The moment I walked out of that council chamber, something fundamental shifted inside me. The weight I'd carried for millennia and the invisible chains Michael's memories helped me recognize, they were shattered. Gone. Just like that.
I stood in my forge under Etna, hammer in hand, and laughed. Actually laughed. The sound echoed off the volcanic walls, startling my automatons. When was the last time I'd done that? Really laughed, not a bitter chuckle , but genuine mirth?
Michael's soul had dissolved into mine completely now. His memories, his perspectives, his ridiculous obsession with fictional worlds and their rules. He'd known about the multiverse. Believed with every fibre of his being, with the certainty of someone who'd spent too many hours arguing online about the mechanics of dimensional travel.
That knowledge had been locked inside Olympus's collective consciousness, buried under layers of divine arrogance. We gods were so convinced of our supremacy that we'd never looked beyond our own reality. Why would we? We were immortal, powerful, worshipped.
Trapped.
Michael had been the key. His mortal mind and a wisp of his soul being from another universe, had unlocked something in me. There were infinite worlds out there. Infinite possibilities. And I now had the imagination to reach them.
I needed to say goodbye first, though. Not to all of them. Most of the Olympians could figure out I was gone when they needed a weapon and nobody answered. But there were two who deserved better.
I found Hestia in her temple, tending the sacred hearth. The flames danced in shades of gold and amber, casting warm light across her face, contrasting the whiteness of the marble floor. She looked up as I approached, unsurprised.
"You're leaving," she said.
"I am."
She nodded, stirring the flames with a simple poker. "I'm glad."
That caught me off guard. "You are?"
"Hephaestus, you've been miserable for thousands of years. Everyone could see it except you." She set the poker aside and turned to face me fully. "This family has never deserved you. Your kindness, your patience, your incredible gift for creation. We took and took and gave nothing back."
"You were always kind to me," I said quietly.
"Common decency shouldn't be remarkable, but in this family, it is." She smiled, sad and knowing. "Where will you go?"
"Away, although the others know I am "retiring", I am going to be gone far away for a long time Hestia and build things that matter. Maybe help people who'll appreciate it."
Hestia stepped forward and embraced me. She smelled like woodsmoke and bread, comfort and home. "Be safe. Be happy. And Hephaestus? Don't come back unless you want to, definetly not because you feel obligated."
"I won't," I promised.
She released me, returning to her hearth. "The fire will always be lit for you. Should you ever want it."
I left her there, tending the eternal flame, and felt something close to peace.
Finding Dionysus was easier. I just followed the sound of revelry to a grove outside Athens where he was hosting what appeared to be an impromptu festival. Satyrs danced, nymphs sang, and mortals celebrated with the kind of abandon only achievable through divine wine.
"Heph!" Dionysus spotted me immediately, weaving through the crowd with a full cup in each hand. "Can't believe you told Zeus to bugger off. Legendary. Absolutely legendary. Always wanted to do that! haha!"
"You could definitely do that, you just have to deal with his majesty's thunder face afterwards in council meetings."
He thrust one cup at me. "Haha! Drink with me. One last time before you vanish into whatever madness you're planning." He suspected Dionysus as the god of madness had an inkling that he wouldn't be back.
I took the cup. The wine was excellent, because Dionysus never did anything halfway. "I'm leaving Olympus. Leaving this-."
"I know." He raised his cup. "To freedom from family obligations and the courage to tell everyone to bugger off."
We drank. The wine burned pleasantly, warming me from the inside out.
"I'm going to miss this," I admitted. "You were always decent to me. Got me drunk that one time to drag me back to Olympus, sure, but you've been a good friend since."
"That's because I understand what it's like to be the outsider." Dionysus refilled both cups from a seemingly endless amphora. "I was mortal once, remember? Born of a mortal woman, ascended to godhood. The others never let me forget I wasn't born divine."
"We're the rejects' club," I said.
"The best club." He grinned, then his expression turned thoughtful. "Wait here."
He vanished into the crowd, returning moments later with a wooden crate. Intricate carvings covered its surface, vines and grapes intertwining with symbols I recognized as Dionysus's personal marks.
"What's this?"
"An ever-filling crate of my best wines. The stuff I save for actually important occasions." He set it at my feet. "It'll refill itself as long as you provide the power. Divine energy, magical essence, whatever you've got in place that your so secretive about. I keyed it to your specific energy signature."
