The Collaborative Story

I'm an author (wishing to remain anonymous) and had the whimsical desire to start a story with anyone here willing to join in. Read what the previous poster said then add onto the story. I won't add anything after this post, so it's up to you!

Setting: Greece during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC).
Plot device: The "Phantom Nexus"--a gateway (scattered around the Aegean) which if amalgamated leads to another dimension that offers the ability to alter our universe's reality (the history of the device is up to you to decide!).
Main antagonist: Xenos. He is an inhuman General in Achillia--a fictional group of warrior philosophers but has gone rogue with a scheme to obtain the Phantom Nexus. He wants to use it to end all life in the universe to end all suffering.
Main protagonist: The little boy at the end (who I left nameless for you to name). He is also involved somehow (you decide) with the plot device (hence the oracle reference in the story below).
Inspirational music: www.youtube.com...=25

I provided a lot to work with below. There's back-story references you may build from and there's nonfictional characters alive at this time period (Socrates, Plato, Sophocles, Nicias, Gylippus, Alcibiades, etc.). There are also plenty of battles/historical events you can put in (e.g. Sicilian Expedition, Battle of Mantinea, etc.).

OR you may add something sci-fi--that's why the main antagonist has violet eyes. Perhaps he's an experiment by ancient alien gods (the "Olympians") that forsook mankind centuries ago? You decide.

Some chronologically accurate names to help you with naming characters: Cadmus, Lykaios, Leander, Xylona, Zandros, Hector, Thadeus, Typhon, Sefu, Gahiji, Dasius, Kastor, Ptolemy, Fedro, Magnes, Zethus.

PS If anyone thinks I should turn this into a full-length manuscript, let me know.

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Chapter One: Midnight Omen

----“True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.”
---------Socrates of Athens

----“These eyes have witnessed the world, these hands have shaped history and yet…I cannot see nor hold my true desire.” He stood on the cliff’s grassy ledge, his long raven hair whipping back in the cold night’s wind as he looked down at Greece’s Ionian Sea. The reflection of the full moon kissed the water’s surface and the golden breastplate covering his dark tunic. Two violet jewels in the shape of dragon eyes glistened upon his armor over his chest.
----He raised a pendant around his neck from underneath his breastplate, tenderly feeling it in his hand and with his mystifying violet eyes. It was a small, circular bronze charm with a crude smile and eyes etched into the rusty surface. “Faint memories, a world so long ago, where do you exist now…what has become of me?” he said quietly, seemingly void of emotion.
----A man clad in dark leather armor over a white tunic approached from behind and stood a few paces back, all of his face but his shining emerald eyes caste in shadow by the overhanging ash trees. Two Specters appeared to each side of him from the dark forest, their faces covered with fanged, ghastly white masks bathed in moonlight. Their clothes were seamless and wrapped tightly around their bodies with protrusions extending diagonally from the shoulders.
----“A nice night, General Xenos,” said the man in white, readjusting the large round hoplon shield over his left arm. The two dark robed figures stood silently peering through the black pits in their masks.
----Xenos closed his eyes contently. “Indeed, Metrion.”
----"After all the years you still talk as though she’s beside you,” commented Metrion solemnly as several moments of silence followed. “I’ve come to confirm a suspicion,” he added grimly.
----“I presumed so, with the unannounced visit and Specters by your side,” Xenos tucked the charm back under his breastplate and continued facing out to the wide sea.
----“Achillians have been assassinated as far as Sicily and Babylon,” said Metrion, worrying about the implications soon to follow. “All of them thus far were ones present during the Delphian oracle’s prophecy five years ago. A prophecy you and I are last alive that witnessed.”
----Xenos sighed. “How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in the truth.”
----“What compelled you to this?” asked Metrion, confused.
----The two Specters exchanged side glances.
----“There is no need to elucidate. Just know my end lies in forging the Phantom Nexus, which shall be made evident with morbid clarity.”
----“So that’s your goal, to pass beyond the Nexus and obtain unbridled power? I do not know what role the prophecy of my son has to do with this, but your treachery will not be tolerated,” said Metrion boldly. “You and any in your footsteps, nay, even your shadow, shall be hunted down.”
----Xenos opened his gaze to regard the calm sea. “This world long abandoned, the human race long forsaken by the gods and flung endlessly from one conflict to another…yet you oppose me? I will end the sufferable cycle.”
----“Any warped ambition of yours shan’t be realized,” said Metrion regrettably while placing his right hand on his sword’s dragon-like handle. His emerald eyes resonated with a sense of anxiety. He inhaled deeply the salty tang of the sea air before speaking firmly, knowing the finality of the words that followed. “Xenos the Eternal of Troy, you are being relieved of your position as an Achillian general and are being taken prisoner.”
----The silent Specters each unsheathed two long daggers from their thighs as they stealthily began moving toward either side of Xenos.
----Xenos chuckled lightly and averted his gaze to the massive hanging moon that was being encircled by murky clouds.
----“Your treasonous acts of sedition and assassinations is punishable by death…but you, as now ex-general, have right to seek mercy before the Achillian Council.” Metrion tightened his grip on the handle. “I dispatched message to the Council already of this encounter, so if you try to end my life they will know whom to blame. I implore you to come peacefully.”
----“Your message has been intercepted by others of shared purpose. The Council shall remain ignorant of your revelation for many sunsets,” said Xenos confidently, turning to face his old comrade. With his back to the moon and long hair blowing over his face, his eyes resembled two small, yet fierce violet flames in the black void that matched those of his armor’s. The Specters halted from the startling siege. A chill ran through Metrion as he realized he was soon to be confronting a man who had irreverently walked the edge of death countless times. “Lest you wish this malevolent night to be your last with breath, pledge your allegiance to me, old friend.”
----Metrion regrettably unsheathed his kopis. The scarce moonlight seeping through the thickening clouds danced on the long curved blade and left a twinkle in the dragon’s red gaze. “I’d surrender my breath using my hands for any ideology that warrants death of good people,” he said unflinching. “As first Achillian, you’ve strayed far.”
----Xenos calmly inspected the Achillians insigne of Alpha (Α) inside Omega (Ω) engraved upon Metrion’s blade before the moon became completely engulfed, causing a deep blackness to descend upon the lands and sea. “The beginning and the end,” he said thoughtfully. “No better place for it than on a blade.”
----Metrion’s eyes glimmered with a haunting anxiety in the dark, realizing there were no negotiations to be done. The two Specters crouched low to the ground, assuming an attack stance.
----Xenos extended his arms wide out to his sides. “Come, as one insubstantial shadow of dust upon another.”
----“It is tragedy to come to this,” Metrion put one foot forward and tensed his whole body, ready to lunge forward with shield and sword. The two Specters raised their daggers and spun them rapidly, causing a swishing noise as they slowly advanced on Xenos.
----“Then let us see this tragedy to the end and who Destiny shall chose,” said Xenos, eagerly keeping his excited eyes on Metrion. “But can you awaken me from this nightmare that has perpetually haunted me for over half a millennia?” He gripped the handles of the two long swords on his waist, unsheathing the straightforward blades from the scabbard as his eyes fanatically gleamed. “Can you set me free into oblivion!?”


