3,941The way up the mountain, much to Agnes's shock, was met with little obstacles. While many other pilgrims struggled to climb the numerous steps of Epidaurus, the group she found herself with navigated with precise ease.
The terrain didn't seem to matter, and around them, the warm glow of the sun's light heightened their complexions. None shone the brightest like the doctor that had treated Agnes's injuries prior.
The doctor's aura, no, everything including his demeanor was radiant. It didn't matter how rough he spoke, or how quiet he was, out of everyone else, the doctor's eyes were the most acute.
Whenever Agnes struggled or feigned to be alright, the doctor was a step ahead of her. He knew when she was forcing herself, and despite his clear annoyance, he was the first to remedy her with medicine.
Gripping tighter onto the gunny sack over her back, Agnes stared ahead at the good doctor.
As much as she could claim that the group was making good headway up Mt. Epidaurus, it was clear it wouldn't have been possible without the doctor himself.
The path ahead was almost exclusively guided by the doctor as if he'd trod over this road many many times.
Even now, the doctor led the way. Obscure paths and routes Agnes or many others wouldn't have ever thought of, he took without hesitation or doubt.
"He's…walking down the side of a cliff," Agnes muttered. Wasn't the point to be ascending up?
"Don't question it," Clio said to Agnes with a scoff, pushing past her while Daphne gave Agnes a wry smile and nodded in agreement with Clio.
Upon walking down the cliff, Caster meandered towards the base of a waterfall. Once there, he passed through the gushing waters and revealed a hidden cave entrance lined with candles which Caster quietly lit. The soft orange glow of the dim flames soon illuminated the cavernous hall to reveal man-made steps that ascended up through the bedrock.
There was an almost ritualistic sense to it, but staring at the scenery, a sense of mystery filled the air. One that Caster paid no mind to, always moving his own pace.
"Son," Apollo spoke up for the first time in a while, his tone mixed with doubt. "These steps, this place-"
Caster shook his head and continued on, cutting Apollo off and causing the Sun God to wrestle with his own thoughts.
Like sheep, the rest blindly continued to follow. After all, it wasn't as if this Dungeon Floor was like any of the rest. The way to clearing it wasn't as straightforward as any other floor. Rather, the mechanisms in place were outside of Orario's common understanding. Rather than say that this was floor was still part of the Dungeon, it was more accurate to say that the Dungeon's space and the fragment of the grail were being borrowed to project an instance in time.
A tailored floor.
It was impossible to describe it as anything else.
This place, this location, it had everything to do with Caster and even the buried wish in his own heart. The damn fragment of the grail knew as an object of power that resonated with one's wishes.
Whether it was a trap or not, or whether the path led to certain doom, Caster was stubbornly drawn onward like a moth to a flame.
And the others, in their ignorance merely followed.
Shielding her face from a beam of light, Alfia stared blankly at the sight of a grand temple that appeared on the other end of the cave Caster led everyone through.
Beyond the obscured cave beneath the foot of a water fall, the light that shone at the end of the path was one emitted from a roaring flame at the front of the temple. Dark clouds hung in the sky, creeping shadows giving way amid the turbulent back drop.
Yet, none of that mattered to Agnes.
Limping at the back and panting for breath, Agnes's pupils dilated as she bore witness to the temple she'd desperately sought to reach from the beginning.
Just like Caster had said, she reached the top quicker than she otherwise would have. Gratitude welled from within her, but even more than that was an accompanying desperation.
"M-Move," Agnes weakly shouldered past Clio, Daphne, and the others, passing even Caster as she hobbled with her gunny sack up the temple's steps.
Glancing at Apollo, Daphne rushed after Agnes when Apollo slowly nodded his head. Clio was not far from Daphne, and neither were the rest.
The one that remained at the back was Caster himself. His steps had slowed, his breathing growing even as the metal snake he kept at his side gradually slithered out of his robes and snaked onward beside him.
"Caster, is something on your mind?" Alfia said, hanging back while the others continued onward.
Apollo perked his ears from atop Caster's head, his actions exceedingly antsy. "I'm glad you asked. In fact, I think it's best we exit this floor and reconvene before-"
"There is nothing," Caster said bluntly, cutting Apollo off before addressing him directly. "If you wish to turn back, you may go, but I will continue."
Strange.
Alfia gradually tightened her expression. Once a powerhouse of the prior generation, her observation skills weren't to be underestimated. Yes, Caster was an excellent doctor, no perhaps the best doctor to have ever lived, but he wasn't an active combatant.
From the very beginning, Alfia had noted this strange air of melancholy and determination in Caster's demeanor. Coupled with his ability to navigate an alternative path up Mt. Epidaurus that bypassed the path of the pilgrims, it was too suspicious.
