her utmost attention as she stood and watched the changes which the students made to the plain little world she had designed. Their powers were a diverse set. Kimiko used hers to weave beautiful, colorful flowers around the world. Serene and lovely, the little plants seemed to dance and bounce to an unseen wind. She smiled and nodded to Kimiko’s first demonstration, and she marked down a first score for her.

Kimiko Grade 1: 4.

Astrid and Aemilia worked together for their own demonstration. Astrid was the one student Athena feared would not follow the lesson, but she was surprised and pleased to see that the girl thought seriously about the fundamentals of making a world. She made a magnetic field to protect the world. She built the weather of this world, sparkling rain and crackling lightning. The flowers would grow, the warmth and chill of the air would take its place.

Best of all, she seemed to let Aemilia build off her abilities, as the young girl seemed to create some sort of “life”. There were the beginnings of biomes, with lifelike insects and animals that emerged from under the growth. They crawled and creeped everywhere, and even Patriah seemed to watch with awe at the creativity. Athena nodded to both girls, and took notes on her clipboard.

Aemilia Grade 1:5
Astrid Grade 1: 5.

Tomila arrived a little late, but her lateness posed no problems. The instructions were on the board, and Athena simply gazed upon the students and allowed them to continue the process of their work.

“You’re all doing a wonderful job. Yes, destruction and rebirth are next to each other in this cycle, at least when it comes to making and breaking parts of a world. What matters is working together for one vision. That is what keeps the Pax strong, against all of our differences,” Athena added.

The goddess of wisdom then watched as Tomila breathed fire onto the orb, an action which prompted for Patriah to stand and cheer.

“FIRE!!!!”

Athena almost jumped at his outburst, but she let him be. Making a bright sun in the sky was plenty enough, something to support the creation of life in the world. She smiled to Tomila and chuckled. “Fire indeed. Wonderful work, young deity.” Knowing that Tomila could change between a masculine and a feminine form, she opted for a non-binary moniker.

Tomila/Timofei Grade 1: 5.

Senu was the first student then to choose destruction, but not in the way which would cause gaps in the world. No, the desert valley was his home, and his home he would create. Flying sediment and rocks shifted and pulled the rivers, flooding them, drying other parts of the land, changing the colors and climates of an area until he made the enormous river valley. Indeed, the beginning of a civilization could occur here, and she would reward it.

Senu Grade 1: 4.

Aemilia and Astrid had indeed made life of a sort, but Athena now would make the first little “people”. She waved her sceptre over the world, and she nodded as she whirled beams of light. Mini “humans”-about 100 of them-appeared in Senu’s river valley, and she smiled to the students.

“And now…we have life. Show me what you would do with these fragile new lives. Here is your first true test of Power Management. Please continue.”

[The H Corporation]

On Cloud Nine
- Azcóatl

Poor sleepy Azcóatl, after doing an amazing job with Vix now finds himself sleeping during class, something he thinks is a very disrespectful way to do during class but he could not stop himself from sleeping before and during the class, as he entered the realm of the dreams.

Azcóatl was walking on his own through a theme park, it was old and rusty but it seemed like most of the games were functional as he walked around seeing the landscape and a very grey sky above him, with its clouds being flashed by lighting and then thunder, as the clouds cleared up to let the sun illuminate one of the games revealing on the spotlight a rollercoaster where he curiously walked towards it. As he got into one of the carts in the middle, he felt that the seats were mostly made out of sofa pillows. he also noticed the lack of proper security in the cart he was and he only had his hands to grab himself from the sides of the cart.

The carts suddenly started moving, Azcóatl was quite nervous about the idea of entering this game with no protection or proper security measures to ensure his safety, and those thoughts slowly became more worrying as the carts were going up and drops of water started to fall from the clouds in small quantities until it became a storm, with lighting as if the clouds were angry. It was raining so much that the carts were getting filled with water and the theme park below was flooding with water and it seemed to rise and rise as he reached the tip and where the rollercoaster was about to start.

Then the carts of the rollercoaster started to go down quickly, and Azcóatl was not screaming but he was very scared and thought he was going to die as the water levels kept rising and the carts crashed with the turbulent waters and Azcóatl started to float in the water and started to swim upwards until he finally reached the surface where the waters were moving very harshly and massive waves were forming wherever he turned his head. Then a large shadow started to form where he was, he looked to the front and then up and saw a massive wave heading towards him, as it slowly seemed to go where he was he started to swim in the opposite direction of the wave but the massive wave inevitably hit him submerging him deep into the turbulent ocean he was in.

Once again he swam upwards and found a large building just a few meters away that seemed to be unaffected by these turbulent waters, he made his way through the waters and got inside the building as the storm was still going on, after getting there he felt calmer as he stayed on his refuge watching as the rain pours down and the lighting kept striking the water. A bolt of big lightning strikes alongside its thunder stroke as hard and loudly as possible in front of him, he woke up just in the middle of the class.

---

Athena's Class: A Littile Bit of Diversity
- Azcóatl

Azcóatl did not get startled by the lighting in front of him, but it did wake him up as he slowly rose his head and opened his eyes just to see a tiny world with people, a board with instructions, and other gods sitting in and looking at the front, he also saw a goddess seemingly teaching a class... wait a second, the class already started!

Azcóatl immediately took the right posture in the tiny desk where he slept, look at the instructions, and read them carefully as Athena created tiny people on what seemed to be a world, a mini world of its own, it was kind of amazing and shocking as he heard the last words of Athena, "... Show me what you can do with these fragile new lives...". He was kind of excited but unsure how much of the class he missed and hopefully, Athena was not mad at him for sleeping and just got the memo of what he is supposed to do.

Azcóatl instead of saying sorry, why not apologize by actually doing something about the class, since his philosophy was "Actions speak louder than words" he was going to try and do something worth getting at least 4 points, that was the task he put upon himself and with no hesitation, he decided to go first and treat these tiny people a little bit from the god of weather and nature, he was surely an extension of those abilities from his parents.

He took a sip from his bottle of water and looked at the world, it basically had everything one could desire, there was a desert, there were flowers, a magnetic field, and a volcano on one side... it seemed like Athena did a great job on this one, he thought surely not thinking everything that was in there was something every student except him put in this tiny world, he noticed there was a lacking of trees and resources so the little humans could survive in this world. Azcóatl stretched his hands and with the winds he made small storms of rain pour into the grasslands where with the help of the rain he made some trees with fruits so the humans could have something to eat.

It was something simple, we needed more diversity and something more complicated, he moved the raining clouds to somewhere else to create a massive jungle with a diversity of plants, making the trees as taller as possible and creating a jungle, he moved the clouds to where the closest points of the North and South poles were and instead of raining he made them snow and create tundras. Using the wind currents he poured water into other places making a forest as well.

That was all that little Azcóatl could do and he just sat on his seat and drank a little bit of water.

[Hallownest Eternal]

[quote="Hallownest Eternal";p="39695203"]

Chapter IV: Whispers in the Wind

Athena's Room

Nobody watched keenly as the other Students continued to apply their works, before its hunger grew with Athena placing humans upon the world.

It rose from its perch, coiling, slithering and skittering across the floor to the half-globe, a thousand witchfire eyes staring into the empty abyss exposed by the lack of a lower hemisphere. Stretching, elongating, it contorted to pull itself up into that empty abyss beneath the world's crust, coiling like a serpent as it pulled itself within the abyss entirely, contorting and compacting to fit perfectly as its own magic began to leech into the combined magics of the world.

Glowing eyes winked in and out of existence in the shadows of forests. The night filled with unknown sounds, and the mists carried strange shapes. Most crucially, however, were the Whispers.

The wind, as it made its rounds across the world, filled with whispers. Of how the world worked. Of the power constituting it...and how to use that power to bend the world. The humans heard the whispers, yes, but only a few were able to truly grasp them. The results, however, became readily apparent. One human had moved to the shore of a river, and began using gestures to command the earth and water to form irrigated fields. Another used a branch from the trunk of a tree sundered by lightning to begin pulling at the skies, forming great winds to buffet would-be predators. The final, began to sing, her voice causing a prismatic whorl of colors as she plucked at the fundamental strings of her little mini-reality, spreading the gift of language and magic to her fellow humans.

To the many gods gathered around this small earth, the valley of the mico-humanity's origin began to shimmer with arcane energies, as some began to construct strange, spiraling shrines, seeming to depict something without solid form.

[Dogutrakya]

Lokisdottir

She observed the spectacle of magic with watchful eyes.

Power Management. The name of this class itself sounds strange to her. No god in the Norse realm has ever needed to manage their abilities. What is might, is right; all are for the purposes of glory, of conquest, of domination. Gods warred with gods for petty little thingd. The exception is, of course, as it has always been, her father. Loki knew bounds. He knew when to exert his abilities and when to not, appearing meek in front of the allmighty Aesir yet letting them do his bidding. If anyone knows anything about power management, it's her father. Yet, even she did not know him well, after all this time. Sylvi preferred to watch the other students doing their part in constructing the world - herself being too tired to step first after the charade with golems before. But now, someone has actually done something interesting. The little humans can mold this world themselves.

