IC Story Thread: The Call of Apollo

Looking you all over a bit skeptically, the hoplite nods and says, "Very well... Supplies might be harder to come by, at the moment. There is trouble on the roads these days... But if you have the coin, I have no doubt you can purchase the necessities.

And, eh, I saw that you came from the west...", he gestures with his spear, "...and you look... pardon my saying, but you're a bit bedraggled. Did you encounter the boar? Do you have any information from your travels you could share? It is a time of high alert for Calydon."

The hoplite shrugs, "Heard a few things... and seen some men that looked like they'd been on the receiving end of an avalanche. Don't really know the truth if any of it.

They say it's thrice the height of any man. They say it can't be killed - hide as thick and tough as stone, they say. I guess it demolished a garrison stationed at a fortress in the hills to the west - the survivors were the men I saw. Now it's ravaging the fields and vineyards for kilometers in any direction.

Hasn't made it this far east yet, but we figure it's only a matter of time.

You say you're hunters?", he shakes his head, "Best advice is to move on from here. Only folks staying are them that got nowhere to go."

"Scattered all over town. We've commissioned families mostly to care for them. I don't have specific locations.

Though I do know there is a large continent at the gymnasium, near the pantheon temple."

It takes some time to find the gym, Calydon is not overly large, but like many towns it is dense and grew haphazardly and is not particularly easy to navigate. With the organization of streets and districting arising out of pure necessity, in the moments they came into being, rather than any planning.

But with some asking around and only a bit of aimless wandering, you eventually find your ways to one of the few stone buildings that is not in the city center which is the gymnasium.

Being all males, you have no trouble entering the facility, and soon you come to an area where there are perhaps a dozen men sitting and laying about on hide cots in various stages of recovery from various sorts of severe-looking injuries. Head injuries, splinted or maimed or even missing limbs. Only a couple are aware enough to look up at your approach, but there isn't much about you to hold their interest and they soon return their attention to themselves. There are a couple young men tending to the needs of the wounded. Bringing water, or food to those that cannot feed themselves, so on...

He looks up at Pagoni, "The boar?", he shakes his head, "It was humongous... and fast... and mighty. All of our attacks were ineffective. Spear, sword, arrow... nothing.

I... don't know how I survived, last thing I remember, it charged into a phalanx. Men flying into the air... screaming.", he shakes his head, "Then just black... next thing I knew I was here."

"It found us, at the garrison... I was stationed there. Came from... nowhere? No one knows. No scouts saw it coming until it was upon us. And it's not exactly the type of thing you can miss...

I... haven't been getting briefed regularly, but last I'd heard, it wasn't going anywhere. It will range for a ways, but always returns to the garrison fortress. Now ruined I hear.

Some call it a plague from the gods for our misdeeds, or lack of faith, or loyalty. Some say it's here to destroy the gods themselves... From what I've seen, either could be true."

The soldier closes his eyes, thinking, "Ehh... we're in Calydon. The fortress was maybe 15 kilometers to the west. At the base of the foothills... And, no, nothing seemed to even hardly penetrate it's skin.

That's why it's whispered it must be a creation of the gods."

You can all tell that much of the information which the soldiers have related to you is redundant by now, and likely only represents a surface understanding. That information source probably doesn't have much left in it for you. It's hard to imagine that anyone has more direct experience with the thing, but it does sound like people in the streets are talking about it. Particularly in the context of the gods. Perhaps priests might be able to inform you in some aspect? Or sometimes the streets had dark secrets too?