Mountain of the Immortals

"Honey, we're home!" Aphrodite shouted, followed by the sound of the door closing.

"Where are you?" Artemis asked.

"The table by the window," I said, laying all of the magic items out on the table. "Got a few things to show you."

"Quite a collection you have there," Aphrodite said, bending forward to give me a kiss as soon as she arrived. "Are those the magical items we got while we were away?"

"It's crazy, isn't it?" Artemis said after joining us. "Magic items were so rare when I was mortal. And now we're swimming in them."

"The benefits of being a god," I said, and shrugged.

"I like those earrings," Aphrodite said, picking up the ivory set.

"But we can already communicate via the guild chat," I told her.

"Of course we can," she replied, and placed them back on the table. "I don't want to use them. They're just pretty."

"The mortals were really worked up for our return," Artemis said as she threw herself on one of the chairs. "They had so many reports and suggestions."

"Tell me about it," Aphrodite said. "I have a list with hundreds of names of people that have requested an audience. I'm never going away for so many days again."

"Perhaps you should consider promoting a couple of your best people to be your assistants or replacements for when you're away," I suggested.

"I doubt anyone else would be able to do what we do," Artemis said, and Aphrodite agreed.

"Of course they wouldn't," I said, "which is why you could have a whole team of people. Have them deal with the things you find boring or that are easy but just take up too much of your time."

"That isn't a bad idea actually," Artemis said. "I could do with a few helpers. Maybe then I'd have more time to delve deeper into the mines and forest."

"A group of underlings, huh?" Aphrodite said, almost as if she was talking to herself. "Indeed, that would be useful."

"What's this thing?" Artemis said, picking up one of the magic items I'd laid out on the table.

* * *

Item: Wooden Arrow of Instant Return (Birch)

Type: Weapon

Subtype: Arrow

Rarity: E Grade

Durability: 20/20

Weight: 10st.

Description: An arrow made of normal birch wood that carries a simple teleportation enchantment. Once the arrow hits its target, if it is not held in place by any magical force, it will instantly return back to its user's quiver. The enchantment is permanent and makes this arrow unbreakable during normal use.

* * *

"That's a neat trick," I said, having absorbed the information. "How come you don't have arrows like that?"

"First of all, I normally use B-grade arrows," she said. "They're much lighter--"

"But wouldn't it be better if you knew that your arrows would always come back?" Aphrodite asked her.

"I do have one like that already," Artemis said, "in case I run out of normal ones. But why would I prefer it? I never miss with my bow, and if the arrows stay embedded in my targets, it means that they need to work out how to remove them. That's often more painful than the strike."

"I hadn't considered that," I said. "Fighting with ranged weapons is so different to what I'm used to."

"Lucky for you, you've got us," Artemis said, standing up again. "I think I'll have a shower before taking the miners on a new expedition."

"I will take a bath," Aphrodite said. "I am not looking forward to the rest of today. It's going to be a long series of meetings with merchants."

"You're both doing a great a job!" I shouted after them as they retreated from the room.

Artemis was right. I was lucky to have them. Had it not been for these two extremely capable goddesses, this place would probably have crumbled, or--at the very least--not grown as fast as we'd managed. They were both extremely talented at what they were doing and it was thanks to their careful planning and flawless execution of my vision that Mount Olympus was becoming as strong as it was.

Not to mention that if they hadn't been here when my father sent Typhon to destroy me, there was no way I would have escaped with my life, let alone succeeded in killing him and being crowned supreme monster slayer. Everything I had accomplished so far, I would have struggled to do without them.

Since they didn't seem particularly interested in the magic items we'd secured from the altar, I placed the five I'd already checked back into my inventory, leaving another five on the table. These were the more unusual ones and so I'd deliberately left them until last.

The first one seemed like a dark red ball made of very light material which was filled with air. I had seen devices like this used as flotation assistance for younglings, or to increase buoyancy on rafts. This particular one, however, looked extremely thin and prone to breaking and it fell very slowly when I let it drop from my hands.

* * *

Item: Balloon of Danger

Type: Magic Item

Durability: 1/1

Grade: E Grade

Weight: 0.1st.

Description: A balloon filled with air. It is indestructible by any type of piercing or under pressure. The only time it will burst is when its owner is in danger. This item can only be used once.

* * *

This was one of the most bizarre magic items I had seen. The oddities started with the claims that it was indestructible. I wasn't going to try to burst it with magic, but it looked so brittle that I couldn't resist at least trying out a couple of things to test it out. First I took out a small, sharp dagger from my inventory and pressed it against the red surface. The balloon gave, but no matter how hard I pressed, after a certain degree, it just wouldn't even go any deeper in. It was as if there was no way to pierce through it. Then I decided to change my tactics and this time put the balloon between my feet, holding it firmly in place and thrusting down the same dagger but with more force. Not only did the balloon not break, but it also managed to escape my grip and bounced up to the ceiling before slowly falling down again.

No matter what method I used, I wasn't able to even put the tiniest of holes in it. Sitting on it, pinching it and trying to saw it. Nothing worked. The balloon was indeed indestructible, which made it easier for me to believe that the part about it only bursting if I was in danger was really true too.