But mortal men are dumb and foolish, and so are the gods. They eat, they till the land, they bulid a shrine and they joke and argue; rinse and repeat. This is civlization? What a boring place must be where the desert godling came. What they need, she decided, is a little creativity. So she rose up from her seat, walked to the front of the class, eyes still fixated on the hemisphere, watching. Mundane little lives. She remembered a lot of them in Hel. Poor souls of an uneventful life in Midgard; condemned forever to be Hela's expendable toys. Cruel norms, cruel fates...

Sylvi Lokisdottir turned her gaze towards the Goddess of Wisdom, stretched her arms, and disappeared into a grey and black mist that coalesced in the middle of the desert valley. The mist landed in a village of mortals. The scenery was normal; the people with magic, summoning the elements to help their work; those without, performing menial tasks. But the mist swoop through the village. Behind it happened strange things. People began to shout to one another. Others kissed, and did lewd things in front of other people. One drew characters on a building, creating the very first writing. When the mist left the village, its inhabitants had gathered on a central square, and they appear to be celebrating. Celebrating what, not even she knew, but they shouted and sang, held hands, feasted and drank. The mist moved to another village.

This time, the results are dystopian. One large brute beat all other men of similar size in his village, and ordered the rest to construct a palace for him. He appointed soldiers and formed an army. The place's inhabitants are branded and shackled. He trained mages for war. Soon, they invaded a neighboring village, and marched all its inhants to theirs. Thus slavery was created. The mist moved on to villages after villages and people after people - until finally all humans in this fledgling world came into contact with it. Humans are diverse; but more diverse were their imagination. In this river valley, a myriad of societies formed; democracies appear and empires rose, interacting with one another. Soon there are market towns that grew into massive fortified cities. Wars between these people are frequent, and earth-altering; cities are flattened and bulit so fast. Magic has further shaped the valley into new terrain. A small hill grew into a towring mountain as one group of people established their enlightened shining city on a hill. A fertile expanse of farmland turned charred ash as rivalling mages warred on the plain.

But most importantly was the fact that these humans created their own gods. At first, one group constructed a shrine to the earliest god they knew. But soon some of them abandoned this religion and erected a shrine to a new god of a new pantheon, alien to the godlings present in Athena's class. Other groups of people made up their own deities, worshipped them, and invoked their name in war as well in peace, when building and destroying. These are the result of imagination - free will and creativity, all of which stems from illusion. Things that only existed in one's mind. And that is her gift to this world.

Proud of her work, modest as it is, the mist - Sylvi - ascended from this hemisphere, to the back of the class, where it transformed into the figure of a godling. She sat down.

[Tuboo Shippers]

Vix-Let there be failure

By now, the little orb was...an exciting place. Vix sighed, wondering what she could do. oh, well...Shoving her hands in her pockets, she stood up and walked down the aisle, toward the world. "Hey, uhm.." Embarrassed, the fox goddess continued, "I-I don't know how to create... o-or destroy..." Her face turning red, she tentatively reaches out a hand to poke the planet. when nothing seems to happen, her mood goes from embarrassed to ashamed. Compared to her demeanor in gym class, she seemed ten times smaller.

[Finsternia]

Lanuru - Night Befalls

One by one, each student contributes to this shared moment of creation upon the world of simulation that Athena has wrought. Life and nature has been brought forth, the sky has been born, even the solar lights and the depths of the world have been shaped. Lanuru, who has been silent as each student strode to grant their blessings upon creation, now steps forward to hand his input forward. Mortals have now appeared upon the world, blissfully ignorant and unaware, yet they are far from the hubris and arrogance of mortals today. "As the light of the Heavens shine unbidden upon the world, I shall grant the mortals respite upon my shadow." His silver clawed hand reaches for his face, immaculate and perfect, and his clawed fingers dig into his left eye. He pulls out the white fleshy orb, smoking with pink-purple mist and dripping with silvery blood.

The Prince of the Unseelie Court lets his eye go, and it floats towards the small planet before them. The eye turns fully white as it crystallizes, and the viscera of the God of Eclipses form the shadow of night around it. The world only knew sunlight but now at the other side of the globe does it know moonlight as well. Upon the side of the planet where his former eye now floats is cast by silver moonlight, and the darkness of the night falls with its gaze. Satisfied, Lanuru steps back as a new eye reforms upon the empty socket. Come later, his next step is to grant mortals dreams.

????? - The Return of Summer

Once again the curtains of the world are drawn open and the warm atmosphere of the Prince's domain welcomes the two back to their little tea table. The golden Phoenix flies over to its golden seat, where it perches down comfortably as his companion takes a sip from his tea. The visit to that... educational institution has been met with quite a lot of resistance, and even the students were crass. It was the rotten child of Tartarus who was defiant, rearing visual threats and grant postulations of itself as unknowable, and the avian's interest on such a being could only drop so low.

An aberrant, an offense to the sanctity of reality, to the sanctity of Magic. That which bends and corrupts and devours, that which is made of lies and unreality. His Princely friend would not have noticed it during their visit, but there is a hidden flame that burned within the avian's eyes as it gazed upon the child of the Abyss. An all-consuming hatred, hatred of the fire to burn the dark, hatred of the truth to devour lies. It is an affront against its eyes, anathema, one that which twists and corrupts Creation. The Symbols of Truth vanish into it, bent and defiled, and the avian could only stop itself from annihilating it there and then.

No amount of Pax could stop its rage, if it wanted to. But a distant memory alights in its mind. Two beings appear in his mind, their silhouettes as clear as day. A woman with eyes full of life, hair of green vegetation and skin and flesh of earth. A man with blank and blackened eyes, of red iron skin and muted voice. For their sake, for their camaraderie and companionship, he shall give them face.

"But if that Abyssal Filth shall make a mistake..."

The being's rage boils once more, but it simmers and flees when the Prince of the Valley speaks of how the die has been cast. A seed of curiosity has been planted upon their hearts. The Throne of Autumn has been empty for many an era, and now that the Tuatha de Danann have retrieved their ancestral lands, a new Autumn Monarch shall be crowned. Sooner or later the Unseelie boy among them will ask for his classmates' aid, as it was the plan of the Queen of Winter. It was a ploy to gain support for the Prince Lanuru, and to support the Unselie Court's position upon their retrieved Mortal Realm.

"...These children are too close to mortals. I doubt they are even Gods with how utterly pathetic they propose themselves to be. If not their blood, then their pride and their sensibility have ran thin throughout the ages. The powers they wield are not that of base sorcery nor that of a hero's... The worship of mortalkind has dulled the senses of these ants." The golden Phoenix speaks with a scathing tone as he returns to his tea, sipping the taste of summer within a cup. The power of divinity is vast, and great, and terrible and so does the meaning behind each symbol that they represent."...To think that lightning, the stars, the earth, and many more... have become less of a truth... and more of a joke."

Eleos the Shepherdess - The Commandments of the Sorrowful One

The Shepherdess sings of psalms and songs of praise as the Titan of Fire, Father of Humanity, breaks from his chains and takes his freedom into his own hands. His captors are broken and rent asunder, and now he runs down this mountain with such glee like that of a newborn child. With a smile on her face the kindly Goddess brings her followers to the air and to soar with her, to follow the Titan down the slopes of the mountain and towards the sea. She allows her followers rest, and for them to rejoice at the warm sun and refreshing breeze. There she joins Prometheus by the seaside, the frothy waters of Poseidon licking at their ankles. Even in his maddened state of retrieving his power, of trying to feel the slightest bit alive, the kind Goddess simply nods and allows him to eat and to recreate fire in his own hands. Bone upon bone, stone upon stone, against wood and grass. It was the gift of Prometheus upon man, the taming of the elements, the subduing of the wild beyond, the first Magic of Man. It was his pride and joy alongside humanity... and all of it were taken away from him.

The Shepherdess moves, and the first thing she does is not say her name but to touch the Titan's arm. From her rough, calloused hands do soft white light flows. The light of mercy, the light of redemption, flows forth from the palms of this Saint among Saints. In Prometheus' eyes, this gentle Goddess, winged and compassionate, has only done three things. It was to free him, to let him taste the air of the world anew, and to heal the bruises and wounds inflicted by talons of divine vultures and the strain of chains upon his body. The Goddess hums a soft lullaby, a song that Prometheus remembers the primitive mortals have sung their children to sleep to. The song of a mother comforting their child. When she lifts her hands, his skin is unblemished and no longer broken and beaten purple and black. He was made anew by the Goddess' Mercy.

