Reincarnated as a Phoenix

(Hades) “Here’s the deal phoenixes, once you get up there, trust no one who doesn’t show visible hatred towards Zeus. Even just the slightest amount of hesitation when it comes to showing disgust, they are not to be trusted”

(Persephone) “Lighten up, my adorable husband. Not everyone up there is against us, most might even join in arms if the possibility of his demise seems feasible enough”

(Dermakvar) “Hmph, actually agree with the God of the dead on this. It’s for the best if we trust no one, especially if they ever lived or breathed in Olympus”

(Kellearzar) “You really are a walking contradiction at times Dermakvar”

(Dionysus) “Even though I don’t really live up there anymore, I can see why you might not like us Olympians, Dermakvar”

(Asmodeus) “Heh, heed it no mind young God. He seems to dislike everyone equally, excluding family of course. Truly a dragon who knows how equality works”

(Ikarus) “You know… I’m really starting to feel like we’re the odd ones out in this group now Petra”

(Petra) “Heh, see what you mean Ikarus. We would be the youngest by a significant margin”

‘And here I thought I could never relate even more to my six-hundred-year-old wife… we’ve somehow turned into the awkward kids of the group’

The grand hall of the house of Hades, the place we’ve already been to once before, filled with all kinds of paintings and relics, also holding the portal to the heavens right ahead of us. I’m pretty excited all things considered.

At the very end of the hall sits the blackened run-down portal, covered head to toe in shrubbery with the slightest reflection gleaming from the now powered up portal itself. All portals in this world seem to share that same type of mirror effect, just this one in particular looks like it’s been through some serious wear and tear.

(Ikarus) “So then, shall we get a move on? Unless there’s anything else that needs to be addressed”

…

Both the rulers of the Underworld hold their tongues and the group we’re travelling with all nod in agreement, including the furies as they’ll be acting as our guides.

It’s definitely time to do this! Might as well hype myself up a tad, this is the fabled land of the Gods that keeps getting brought up. Eh, already know I’ll only disappoint myself but fuck it, the Underworld was kinda cool so it might be alright.

Just before we step into the abyss, two things that might be best to mention. The first is that Petra’s hand seems to wanders to a place it probably shouldn’t right now, she really does pick her moments for such a stupid action, just leave my arse alone goddamn it! The second is that Asmodeus seems to pick up on this and whispers something to us as we’re literally entering the mirror like reflection of the portal.

“By the way dark one, you need to put more energy into your barriers if you want to stop sound going though”

(Petra) “…”

“Sorry… what did you just say Asmodeus?”

“Heh, don’t worry about it sister. My room definitely wasn’t next to yours last night and I didn’t hear a peep, honest!”

…

‘What the fuck!? He freaking heard what we di-…’

And just like that, us lovebirds, my parents and Petra’s father, the furies and Dionysus, all enter the heavens…

__________

“Erm… is this it? The mighty heavens, meant to be the pinnacle of the Olympian civilization and culture, and this is it? I swear this place looks like a respawn location for an MMO or something”

(Petra) “Heh, be careful Ikarus, you’ll turn into Zeki saying things like that”

(Dermak) “Patience little one, there’s a lot more to this irritating place than just this… no idea what you’re comparing it to but you make it sound bad”

(Kell) “It’s been centuries since we last paid a visit up here… to be frank, me and your father still don’t see the appeal Ikarus. Things always change but the aura of the place always remains the same”

(Dio) “To be fair, you do have to search around a bit to find anything worth doing. Boredom runs rampant in this place so you end up spending most of the time searching for fun activities rather than actually doing anything”

‘What good ol’Dio says is basically what happens when you try to mod a game, at least from my experience’

(Asmo) “Heh, what the young God says is correct. Trying to find a good orgy is like trying to find a needle in a haystack… when I was into that sort of thing of course”

Spaced out in a gigantic rounded plaza arriving alongside everyone else, I’m getting the vibes we’re about to be trapped inside a death game VRMMO or something. The place just has that hub or started location look and feel to it.

Even the citizens of this place, or the countless Gods and Goddess roam around like aimless NPCs. The slight glaze and glow everything and everyone seems to have, us included definitely doesn’t help the tone.

