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 Hemera Selenes, Poseideon 8,346 B.C.E.

The day of the Moon, the Festival of Poseideon, four days before the Winter Solstice, in the 3rd day of the 108th Olympeion.

The deities and spirits and other powers responsible for the weather in Athens have chosen to celebrate this particular day in history by continuing the dreary wind and rain that have sat over Athens like a ripe olive tree for the better part of a week. The entire city of Athens is thrilled at the prospect of another rainy Winter day.

As it is the festival of Poseideon, Purithenes has already planned on traveling up the mountain to the Erechteion (the Temple of Poseidon Erechtius) in the Acropolis, but now he has a whole different reason: Casualties from the Sea.

Athens has been abuzz today about an expedition for a sacred sword returning to Athens, having lost three whole trireme ships out of the four total.. The corpses that could be salvaged (only fourteen men) have been laid out on the ground next to the Erechteon, a fitting tribute to Poseidon, since the men were killed by a great sea serpent, the likes of which has not been seen this close to civilized lands in many Olympieae.

Purithenes moves in his usual limping walk up the winding stone pathway toward the Propeylaea, the a giant roof standing on huge colums, that covers the entrance to the mountaintop city structure of the Acropolis. He has walked with this limp for years, after sustaining a terrible injury to his left leg while serving as a Hoplite soldier on the northern coast. It was this injury that brought him to the service of his god of Fire and Forge, Hephaistus. While sick with blood loss and lying on an infirmary cot, Purithenes saw a vision of the Lame God of the Forge, walking with the same limp, and realised that this was his calling: to go forth in the image of Hephaistus, teaching craft and warmth and justice and truth - to work as the hands of his God to shape ore into great works of steel and bronze.