She looks up to him, finally, to speak of herself. "Great Titan... Father of Fire... I am Eleos... Before I was like you, bound by my own chains... Here I come to unchain you... to free you... to save you from your eons of suffering... In an ideal world I would have welcomed you with kinder words, of words that speak that all are free and happy... But the world isn't so kind... Many, like you, are imprisoned in many places in the world... The world is broken and scarred, as two years ago our brethren waged war... and many humans died for it... We... are at peace now... But so many still weep, so many still suffer... I wish to ask you this, but only heed my pleas if your heart does move you..." Eleos takes his bloody and dirty hands within hers, her visage motherly and her aura loving and kind. "...I was once... bound to duty... to a work that brings me great pain... I was saved... by a patronage so loving that they would rather weep for those in need rather than for themselves who have been wronged... Prometheus... will you join me in my passion... in my calling... to save others like you? Do you find in your heart to save others who are chained, who are oppressed, who are in need of freedom? Humanity longs for their Father again... and many other Gods... who have done nothing wrong but invoke the ire of their brethren... still pray for deliverance... Lord of Fire... please..." She bows her head, weeping at the state of the world, at the brokenness of mortalkind and her brothers and sisters. "Please... aid us in saving others... Aid us in freeing those in chains and behind bars... Help us save those who were unlawfully wronged..."

[Luminesa]

Athena - Days of Creation

Several of the students had started to add to the little created world. All of them were taking turns well enough, and adding things to the world without taking aim at each other or at the creations of their classmates. Yet a couple of the students were still anxious, as if even with everything in front of them they still did not have a way to contribute to the experiment. Vix was among those anxious students, and she looked utterly distraught as she tried to think of a way to add to this new world.

“Sweet young fox, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Athena explained, giving a kindly smile as she walked over to the girl, “there is absolutely no shame in asking for help. I shall give you some assistance, so that you may succeed. Look.”

She aimed her sceptre toward the world once again, scanning it as the students took turns and made it ever the more complex. She looked among the animals, and she smiled. Waving her sceptre, she gathered a group of foxes from among the herd, somewhere closer to one of the desert biomes. They would have been normal-sized foxes, little red creatures with their lean, black paws and lean snouts.

“There is always a need for a goddess to give care to the animals and the creatures. But they need assistance in finding food. Perhaps that is something you can give them. And a sanctuary for them, perhaps?”

All the while, she continued to pass grades to the students who had taken their first and second turns.

Azcoatl, Grade 1: 4. He did not seem to be feeling up to his best for this class, as he had wandered into the building and had almost fainted at his desk. When he did awaken to participate, she nodded to him as she watched him create fruit trees and more ecosystems. She did not mind if he went back to sleep when he was done, as he had done his part and now she could see the tiny humans reaching for fruits, sniffing them, eating them, and sharing them with their fellow humans.

Cryptid, Grade 1: 5. Despite the seemingly unknowable nature of the anti-meme deity who rose and moved toward the orb, it had a good nature about it and wished to inform the humans on how to start little civilizations. Athena was impressed by this kindness and wisdom in its whispers, and she grinned as she wrote its grade.

The next goddess, however, created quite the bit of surprise and stress for her, something she had not anticipated.

Whereas most of the other deities had created, destroyed, or shifted the world to be inhabitable, Sylvi managed to create and to destroy at the same time. One group of humans lived normal, mundane, and sometimes festive lives. Others began to form much larger civilizations…which began to wage war over the land Senu and others had built. Athena stared, first with disdain, but then with knowing. The cycle was one of building and rebuilding, as it had always been. Though she did not appreciate the impish smirk on the new girl’s face, she definitely had done well. Sylvi, Grade 1: 5.

Lanuru, Grade 1: 4. Lanuru of course, had seen that all of this had happened under the heat of the sun, and yet there was no cool moon. And no gentle night. And so with a rather strange ritual involving his eye, he managed to create a moon and moonlight. Athena indeed felt that this boy, much like Sylvi, was one she could not quite gauge from knowing him for two days. Yet what he had accomplished, he had accomplished well.


Patriah - Wild World

Strangely enough, Patriah was happier observing his classmates than he was figuring what to make and what to destroy. He did not have many ideas. Everyone else seemed to know what to do with a new world, and he simply sat and observed…until Athena’s little speech to Vix gave him an idea.

He nodded over to Vix, and he walked over to the world. He summoned a tiny replica of his own sword, grinning as he swung it through the air a few times just to get the hang of it. After accidentally beheading a bird in the process, he turned back to Vix and nodded. “Hey, come over here, let’s do something together.”

He swung the sword into some trees in the forest, and after a few moments, he began to chop down some logs. He used his Wind powers to make the swings stronger, thus to cut more trees. He took his time shaping and cutting the newly-chopped logs, and then he cut some fruits out of the trees. Making a little bucket with several logs, he squished the fruits and berries until they became paints. Finally, he created a little brush, and he grinned at her. “Come pick colors for the new fox temple!”

Prometheus - Let There Be Fire

Prometheus’s hands were still covered in soot, blood, and various tissues and sinews from animals whose bones he had chucked into the flames. He smiled at her, however, his eyes becoming gentler for a moment. She spoke sweet words, with a voice that floated almost like clouds, or a lace veil on a happy bride in May. But no, she was no bride. She stood alone, with her desire to reform the world floating in her hands. The old titan was impressed, and so he gripped her hands and nodded. “Dear Eleos, I shall be glad to assist you in your battle. And in the fight…to take revenge on those who have oppressed…all of us.” He paused for dramatic effect, knowing that both she and he understood the weight behind those words. Even the Titans had found themselves oppressed, and so he had a bone to pick with quite a few deities.

And some of those bones would remain until the ashes were more than ashes.

[Finsternia]

Co-Write between Danceria and Finsternia

Vadha and Anisha - Babysitting Death

"OW OW OW OW! Anisha! Stop pulling my ear!" The begging cries of a young man echoes out in the burning wreckage of a village square. The bodies of mutilated monsters and demons lay ripped and sundered by his feet, torn to shreds by his bloodsoaked hands. The village square is ruined and destroyed, sunken into a deep crater and filled with a murky soup of blood and entrails. The scenario visibly contrasts the young Godling who is begging his attendant to stop berating him amidst this carnage.

They were supposed to go incognito en route to Holy High, sometimes riding the clouds above and sometimes coming down in disguise to see the ruined and recuperating mortal settlements. The war is "over" but the scars that the Gods left on the land is still evident. Mountains and landscapes destroyed and altered into places unrecognizable from their original forms, monsters and their hosts still ravaging the world, and weirder things still prowl and devastate the Mortal Realm.

Vadha came down to a village, which seems to be made by refugees and survivors of a ruined city, for a stroll and to see the well-being of the humans hiding and thriving in this semi post-apocalyptic age. They were browsing for whatever the humans could call food these days when a mortal man came screaming, heralding news of a monstrous horde coming. And that's where they are now, with the young God of Death blowing his cover and slaughtering the incoming horde.

"To be fair, I can't just let these people get overturned by monsters!" He throws and waves his arms around as Anisha drags him away by the ear, his face contorted in pain. "And look, maybe it's because the guy's hot and I can't turn down a hottie in distre- OW OW OKAY! Stop pulling!" He cries out as he is dragged away even harder, away from the village where horrified mortals look out from the safety of their homes.

It wasn't the first time that such a scenario had happened-at least on their journey from the Sacred Mount Kailash to the Appalachians a continent away. After the tenth time, she had adjusted her strategy from politely informing "Master Vadhu" that they were supposed to be focused, or at the very least to not destroy the village along with the monstrosities. Now, she had increased her more...percussive of disciplinary actions and it had cut down these escapades by half. Still, she would have wondered which would take longer, her Lordly Great-great grandfather Krishna's adventures, or this "simple one way trip"?

She was Anisha Yadava, pedigree of Asuras, Kings, and Asura Kings, and she grew. Looming like a tidal wave, her deep navy blue complexion and hair unbound-revealing her hundred arms, she looked the spectacle similar to her charge's own mother-the Dread Kali. As soon as the pressure had crescendoed, she exhaled, her arms shedding into the earth and rebuilding the very village square that had been destroyed.

The few who had not fled at the onset of the onslaught looked on, still amazed at the two idiosyncratically human but clearly supernatural beings. "I admire you taking after your Honoured Parentage." She spoke, her tone as clear and coursing as a river between the mountains. "But be mindful of the other aspects-that which They destroy, they also renew. As such," She gestured to the still splayed out blood and guts that coated much of the now rebuilt town. "It would behoove you to clean up your messes. Restore what has been destroyed in kind."

