WHO Rick Palmer
WHERE Temple of Zeus, Catacombs
WHEN Early this morning (about 6am)
RATING G
SUMMARY Rick needs some guidance from his father
STATUS Complete

Rick would not normally be doing this right now, mostly because he did not do magick when he was unwell. Yesterday he had woken up with stomach and back pains, lethargy, headaches... Just general malaise. Also, his clothing did not fit him right and his digestive tract was way off. He would have thought he had a stomach bug except he did not feel nauseated. Still, in spite of his symptoms, what he had to ask, and to convey, was too important to wait. So, even though he would have rather spent the night last night curled up on the couch drinking tea and watching mindless TV, he had spent his evening searching for proper offerings to his father. Normally, he would have trusted a more general offering of incense or dried herbs, but he knew that the Greek gods had always had a preference for animal sacrifice; at least, in practice, they did. And this was important enough to follow the Old Ways. It was probably the major reason his mother had not been a true Hellenist.

Lucky for him, he had found an acceptable offering for Zeus that did not involve blood shed - pelanoi - a type of honey bread. He hadn't been able to find any recipe that specifically identified itself as a true recreation of the bread, but he had found a generic recipe for Greek honey cake, which seemed to be near enough. He also had all the ingredients to make the recipe already in his kitchen. Mostly he had selected the cake instead of the animal sacrifice because he didn't think he could find the appropriate offering - a pure white bull, goat, or cow were traditional, or a pure black specimen of the same. He doubted he could afford such a creature, or even find one that had been already butchered. Perhaps he could have found one in the Catacombs, but there was something he felt was missing in making an offering of an animal he had not butchered himself. He was not squeamish - he had hunted and dressed his own kill more than once. He also did not have the need for that much meat. The offering to his father would be a small part of the animal, and the rest was to be eaten. So, he had spent the remainder of his evening baking. And rather successfully, too, he thought.

In any case, he felt no better this morning and the frustration of feeling unwell had unexpectedly overwhelmed him to tears. He was extremely unwell, he decided, severely shocked at the stinging of tears in his eyes. Still, he had to do this today, he felt. And early, before work. Night was Hecate's realm, and Benny's covert indication to him had made him considerably more cautious. Daisuke, too, had warned him. Anyway, he had packed up the cake, a lighter, his miniature cauldron, a bottle of wine, his chalice, pen, parchment, and ink, and headed to the Temple.

Rick had been to many of the temples here in the Catacomb, and to his father's Temple many times. He looked around the familiar building, and headed to the statue of his father. Many offerings rested at his feet, and he vaguely wondered, as he had before, who tended to the temple; he had never seen a priest or priestess here, and someone had to clean out those offerings that had gone bad with time. Anyway, for the most part he was alone this early in the morning, and that suited him fine. It also occurred to him that he should have brought incense after all. It would have felt more right.

Instead, he simply unpacked his supplies, pouring some of the wine into the chalice, and kneeling on the floor to write his message on the parchment; the ink was Dragon's Blood (made from a resin, not actual dragon's blood), something he reserved for special or extremely urgent endeavors. First he poured some of the wine from the chalice into a groove on the floor. "Father Zeus," he said, arms cast wide and his eyes turned upward, "I ask that you heed my petition and offer me guidance. May my offering please you, and may my message be carried to you on Great Olympus." Setting the remainder of the wine aside, he placed the cake he had baked among the other offerings already at the base of the great statue, and then he took the parchment, folded it, and set it aflame with his lighter, dropping it into the cauldron he had brought. He watched it burn, visualizing his father receiving the message, seated on his throne. He had contemplated translating his message into ancient Greek - there were plenty of translators online. However, they weren't reliable and he couldn't afford to have it jumbled. He had written simply, "I believe Prometheus has been freed by Hecate."

Once his message had been burned to ash, he waited 13 heartbeats in silence for an answer. He didn't really expect one right now. Just as he hadn't expected on last night, even though he had prayed for one before going to bed. If he got an answer at all, he expected it to come at night, in his dreams, as Zeus had come to him before. Once the 13 heartbeats had passed, he got to his feet, poured the remainder of the wine back into the bottle, and set the bottle in with the other offerings. He gathered his things, including the burned parchment, which he would bury later, and then headed to work.