Inferno Ascended

The rain outside fell all afternoon as Damiamon poured down on them, chaotically and tinged with conflicting emotions, everything that prompted the king of Valya to send an expedition to Stygia, into the depths of Hell. And how things didn't turn out as they planned.

Even Mors clarified some points that Damiamon could not know. Death had watched everything, from a limited point of view but close to the events surrounding the chthonic world.

Anankethon, The Spinning Wheel of Doom, was created by Hephaestos. 

He didn't name it like this in the beginning, of course. Its initial name was Arachmatos Spinning wheel.

He didn't name it like this in the beginning, of course. Its initial name was Arachmatos Spinwheel.

Glax had had a clue as to the personality of the so-called God of Fire and the Forge, creator of the divine machines and all the wonders and artifacts that made the Olympians so awesome. A resentful and introspective guy who expressed himself with amazing machines and artifacts. He made everything around him comfortable, easy, spectacular.

But he wasn't always as well received as his gifts.

He left Olympus and went to Hades out of his own free will. No one from Olympus would think of making such an exchange. 

But, coming to think of it, what was Olympus if not a heavenly condo for Zeus' close family?

There they lived:

1) and 2): Zeus and his last wife, Hera. 

Each had a premarital child, 3) Athena and 4) Hephaestos, respectively. 

5) Auntie Aphrodite and 6) Auntie Hestia lived there too.

The first, because she married Hephaestos; and the latter because she was the single sister of the owners of Olympus.

And 7) Ares, the manly heir of the royal couple and rebel son, and his little sisters 8) Enio, 9) Eleutia, 10) Éris e 11) Hebe.

Zeus' offspring out of marriage, the twins 12) Artemis and 13) Apollo, and youngest son 14) Hermes were brought to Olympus too. And of course their attendants and favorites.

Whatever was the last straw for Hephaestos, he divorced and left Olympus to collapse by itself, and asked for shelter to Hades.

The Underworld has also become incredibly sophisticated and comfortable with Hephaestos' functional geniality. 

Hades court enjoyed his presence the most, and were not at least displeased by his appearance or somewhat broody and hardworking nature.

Until Hephaestos created the weaving machine, and gave it to the Moirae.

The artifact did not work as expected. In its first use 'in production' the Spinning Wheel tangled many threads and, when trying to turn it off, it wasn't possible.

It continued spinning and spinning new threads while the horrified Moirae tried to contain the crescent problem… Hephaestos was called in, but not even he could deal with what he had created. The machine was 'programmed' to do the job efficiently… Weaving destiny, until the end.

Shocked by what he did, Hephaestos realized there was no way to stop his creation. And with his divine hammer, he hit the machine with a violent blow. But the machine simply swallowed him, as if it were a ravening monster.

Immediately, a terrible earthquake shook even the depths of Hades. Little was known at the time, but the Spinning Machine had caused an irreversible break, which was only noticed too late.

The Titans, locked in the abyss called Tartarus, escaped shortly after the earthquake broke through. 

Their escape route passed through the Rivers Cocytus and the Phlegethon, reaching Asphodel. That's where they proposed a deal to the Forgotten Shades, promising to take them to the surface in exchange for their support against the Olympians.

What ensued was so swift and violent that even Death credited the result to the confused Moiraes. They most likely had to choose 'the lesser of evils'. Sparing, as always, the vast majority, as they prepared to untangle Fate with caution. 

Sacrifices, crimes and injustices were committed, but the war ended so a new status quo could put things at ease again.

The defeated Olympians were thrown into Tartarus. 

And the dangerous Arachmatos Spinning Wheel, which broke the War of Ascension, was thrown down into the abyss with them.

The Ascended ones found that leaving the Underworld wasn't that simple, so all they could do was Ascend Hell.

Old Hades agreed if they could just shut up and take care of the living, for a change. The Titans realized they would have a lot more to contend with than just the Olympians and Poseidon. And they closed the case as the best possible deal.

But the goddess Night could not sleep with the murmuring noise of the Spinning Wheel of Doom.

From her vast domains on the fringes of the Underworld, Nix could hear how the machine was consuming, tweaking and recreating everything, deep in the Abyss. It became a new goddess, Anankethon, weaving the end of what was known.

From all her sons and loyal subjects, Kaine heard Nix. The king of Valya, lord of the vselys, proposed to send heroes to destroy Anankethon. 

Damiamon, and several others sailed across the Sea of ​​Mists, and came to Stygia. 

The journey was arduous, and they lost a lot on their way to the Ascended Hell. They discovered Stygia differed greatly from what they imagined and dealing with the Stygian clans was an unfortunate necessity. 