With that, she turned and went to apologize and assess the damage. Creeping out of the debris, the "hottie" that Vadha had mentioned before. A broad shouldered but soft eyed man of darker complexion. "Laurence", she recalled his name being, the one who actually had attempted to take a couple of pot-shots at the Woses-or as the locals called them "Sasquatches". Personally, she viewed them as the unholy mix of a hairy Rakasha with a touch of a Yaksha. Irregardless, these creatures had mixed feelings with their human counterparts. Probably just wanted survive as much as the human villagers. It was small mercies indeed that knowing her Master's "type" that he didn't try to seduce them!

"You are too serious sometimes, Ann..." Vadha pulls away from her, flicking the blood off of him and rubbing his sore ear. The Goddess beside him has always been a stickler for the rules, following protocols and schedules to a T. Compared to him, who'd rather want to visit every single human settlement they passed over. They were already a day late into class, but in Vadha's eyes it is time well spent in saving the little folks on Earth.

Tidying himself, the child of Dread Kali and Benevolent Shiva turns to the mess that he has indeed caused. Anisha has already returned the square to its prior unruined state, but the carnage he has left is still in a horrendous display. Raising his hands, the young God of Death steps onto the puddles of blood and started dancing.

He stomps his feet upon the bodies of the slain monstrosities, and they decay and disintegrate at each thunderous step. The blood on the battlefield swirls and churns into waves and tendrils, swaying like venomous snakes enraptured by Vadha's dance. With one last clap the young Godling vanquishes his kills at long last, and the spilled blood explodes and disintegrates in a flash of red that leaves the battlefield clean of the prior carnage.

Vadha flashes a smile and opens his eyes, his attention towards the mortal man that he saved. "Hey there hottie!" He waves and blows a kiss at him. "If you are in any trouble or if you're lonely, light up incenses and pray to me! I'll keep you company." He winks before turning back to Anisha with an apologetic smile on his face. "There! I cleaned up my messes, Mistress Annie." He sticks his tongue out at the teasing words, before giggling mirthfully. Based on his actions, one would even doubt that his lineage is one of grandiose origins, child to the Destroyers.

Anisha had been a stickler-considering they were to be representatives. It was true that Uncle Ganesha was a teacher at the school, but that didn't mean that the Remover of Obstacles wouldn't be strict in his own way to his younger brother.

The Half-Asura herself enjoyed helping humans-she had spent the better part of three thousand years doing so on-again-and-off-again, so she sympathized with Master Vadha's desires. Sadly there was a time and place, and though this was the place, now wasn't the time. Now was the time to be polite, extend courtesies and contact information for the elders of this particular village, have every shotgun in this area be pointed at her and her compatriot-she had noted an increase of this outcome after they had traversed the Rockies. Nevertheless, she was easy, if she had so wanted to she could have simply turned herself into liquid and perhaps instill a sense of paranoia, of something else in the water besides potential fluoride, gay-frog inducing chemicals, and whatever else the humans believed caused the apocalypse.

With one last final bow, she departs, leaving the poor Laurence to turn to Old Man Jebediah to ask what in the hell they were, having been thoroughly confused by the "bloody guy's antics".

Their deductions were demons, queers, cosplayers, or Californians. The ultimate consensus was a mixture of all four.

As Anisha leaves the scene, so does Vadha in a flash of black light. Then, a red streak stains the blue sky above as something races away from the quaint little village. It was a cloud of blood, upon which Vadha sits down as his method of transportation. He yawns as he stretches upon the cloud, lazy eyes looking down on the features of land breezing past him.

"...We're close there now, right? We're late but we can always say we were held back by monsters... which we were! No lies and all!" The Death God grins a goofy smile as he looks toward the horizon upon his speeding ride, where the shape of a mountain vaguely forms at a distance. "Oh! Here we are! Heh... I'll race you there!"

Vadha zips through the sky and lands in the main square, like a blazing comet of red light. He jumps off his ride, spins in the air, and does a perfect landing upon terra firma and posing like some Olympic athelete doing a jump. "Helllooooo, Holy High!"

[Danceria]

Chapter 2: Bruncheon, or a Second Breakfast

Holy High Campus, Appalachian Mountains
Bozhidar
[Co-write ft. H-Corp and Luminesa

---

Smoke was on the winds as Bozhidar exited the battlefield, the smoldering wreckage of his foes lay behind him. Things were going well, his blood was pumping at the first class of the day, and now was unto power management. There he made a few friends as well-officially at least. There was the thing that lurked in the room next to him, but he...she...it? It. It seemed friendly. Then there were the rest of the groups.

There was the excitable fox lady, the gym teacher Hyperion (seriously, shouldn't a war deity be responsible? Why not call Hercules-wait, never mind...Greeks and their incessant love for drama...). He seemed...upright. Physically. Mostly.

Back to his fellow students, there was the down to earth (literally, if Boris' sense of smell and intuition were anything to go by, he'd been relying more and more on that day by day) mountain lady, then there was the prim and proper Kimiko-hime, but that was to be expected of deities.

Both girls. Both godlings. His papa would never let him hear the end of it.

With a flush, and all these thoughts swirling around his head, he remembered something aided by the rumble of his stomach. Focus. It was the lesson attempting to be imparted upon him by Hyperion. This along with a need for communication-in case the midday sun and growling stomach wasn't obvious enough.

"Wonder when lunch is...?" he asked to no one in particular.
Illara watched as the other gods were finishing, in her eyes they were doing amazing but she was not that focus on a specific deity that was doing the training or the challenge of Hyperion. The last pair already finished and she started to head out thinking of the demon box that might have been edible, speaking of which, her stomach, just like an earthquake, rumbled ordering Illara to get a proper snack for herself.

It was the pure coincidence that she heard someone asking about lunch, this may be her lucky day. She doesn’t know how to cook, she spent most of her days hunting for herself and the food was not even that great if she remembered correctly.

She walked towards the deity that asked a simple but very necessary question, so she looked around and walked towards that deity and she found a male deity, this would be a first for her and she wondered how many people did her alter-ego met before the sun rose on the horizon, whatever the number was she thought it was the perfect time to… interact with another deity.

”Did I hear right?” she said walking to the right side of Boris, ”Were you… the one who asked about lunch?”
"Oh, ah, yes...I was..." Was he blushing? He hoped he wasn't, because if so his father and uncles would never let him here the end of it. Clearing his throat, he continued, hoping to play off any blush as self consciousness over himself rather than being startled that a lady just appeared over his shoulder.

"Yes, I can make food by myself, but I wasn't sure if Hestia had another feast planned..."
”You know how to make food? That is awesome!”, Illara definitely was celebrating, she found a chef that would make food for her. She clearly was not bothered about anything else, right now the top priority in her head was food. ”If you want my opinion, I think it should not matter what… eh… what was her name again? … Oh right! Hestia! Yeah I think that doesn’t matter at all!”, this was clearly an attempt to convince Boris to make her food, she wanted to taste cooked food for the first time, despite Killara probably eating something similar during the night, she wanted a taste for herself.

”Think about it, you are hungry, what happens when we are hungry? We can’t focus on class! I think the pros outweigh the cons”
"I dunno..." Boris shrugged, still a little nervous about the sudden perk of excitement, his neurons were petering out flight, fight, and freeze to fun. "Hestia does make pretty good food..."

Then again, she did bring up a good point. Focus. Focus was good, and Focus was what helped create wonders. That and communication.

"But for Lunch...yeah I can step in for lunch. For everyone." The Slavs may have been insular and closed off, slow to make friends with the other Pantheons. But those that had their friendship would find no stouter companions in all of existence. As if to demonstrate the point, he procured a pair of small bottles christened "kvass", a dark blue colored drink. Offering the bottle to the woman, he "huh'd" and remarked "Lotta blueberries where you grew up?"

”Those little blue spheres? Not really, but there were a lot of strawberries where I was”, she accepted the drink, and drank all of it in one sip, ”It tastes very good! Thanks! So about making lunch for everyone then you mean we are going to invite other people?” she asked very curiously.
"Well, duh, who do you think I am?" He chuffed and smiled coyly in kind. An awkward pause. Then it hit him. "You, ah, genuinely don't know who I am. ...Because I don't think...we've...met." Another fumble, another clearing of his throat. "Good day, miss, I am Boris Stribozhivich, of the Belobozhii-that is to say, I am from Eastern Europe: the Slavic countries, to be precise. My father is the Winds and my mother is the Morning Star." He explained, having had to polish his "godly introductions" now that a portion of what he had to do under the Pax-make friends! "As for little ole me? I...help "make the good times roll", as the Yankees say." he gave a smile, as the bottle's contents refilled-now in strawberry flavor!

”I am Illara! My parents are… well I don’t know who they are but I amsure wherever they are they are proud of me!”, said Illara hiding the lie with a smile, she still remembered those words that pierce her like a dagger on her chest, ‘Don’t tell anyone we are your parents’, just thinking about it made her feel the chills and made her feel a little bit down, ”What I do know is that I come from South America! And I really don’t know what a yankee is!” she said as she drank of one sip the bottle, again.

