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The land blurs - Arion’s every stride pushing you faster. In the first moment, you leave behind your uncles. In the second, the Dionysian priest is left in your wake, his lesser steed unable to keep pace. Arion senses your fear - his ears drawn tightly against his skull, his teeth bared in a silent grimace. Your heart pounds - your eyes water as you learn what the common phrase <span class="mu-i">blinding speed</span> truly means. Larissa grows larger by the second, and here you realize your folly – in your haste, you had forgotten that the western side of the hill is composed of dry dirt and parched grass. Arion cannot safely ascend the crumbling hillside trails and switchbacks at a full gallop, but instead must canter carefully, leaping over minor obstacles and small defects in the path. As you approach, you see white-robed figures dotting the hill’s peak – perhaps one hundred in total, although why your wife would have ascended Larissa with so many Dionysians for escort, you have no idea.
As Arion begins the ascent, you shout fervent prayers to the divines for your wife’s wellbeing as you nearly tear your hair out as his necessary caution. Fortunately, Arion’s endurance is boundless - any other stallion might flag after a sprint with a giant on his back, but not so here – his hooves alight quickly over the uncertain terrain, urged by your own panicked pleas.
The Dionysian priest’s face is still in your mind – your wife would not call you for this way unless her life was in danger. Euanippe is in danger!
<span class="mu-r"><span class="mu-s">Your wife is in danger![\b][\red]
Once you are close enough to the hilltop, you leap off Arion’s broad back, and finish the sprint yourself – cresting over the rise, you are immediately mobbed with Dionysians, reaching out to touch you, entangling you with grasping hands. The young men and woman have glazed eyes, absent smiles – over their heads, you see your wife collapsed in a heap forty strides away, flanked by two pale-robed priestesses - these fools are too intoxicated to notice your wife’s dying breaths! They are pleading with you, but their words are the nonsensical mutterings of vagrants and drunkards. You immediately begin shoving the fools aside, scattering them like chickens, and as you do so, you roar in anger:
<span class="mu-i">“OUT OF THE WAY, DEVIANTS! BE GONE!”</span>
You trample some underfoot, and toss others aside as you smash forwards, while still more latch onto your neck and shoulders, seeking to restrain you. One dark-haired woman latches onto your left wrist with an iron grip, and with shocking strength, wrenches you low enough for a sibilant whisper:
<span class="mu-g">“Ah, so this is how obedience is obtained… Well done, prince of Argos!”</span>
>Tisiphone Bond: 0 / ??
You retract your hand in shock and stumble, losing sight of Her – and casting a wild glance behind you, you see the "woman" disappearing in the roiling surf of white-robed bodies.
>cont</span></span>