They were not well received by the Stygian.

Outnumbered, they had to surrender and became hostages to the Pharisians, just because they weren't officialy treated as prisoners. 

After a while, Damiamon managed to talk to the Stygian Emperor, about who they were and what they wanted to do. Rather than directly finding the entrance to Tartarus, they found that not even the Stygians knew how to get there. 

And the vselys also discovered that the Empire didn't want to defy their gods and open up Tartarus again. 

Without getting the expected help, the vselys would have to find their way alone, while facing everyone's distrust. The Stygians had their own problems, like feuds with other clans, and with the Silvan tribes. The vselys needed to make strong allies to carry out their plan.

Around the same time, the Prometheans arrived from the Perseic Sea.

They claimed to descend from Prometheus, a Titan condemned to eternal torture for having given fire to humans. Their arrival was welcomed, and the Stygians were very interested in all the technological advances the 'Steam People' had to offer. 

Only with time did the vselys manage to reverse their situation, offering part of their knowledge to their allies. Also, vselys discovered the Prometheans had a definite purpose for coming to Stygia: to find out what had happened to the Olympians and get to the power source Hephaestus used for his machines.

Little by little, Stygia split between the allies of the Vselys and the allies of the Prometheans. Everything changed again when a woman came to the throne. 

When Empress Urania received Damiamon again, the group of vselys had been greatly reduced. But they managed to convince her to share where the entrance to the Underworld was, in exchange for more knowledge. Thus, he managed to send 16 Explorers to Hades, with the consent of Urania.

Meanwhile, the Empress was being pressured by the allies of the Prometheans. Thinking she could make alliances with both Realms, she then sent her eldest son, the future emperor, to visit Pandora, the land of the Prometheans. At the same time, she was sending her youngest son to Valya.

However, the letter from Stygia's heir saying he would not return caused a stir. The enemies of the Prometheans used it to start a war, and it soon involved the defenders of the vselys, and the clans took sides. 

As Damiamon said, the vselys weren't interested in war (?!!!). But of course, the Prometheans had no right to grab ichor to power their machines, and conquer every inch of everything… 

Damiamon was protecting Empress Urania, as he promised, but had to leave her side when the first of the Explorers resurfaced from the depths of Tartarus.

After all, his companion had become a monster.

While the vselys were involved in the war, they found that intense and corrupting energy tainted their friends who went to Tartarus and made it back.

With some effort, they contained them - some voluntarily, and others by force - in the Forges of Souls, which arrived on the Argos II.

It also didn't take them long to realize that the energy contained in their ex-mates could, and should, be used up to their advantage in the war against the more tech-wise Prometheans. 

By linking them to mechanisms, little by little the energy was transformed in force and dissipated by work, relieving the corrupted vselys' body and mind. Rather than condemning their mates to an eternity locked away inside a sarcophagus, they could try to cure them. It took months, and even years, to completely cleanse an Explorer, but it worked.

Damiamon was totally involved in recovering his friends and preventing them from becoming a huge threat to Stygia, and had a war to take part of. It wasn't going exactly like in the original plans.

The Explorers failed, and what they saw in the Tartarus was almost lost. The Spinning Wheel of Doom, they said, did it to them...

Then Urania died and Achmeron became emperor. 

Emperor Achmeron sought to remain unbiased at first. 

But after a successful terrorist attack during the funeral of his third bride, he declared both the vselys and the Prometheans to be enemies of Stygia, and waged war on them.

He was dead, too, according to Damiamon. Pharisian necromancers, the ones who stole vselys knowledge, made him a revenant.

The civil war got worse and only ended with the victory of the Emperor side with the aid of Echelians and Delpians, against pro-vselys and pro-Prometheans.

The vselys were cornered and without resources to continue.

Some were captured and enslaved, others had to flee, as they had no way to return to Valya. Some Valya's Cauldrons were lost during the war. Others were destroyed.

So Damiamon had wandered about, trying to find his comrades and rescue the Cauldrons. He was unsuccessful, as those he found were corrupting everything around them. All he could do was destroy the tainted creatures they became.

Then he found Sarpedon, who was also looking for him.

Sarpedon, according to Damiamon, claimed to be the son of Zeus. What, for the vselys, was just a vague and useless claim.

He was part of Hades' court and could come and go as he pleased, or so he claimed to the vselys. But he had a sweet talk to lure Damiamon over. He said they had a plan to get to and from Tartarus, and destroy Anankethon.

The vselys summed up the plan.

It involved a metal giant, and the soul of a warrior named Chriseis.