”Well if you want to invite everyone else… then lets go!” she said enthusiastic.
Bozhidar may be an idiot. Well not "may" it's a bloody fact that even though he wandered about the breadth of Eurasia, it was still a cage and he only had secondhand knowledge of the world. But he knew a touchy subject when he felt it. Or it was the kvass. Or both!

With a smile, he chuckled, and surveyed the area... "We'll need a good place to set it up for everyone to eat at-can't eat on the floor, that's barbaric!"
Illara awkwardly just nodded with her head. Because her family would ignore her, the only place she could eat was the trees or the floor so being civilized is not something she knows about, whatever it was not something she can change right?

”Right! Barbaric!” she said with a chuckle thinking of this as a mere joke and nothing else.
The inspiration to cook, to feed, and to care for students was one that rumbled in the hearts and the stomachs of every young god who desired to nurture others. And in that domain, Hestia often stood alone. Hearing that the students were skipping their class, however, in order to feed classmates who did not care for themselves, she decided that she would aid them in making sure that the students received their sustenance while also taking part in their classes. After all, students who did not eat would not learn.

And so in a whirl of autumn leaves, a gentle flame, and an aura that smelled like pumpkin and cinnamon, Hestia appeared before the two students who traveled toward the auditorium. "Children! Hello again!" she greeted in her bright, motherly way, "I see you are needing help in setting a place to cook food for your friends? I sense that one or two of your classmates have not eaten in some time."

"Ah, Lady Hestia!" Bozhidar beamed and bowed respectfully to the Goddess of Hearth, he smiled "Well, I wouldn't know for some time-" His mind went to the huntress goddess that had spooked him earlier at orientation, how sad she looked around him and Great-Grandpa Svarog. Great-Grandpa told him to go do his own thing to speak with the young Goddess, but from what he could tell behind the strength and attractiveness-he was looking very respectfully!-she seemed. Sad. Tired. Worn. In desperate need of a hug and some good food.
"But it's getting to be around lunchtime." He sheepily admitted "If you were planning on doing lunch, I'll rescind. Don't want to overstep my boundaries after all..."

“Oh no, no, no! Lady Athena will be glad to see you! You’ll need to attend anyway, at least. But you can of course cook, dearie. I simply wanted to help set-up a place for you to cook.”

She whirled a hand, and out of thin air she created a makeshift cooking area. A hearth, a large Dutch pot, an oven, and several small little jugs which would fill with whatever (non-alcoholic) liquid the students needed to drink.

Illara was amazed by the powers of the goddess Hestia who was making their job easier for them, she could already imagine the wonderful foods someone can make for her. She kept day-dreaming about the multiple possibilities that she almost forgot that Boris wanted to invite more deities to have a small lunch. ”I appreciate the gesture Hestia! Would it befine if we ‘invite’ someone else here? I don’t think it would be fair if we don’t share the culinary abilities of my friend here”, she said grabbing Boris from his shoulders and move him in front of Illara.

“Hmmmmmmm.” Hestia thought for a few moments, tapping her chin and smiling at the idea. The more the merrier perhaps. And she was always glad for a full table. “Who do you have in mind?”

Somewhere in the distance, Hyperion burped incredibly loud and wet, causing her to cringe for a moment. When Hestia stopped wincing, she then smiled back at the two students. “Do you mean your friend Bozhidar or another classmate?”

Bozhidar smiled, cracking his limbs and humming a lovely tune. The hearth sputtered to life, the oven whirred, and more and more appliances gradually folded out around him, making a faux outdoor kitchen.

Pots bubbled with contents-hearty stews, pans held sizzling contents that flipped with flair. The kitchen moved and churned with a rhythm of its own, without the Slavic Godling's direct interaction, as he himself seemed to be in a trance, as foodstuffs cooked with meticulous care faster than any mortal-than even time-could have allowed. For a moment, the entranced Bozhidar lingered around each aspect of the feast being made, before the plated foodstuffs and now non-alcoholic beverages filled with chilled glasses.

Across the campus, the scent of food enticed those to the ever expanding wooden picnic table.

---

Down the Caucasian Mountains flew the white crows, much of whose plumes bore the sickly-red stench of carrion birds now become carrion themselves. The incessant cawing indicated they were frightened-rightfully so-of the newly freed Titan of Forethought. One however, still remained, and cawed twice, though it sounded suspiciously like he was clearing his throat. Bowing twice-once to the Shepherdess, and once to Prometheus-he procured three notes-two for Eleos and one for Prometheus:
The titan of fire would receive a long manifesto-compiling what Eleos was, and safehouses, objectives, the "sales pitch" as Eleos no doubt had scrutinized her black winged servant for. The second note was for Eleos, whether or not she-or Prometheus-would join him for "the Dance in Autumn", or if he should "set up a couch for Prometheus". The notes to Eleos seemed to suggest a more coy, familiar and informal tone than one sent to the formerly imprisoned Titan.

[Luminesa]

Patriah - Stomach Calls

Patriah finished the rest of his portion of the worldbuilding, or whatever he felt would work best as worldbuilding. He helped Vix by getting her the parts she would need to build her own temple, and then he went to deal with the humans. They had no houses, and Patriah knew they would need more trees.

A hundred humans were on this side of the earth, and so he cut down quite a dozen trees as he began to whip together the houses. He had not been sure what to expect from an activity that required him to create, when his normal powers did not involve creation. Yet wind was a catalyst, if not a creator, of many reactions and physical changes. And so he decided he would bring those changes for the better.

Humans needed shelter, shelter from the storm.

And so he built fifteen medium-sized houses. Each one could fit 7-8 people, and they worked toward making the first village in that part of the world. While other gods had worked on letting the humans build civilizations, Patriah had always wondered why the gods did not build the houses themselves. When he finished, he was surprisingly pleased with his work. And then he smelled…food?

“LUNCHTIME! That’s my grade, teach, I’ll be back!” He then rushed out the classroom before Athena could even ask why he was leaving. She could only give a deep sigh, knowing that young gods, much like young teenagers and college students, could always be called away for food. Or almost always, as she saw Astrid still sitting forlornly in her desk. Nevertheless, she had to give Patriah his first grade.

Patriah, Grade 1: 3.5. Grading him was hard, and a move of conscience. He had destroyed quite a few trees, many of which had cut into the work of other students. He seemed to be carried away just a little, but not out of malice. Yet he had still come to the assistance of a student who had still looked very stressed. While his own work was not as impressive as many others, he still made something vital. If he came back to the classroom and attempted to fix his damage, perhaps she’d help his grade a little more.

The Wind God could care less about his grade, as he ran to go see what was cooking in the courtyard. Boris and Illara, along with Hestia, had made quite the outstanding feast. His mouth watered as he saw it, and he grinned at his two classmates. “FOOD! Oh thank the gods, I’m starving!” Even though he was not, in fact, anywhere near starving, he decided that he would pile his plate. Then he remembered his classmates, who were still sitting in class and exhausted.

“…Uh…hey, Boris, this is all really great,” he explained with a mouth full of chicken wing, “and in fact, it’s so great that I’m gonna bring a few plates to the class. Cause I don’t think Astrid and Az and Vix have had food.” Even if Patriah was not a particularly perceptive young deity, he could tell when someone had not eaten. “If you wanna bring her an extra plate we can do that too,” he added, as soon as he took the bone and started to crunch on it.

With the bone still in his mouth, he piled together several plates of meat, savory foods, and some pumpkin-shaped steamed buns that Hestia had made. He then nodded for Boris to follow when he could, along with Illara, to crash a classroom with a surprise lunch.

Deaglan - Red-Headed Stranger

The Prince of the Summer Court watched the unfolding comradery between students with quiet interest. None of the students had decided to join in the Hunt, not yet. They were busy with their idyllic classes, their quiet lives as young deities. Then again, only two of them knew that he existed. And so he would have to make work on his own.

So he decided to watch Boris cook and interact with his classmates. The kind, considerate young god had worked with both a young goddess named Illara and dear Hestia in order to make food for the class. Such a tender consideration moved Deaglan, in the way that Fae were moved. He shuffled his fingers around his teacup, and a smiled widened across his face. “What a fun little party. He’d be a wonderful little homemaker, I’m sure…”

A single bright-red apple would appear in a nearby tree, something nobody would quite notice. Of course, the teachers might have seen it, but Deaglan meant no harm by it. The apple was simply his way of being able to watch a little closer for worthy candidates. And several worthy candidates he had already seen. “A good Autumn Prince…must be a welcoming Autumn Prince…” he murmured gently to the Phoenix sitting at the table with him. He then refilled his teacup, and took a sip as he watched. Apple blossom tea.