----Ellina awoke from her fleece covered bed gasping. Her chest heaved for air as the cool night breeze met with the sweat on her forehead and neck, sending a chill through her frail body. She sat up, moving her long dark hair from her face to behind her ears.
----A sudden wave of grief swept over her as she looked out the small circular window from her bed, the vision of her husband’s death echoing in her mind.
----“M-Metrion?” she whispered his name through a cracking voice. Her skin was pale from the shock as her heart inexplicably grew hollow, causing her stomach to churn. Tears swelled behind her brown eyes when the wood door to her room lightly creaked open and a small boy’s face peered through.
----“Mommy?” the boy asked curiously while entering. “You ok?”
----“Everything’s ok,” she said in a waning voice, trying to keep her composure. “Go back to sleep.”
----“I-I had a bad dream…about daddy,” the boy said with a worried expression, looking up at his mother sitting on the bed.
----Ellina looked down at him through her watery vision. He was a small, timid boy, of barely five years old with her dark hair and her husband’s emerald eyes. She wondered if he had the same dream.

Chapter Two: Transfinite

----"If there are many, they must be as many as they are and neither more nor less than that. But if they are as many as they are, they would be limited. If there are many, things that are are unlimited. For there are always others between the things that are, and again others between those, and so the things that are are unlimited."
---------Simplicius(a) On Aristotle's Physics

----Thexo's mind was like being in a cloud of colors and sounds from which no intelligent data could be gathered to make sense of the new world around him. But something he thought was a sound seemed familiar. It made him think of this young creature that appeared long ago in his research facility; Kastor was his name.
----His mind drifted back to that first moment when his experiment on a new type of propulsion was being tested.
"O Khroin Thex. An anomaly is being detected in the fuel chamber.", reported the Watcher.
---"What could possibly corrupt a perfectly pure fuel-void?", replied Thexo, waving his wrinkled hand before a mist, making an image appear on it. Thexo could see a dancing vapor, flickering like a candle exposed to the wind. The vapor was becoming denser rapidly, and Thexo could now see a shape forming in the void.
----But there was something strange in it. Every moment that passed saw it being different, sometimes big, most of the times small. As if a metamorphosing small child had been put into the fuel-void chamber. One thing was unmistakable for Thexo; the creature was afraid. Thexo waved his hand again before the mist and began to speak to the creature.