"You've been here before, haven't you?" Alfia said offhandedly, yet her eyes were sharp. She didn't need an answer to know that she was right. "It could have been in a dream or a vision, but given your familiarity with this place, it's clear that you have some form of tie with it."
"!" Apollo's eyes finally widened from atop Caster's head, but Caster did not answer.
Instead, Alfia knit her brows as she noted the sudden pale pallor of Apollo's complexion. The golden sheep fur made it difficult to distinguish, but Alfia was sure she read blatant panic in Apollo's eyes.
"Caster-"
"Enough," Caster continued forward into the temple, quickly catching up with the others who had already entered.
Alfia bit down on her lips, nearly scoffing as she struggled with this unknown feeling of concern that she was feeling towards another for the first time in years. What a fool.
She could only open and close her mouth, unwilling to be viewed negatively by Caster. But Apollo was different.
The Sun Gods eyes were bloodshot while hastily taking in the scenery around him and the view within the temple of Mt. Epidaurus.
"Clio, Daphne- Mphm!" Caster quickly muffled Apollo's shout to Apollo's Familia members.
What could Apollo even do in his weakened state. He tried to bite Caster's hand in order to just free his mouth, but he was a cotton ball of fluff as a golden sheep.
Inside the temple, dim candles were lit. The area was bare of any luxury, possessing only certain living necessities and a flat altar at the center lined with decanters and medical instruments.
At the foot of the inner temple, Agnes had fallen onto her knees, staring in despair as she came to realize what everyone else understood from the moment they walked in.
The temple…
"It's empty." Clio huffed, staring at the frozen Agnes in contempt for seeking a skilled doctor when the best doctor she could have asked had already been travelling with her.
"T-This can't be." Agnes said, her tone breaking as she quivered in place. "Where's the Divine Doctor? W-WHY IS IT EMTPY?!"
Amid Agnes's howl of anguish, Caster's arrival into the temple was met with bewilderment as he walked to the foot of the altar and took a seat by the work desk. His actions were as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The hand Caster used to muffle Apollo's mouth remained in place all the while.
Blankly staring up at Caster, Agnes's expression filled with blatant confusion until she soon began to point a shaking finger at Caster, her mouth opening and closing in silence.
Realization dawned after Caster pulled back his hood to reveal long locks of silver hair and handsome features that were reminiscent to the Son God's youth.
"Divine Doctor, L-Lord Asclepius!" Agnes screamed in shock.
From the very beginning, she'd been travelling with the one she sought the most.
In the muted silence of Agnes's bomb-like declaration, Agnes hurriedly tried to approach Caster. The hands that she used to hold the gunny sack, blistered and red, carefully began taking the burden off her shoulders.
"Please." Agnes continued onward to Caster.
"Please." The voice was desperate as it broke into sobs.
While Caster remained indifferent, the panic in Apollo's eyes turned into a murderous haze.
Squirming violently, Apollo managed to free his mouth long enough to yell out a single command for his Familia to hear.
"Clio STOP HER! KILL HER IF YOU MUST-!"
Frowning deeply, Caster quickly muffled Apollo's mouth again, but the words had already been spoken.
Apollo could not allow Agnes to get any closer to Caster, knowing what was to come if such actions were allowed to continue. The memory he'd seen in a vision, be it a distant past or future, all began from this point on.
Once the final line had been crossed, the Underworld would bid the Heavens to act, and the powerless Sun could only watch on.
Dazed at Apollo's urgent order, and unable to understand the change of heart, Daphne and Alfia remained frozen and rooted, but no such reservations existed for Clio and Lissos. They raised their bows and aimed to fire as Agnes stared in shock at a talking sheep.
B-By the Gods.
A tired sigh escaped Caster's mouth.
"Bothersome."
Quicker than anyone could react, a massive silver snake made of metal ensnared everyone in its coiled grasp. Clio and the members of the Apollo Familia were taken off guard as they had believed the snake to be on their side; the Divinity of the Sun flowed through it, but it had been a mistake.
"D-Dammit," Clio ground his teeth.
Frustrated as Clio was though, he like the others in his Familia couldn't really bring themselves to act against Caster as he was Apollo's son. They inwardly believed that there had to be a reason for this.
Caught in the snake's coils, none of the Apollo Familia could react, leaving only one.
Alfia stood staring at Caster. Having entered at roughly the same time as Caster, Alfia was not grouped with the Apollo Familia.
Silence suddenly stretched as the two made eye contact. Like the many times they had done so when Alfia was mute, it was as if she could now read the subtle emotions in Caster's gaze.
She lowered her stance, signalling that she wouldn't intervene much to Apollo's dismay.
Considering that those who would act on Apollo's orders were now subdued, Caster no longer saw a need to cover Apollo's mouth.