[Luminesa]

Patriah - Thinking on a Full Stomach

Patriah was not entirely sure of many things in the world. Most complicated topics bored him, and he had felt rather out-of-place in the complicated Power Management class. Athena had expected for him to play a part in building the world anew, but he was not much of one to create large swathes of a world. He enjoyed more of the hands-on building, the shaping and chopping, the almost-human aspects of being a young deity. He liked laboring, watching things build from scratch, sweating, and using more effort. In the Underworld, his senses were often dulled by the ease of his training. Here, he had hoped that he could tug and pull the world in a more personal and interesting way.

But what was more interesting than Power Management was Food Management. He carried several plates of food, based on what he had seen his classmates eat. Aemilia had an appetite that seemed almost as ravenous as his own, so he grabbed a platter of various meats, fruits, and something like pasta. Senu seemed to like lamb chops, so he found a plate of those and piled them on one arm. Astrid, who looked emaciated, got an enormous platter of fried chicken, mac n cheese, and several fresh rolls of bread and butter. Several more platters came, and he found ways to balance them all on his arms. Whatever he could not balance, he let Boris carry.

And on every platter, he placed one of Hestia's pumpkin cookies.

"Thanks, Aunt Hestia. Thanks Boris, thanks Ill," he called to them. Nonchalantly he walked across the campus toward the classroom, and he kicked the door open with the grace of a three-legged bull. "LUNCH IN CLASS, CLASS IN LUNCH!"

Athena saw at least a dozen platters of food, and her eyes went as wide as the saucers. To avoid having Patriah lose most of the hot food on the floor, he used her sceptre to make the plates land on the tables as he called them. "Goodness, you could at least announce what you're doing so I can better prepare..." she sighed.

"Two of the kids are coming, they just decided to cook with Aunt Hestia. Is that a grade?"

The Goddess of Wisdom, indeed in her almighty wisdom, decided not to touch that question before the students actually ate. They did need the food, as several of them were indeed exhausted. Azcoatl got a platter of what looked like baked fish in a lemon sauce and a bowl of pasta salad; Bana got rice, fish, plantains, and a large Cornish hen; more and more students found food on their tables, and Patriah finally got Astrid her plate. "I uh...I went a little crazy with the cookies." Indeed, Astrid would see no less than twelve cookies in her plate alone. Lanuru had the second-most, with five. The Wind God could not determine what the Dream Fae liked to eat, and so he just decided on easy sweets.

"Is this also a grade?" He brought Vix her plate for when she finished her work. Strawberries, rice and beans, biscuits practically swimming in gravy, and fluffy scrambled eggs.

"Patriah, thank you for bringing the food, but please come sit if you are do-"

"I FORGOT THE WINE!" He ran out the room to grab a goblet, in order to return with wine for Alki.

The Goddess of Wisdom simply watched, not sure if she should ask him to bring her a plate of Tylenols and some tea as well. She turned back to Vix, and to the rest of the class still finishing the work.

[Ceystile]

Althea, Power Management
Ooh, food. I’m starving. the young goddess thought to herself as Patriah burst through the door like a hurricane and just started dumping food onto people’s desks. But as Thea had yet to finish her assignment, she couldn’t settle into a cozy lunch just yet. Strolling up to the miniature world, Thea funneled green energy into the earth, causing some plants to spring up, plants that were useful for healing. She then touched some of the injured soldiers and worked on their wounds, sometimes healing with a touch, sometimes bandaging and fixing what needed to be fixed. She gave her aunt a small bow before returning to her seat.

Tomila/Timofey, Power Management
Tomila’s mouth watered a bit when the wonderful smell of freshly cooked food filled the classroom. “Wait a minute…that’s Boris’ cooking.” She stood up at the memory of her childhood friend, when they last parted something seemed…almost off between them and now maybe she had the chance to get to the bottom of it.
“Excuse me, Lady Athena. I have to go to the restroom for a second.” And with that she left the room, following the scent of food to the direction where it was coming from.

[Luminesa]

Althea, Power Management
Ooh, food. I’m starving. the young goddess thought to herself as Patriah burst through the door like a hurricane and just started dumping food onto people’s desks. But as Thea had yet to finish her assignment, she couldn’t settle into a cozy lunch just yet. Strolling up to the miniature world, Thea funneled green energy into the earth, causing some plants to spring up, plants that were useful for healing. She then touched some of the injured soldiers and worked on their wounds, sometimes healing with a touch, sometimes bandaging and fixing what needed to be fixed. She gave her aunt a small bow before returning to her seat.

Tomila/Timofey, Power Management
Tomila’s mouth watered a bit when the wonderful smell of freshly cooked food filled the classroom. “Wait a minute…that’s Boris’ cooking.” She stood up at the memory of her childhood friend, when they last parted something seemed…almost off between them and now maybe she had the chance to get to the bottom of it.
“Excuse me, Lady Athena. I have to go to the restroom for a second.” And with that she left the room, following the scent of food to the direction where it was coming from.

This Class Is A Kitchen Nightmare, Send Help

"I HAVE WINE!!!"

Patriah slammed a bottle of wine on Athena's desk, which was a little further than necessary from the students. Athena could only look with the mildest of annoyances. She was not sure if this was true disruption or something which the students needed. Then again, drunk students were never ideal in a classroom, though she had already given students their grades and figured that those students who had completed at least one round of the activity would not try to come back up and to lower their grades if they had alcohol and decided to sleep harder. She looked toward Azcoatl and Bana in particular.

"Don't ask where I got it, Hyperion said I could borrow it!" He poured a glass for several of the students, one being Lan and one being Alki. He then poured himself a glass and chugged it, much to the dismay of the Goddess of Wisdom.

"I do not mind that you are giving the students food and refreshments, but please...your wine is dripping onto your scarf."

"Our dorms have washing machines!" Patriah cheered. He then went to check on Astrid, standing over her desk and seeing that she had not yet touched her food. "You've got to eat, you're wasting away over there!"

"Patriah...please sit down. Let her eat on her own," she chided him. He was almost as much trouble as Hyperion, if maybe a little more well-meaning. She then turned to grade the student who had already completed her work.

Althea, Grade 1: 5. She did not change the entire world, its weather, or its atmosphere, but she still healed many of the wounded humans whose lives were fragile and placed amid a whirlwind of young deities' changes. Therein lie the hope of the older gods, that perhaps these younger deities would take care of the creation which still remained and required their care.

The other student, Tomila, seemed more willing to simply leave the classroom. At the very least she had a grade in Athena's gradebook, so the goddess could breathe a little easily. A couple of students still struggled. Vix was one, as she still stood approaching Patriah's work. Boris was apparently outside cooking, along with Illara. She thought about their grades, and considered seeing them after class. The second day at Holy High was already an odd-yet-sweet affair, and the students seemed to be making friends or revealing the stranger sides of their pantheons.

Bonfires In the Mountains

Zeus could not have imagined this day in his worst nightmares.

A Titan who was not Hyperion had managed to escape their chains. Among them, he feared this one very much, if the Supreme God of the Greeks could fear anything. He smelled it somewhere in the infinite distance-an immense plume of smoke rising from a pile of wood, blood, viscera, and bones. An unholy offering to a being he did not recognize, a woman dressed as pure as the driven snow, as graceful as a dove.

And Prometheus knew he was being watched.

Every Titan had a penchant for performance, for the dramatic, for the reckless destruction of what was the past. And the Titan who had not too long ago been bound by ancient chains now created another bonfire, and another, and another. His mark on the world would be a burn scar, one which the elder gods could see from almost outer space. Yet none of the students could see the deity, not now.

Thoth came into the office, looking very irate himself. "Zeus, we need to talk."

"We ALL need to talk. I dreaded the possibility."

"The possibility that a FAE is on this island who is NOT a student?!"

Zeus paused and stared at him, incredulous. "What?...Are they threatening the Pax?"

"They are of one Court or another, and they all want their pound of flesh from either students or staff." He was practically shaking with anger, if the Egyptian God of the Moon could show anything other than ice in his voice and bones when he was enraged.

"If they are not an immediate issue, we have a Titan who has escaped, and who has turned their eyes toward us. He threatens the Pax!"

Thoth put his hands on his hips and narrowed his eyes. "Then we will have to deal with it. Did you not think your own sins would come back to haunt you, or us, Zeus? No, we are the old guard. And if we make the students clean all of our messes alone, then shall the Glorious Sun Ra help our rebirthing universe."

[Zei-Aeiytenia]

Astrid
A Muzzle for a Mutt

Astrid paid little heed to the other students, as they shuffled up after her to add their own visions to the world, many shuffling right back out to the open space just beyond the classroom. Apparently, according to Rumor, the Slav was having a cookout. During class, no less. As she quietly rolled her eyes and sighed to herself, Patriah returned to the room shouting loudly and placing gratuitous amounts of food everywhere, particularly choosing to overburden her with an amount that would surely have been fatal even if not her circumstances.

