Finally: Korinth
Recap: Having acquired the feather from that rando lady aka: Athena 4 real, nobody can convince me otherwise, it is now time to see what is the next quest on the agenda! I am off to the Porneion district in Korinth to visit some hetaerae as instructed. Anthousa is my contact, so let’s go find her! I immediately stumble into a nearby pyre and catch myself aflame, because I am super good at this game.
Korinth isn’t too far away, and their flag is a Pegasus! I think it’s going to be easy to find her, but alas—the hetaerae aren’t in the Porneion district after all.
Next, I talk to some horny dude, and he tells me that they have made themselves scarce because some dude named “Monger” and his army are loitering about. Looks like I’m going to have to defeat a dude, but lets check the rest of the clues. Next I find some scaredy cat who tells me more about how the Hetaerae were pushed out of the market by he who shall not be named.
Finally a woman to talk to, maybe she’ll be more helpful. She just wants to err— sell me her wares, but does indeed tell me where I might be able to find Anthousa! Possibly she is at the temple of Aphrodite, because they have clients there. I will check there first.
I find this temple through pure happenstance whilst clearing locations. The guards chase me all the way up a mountain after I get caught looting. Thank you, guards!
A Simple Favour
I stop off at an exclamation point and pick up a quest, and LO! It is Alkibiades there to assign me dubious package delivering tasks and make sex puns at me. Of course I will deliver the package, Ace. Winkity wink.
We comment on the size of this box I am to deliver and he tells me that big things can come in small packages sometimes. I get stonewalled with the rest of my questions. No, I can’t know about the guy who gave this package to Alkibiades in the first place or what it is. Why can’t Ace or the OG guy who gave him the package deliver it? It’s just a chain of favors and I’m the last link apparently. I also learn that Alkibiades’s favorite Hetaerae and/or his favorite port of call changes based on his mood. And that is all we get to discuss for now.
I have Anthousa to find and a tiny package to deliver.
Okay, I’m delivering it to a guy near a fort in the name of Diodoros. It’s absolutely, definitely, totally NOT from Alkibiades. Nope. Lol, I have a feeling Ace over here is 1000% setting this Diodoros dude up somehow. Haha, Let’s go find out!
I’m sorry Anthousa, but my curiosity is piqued. Consulting the map to select the newly acquired quest, I discovered that I have completed the cave quest! I guess I’ll also go collect that reward, but first to synchronize this location so I don’t have to walk back here again!
A quick fast travel back to Phokis to complete this quest and score a buttload of XPs! Nice.
Back to Aphrodite’s temple now!
Okay, so the “Monger” is hassling people at the temple now, so the Hetaerae have moved on to somewhere else. Basically this guy is giving everyone the shakedown. He’s after the Hetaerae because they rake in the dough and he wants a piece of the action. This is why they are in hiding, so I guess I’m going to take the monger down.
Time to deliver the package, then visit Anthousa at her possibly new hiding place, possibly place that she has already fled leaving some other lady to tell me about her possible whereabouts.
So, I have to infiltrate a damn fort to get this package in and deliver it to a general—and it is a, well, I’ll let Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg explain:
So, it’s not an actual dick in a box, it’ is a casting of one and it comes with a note: “For when your wife starts to miss me” Hahaha, but also, thank you for sending me into a heavily guarded outpost for THIS, Ace.
Well, A: I’m not going to sell Alkibiades out obviously, but B: This dude in front of me is probably going to waste Diodoros if I say its’ from him. I could say it’s from me which would be hilarious, but I don’t know— This can’t possibly be part of some brilliant military stratagem can it? I take a while to think it over, and just end up doing what Alkibiades told me to do. Like, I don’t want to be on his bad side, for real. The last thing I need is someone sending my enemies handcrafted artisanal dildos when he decides I’m not useful anymore.