It’s definitely not what I was expecting, was thinking it would be more like walking on clouds in a daytime abyss, where a Greek building or temple might show it’s face every now and then. I’m pretty certain the place we’ve arrived is the centre of a marketplace.

It’s slightly hard to tell past these stalls because marble buildings and thick fog make looking any further impossible. It’s like we’re working with terrible render distance right now… this is seriously the best way I can describe how weird this place feels.

The people around here as well, most of which dress in fancy robes, togas and shawls. White seems to be the main colour of choice, pretty much all have that godly look you might expect. Not true for everyone as some dress in armours or furs, or even just modern-ish clothing, just the majority seem to be like that.

When you have a God for anything you can imagine, seeing this many people roaming about isn’t exactly that surprising. I mean, there was a literal God for sewage and turds, I’m not making it up.

(Alecto) “Where we are right now is the centre of Olympus, the agora where everything is built around”

(Tisiphone) “Yes! You can find so much crap here, even used to buy hydra treats when Lenard was still with us”

(Megaera) “*Yawnnn*… will you just let up about that already Tisiphone? Everyone’s bored already”

Eventually, the fury sisters step forward to give us a tour of this place, directing us forward but it’s obvious only the professional Alecto seems to care about what she’s doing. Tisiphone still freaking hates my guts for killing that weird creature down in Tartarus and Megara looks half asleep like usual.

Heading through this part of the market, the stalls gradually start changing more into tables, like you might find in a casino but have way more going on inside them. Imagine a display table with glass walls keeping whatever that is inside… are those bits of broccoli? Gross…

“Huh… anyone know who those travellers are?”

“No way in Zeus’s name… we must have new Gods up here!? When is the last time something like this happened?”

“A time long enough that we’ve all forgotten… think only one of them is technically an Olympian though. That’s uninteresting”

For just a few moments while I’m getting awfully curious on the displays, nearly all the Gods in the area look towards us. Then a second later, poof, not a care in the world. All of them return to going about their business, not forming a crowd or anything like that, actually making me happy for a change.

We all know exactly what would’ve happened if these onlookers just so happened to be citizens of our islands… are we really sticking with the name Lesbos? Eh, not the time for this right now.

“Anyways… what are these things all around the place? The tables, they’re freaking weird really… thought it was broccoli but they’re actually little trees”

“That’s the entertainment up here little one. Pesky Gods wanting to replay parts of their younger years, or just simply wanting to act out plays. It leads to stupid displays like this”

 “Think it had something to do with the space up here being limited, so they had to make do with what they can, right Dionysus?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right Kellearzar. Why have the need for a world with huge space when you can just place one world inside another? All the instances and scenarios are like that around here. Unfortunately, most involve battle so partying and drinking till you’re passed out in a ditch really isn’t the norm”

When both parents and Dio loosely explain what we’re seeing, I obviously can’t help myself and go up to one of the little tables pushing in through the crowd, only to find it looks like a tiny model set of a large forest, all with several fingernail sized soldiers fighting it out on a burning battlefield. This is hella strange, oddly getting the urge to poke them, pretty sure the table is covered in a magical barrier of sorts. No squishing tiny Gods today it seems, booo…

I swear I once watched a movie with this concept, or multiples ones with the idea of making yourself smaller like this. Guessing you can easily reshape yourself again but don’t care enough to ask. Looking at some other ones, the scale appears to be even smaller, maybe even ant sized so the worlds can obviously be pretty large… huh, think that one has Olympic athletes doing things like the games that come around every four years or so. Neat.

Anyways, distractions now aside, we continue to follow the furies when I still can’t help but continue on with something else. Hey, it’s a weird world and I’m a weird but curious phoenix… or demon lord now apparently.

‘Hey Aesa… is teleportation actually stopped up here or not? You haven’t said anything about just yet’

Honestly, I’ve been missing speaking to Aesa so this is partially an excuse just for a quick convo. Do also want to know but that robotic voice echoing around in my bird sized brain really can be relaxing at times… I’m so freaking weird.

[<Teleportation isn’t switched off Ikarus, just locked to that current world in particular. Unsure if it would apply to those other ones, Aesa assumes it might>]

‘Thanks Aesa… you know, it’s pretty weird how we can even communicate considering the time span is supposed to be unreadable. Right now, couldn’t days be passing while you’re talking to me like this?’