Of course, being locked in Niflheim by magic cursed chains and left alone for two years meant no one came to bring her the typical prison meals. Instead, the cursed chains themselves provided enough nourishment through magic to maintain a bill of health sufficient enough that they could inflict unyielding torment upon her at their leisure without fear of death or rapid unconsciousness. While this prevented death from occurring, it did not prevent her unused stomach from shrinking ever and ever smaller. Truthfully, that single bowl of... whatever it was the Elder Slav had given her was already filling, even this plate of cookies was surely enough to cause significant pain. It was absolutely enough to cause her to vomit from the overload of now unfamiliar sugar, in that there was no question.

At the very least she couldn't see or smell any poisons. That merely meant there were none she could recognize or which were not specially created to evade her senses. Even if they were not designed to kill, it would be a simple and perhaps even wise move to use a mild poison whose induced sickness would ensure the rebellious godling never reached ample condition to wage a struggle. No matter how it was viewed, nothing prepared here by anyone not herself could be trusted. She had only lent the Slav Elder her trust when she caught wind of his greater perception and sensed a rare absence of malice from his thoughts on the matter of those truths.

Just as quickly as he barged in, Patriah left once more, and for a moment the room was quiet again. Students ate if they chose, others continued their assignment and one appeared to be trying to skip it entirely. Yet there was an unease in the air. A disgusted feeling overtook Astrid's senses, like the unpleasant calm before the rolling in of a fart-scented great wind. She could feel it, from Hyperion to Boris and now Patriah, the disgraceful energy of the magnificent debacle which greeted the beginning of this day upon the back of a Titan had spread like a viral plague to muck up the land.

The towering Greek stormed back in, with tremendously loud and obnoxious fanfare of his own creation, an offensive blight on the ears that made even a bearer of alcohol intolerable and undesirable. It was wine, anyway, and frankly not that much of it. While Astrid had always quite enjoyed intoxication, it was a matter of moderate aggravation that her naturally enhanced resistance to poisons and toxins made it rather difficult to achieve and sustain.


Clearly unfulfilled by the magnitude of his buffoonery up til now, Patriah stormed back over to her seat, looming above her and shouting evermore. With a deep, exasperated sigh, she closed her hands, quietly shutting the demon she had been consorting with and stowing it away in a pocket, clasping her hands together on her desk as she slowly opened her eyes and stared up at Patriah with a blank expression of irritation and lost patience. It was not that she would have been in the mood on some other day than this, but in particular, she was not in the mood today.

"Do you... come with a muzzle, or do i supply my own?" She stated bluntly, beginning to look below and around her desk and glancing all around the room in a verbose gesture, "Is there a leash, a collar i am not aware of somewhere? A metal rod sticking out from the ground outside i missed on the way in? Somewhere to tie you down so your incessant barking will not disturb the common folk too greatly?" She stood up, standing on her toes, and looking around at the class, "Is there anyone here who owns this rabid beast barking in my face, or is it a stray for me to call the watch upon and seen dragged lifelessly to the gutter so that i may have quiet and peace again? Anyone? It is a wonder the rate of vehicular assaults and dog attacks is so low here, it must simply have been luck." Finishing her small rant, she returned her empty glare to the Greek standing nearly two feet taller than her, completely unphased by the difference in size. To her, at this moment, he was nothing but an oversized and unruly direwolf needing made into a pelt.

---

Aemilia
Lunch and a Matinee

Aemilia doodled happily on scraps of paper as others went about their work. Though there had been calls of lunch and a feast outside, which would normally see her disappearing in moments, she had become too enthralled with her work to pay any heed at all.

To say she was upset at the breach of her focus by Patriah playing the role of buss boy would be... completely laughable! It's hard to draw well when you're hungry afterall, and it would be rude to refuse table service, especially when you're not actually at a restaurant at all! She mumbled a thanks to the towering Greek, happily sampling from multiple dishes at once, mixing and matching at her leisure.

It would seem however, the idea of table manners were not ubiquitous. That girl again. No, seriously, AGAIN, she did not merely stop at garden variety rudeness, she pulled literal stretches and then dashed forward to challenge for the Olympic Gold Medal sprint! Aemilia had met angry people, antisocial people, rude and arrogant people before, but this entity was such a randomly and wantonly chaotic one she could not understand. What precisely was the purpose of this? Is her intent to start a fight? The object to display and assert superiority for... whatever reason? What reason even was there?

All the more concerning to this were the memories of the assignment just minutes prior. Unfounded arrogance was one thing, but having practically double the life force pumping through you compared to the other students was anything but unfounded. How this even occurred was beyond her present understanding, but for a godling which seemed simply born with the destiny of spilling blood, with such a tendency towards aggression was beyond concerning. It was of no help at all that Patriah, while seemingly laid back and relaxed as a person, did not strike as the type to take provocation silently.

The delight of lunch in class she had experienced moments before had warped into a series of anxious glances at the powder keg with a fuse running out. This was not the show she had expected to see with her Lunch Matinee, and it seemed certain it would not be a pleasant replacement either.

[Luminesa]

Patriah - Unwanted Gifts

And now it was, the explosion that the class awaited. Athena looked not even shocked, just dismayed. She knew that this moment was coming, when Astrid would finally snap at a student and would scream at them for something. Of course, she picked a rather awful moment as well. Patriah was bringing food in and out of the classroom, a little disruptive but overall rather innocuous.

Now the innocuousness was gone.

Patriah stared at Astrid as she screamed at him. Even on her toes, she was nowhere near his height, and she barely touched his chest with her nose. He still had a glass of wine in his hand, and he drank it down as she spoke. It did not affect his mental status very much, but he could feel his blood pressure rising. She was truly angry at him, and for offering food. A gesture he thought was at least a kind one, given her miserable nature.

But her misery was deeper than her stomach, and the Wind God could not quite fix that. His eyes glimmered as he thought about her response-as much as he was willing to think about it. She went on and on, until Athena looked like she was going to intervene, but he decided to take matters into his own hands. He drew his sword from its sheath, and the Goddess of Wisdom bolted forward.

“Patriah, put that away no-”

He stabbed it far too fast for most of the class to jump-in, but as much as Astrid might have flinched or even prepared for a fight, the sword and the young deity’s strong reach went beyond her. He grabbed three pieces of fried chicken off her plate, and ate them whole. Bones and all.

When the shocking crunching sound was finished, as much of an ungodly cacophony as it was, he swallowed the meat and bones and then glugged down the rest of his wine. His eyes were steady, but angry. “My mom taught me to serve people food when they’re hungry. So…I’ll serve myself.” He took her plate away and walked out of the classroom, looking for Boris. All the while, he sheathed his sword once again, and looked quickly content again as he ate the mac n’ cheese.

Athena stared at him as he left, and then looked to Astrid. The girl had already sat in her chair again, and the Goddess of Wisdom shook her head. “Perhaps a…lighter diet will be necessary. And perhaps some one-on-one tutoring,” she muttered to herself. She then turned back to helping Vix, pointing-out the pieces Patriah had laid for her to help her to complete the assignment.

[Luminesa]

Timeskip - Night 2

The chaos of the earlier morning and the students’ second-ever class with Athena led for the goddess of wisdom to give the students passing grades. Even Boris and Illara got passing grades, as Hestia explained that their hospitality had fed much of the class.

And so the rest of the day moved ahead, with other introductory classes which came and finished. None of them were as chaotic as Hyperion’s first class, but all of them operated with the ever-present understanding that these were not a normal mortal’s classes.

The evening dropped, and Patriah decided to go to the gym to train. He needed to keep himself in top shape, in case he did want to spar with anyone. Astrid was probably still too hungry, but Killara and some of the guys were possibly available. Luckily, the gym was enormous, had a roof which opened and closed at students’ requests, and had a beachfront view.

Hyperion himself was still busy at that same beach clearing pieces of craters out of the water. Once Zeus and Hera had seen them, he was ordered to remove the hazards from the water. Drunk grumbling was audible to anyone who went near the beach and caught the teacher in a plain white tank and Hawaiian shorts, cleaning the beach like it was a summer job.

Some of the other teachers did not have such lighthearted concerns. Hecate had met with Zeus, Ganesha, and Thoth, all of whom had started to notice that even if Prometheus was still far away, his presence was growing ever-closer.

“I smell smoke…” Hecate murmured as she approached the other teachers.

“And where there’s smoke, soon there will be a fire,” Ganesha chimed.

“But will he truly come here? That’s the issue. Does he really want this ragtag group of kids?” Hecate questioned.

Zeus made his best attempt to hide his shuddering. “Ah, well…most likely not. But he does…he does want us.”

“Us? The gods? And what are you doing to prepare for another Titan, Zeus?” the goddess of the crossroads demanded.

“Well, you see, we’re tracking his movements and we believe he is going to be in this approximate area in two or three days.”

Thoth’s eyes turned toward him as he sipped his tea. “That’s not much time to prepare.”

“But prepared we’ll have to be,” Athena chimed in from her end of the room. And as usual, she was right.

