I have been home for a day, but this is the first chance I have had to write. I have been... busy.
When I left the ship, I was simply glad to be home. It has been too long since I have smelled grape leaves, though I feel it would be against my vows to eat them.
I hardly got to enjoy it. I was rushed off to the Temple of Heracles. There, I was taken to a small room with a drawn bath. I was commanded to bathe. This goes against all that I have been taught, but I was commanded, and so, against my better judgement, I used the bath that was there.
While I was busy, the Master of Possessions came and took my weapons and my lion skin. Had I noticed, I would have tried to stop him. The bone belongs to all, as it is a weapon, and the same goes for the bow. But the skin is mine, claimed from a lion in battle, the only thing that I am allowed to own. And in it's place, what did I find when I stepped from that bath? A new, unworn skin, encrusted with jewels and smelling that like that Elven warrior. A bow waited, plated in gold, and not even having a string. And in place of that bone was a mace that would have crumbled upon impact with any true foe, so decorated and ceremonial it was. I asked the Master of Possessions for real weapons, but he told me to remember that I was to use all things that were given me by the order. So I put on that skin, feeling more vile than before I had bathed.
Without so much as a break, I was ushered off to be made a full Brother of Heracles. There was already a council gathered, and I was instructed to stand while the council decided whether my deeds would be worthy of admittance. I doubted they would be, having not done too much.
My deeds, it seemed, were plenty. Thought I have only met the one dragon, it was said that I slaid an elder one. I smote an entire arsenol of monotheists with a single stroke of my mace. I built a great road through trackless wastes, by defeating a djinn in single combat and forcing it to do my bidding. I bedded the Tarrasque. I sank an entire continent of the enemies of Greece into the ocean. I don't even know where Atlantis is!
The council would not listen to my protestations, and so I was forced to make them more loudly until I was heard. I believe that Heracles himself had to lend me his voice to reach that volume, but they listened.
I told the council that I had done none of these deeds. That while my own deeds were great, these were not mine, and I could not claim them.
The Abbey swears my father told him this was all true. But my father would happily tell a follower of Odin that a camel makes a fine Arctic mount. I could not take these deeds as mine, and I asked for a chance to speak with my father before being aclaimed.
The Abbey tried to ignore my complaints and go on, but by the time I was supposed to have wielded the corpse of a Naga to slay a legion of Drow, he could ignore me no longer.
He has promised to retrieve my father. In the meantime, I have been given a room. I say room, but it is too kind. It is the sort of sparse room that befits a warrior of Heracles, but there are two brothers outside of it, and I have been told not to try and leave to find my father on my own.
I am supposed to be a guest of honor. It is a bad lie, but so I have been commanded to stay, and so I will.
I just hope that Heracles will give me the strength to fight through these lies and figure out what the hell is going on, here.
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