Philoctetes

[thesporkman]

Noble Odysseus stood at the prow of his black ship, staring into the wine-dark sea. He wasn't quite sure how to go about this.

Of course, if Philoctetes was dead, then it was just a simple matter of scouring the island for the Bow of Heracles and finding another archer who was skilled enough to string and fire it. Hell, he could probably do it... maybe... he really wasn't such a bad archer himself, after all... hopefully...

But what if Philoctetes was still alive after all these years? What was he supposed to say to him? "Oh, hey, Philoctetes! Gee, sorry we abandoned you on a tiny, uninhabited, godforsaken desert island for ten years because your leg wound smelled really bad! Anyway, we just found out about this prophesy, and, well, it turns out the Walls of Troy are destined to fall only after Paris is slain in battle, and -- hey, guess what? -- apparently Paris is fated to be killed by an arrow shot from the Bow of Heracles, and seeing as how you've got the Bow and you're the only known living archer capable of stringing and firing it, would you mind terribly maybe helping us out a bit here? Maybe?"

No, that just wasn't going to work. The truth never works. He was going to have to lie and lie and his ass off. And it was going to have to be the most brilliant lie our cunning hero had ever concocted.

The tiny island was now visible in the distance. Odysseus thought he could just make out the figure of a wretched little man limping angrily along the shoreline...

((I tried to shoehorn in as much exposition as possible there, but if you hadn't guessed, Philoctetes was a mythical archer in the Trojan War who was destined to kill Paris, using the bow that his friend, the hero Heracles, had given him on his deathbed. Philoctetes sustained some sort of leg injury -- in some versions it's a snake bite, in others he was wounded in battle -- resulting in a wound so foul-smelling that his fellow soldiers decided to abandon him on the small island of Lemnos rather than put up with the stench. Ten years later, the Greeks learn of his destiny and send Odysseus and another hero -- usually either Diomedes or Neoptolemus -- to convince him to come back and help them win the war.

It's alright if you don't know how the story's supposed to go or if you want it to turn out differently. I just thought this story would be a good fun, silly, but kind of sad, premise for one of these roleplaying things. You can be any of the characters I mentioned above or any new character you might want to make up. You can even go ahead and be a Greek god or goddess if you want to. There aren't really any rules or restrictions. The important thing is just to have fun.))

[Sathe]

Philoctetes hobbled along the shoreline, dragging his bum leg behind him as he scoured the ground for sticks. His favorites were those about the length of his forearm, but he'd settle for just about anything. His current hobby was gathering them and stripping them of their bark back at his campsite. He had two piles going--a pile of sticks and a pile of bark. He hadn't found a use for the bark yet, but he liked to hold the smooth blonde sticks in his hands and just touch them. Sometimes he built miniature houses out of them and sometimes he scattered them around the clearing he had made into his home, just because picking them up gave him something to do.

So he occasionally searched the island (which felt smaller every day) for the perfect sticks, just like he was doing today. He stopped at a bush heavy with berries and started popping them into his mouth. They were sour, but interesting. As he masticated, he found himself watching the water. He fancied he saw a ship on the horizon, but that was probably just his eyes playing a trick on him. Yesterday he'd thought he'd seen a little girl riding a lamb near his campsite. He didn't exactly trust his eyes, or his mind for that matter.

Still, the boat he thought he saw made him think about how he'd come here in the first place. Damn soldiers. He looked down at his bad leg and jiggled it a little with his free hand. Those soldiers were just about as useless as the damn leg, and cruel to boot. They probably thought him dead now. Philoctetes had once dreamed of escaping the island and returning home, proudly showing his companions that they had been wrong to leave him behind. But his leg had made it impossible to construct anything sturdy enough for water travel. His makeshift hut was leaky as it was. He had almost given up then, realizing he'd never make it off the island. Those were dark days, to be sure.

A bird's lonely call woke him from his reverie. After one final glance at the ship growing steadily larger on the horizon, he resumed gathering his sticks.

[thesporkman]

Cunning Odysseus's black ship was still a considerable distance from the island when the smell hit. Oh gods! the smell... That same putrid, sulfuric stench that had driven him to abandon his fellow soldier those many years ago. It was fouler and ranker than he remembered. His eyes stung and welled with tears when he realized that they were still upwind of Philoctetes. The varnish began to peel from the ship's haul.

"Of all the hardships I've had to endure in this War, this is the most harrowing. I can't imagine I'll ever have to suffer greater pain than this. But soon this War will be over; Ilium will be taken easily, and then I shall enjoy a swift, relaxing, uneventful journey home to my beautiful wife Penelope, at which point my troubles will at long last be at an end," thought Odysseus to himself, unaware that the cruel Moira Eironeia was listening, taking notes, and snickering softly to herself.

Odysseus grabbed the jar of sweet-smelling divine ambrosia that Pallas Athena had given to him as a birthday present and approached each of his men, who were all now gagging and retching uncontrollably.

"Listen up, men!" Odysseus addressed his men. "I want you all to take a big glob of this stuff and line the insides of your nostrils with it. Come on, it'll help fight the smell! Yes, it'll work; I heard it in an epic poem once. No, don't eat it! Because it's god-food; mortals aren't allowed to eat it, just smell it. This whole business with actually sticking it up our noses is pretty iffy as it is. No, I don't know what'll happen if you do eat it."

Now that his men were all protected from the noxious odor, he briefly considered asking them to tie him to the mast as they sailed by the island, so that he alone could enjoy the smell, but then he realized that that didn't make any sense and promptly shoved a healthy dollop of ambrosia into each of his own nostrils.

They were now as close to the island as his men were willing to go. They anchored the ship a safe distance from the shoreline. Odysseus coated his false mustache with the last of the ambrosia for good measure and began wading toward the shore...