The school was its normal, merry self amongst the students, now that their classes were done and the teachers did not give real homework on the first day. But more apples began appearing around campus. Now one appeared outside Astrid’s window, dangling from a tree branch. In Cepha’s room, a book about titans.

And on Lan’s bed, far too many pumpkin cookies had found their way onto his pillow.

[Finsternia]

Lanuru - An Odd Gift

The sun has set, marking the end of the tiresome day at class. Gods have more stamina than mortals could ever ask, and the vanishment of the hateful glare of the burning orb in the sky has restored vigor in the body of the Unseelie Prince. Nighttime is the Prince's playground, and it's when he is the most free and the strongest.

Returning to his shared dormitory feels liberating to some extent. The place is now a bit more to his liking, entrenched in wild things. Vines cover the walls and the pillars, blooming with all sorts of colorful and glowing flowers in the dark. Moths and butterflies, some clearly of some supernatural make with their odd features, flutter around the flowers. Wildlife also seems to be appearing and being beckoned, befitting the domain of two Wild Godlings. A dark moon hangs over the dormitory, a secondary lunar body upon the sky that has continued to drape the property in midnight sky even as day rolls in.

His roommate must be someplace else, or perhaps in his own room, Lanuru thinks as he passes by the empty living room. The God of Nightmares needs no true sleep nor rest, but his room is still a sanctum of comfort for the Fae. In fact, it could only be described as a temple for the young Godling. Full of poisonous ivy, the room is a lush yet desolate garden. A low mist hangs by his feet as he enters, the same fog of purple and pink stardust that he conjures as he works through the domains of dreams and nightmares. Vague figures would sometimes rise from the fog, sometimes they're humanoid, sometimes they're animalistic, sometimes they're monstrous and irrecognizable. But whenever the God would pass by, these figures bow low before vanishing into the ether.

The Unseelie Prince's resting place is a massive bed, covered in silken velvet that glimmers when light touches it. It is surrounded by pillars of rock stabbing upwards into the heavens, made out of silvery stone that could only be made from the same material as the moon. Up above it is the night sky as a roof, with a lightless moon hanging low. He sighs, discarding heavy ceremonial armor and his volumous black robes, as he moves over to his bed. He was about to lay down and gaze at the projection of the night sky above him when he notices an odd thing upon his bed.

It was a plate of pumpkin cookies. In fact, it wasn't simply a plate of it. It's a pile of cookies that is either made for a party or for a remarkable glutton. It's stacked high once, but clearly it's quantity and weight made it collapse into a small hill. Such an appearance is odd. He never asked for such food, as he does not eat normal food. Purple and pink smoke gathers in his outstretched hand as he uses the Magics of his kind. Tendrils of shadow and mist gingerly touch the cookies, checking for any hidden threats. There were no signs of poison or any malicious tampering. It's simply... a pile of cookies on top of his bed.

Gingerly, Lanuru reaches out for one and gives it a precautionary nibble, before fully devouring it in a single go. It was delicious, worthy to be served at the tables of Fae royalty even. It makes him raise an eyebrow, thinking that such quality could only be produced by the school's kitchens and by the hands of Lady Hestia. "...Does this establishment have some sort of a delivery service for students who seemed to have missed mealtimes?" The Prince does take two more cookies to eat, simply to enjoy this delightful treat that was given to him, before a portal of inky darkness opens to store the pile for the indeterminate future. "...That's quite interesting... and rather concerning if that is not the case. If there is another party responsible for this kind of trick, what could be their purpose? Clearly not for courting me. Such actions would have necessitated a note or card of some sort... if the dreams of mortals are to be trusted." He grumbles as he stands up as he heads for the door.

Perhaps the fresh night air could clear up his mind about the suspicious pile of cookies that was dumped on his pillow.

Vadha Vismarana - Evening Fisticuffs

Loud shouts and grunts can be heard from the gym as the sounds of strong impacts follow suit. A dark figure seems to be dancing amidst erected training dummies, and each passing movement utterly destroys the figure's target. The glimmer of red flashes with each hypnotizing form, and another dummy would end up bisected cleanly through before disintegrating into nothingness.

As Patriah enters the gymnasium, a earsplitting sound echoes in the facility. Like deafening lightning, something flies at supersonic speeds towards the towering Godling before crashing loudly outside as it sails past the open doors and breaking a tree in its path of collision. If the Wind God would look back, it was once a training dummy but now it is absolutely destroyed in its current state. In those last moments the dummy disintegrates to dust and sand, fully vanquished by the being that sent it flying.

The being that sent the dummy flying is a dark skinned shirtless youth, standing amidst wreckage while holding a martial arts form. He is standing with one foot on the ground and the other raised, clearly was just kicking his now destroyed opponent. He has four arms, two which holds a sword and a spear seemingly made out of red liquid, while the others are curled into fists. He straightens his posture as he lowers his foot, and his weapon wielding hands flick the liquid weapons away into nothingness. They then retract back into his body as torrents of red, which Patriah could probably surmise as blood, and he then groans and sighs as he rolls his shoulders. "Yo! Sorry for the near hit, handsome!" He waves his hand towards Patriah as he goes to do some more stretches. "What brings you here? Want a fight or something?"

[Luminesa]

Pumpkin Cookies, Lightning, and Punch
Night 2

Patriah tended to focus on his own business when he was training, unless someone was training alongside him. The gymnasium was huge, and the dummies regenerated magically if ever they were damaged. Athena, Ares, and Kali had made sure that the equipment could in fact withstand the physical prowess of the young gods and goddesses using the facility, and in the last two days they had upheld well.

Vadha, however, challenged their sturdiness all alone.

The young deity punched, kicked, and tore his way through dozens of dummies without very much help. His ruby-colored spear was a powerful weapon, fierce and sharp as it cut through the cloth of the training dummies cleanly. He then grinned over at Patriah, who had arrived expecting abnormal night at the gym.

Pat was originally waiting for Killara, who had seemingly wanted to spar, but she was not around at the moment. However, he would take whichever opponents he could get. But first he got a look at Vadha slashing through the equipment, and he put his hands on his knees as he crouched and observed. When he knew he had liked what he had seen, he grinned and stood. “Yeah…now THAT is a proper exercise,” he murmured.

Finding that the man wanted to spar with him was a pleasant surprise, and Patriah immediately drew his sword. “I’d love to take a spin, see if that spear can stand-up to some wind hitting it back. You’re not the only big guy who can make a sonic boom with a weapon,” the Wind deity reminded him. At the same time, however, he found himself pausing as he remembered his scarf around his shoulders.

Poor Eurydice had worked hard enough to make his replacement scarf. The handiwork was still made with love, and she had even kissed it before sending it away. Now he was about to wear it to fight, and he only hoped that his opponent would not destroy it. He adjusted it, tying it like a toga as Lanuru had done, and he nodded. “…That should work.” Only then did he take a fighting stance.

“When you’re ready, four-arms!”

***
The pumpkin cookies spilled off the plate and onto the floor, leaving some crumbles as they sat gracelessly on the carpet. Whoever had sent them had not done the best job of transporting them, and they were a large pile of cookies.

But nothing negative, cruel, or poisonous was sensible from the cookies. Rather, they were just very warm, and smelled of the sweet, fall scent of pumpkin. They were a gift, but from whom Lan could not tell. They probably did not help with the creation of nightmares, however, given their overall pleasantness. No doubt they were originally Hestia’s cookies.

And yet they remained on the floor as Lan went out.

***
Prometheus took his time finding Holy High. He wanted to make fires wherever he went, and the forests of the Appalachians made for a lot of firewood.

Firefighters had started to report the strange wildfires in the Appalachians, which did not normally experience them at this time of year, on the second night of the school year. Overhead, some harpies started to look and examine the fires. Even Hades in his cool, calm leadership was worried. He knew that the fires were leading toward the school.

And Eleos was somewhere around as well. But the Fire Titan hoped that he would do much of the work before she decided to make her move. He figured that reaching his target would please her, and one of those targets had been a god who had tied him and thrown him into his personal hell.

“ZEUS!!!! ZEUS!!!! I’M COMING FOR YOU, YOU BASTARD!!!”

“Did someone just call for…a Zeus?” One of the firefighters asked as they continued to call for more water to be dunked over the rising flames.

“We’ve all been praying to put this thing out, Martin.”

“No, no, I heard someone in the fire.”

“You’re hearing things. It’s all this smoke. Go back to the truck and tag-out with Jamison.”

“…Alright.”

Martin the firefighter was no mystic, no seer, no teller of tales. He was an average firefighter in his twenties, his stomach full of microwaved burritos and rice, Gatorade, and unease at the sight of the unusual fire. But the voice echoed all around, and even the most unbelieving of the mortal men could have known that this voice was no average man.

“ZEUS!!! ON THIS NIGHT, THE LIGHTNING IS MINE!!!”