Anyway, the package recipient whose name I don’t remember threatens to end Diodoros. Him and his little army too as I suspected. Huh. Maybe it IS part of a brilliant military stratagem after all? At least that’s what Ace more or less tells me when I find him in Aphrodite’s temple. He wanted to get Diodoros out of the way and this seemed to work a treat. Now that is done, so it’s time for more egregious flirting. He wants to know did Alexios like what he saw? About the casting—which was his doing of course as if there were any doubt in the first place. I’m on to your ways, friend! Also, he’s into doing it right here in the temple… I mean, if we’re going to defile a temple then I guess we could do worse than Aphrodite’s.
I can’t think of a reason not to this time. There are no goats anywhere nearby. Flash-forward to tomorrow, Ace has bid me adieu with hope for an encore performance at some future point, and it is now time to visit Anthousa!
Finding the Hetarae
I find her at the fountain and surprise Phoibe is here! Alexios is not enthused about this turn of events. She is just here to relay to Anthousa that I am coming, an “emissary” if you will. I let her tag along for a while, but when I start asking about my mom, Myrrine and Phoibe starts in about how I’m a sad orphan raised by Markus of the bad ideas on nowhere island, I send her away to play. She’s annoyed, but I don’t want her to get hurt or reveal all my secrets!
Anthousa might know something, but first I have to help her and the girls with their little Monger problem.
I finish up the fort location instead of the Monger quest, and I find that I have somehow picked up a huntress quest. For once I get to visit a huntress camp without getting besieged by bears. This one was super easy, because I already just took care of the captain that was hassling these ladies and the quest is finished before it even started! I’m all for easy XPs!
Now, onto the Monger problem.
The Torture Room
The first part of this quest is to find out why one of the ladies, Damalis’s, clients has been acting strangely. Probably the Monger put him up to it, possibly by kidnapping his family or something. Let’s go find out!
Phoibe has followed me, I try to be nice, but honestly her inserting herself into these proceedings is worrisome to say the least. I mean, I don’t have an easy time avoiding stabby bandits myself, but I’m sure the game has concrete plans for her that are unavoidable anyway, which I have magically not been spoiled about. I mean, I’ve been playing this game for a thousand years now it’s a miracle I don’t know all its secrets already.
In any case, we team up and Phoibe tells me about things she overheard. This dude is having a meeting at a pig farm about some land and is supposed to bring Damalis there also I find out. While I’m distracting him with this info I know courtesy of my girl Phoibe, she breaks in and steals a bunch of clues. I sat there and listened to the guy blabbering for forgiveness at me, but I’m still not quite sure what the Monger has on this him that he’s acting the fool and willing to betray Damalis, whom he claims to love. It’s time to find some more clues!
We head to a house that was in the letter Phoibe stole. I find some bloody pots, a secret room, a lock of hair that somehow Alexios knows by smell. Though he can’t quite place it. Oh, and a wall with a creepy manacle attached to it and also casts of faces and breasts — So, the Monger has a creepy torture sex dungeon. Gross. Just in time, one of the Monger’s lackeys arrives to call me a prude explain it to me in case I didn’t figure it out from the clues. Bro, it’s more the kidnapping people and holding them against their will that’s the evil of it, not my prudish ways. Ugh. In any case, he has caught Phoibe, but she escapes with Alexios’s help.
I head back to Damalis to give her the bad news and chastise Phoibe for not listening to instructions. Anyway, Damalis is grateful and now knows what to steer clear of RE: the Monger’s plans. Also, I level up! Time to spend some ability points!
One thought before we move on— Whose familiar lock of hair was that in the Monger’s lair? Do I know someone he kidnapped???? IS HE someone I know? Alkibiades? Herodotus? Sokrates? Yikes. For now, all we can do is move on and help the rest of the hetaerae.
Come Sail Away
A woman named Erinna has misplaced her friend Kleio. The only clue we have to go on is that some guy saw her get on a boat. I spend bunch of time sinking this pirate boat only to find out that Kleio was the one who hired them. It was not an abduction, she was running away from the Monger. To Mykanos. Heh. Good thing I already took care of the tyrant on that island. Well, in any case, I agree to take her there. I’m certainly not going to force her back to Korinth if she doesn’t want to be there. I head back to give Erinna the good news. She’s super sad that her friend is gone, and makes me promise that she’s safe.
