A Library of Worlds

Date: The Olympian Age Year One: The Great Allotment

With Cronos chained in Tartarus, an uneasy quiet settled on Olympus. The raw relief of victory was there, yes, but beneath it lay a current of uncertainty. My siblings moved with a new, restless energy, their eyes constantly scanning the horizons, as if unsure what form the cosmos would take now that its ancient tyrant was gone. There was a feeling not of settled peace, but of a world holding its breath before a new kind of beginning. Othrys was a broken monument to a past age, its remaining Titan inhabitants scattered or offering sullen fealty.

Zeus, his authority now largely uncontested amongst us, his Keraunos a constant symbol of his preeminence, called us to the highest peak of Olympus, where the winds whipped and the raw, untamed energy of the mountain was at its most potent. The Cyclopes had already begun to clear the summit, their hammers ringing as they laid the first, colossal foundations for what would inevitably become the citadel of the gods.

"The old world is shattered," Zeus declared, his voice carrying over the wind, his gaze sweeping across his five elder siblings and myself. Rhea, our mother, stood slightly apart, her expression a mixture of sorrow for her lost husband, however tyrannical, and a guarded hope for her children. "A new age begins, an age of the Olympians. The cosmos is ours to divide, to order, to rule."

That word again. Rule. It echoed in the grand pronouncements of Zeus, in the ambitious glint in Hera's eye. My own heart, the core of Telos that still remembered Alex, felt a familiar weariness.

The division of the primary realms, as Alex's memories foretold, was decided by lot. A symbolic gesture, perhaps, to imply fairness amongst the three most powerful brothers, though I suspected Zeus, with his inherent command and the power of the Keraunos, would have claimed the sky regardless. Three lots were prepared by the Cyclopes, tokens of stone imbued with the essence of sky, sea, and the unseen depths.

Zeus, naturally, drew first. His hand closed over a stone that pulsed with the light of a thousand storms, and he smiled, a flash of triumph that mirrored the lightning he now commanded. "The Aether, the boundless Sky, the seat of ultimate authority, this is mine."

Poseidon, his restless energy barely contained, drew next. His stone was cool, dark, and thrummed with the immense, crushing power of the deepest oceans. A wild grin split his face. "The Seas, then! All that moves within their depths, all their mysteries and furies, shall answer to me!" He slammed the butt of his trident onto the mountaintop, and a tremor ran through Olympus, a distant echo of the earthquakes he would one day command.

Hades, his face an unreadable mask beneath the shadow of his Helm, drew the last lot. It was a stone of absolute blackness, cold and silent, yet radiating an immense, ancient power, the power of endings, of the final, inevitable truth. "The Underworld," he said, his voice a low whisper that seemed to absorb the light. "The realms below, the shades of all that pass, the foundations of the world. They shall know my dominion."

And so, the primary spoils of the Titanomachy were divided. Sky, Sea, Underworld. My brothers, each with a realm befitting their nature, their power. Hestia, Demeter, and Hera watched, their own futures, their own domains, yet to be fully defined within this new patriarchal order, though Hera's gaze, fixed intently on Zeus, spoke volumes of her own intended sphere of influence.

Zeus then turned to me. "Brother Telos. You have declared your intent to forge your own path, a domain of knowledge. While we shape the cosmos and its governance, what of your Achieves?"

"It will be a place apart, brother Zeus," I affirmed, the Tome of Attainment warm at my hip. "Not a realm to rule, but a realm to understand. A repository for all knowledge, all achievements, all truths gathered from this world and, perhaps, beyond."

A flicker of something, curiosity? Skepticism?, crossed Zeus's face, but he nodded. "As you will. But know this: knowledge without power to enact it can be a sterile thing."

"And power without understanding, brother," I countered gently, "is merely a prelude to tyranny."

A brief, charged silence followed, broken only by the howl of the wind. Zeus held my gaze for a moment longer, then gave a curt nod. "So be it. Forge your library, Telos. May it serve some purpose in the age to come."

I did not require a mountain peak, nor a boundless ocean, nor a shadowy underworld for my domain. The Achieves would be a creation of mind and divine will, a place existing both within and outside the conventional fabric of the cosmos, anchored to my own essence.

I found a secluded cleft on a lower, forgotten slope of Olympus, a place where the mountain's primal energies were quieter, more conducive to introspection and creation. Here, with the Tome of Attainment as my focus and my guide, I began.

It was not a matter of stone and mortar, not in the way the Cyclopes were raising Zeus's citadel. It was an act of will, an achievement of conceptual architecture. I drew upon my understanding of truth, of knowledge, of the very structure of reality that the Tome had begun to reveal to me. I envisioned a library, yes, but one that breathed with myth, whose foundations were the very principles of existence.

Slowly, from the aether itself, from the focused intent of my divinity, the Achieves began to take form. Walls of a pale, luminous stone that seemed to shift and reveal intricate, ever-changing patterns of starlight and cosmic dust rose around me. Shelves of a dark, polished wood, warm to the touch and smelling faintly of ancient parchment and forgotten lore, spiraled upwards into unseen heights. The light within was soft, self-generated, a gentle glow that was perfect for contemplation and study. Archways, in the grand, fluted style of a forgotten, more thoughtful age, opened onto vistas not of Olympus, but of pure, conceptual space, swirling nebulae of raw information, quiet gardens of ordered thought.

It was vast, far vaster on the inside than its subtle external anchor point on Olympus would suggest. A place where every thought, every event, every achieved understanding could find its record. This was my kingdom, a realm built not for dominion, but for preservation and comprehension.

But such a place, even in its nascent stages, could not maintain itself. Knowledge, uncurated, could become chaos. Records, untended, could fade. The Tome had shown me how that which is known can be shaped, and that which is shaped defines the shaper. I, too, needed to shape a part of my domain to define its purpose.

Focusing my will once more, drawing upon the essence of the Achieves itself, the silent hum of recorded truth, the gentle rustle of potential knowledge, the steady light of understanding, I willed into being its first custodians.

Three forms coalesced from the luminous air of the central repository. They were female, their figures graceful, their features serene yet imbued with an ageless wisdom. Their robes were the color of old parchment, their eyes like deep, still pools reflecting starlight. They were not born of flesh, but of concept, of the very essence of the Achieves.

The first of the three forms to fully coalesce inclined her head, and when she spoke, her voice was a soft rustle, like ancient scrolls unfurling. "Our purpose is to tend to all that has been recorded here." The second, whose eyes seemed to spark with an unceasing curiosity, her very form shimmering with faint, interconnected lines of light, added, "And to seek out all that is yet to be understood." The third, her gaze direct and incredibly clear, making me feel as though she could see every calculation in my Achieves, simply stated, "And to ensure the integrity of every truth."

They were not mere servants, I understood, but extensions of the Achieves itself, extensions of my own domains. Their purpose was clear: to maintain the books, the scrolls, the star-charts, the conceptual diagrams, the memory-crystals, all the forms knowledge would take within these walls. To guide those few I might one day permit entry. To ensure the integrity of the truths stored herein.

As I looked upon the nascent, luminous halls of my Achieves, at these three serene, knowing figures who were its first inhabitants and guardians, a profound sense of satisfaction, of an achievement truly my own, settled within me. Olympus could have its politics, its power struggles, its gilded thrones. Here, in the quiet, infinite expanse of the Achieves, my work, the true work of Telos, God of Achieves, Knowledge, Wisdom, and Truth, had just begun. The first pages of this new domain were being written, not with ichor and conquest, but with understanding and the silent, enduring light of truth.