There’s no point even asking Petra this right now, she would’ve said already if she could tell but I do raise a decent point. The timespan up here is supposed to be wildly inconsistent compared to back down in the human world.

[<You’re getting sidetracked Ikarus with pointless things, my consciousness is still linked to yours so best not think about it too much>]

‘Right right Aesa…’

Getting back into the moment, I’ve just realized our party of nine has reduced to eight. Who could be missing? Everyone’s favourite third wheel of course!

“…Huh, anyone know where the hell has Asmodeus has gone?”

…

Heh, everyone else looks around as confused as me when all of us have failed to realize Petra’s father has wandered off. Normally, I’d be all for it but we kinda need him, especially up here. These fury sisters and this tour doesn’t exactly seem to be going anywhere, swear we’re just walking in circles now…

“You know, what are you even supposed to be showing us anyways? You three have visited this place before, right?”

(Alecto) “My apologies orange phoenix but the God and Goddess of the Underworld didn’t make it clear what exactly they wanted us to show you. Presumably, they guessed we’d just guide you to the answer?”

(Tisiphone) “It ain’t that sister! Of course, the masters would know the way forward, right? Hopefully it involves getting revenge on the person who killed Lenard”

(Megaera) “Honestly, we’ve never gotten any further than the marketplace before returning home, let alone out of sight of the plaza so I’m not sure where we’re supposed to bring you now”

‘Talk about miscommunication much, we’ve basically been gifted guides that don’t even know how to guide!’

I was hoping Hades and Persephone wouldn’t be useless as much as the other Gods we’ve come across, pretty naïve of me thinking like that. Eh, maybe these three idiots just wanted to impress so they volunteered for a job they really shouldn’t have. Might even be better if we just dump them off now.

As much as I’m normally the one to show visible annoyance when it comes to complaining, everyone else also seems to be a little frustrated from the situation we’ve ended up in. Our main goal is to try and defeat Zeus and the guy who was basically acting as our prophet leaves us with guides who cannot guide, in a world that seems more like a gimmick than somewhere you’d want to live. This is a perfect time to complain, right?

“Young God, any idea how we can go about this now? You’ve spent the most time up here out of us all”

Thankfully, father is able to power through his annoyance… he basically is annoyed twenty-four seven anyways.

“Our best bet would be to try and find people of a similar mind to us, only problem is that might be impossible. Look around, how many people seem to be in uproar over what’s going on?”

As much as Dio says that, there definitely appears to be some odd feeling of resentment lingering in this place, even just the look of distaste sticks on the odd Gods face. Although I’ve never experienced it, maybe it’s comparable to how dictatorships run states? The entire population may put on a brave face but deep down, that feeling of being oppressed can never fully leave. No idea how Zeus is able to go about doing that when I haven’t the foggiest where he is right now… could be me just overly speculating like usual. I need some content to work off right now!

“Hang on, wasn’t this place supposed to be in civil war though? By the sounds of it, this entire world was supposed to be in constant war?”

“We are Ikarus, it’s just that anyone brazen enough to attack like a madmen would’ve ended up in chains or punished already, at least if they were to go about doing that in the agora. No, we need to find the actual rebellion before doing anything of real note”

‘He says that as if we don’t have the literal dragon of end times travelling with us. Mother really is a beast, even in human form like so’

(Petra) “Heh, anyone have any ideas for now, or are we going just going to keep walking in circles?”

“Guess we… could try a bar? A lot of myths and legends normally start that way”

Don’t get me wrong, we all know Dio is probably an alcoholic and this is clearly him trying to be subtle, this idea does seem like the only thing we can go off right now though. The fury sisters are practically useless and already look like they desperately want to leave, maybe they have agoraphobia or something when outside the Underworld? Heh, that was a stupid unintentional pun.

Regardless, they’re useless right now, might prove useful for some cannon fodder down the line but dead weight for now. Eh, it’s a bit harsh but we really can’t be carrying anyone with how things are going to go. Calm before the storm and all that.

‘Looks like we’re heading to a bar. Huh, maybe I’ll finally get to try what this ambrosia crap is like…’

__________

Eventually, we come across a tavern of sorts, now as a party of five when a strange encounter hits us in the face, or more specifically bumping right into my chest and face...

“Oops, sorry for tha-… well, isn’t this just delightful…”