Wrath of the Gods Page #10

---

exploded a store of gunpowder within the building.

You find yourself in front of an imposing temple. As you

approach, lightning flashes and thunder crashes. If you are

being pursued by a swarm of bees:

VOICE ONE:

(echoing, thundering)

No bees in the temple!

If you are bee-less:

VOICE ONE:

Profane mortal, who dares approach these sacred

precincts without an offering?

If you keep trying to get in, all you get is more thunder

and lightning. If you make the wrong offering from your

inventory, you get one of a series of responses:

VOICE ONE:

Ha! You call that an offering?

Or:

VOICE ONE:

That? No way!

Or:

VOICE ONE:

Are you kidding?

Or:

VOICE ONE:

Get serious!

If you’ve acquired the offering from Hermes in the Medusa

scene (page 106) and you click it anywhere on the screen,

you make it a little further up the steps only to get the

meteorological special effects again.

VOICE ONE:

Pitiful human, don’t you know the first thing

about divinity? You must purify yourself first.

Again you can’t enter. But when you return after ritually

purifying yourself by bathing in the Nymph’s pool (page 46)

you are free to enter at last.

52

TEMPLE INTERIOR. You approach a large frieze depicting

five Olympians. There’s an automatic transition to the frieze,

full-screen.

VOICE ONE:

Groveling mortal, know ye that this temple

is sacred to the deity of arts and war. Which

Olympian do you invoke?

You click on one of the three gods and two goddesses. Guess

wrong, there’s thunder and lightning, and you find yourself

back outside. But if you click on Athena, the frieze rumbles

up and out of the way, revealing a larger-than-life-size

golden statue in a niche. If you talk to it, it emits an awesome

light and comes to life.

ATHENA:

When challenged to slay the Gorgon Medusa,

never look that snake-haired hussy in the eye.

Perhaps my shield might be of use…if you reflect

upon it.

She extends her shield toward you and you see your

reflection in the polished surface before it pings into your

inventory. Athena disappears. The frieze rumbles back down

again.

Temple Fork

TEMPLE PRECINCTS. It bears repeating that there were

no stately ruins bedecking the roadside during the Age

53

of Heroes. Magnificent temple architecture had not yet

evolved. The only places of worship were natural shrines in

caves and on hilltops, or private ones in households.

In this scene, you have a choice of ways to proceed.

CHARIOT TERMINAL. If you exit the Nymph scene (page

46) by the path in the background, you come to this building

with a loading dock for chariots pulled by dragons. The

point of the “dragon chariots” is to save you walking when

you return from distant adventures. So if this is your first

visit to a chariot stop, there’s no dragon chariot parked

outside, and the ticket booth inside is closed. By the time

you’ve reached the next chariot stop, however, you will have

Mycenae Chariot Stop

54

done a lot of walking and will be happy to see that it is open

for business. And when you return to this first chariot stop,

it will be open too.

Inside, you find a ticket booth, some chairs, and a variety

of travel posters. There’s also a slot machine that is rigged

so that you have more than enough gems to pay for chariot

rides. On the audio track are the echoes associated with a

huge space and the occasional announcement.

VOICE TWO:

(female voice-over)

Argos Local boarding in 30 minutes, making all

stops:
Corinth, Mycenae, Tiryns, Epidaurus...

Talking to the Agent in the ticket booth or walking towards

him turns your point of view toward the booth.

AGENT:

Where to?

There’s a Departures board to the left of the booth, with a

list of destinations. There are three functional destinations

(two of which are available at a given chariot stop): Mycenae

(my-SEE-nee), Mount Pelion (PEEL-ee-un), and Hesperides

(hes-PER-i-deez). Together with these are four additional

destinations:
Pylos (PYE-lus), Mantinea (man-ti-NEE-uh),

Colchis (KOL-kis), and Calydon (KAL-i-don). If you click

on a destination other than Mycenae, Mount Pelion, or

Hesperides, the Agent speaks.

AGENT:

That flight’s a little delayed. Try again next year.

Or:

AGENT:

Oh, sorry. That flight’s been cancelled.

Or there’s the sound of a crash and:

AGENT:

We don’t talk about that one.

In the case of the two legitimate destinations:

55

AGENT:

That’ll be two gems.

If you pay him, a ticket pings into your inventory. You

walk out of the building and over to the chariot. There is

a transition to you climbing into the chariot and standing

behind the Charioteer. He turns to face you.

CHARIOTEER:

Ticket please.

If you don’t click the ticket on him, nothing further happens.

If you do, he speaks again, his voice suave and polished like

a flight attendant’s.

CHARIOTEER:

Welcome aboard. For your safety and

convenience we recommend that you hold on for

dear life.

Pulled by the flying dragon, the chariot takes off.

Beach 1

BEACH. You pass through this scene, walking along the

seaside. Greek culture grew up around the sea. All the early

sites of civilization were along the coast and on the islands

of the Aegean (i-JEE-an). The sea was the highway that linked

the Greeks together and permitted their innovations to

spread outward, to the shores of the Black Sea, to Italy, Sicily,

and Africa.

56

Clashing Rocks

SHIP AT DOCK. This is an episode from the myth of Jason

and the Argonauts. When Jason arrived in Iolcus (eye-ALL-kus)

to claim the throne that by rights was his, his uncle Pelias

(PEL-ee-us) had no intention of giving it up. “What would you

do to get rid of someone who was giving you difficulties?”

Pelias asked his nephew.

“Send him after the Golden Fleece?” suggested Jason,

anxious to show a kingly knack for problem solving.

“Not a bad idea,” responded Pelias. “It’s just the sort of

quest that any hero worth his salt would leap at. Why, if he

succeeded he’d be remembered down through the ages. Tell

you what, why don’t you go?”

And so it came to pass that word went out the length and

breadth of Greece that Jason was looking for shipmates to

embark upon a perilous but highly glamorous adventure.

And despite the fact that Pelias had been attracted to the idea

precisely because of the miniscule chances of anyone surviving

to lay eyes upon the Fleece let alone get past the guarding

dragon and return with the prize, large numbers of heroes

were ready to run the risk. Among them were Heracles (HURa-

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes