The village had a complete makeover, there were tents set up in the village square with various different produce. Stalls were set up with games, barrels of wine were located all around the town with wooden tankards placed nearby so that people can easy get a drink. The village was bustling with merchants and travellers from other cities. The town inn completely booked out and some people had to set up tents in the outlying fields.

The festival preparations were complete and it was only noon so people began to relax, lazing around on the fields or in the inn for an early drink.

When night fall the village filled with life. People started drinking dancing and singing around the town hearth, children played games at the stalls. The atmosphere was friendly and exciting.

All of a sudden the sound of bagpipes could be heard. Everyone looked in the direction that the sound came from and out of the forest came a herd of satyrs playing bagpipes, cymbals, castanets, and auloi. The music that the played was exciting and fast paced bringing with it a more festive feel. The satyrs came into dance and started dancing, playing music, and flirting with everyone.

It is impossible to out drink a satyr, even the dwarves couldn’t beat them in a drinking contest. Dionysus himself must have blessed them with an amazing tolerance for alcohol.

Rosetta urged me to dance around the fire. Due to my attractiveness stat, and my embarrassing outfit I got the stares of many men and women as I danced. My dancing invited everyone else to dance with me and before long most of the town was dancing and drinking having a good time.

I had to defend myself from the advances of many satyrs that night because for some reason the favoured me. My charm stat rose exponentially and Rosetta teased me at any chance she got causing me attractiveness stat to raise. Rosetta by the climax of the festival, Rosetta had many bruises and a red hand shaped mark on her cheek though she was still grinning childishly, party from the atmosphere and partly from alcohol intoxication.

As soon as midnight came around, the sky was set ablaze by various spells from mages, and the next second, the town was filled with flowers. From the flames, a figure began to form. It was a beautiful woman, the most beautiful I had ever seen. She had long brown hair, yellow eyes and had a mysterious feel about her. She wore in her hair flowers, and had a dress naturally woven with flowers, and vines.

You are in the presence of Persephone

The whole town bowed at the sight of the goddess.

“You may rise” Persephone said.

“We have prepared an offering for you lady Persephone.” the elder said showing Persephone a huge pile of pomegranates.

“Thank you, and I will bless this city with fuller produce for it.”

“I wish I could bring good news but, it seems my husband is quite angry that I left early this year and wants to take me back by force. In three days, an army of the underworld will attack Araluen because of my selfishness. I wish I could stop him but, I must ask you to take up your arms and protect your city.”

“Lady Persephone, will protect you with our lives” The elder said

Persephone chants rose out of the town square as the festival came to an end.

*triiing*

Quest Received: Protect PersephonePersephone has returned from the underworld early. Hades is upset and had sent an army from the underworld to bring her back. Help the people of Araluen protect their village and Persephone.

Difficulty: unknown

Rewards: unknown

Failure: Persephone is captured

This quest was issued by a goddess, you cannot reject it and if you run away you will be cursed by the goddess.

For the next three days, the city was busy preparing for the upcoming war. a palisade wall was built around the city and part of the forest was cleared to make a clear area to fight. People arrived from outlying villages and towns. Included in the arrivals were 2 full phalanges of 100 hoplites each, and various wagons of weapons and armour. Demeter and Apollo had set some of their disciples to help treat any wounded in the battle. Zeus had sent some mages to provide support for the city and a few warriors to be Persephone’s last line of defence.

The farmers had stockpiled food preparing for a siege, and then prepared for battle dressing in whatever armour and weaponry they had.

All was quiet on the final day with tension filling the air awaiting the arrival of the underworld army. All of a sudden, the sky turned black and out of the forest on all sides were hellhounds. The hellhounds looked somewhat like dobermans except they had long red and black fur.

The phalanges took the east and west sides of town, and the town villagers formed two phalanges, one to the north, and one to the south of the village. Mages manned the walls, and the disciples of Demeter and Apollo ran around the battlefield treating wounded. The satyrs took up to playing their instruments all around the edges of the village. The music was exciting and inspiring. It made one feel like they could do anything without tiring and provided the mages with an almost limitless supply of mana taken from the nature around it.

Our party of four ran to the south gate to fight back the hellhounds. Zach and Rosetta took up residence on the wall with Zach casting wide area spells and Rosetta healing soldiers and providing the occasional illusion. With the mana flowing into them from nature they could cast almost nonstop without worrying about running out of mana.

Kairen and I ran up next to the phalanx. Kairen attached himself to the phalanx and help out his doru prepared to tackle any incoming hellhounds. I stood behind the phalanx and danced my dance of the warrior to increase the rate that the hoplite spears can stab.

The first wave of hellhounds impacted the shields of the phalanx with some being impaled on the shields. The phalanx then proceeded to thrust their spears at any hellhounds in range.

A few hellhounds ran passed the hellhounds. I danced my way over to the right of the phalanx near Kairen and started stabbing any nearby hellhounds. The mages on the wall began throwing lightning spells all over the area causing a huge number of casualties to the hellhounds.

The battle continued for hours in that manner with only a small number of deaths to the phalanx. No hellhounds managed to make it to the walls without being fried by several bolts of lightning.

All of a sudden from the forest came an ear piercing howl, and out of the forest came a new army of hellhounds. These hell hounds were different from the previous hellhounds. Where the previous hellhounds were only at most 1 metre tall, some of these new hellhounds reached up to 3 metres tall and 5 metres in length. Drool dripped out of their mouths and they brought with them the stench of dead carcasses.

“Those were just pups!” Kairen exclaimed.

“It seems like it, or I hope they are, if those are pups, we are all doomed.” I stated.

“Fight defensively” I shouted at Kairen.

Kairen nodded and held his shield up out front preparing for impact. I stopped all my dancing and ran up to the phalanx enchanting their weapons with icebloom. Each blade was encased in ice with tendrils of smoke coming out of the phalanx. Enchanting such a large number of people at once caused my ice blade enchantment to level up twice and my enchanting skill to gain a level. My ice blade enchantment could now last up to 30 minutes.

As the hellhounds collided with the phalanx several ice cubes were formed by the ice enchanted weapons. The sound of ice shattering could be heard everywhere. The hellhound cubs which were difficult before became weak fodder to the icy swords, and the larger hellhounds were hit by lightning from the mages sometimes knocking their feet out from under them due to the paralysis effect.

Everything seemed to be going well until out from the forest, came an army of keres among the hellhounds. Keres are vengeful spirits, ghosts which seek revenge. The keres were not corporeal beings and thus our blades were useless against them. All we could do was defend against them hoping that a mage will take care of them. our casualty count started raising rapidly.

Once we had lost just over a quarter of our phalanx, the sky lit up with tendrils of red mist.

You are in the presence of Ares

Immediately the morale of the phalanx improved and we began to fight back against the new army of keres and hellhounds. Our casualties reduced as more healers and mages arrived at the south wall bolstering our forces and reducing the enemy numbers.

The battle lasted for 2 days will neither side giving an inch. The battlefield was covered in blood, people were getting tired and had to substitute with others. The wounded were piling up inside the walls of the city, and the northern wall had been breached at one point to be defended by Zeus’s heroes.

Our reinforcements had finally arrived, 8 fresh new fully trained phalanxes had arrived, and with them several adventurers of varying classes to help defend to village.

We thought Nike was on our side until shrieks could be heard from the eastern wall. Immediately our party of four ran to the direction of the shrieks to see our worst nightmares. Flying above the battlefield were three old crones flying in the air on their bat wings. Hades had sent the Erinyes.

our first god manifested itself finally

Thank you EcoJakk for the idea of a festival. I hope I did it justice.