"…" With a frigid glare, Apollo was staring at Agnes and the gunny sack she now carried in her arms.
Apollo did not speak, knowing that such words would not work. The hope in Agnes's eyes was not something that could be extinguished with mere words. Heartless as it was, Apollo wished Agnes to just die.
The irony was that his wish for Agnes to die stemmed from his own affection for his child.
Yes, as much as Agnes was not Caster's murderer, in a sense, she was a catalyst by no fault of her own.
Indeed, what Agnes steadfastly carried in her gunny sack was an object with no life.
Opening the gunny sack, Agnes revealed a pale child, flesh preserved with salt, and parts already rotting.
The scent was one that Apollo should have known from the start.
A dead body.
Agnes's child, and the precursor to the tragedy that happened on that day.
It didn't have to be her. It could have been anyone else, but having come despite knowing the anger of the Gods pointed at Asclepius, she was just as guilty of pushing Asclepius to his death.
"Please, m-my child," Agnes bawled, bowing her head while placing her deceased child's body before Caster.
The will of a mother for her child, the affection that drove her to the summit of Mt. Epidaurus with no concern over her wellbeing, it was admirable.
However, what of Apollo's?
That same drive to protect one's child would spur a mother to climb a mountain without any preparation or hope of reaching the top, but was it not the same for Apollo when the mother knew full well her actions were driving another's son to their death?
Agnes had said it herself. The Gods were angered at the Divine Doctor's medicinal ability. Not just a minor God, but one of the Major Olympians.
'Contemptable woman.'
Divine Authority began to emit from Apollo's golden fleece, heat producing embers, daring the woman to approach further.
Agnes did so anyway. Even if it meant she would suffer the wrath of the Gods, to her, her child mattered more. And to Apollo, that also held true.
Using what Divinity he could muster; Apollo was fully intent on smiting Agnes down…but.
"That's enough." Caster intervened, disrupting the Divinity Apollo had gathered by utilizing a Caster's mana control. "A doctor who turns away patients in need is no doctor. Bring the child to me."
"Caster!" Apollo could not condone the actions, but the matter was out of his hands.
Only Apollo knew what was to come if Caster followed through. The others could only watch in confusion as the panic in Apollo's gaze began to materialize.
"Do you know the reason I studied medicine, father?" Caster said as Agnes gently laid her deceased child in front of him.
"…"
"It started from the earliest memory I had of my dying mother cradling me in her arms," Caster said while meticulously checking over the deceased child. Across from him, Agnes clasped her hands in a silent prayer to the Gods. "Whether her death was wrong or not, on that day I witnessed death, and a desire bloomed within me born from a mother's love."
Gathering the reagents necessary for revival, Caster began to channel his magic energy, the area around him swelling with Divine Authority and mana.
"Life is precious, yet it's so fleeting. People die at the slightest drop of poison, or bludgeoning damage to a critical area. Regular mortals are feeble, misguided, self-centered, and greedy, but they are also compassionate, illogical, and emotional. So why then did I study medicine?"
Caster thought back on the journey of his life, back to all of the experiences that shaped him as a person. In front of him, a ball of Gorgon blood and Divine blood formed an elixir of life overtop the deceased child.
The arrogant fool of a captain, and the bonds shared within the legendary crew of the Argo.
Caster supposed he was just stupid or their sentimentality had inevitably rubbed off on him because he was reminded now that he'd returned to this instance in time that for all of mankind's faults...he still loved them.
From the very beginning-
Light began to flash as the elixir of life began to descend into the deceased child.
His obsession with medicine lied in wish to leave a record of medicine for humanity's posterity.
"…Resurrection fraught Hades."
Thunder rumbled violently from outside the temple as the power of the divine mystery took effect under Caster's Noble Phantasm.
Colour returned to the dead child's complexion, his wounds healing to perfect health under the sobbing cries of Agnes who clutched dearly to her child.
Lightning struck the temple, sending reverberations that caused dust to fall from the ceiling overhead.
Agnes's expression paled as she looked at Caster and the resignation on his face. She knew. She knew damn well that what she'd asked of him had likely been the final straw to the Gods.
"I-I'm sorry. I-I'm so sorry…" Agnes sobbed, falling down on her knees.
"What's going on?" Clio and the other members of the Apollo Familia could not make heads or tails about what was happening.
But the devastation on Apollo's entire being was palpable. Even Alfia was growing unsettled.
From beyond the temple and up into the skies, the wrath of the heavens was building.
"Go," was all that Caster said to Agnes. "Live, and speak of my name so that all will come to learn of medicine."
Shivering in guilt, Agnes didn't have the heart to stare at Caster's face, and instead nodded before taking herself and her child away from the temple.