I stared at him. "You made this? When?"
"I've had it for a few centuries. Had a feeling you'd snap eventually." He shrugged. "Consider it a 'congratulations on escaping' gift."
Something tightened in my chest. "Dionysus, I-"
"Don't get mushy on me. Just promise me something." His expression turned serious, rare for him. "Whatever you end up doing, whatever you build, whatever you become? Don't let it consume you the way Olympus did. Live. Actually live. Enjoy the journey, the creation, the discovery. That's the point of freedom, yeah?"
"Yeah," I said, gripping his forearm in the traditional gesture of brotherhood. "I promise."
"Good." His grin returned. "Now drink up. You've walked away from being an Olympian , and you're going to do it with a proper buzz."
We drank until the stars wheeled overhead, sharing stories and laughter. When I finally left, wobbling slightly, Dionysus called after me.
"Tell me if you find any interesting new wines out there, if you ever make it back in this neck of the wood!" his glowed purple with his domain.
Back in my forge, I laid out the materials with precision. Michael's memories provided the information of what was possible, my divine crafting skills would make it real. I needed something that could pierce the fabric between realities, anchor me safely during transit, and adapt to whatever universal laws I encountered.
A ring. Compact, always with me, impossible to lose in the chaos of dimensional travel.
I worked for days straight. The automatons brought me materials, stoked the fires, and maintained the temperature to exact specifications. Celestial bronze formed the base, infused with Stygian iron for stability across death and life. I wove in threads of my own divine essence, binding the artifact to my being.
"Διαπερὶς Διαστάσεως" Runes covered every surface, each one an equation translated into mystical language. Physics, magic, divine will, mortal ingenuity, all fused into one creation.
When I finally quenched the ring in a mixture of water from the Styx and liquid starlight, the resulting steam filled the forge with rainbow colored light. The ring pulsed with power, warm against my palm.
Perfect.
I slipped it onto my finger. Immediately, my perception expanded, my divinity stretching. I could feel the sparks needed to travel the multiverse now, infinite realities pressing against this one like pages in an endless book. Each one called to me with different songs, different possibilities.
One ring wouldn't be enough. The realization struck me as I admired the dimensional artifact on my finger. I needed tools, and carrying them conventionally through the multiverse seemed impractical at best, suicidal at worst.
I returned to the forge with renewed purpose. The automatons had already begun organizing my collection: hammers ranging from delicate jeweler's tools to massive sledges that could reshape mountains, tongs calibrated for every temperature and material imaginable, chisels that could carve divine metal like butter, measuring instruments precise down to the width of a single atom.
Millennia of accumulated craftsmanship, each piece holding memories of what I created with it. The hammer that forged Achilles' shield. The tongs that had held the chains binding Prometheus. The chisel that carved the first breath into Pandora's clay form.
I couldn't bring himself to leave them behind.
The second ring took less time. I already understood the principles, already had the dimensional pathways mapped in his mind. This one needed different properties. Storage connected to himself rather than travel, preservation rather than piercing reality's veil.
Celestial bronze again, wound through with adamantine threads for strength. I hammered spatial compression runes "Δακτύλιος Ὑποχώρου" along the band, folding dimensional pockets into the metal itself. Each tool would exist in its own compressed space, preserved perfectly, accessible with a thought.
Each tool disappeared into the ring with a flash of golden light. My automatons watched, their mechanical faces unreadable, as I dismantled the forge that had been their entire existence. I took my personal forge but left the greater one behind, the one fundamentally connected to the heart of Mount Etna.
The last pieces were the most important. My war hammer, the one I had carried through every battle I'd been dragged into, the one I used to defeat the titan Mimās and every other conflict Zeus demanded I participate in.
It felt heavy and brutal in my grip. I never loved violence the way Ares did, but I respected the necessity of being able to defend myself.
My hammer Κοσμοπλάστης stayed outside.
My crafting hammer vanished into the ring, the tool that had shaped more wonders than any other object in existence. my hand felt strange without its familiar weight.
I stood in the empty forge having already released the automatons from their bindings, both rings gleaming on his fingers. Ready.
whoosh
in the infinity between worlds three songs stood prominent,
a song of a mask with a crown of blades.
a song of a dark hand chasing a singular golden ring.
a song of 2 moons and a blue child chasing each other.