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She analyzes your bared face - her expression unreadable.
After a long pause, She strides forward again, nodding towards the corpses at your feet:
<span class="mu-g">“A fitting end for these betrayers. The father and son killed the wife – the reason does not matter. The youngest sons murdered their elder brother in revenge.”</span> The goddess looks to the snake-corpse, still pinned to the earth with your spear – the thing that was once Iladros, and She speaks further:
<span class="mu-g">“They swore an oath to maintain the deception, even upon pain of death. Oathbreakers are no better than animals. The middle son will be denied even his afterlife, now.”</span>
You are unsure what to say – what to do. Should you speak? You can’t quite summon the courage, as She steps closer.
<span class="mu-g">“This doom was brought upon them by a girl of ten summers, Hippomedon. The trod-upon sister that was forgotten by her overbearing brothers, by her absent father. It is the unseen scalpel that cuts the deepest.”</span>
She now stands before you – you crane your head to meet Her golden eyes. She is displeased with you.
<span class="mu-g">”Bold of you to meet the eyes of a goddess, Talaides – too bold. You are a crude implement, meant to smash and destroy. Like all men, you are impious, impatient, inconstant, frail. And yet… you are capable of lesser judgment, and low cunning is not beyond you. And you possess a strange restraint, for a man of your talents. You are not without an ill-formed sense of reason.”</span> She pauses here, her face sphinxlike, uninterpretable – her golden eyes wander from you, looking over your shoulder into the dark forest.
You clear your throat in preparation to speak – is she asking you something? Should you respond? As you open your mouth, Her eyes narrow back on you – the force of Her will clamping your jaw shut, crushing your shoulders, your legs temporarily buckling under the pressure. You fall to your knees, but manage to force your head upright once more, meeting Her eyes with your own.
She grimaces – a goddess’s disgust marring her perfect features:
<span class="mu-g">[bold]“With all your faults - you will have to do.</span>[/bold]
>TISIPHONE BOND: -1 / ??
<span class="mu-g">“If you seek to please me, you will abandon this venture to Orkomenos. Kill or release your hostage, I care not which. Return to Argos, and attend to your wife, Hippomedon Aristomachides.</span>
And then, abruptly, She is gone.
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