----"Wake up, Thexo! Do you hear me?", said Kastor, his violet eyes showing some worries for the well being of his friend. But Thexo was quickly standing up with the teenager's help, dead leaves and sand stuck on his clothes. "Are we really holding hands, after all those years?" laughed faintly Thexo.
----"The world has strange qualities for myself also, Thexo. But some sensations are coming back now, like heat and cold." Kastor was looking at the bushes and threes surrounding them, their leaves dancing with the wind, as if inspired by the near sea.
----"I think my brain is acclimating to your world, Kastor... I am standing firmly on the ground, is that right?" Thexo was tentatively hitting the land, sending small puffs of dust swirling around his ankles. Something he had never seen before. "Oh! Is the land answering the beat of my foot?", he asked Kastor who was staring at the top of the hills. There stood two people looking like Kastor, but dressed differently. Around them were creatures that Kastor recognized as being as precious and useful as a drop of Dlag-io fly, but did not remember their name, despite his best efforts.
----He was reflecting on the best course of action to initiate some form of communication with the two people when the smaller one began running down the hill, followed by a few sheeps. The taller one reacted by shouting something, arms raised above the head, then proceeded to hold the other sheeps remaining on the hills.
----Already, the smaller one was arriving in front of Kastor and Thexo. Kastor felt strangely paralyzed, unable to speak. The person standing before him was... a girl. He had souvenirs of his mother, but never had thought of other girls, or women... He had the impression his cheeks were catching on fire. This seemed to amuse the girl who let go of a shy laughter, turning her eyes towards the ground, also blushing.
----"Interesting!", said Thexo, getting closer to Kastor, inspecting closely the face of his young friend. "I had no idea your body could do something so unusual! Are there other similar surprises in reserve?" Kastor looked at his friend, his mind registering events at a much slower speed than usual.
----"Helenia! Helenia! Are you mad to run to strangers like that? They could have been Persians!" The young man, looking angry, was quick besides his sister, pointing his shepherd's crook in the direction of the two strangers. "Who are you? Answer me!"
----"Helenia?", said Kastor. "You have my mother's mother name..." But the angry young man made one step further, agitating menacingly his crook closer to Kastor's face. "Tell me who you are!", said the boy in a louder voice.
----Thexo decided he was firm enough to take the lead. "We are Kastor and Thexo. We come from... a far land, in hope to find merchants. Unfortunately, our arrival here was somewhat accidental, in its ending." His still faint voice had a soothing effect on the boy who relaxed, lowering his shepherd's crook . "So you are not Persian spies?"
----The young Helenia gave a little push to her brother. "Thales, don't be so rude. Do they look like spies to you? They have no weapons with them!" Thexo agreed silently by nodding his head to the side. Kastor was only looking at the young girl's eyes.
----"You are merchants, you say? What commerce is it that you do?", said Thales, still a bit nervous, gently squeezing his shepherd's crook. Thexo smiled gently at Thales. "We are merchants of wonderful ideas of things mechanical."
----Thales looked at both friends and said, in a proud voice; "Well, if you are merchants, you fell to the right place. You are on the island of Naxos, the world center of commerce!" Looking at his sister, he ordered her to round up the sheeps and go back up the hill with them.
----"Follow us to the pasture with the sheeps, we will share our dinner with you there, and at the end of the afternoon, I will accompany you to the city. Maybe you will find your shipmates waiting for you there.", said Thales, turning to help her sister.

----Resting in the shadow of a tree after a light meal, Thexo stares at the sea. "I find your rolling lands to be fascinating! Always moving, never the same... and yet, it does not break!" Pointing to the sky, he continues; "To see naturally formed mists is a concept I find hard to grasp..." But Kastor was interrupting him.
----"Remember Thexo; the rolling lands are called water and those mists are... hum..." "Clouds!", answered Thexo. His hand on Kastor's shoulder, he says; "Do not forget, my friend, that this world is as new to me as mine was to you, so long ago. Our eyes have witnessed two worlds!"
----Thales arrived then. He surprised the duo by saying; "I never liked the name Kastor, and you, old man, have a name with no meaning to people here." Picking up his skin bag, he looked at Kastor and said; "You have eyes very alien to this country. You will now be Xenos, and you old man, you have such a strange voice, you will now be Xenophon."
----"My brother can be very blunt, sometimes. What he means to say is that the people of the city will call you by those names.", said Helenia, smiling to Kastor-now-Xenos.

----Metrion appreciated her wife's massaging his shoulders, but the words of the Oracle still echoed in his mind, like a lightning sent to explode eternally in his mind by Zeus himself. "You will lose him, you have already lost him... Protect him, for when the night comes that he kills himself, he will become the Destroyer of All!"