Left behind, Caster wordlessly grabbed Apollo in both of his hands. The look Apollo was giving him was making Caster uncomfortable. More than that, Caster could not accept the hardened expression Apollo was making, as if Apollo was going to do something stupid.
Fortunately, Caster already had a pre-emptive measure from the moment he'd first considered how this version of his father would act.
"U-Unhand me!" Apollo sensed nothing good from Caster's actions and immediately started thrashing when Caster pulled him off of his head. "I-It's useless anyway. I'll just appear back on your head."
"No," Caster said as a matter of fact. "You will not."
Caster placed Apollo atop Clio's head and began to walk out of the temple to face the ordeal outside on his own. Unexpectedly, Apollo did not reappear atop Caster's head.
"H-Huh?" Apollo let out a noise of disbelief, appearing the most aghast.
"I found out a little while ago," Caster said in passing. "It's not that you were stuck to me, but that you were drawn to the Authority of the Sun within me. However, that same Authority is also present in your Familia. Stay here, you stupid old man. You didn't help me before, and I don't want your help now, but…thanks for everything."
Apollo's pupils dilated.
Just as Caster was about to leave the temple, one last person silently stood in his way.
Alfia pursed her lips, genuinely unnerved.
"What is going on?" She demanded. "This solemn air is sickening. I loath it."
"Hn." Caster muttered.
"Stop him! You must not let him out of this temple!" Apollo pleaded from behind where the silver snake still bound Apollo and his Familia.
Alfia was unmoved, rather she continued to stare at Caster.
In the end, Caster walked past her without a word. Her hands balled into fists, features shadowed.
"Stop him?" Alfia eventually spoke, her voice somewhat hoarse from a feeling of powerlessness. "You think I can?"
/-/
Caster closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his ears perking up at the sound of thunder.
The clouds herald the coming storm.
Opening his eyes, Caster stared upon the vast sky above him, writhing with tendrils of lightning and tongues of billowing wind.
Now outside the temple, the true magnitude of the Dungeon Floor he found himself within was rearing its head.
Once more he stood defiant atop the zenith of Mt. Epidaurus.
Once more he faced that overwhelming divinity.
And he thought to himself as the lightning above, formed the shape of a twisted bolt far beyond any defense he could muster…
A small laugh of ridicule escaped him.
What had he even been thinking?
This accursed fate.
In the end, reality was still the same.
Honoured mother…
Divine father…
Caster gathered his magic and divine energy to raise the banner of rebellion against the sky.
What was a Demi-God to a God?
/-/
Through the veil of Iris's piercing mist, the scene within the Dungeon's Floor continued to play. However, what had once been a bustling crowd had become a silent procession as they stared at the silver snake binding Apollo and his Familia in place while Caster faced an ordeal on his own.
They watched as Alfia stood with her head hung low, and as Apollo implored his Familia to struggle desperately against the restraints.
And then they watched in silence as a deafening crash caused ripples to form over the display, tremors shaking the temple of Epidaurus itself.
All at once, the silver snake that bound the Apollo Familia suddenly hissed and uncoiled before dashing out to protect its owner as if it had a will of its own.
"Go!" Apollo did not waste time giving the order.
He and his Familia ran past Alfia who staggered near the back, watching with blank eyes.
As the party burst through the confines of the sacred temple of Mt. Epidaurus, Caster came within view at the summit of the mountain.
The silver snake had coiled around Caster, its glistening metal scales hardening into a sturdy shield rising in tandem with the coiled staff Caster held aloft.
A bulwark to ward away danger.
However, all suddenly felt it:
The futility.
From atop the mountain, the scent of ozone wafted with unrestricted divine authority. The sound of the rumbling thunder and the crackle of numerous bolts of divine lightning reverberated. Each was accompanied by a flash of light and smoke from where the storm raged.
This feeling, this presence, it was too familiar, yet dauntingly overbearing and unbridled.
"Impudence."
Watching on from Iris's mist veil, a certain old man felt like he'd been hit by a sledge hammer, guilt wracking his conscience.
The sheer enormity of the energy immediately bore down over all.
Around Caster, his mana and Divine Nature as a son of Apollo, bathed him in a golden radiance. Yet in contrast, the clouds overhead sought to engulf even that light while the earth watched on in disregard.
A sun marked by the underworld and blotted by the vast sky.
Memories of a vision came to pass, choking Apollo in frustration.
No Olympian could ever mistake this energy in the upper world. Its overwhelming breadth, and unrelenting force.
Hail Zeus, King of the Olympians.
Apollo's pupils dilated.
-Murderer of my son.
"ASCLEPIUS-!"
Divine lightning struck down from the imperious heavens and pieces of the metalloid silver snake scattered to fragments in the deafening blast.
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