There was no reason for me to try to destroy it really, especially since I then wouldn't be able to use it again. But this whole demonstration would probably be enough to convince any prospective buyers.

I picked up the remaining magic items from the ground and moved to one of the large couches, dropping them onto the soft pillows next to me, taking the first of the four remaining items in my hands.

* * *

Item: Potion of Immovable Invisibility

Type: Magic Item

Durability: 10/10

Grade: E Grade

Weight: 4st.

Description: The weakest available form of an invisibility potion. Consuming this will render the user completely invisible for 10 seconds. The concoction, however, has been so badly handled that upon consumption, the user is also paralyzed for 15 seconds.

* * *

Now that was one pretty awful potion. Being invisible would open a lot many doors, especially when dealing with lower-leveled individuals. But not being able to move very much limited the possibilities for where it might be wise to use it. The only place I could see it potentially being useful was when someone was being chased and disappearing into thin air for ten seconds might make his pursuers lose him. But even then, risking five seconds of being paralyzed after the invisibility wore off was extremely dangerous. Despite this, I had no doubt there would be merchants that might want to purchase this. People tended to look at the positives of things and preferred to believe that the negatives might just never happen to them. That was why the vast majority of people never reached higher than level fifty.

The next item was a small, beautifully carved knife. Though its stats weren't great by any stretch of imagination, it would look great on the belt of any adventurer. Its handle was made of what looked like a cyan gem, which was foggy near the blade and almost translucent at its other end, while the blade was as simple as a steel dagger could be except for the faint cool glow it gave off.

* * *

Name: Shining Dagger

Type: Dagger

Rarity: E Grade

Physical Attack: 21

Magic Attack: 17

Special Ability: -

Attack Speed: Fast

Durability: 110/110

Weight: 1110st.

Description: A dagger made from metal excavated in a cave system infested with luminescent mushrooms. Millennia of absorbing their light have gifted the metal of the blade with the ability to shine with the same cold blue light that the mana core had been absorbing for years. The blade always shines and there is no way to turn off this attribute of the metal, even if it breaks into pieces.

* * *

I was positive we would have no use for it but I was still considering keeping it on me just for how beautiful it looked--even if it was only E-grade. I strapped it onto my belt instead of throwing it into my inventory and went on with the next one.

* * *

Item: Forever Bouncing Coin

Type: Enchanted Item

Durability: 70/70

Grade: E Grade

Weight: 4st.

Description: A gold coin permanently enchanted with a spell that makes it bounce forever when dropped.

* * *

I had seen an item with a similar enchantment a few years back, only that time it had been a kind of small, squishy ball. This coin felt exactly like any other gold coin, hard and cold to the touch with just the right weight behind it. I let it fall onto the low table in front of me and it started bouncing as one would have expected, but after a few seconds it still wasn't decelerating.

The distance it covered as it bounced back up was the same as each of its previous bounces and it kept going like that more than a dozen times, the sound of it hitting the table coming at perfectly equal intervals. I grabbed it and let it drop again from a smaller distance. This time, it simply hit the wooden table at much shorter intervals.

I didn't realize until it was too late that I hadn't dropped it completely perpendicular to the table and with each bounce it was slowly getting further away from me, eventually reaching the edge of the table and dropping off of it. The height from which it fell now turned into the default bouncing distance and off the coin went into the next room, bouncing off the walls and the floor, changing directions in a completely unpredictable manner.

I stood up to go chasing after it when it bounced off a small statue of an owl we kept in our living room area and out of the slightly open ventilation window above the front entrance to the manor. Oh well. I hadn't been particularly attached to it, and I guessed it would make a nice surprise for whoever eventually managed to catch it.

I turned back to the last item created by the altar and sat down to examine it, wondering why a small wooden stick might have a magic item status. But by now, I'd learned that looks could be deceiving and that was definitely true for this particular piece.

* * *

Item: Stick of Life Ward

Type: Magic Item

Durability: 60/60

Grade: E Grade

Weight: 2st.

Description: A small wooden stick that has been blessed in the rivers of the seven heavens. Once per day, the owner of this stick might draw a line in the sand, dirt, or stone with it, and create a ward against undead. Most weak undead creatures will find it particularly hard to will themselves into crossing this line. The ward remains active for 10 minutes.

* * *

Had I seen this little twig in a forest, I wouldn't have looked twice at it --maybe not even once. Creating a barrier against low forms of undead was powerful. Granted, it wouldn't work on stronger undead abominations like the ones we'd fought at the base of Mount Olympus on our way to claim it, or on someone like a necromancer or a lich. But it was perfect for lower level undead.

I placed the stick in my inventory and stood up to stretch my limbs. I knew that Aphrodite would come looking for me eventually. Going to the bathroom to meet her now would probably not be the best approach--her bathing time was her relaxing time and something that she tried to keep completely separate.

Just as I used my walks to plan and strategize as my alone time, she used bathing as hers. And so I decided to take a walk as well, and see what else there was to do in the city before retiring for the day and calling the guild meeting everyone was waiting for, the one where we would decide when and how to rescue the god of the forge from my uncle's--the titan Hyperion's--jail.