Sure thing! She’s with my girl Kyra and my bro Thaletas now.
Taking Down the Monger
My next quest in this area is called “lawless port” or something and I wander blindly towards the gold diamond only to find that it’s right in the Monger’s warehouse. I have to hide in the bushes until the guard goes away so I can plot my strategy. Apparently I am supposed to burn down the warehouse.
Good, eff this Monger dude. I see some people tied up in there and I free them before I start any fires. As I do the deed and attract more guards all of a sudden — A cut scene! Some dude with a Spartan shield comes in to save the day! Yas! I don’t have to beat all these guys! Am I supposed to know this dude? Was it his hair?
After we beat all the baddies together I learn that his name is Brasidas and I do not know him after all. He wants to deal with the Monger on the DL, because of blablabla politics. (Sparta is Allied with Kornithia, if the take out the main guy in public that’s bad for business.) I get the choice to help him or stick with Anthousa. TBH, my first inclination is Brasidas’s hush, hush option, so lets do that. Mainly because I don’t even remember what Anthousa’s plan was. I already helped out her friends.
Anyway, after that’s all decided I spill all my family secrets to Rando McSpartan over here. He knows Myrrine, and my not dad— who I say I haven’t seen him since the whole cliff throwing incident but… who the fuck did I meet on that first beach I landed on? Wolf of Sparta? That was Nikolaos, my Spartan dad, right? Who is still not dead? I let him live, because fuck the Serpent. Why am I lying to Brasidas? or is this game so long that even the writers forgot what happened in the beginning??? (I have no choice in the dialog options here, so I’m not actually choosing to be cagey about it. I am very confused, game.) The exit to this convo is to tell Brasidas I’m not dwelling on the past, so let’s not. We have Mongers to eliminate.
As expected Anthousa is not pleased with my decision making. And after she arranged a whole viewing party for the Monger’s execution and everything. I head off to do the deed and as I’m passing through the market I get a notice that there is a cultist clue nearby! Cool! I send Ikaros flying, but there’s nothing there. Searching doesn’t help either. With the help of the internets I find out that I have to buy the clue from the Blacksmith. This clue tells me that the deserter Pallas is the cultist and I can find him in Achia. But that will have to wait! I also discover that I have a bunch of dudes I can unmask, but I haven’t bothered to, so I do that. Now the map shows me exactly where they are! Heh. Why have I been making this quest much harder than it had to be?
I am back in the sacred cave—the cave the ended my cave quest. Good news, the Monger thinks I’m a demi-god also, and I definitely don’t know him. Shit, though—he knows my mom? Was it her hair???? We get a flashback to him manhalding her because she had the gal to stand up to him. This guy is attacking my mom, kidnapping people, and being a general devil. Also, he is confirmed to be a cultist! It’s time to end him!
Anthousa shows up just at the end of the fight to try to convince me to do this one last time in public so the people can see his cowardice. I mean, I don’t know if dragging an already beaten up man in for a public execution gets that message across at this point. Who doesn’t show up? Brasidas. I thought he was supposed to be helping me! In any case, I’m not doing that. Goodbye, Monger. I’ll take my golden triangle. I think I only need three more to upgrade the spear now!
The End
Later, Anthousa, is not quite as steamed at me as she was at first. She thanks me, and ‘for once’ thanks to Alkibiades. We share a chuckle over him and his wily ways and she tells me about my mom. She was a friend, but Myrrine wasn’t happy there in Korinth.
Here’s the points of interest: She left Spart, because—you know the attempted child murder. She was heartbroken. Anthousa gave her shelter after finding her in the streets. She looked to the sea, clearly she was restless in Korinthia, and she never told anybody anything about her past or where she was going. The only clue I get is that dear old Mom got on a ship called the Siren Song, known for her ability to weather anything Poseidon could throw her way.
We bid each other adieu and Anthousa promises to keep me up to date on Korinthia’s happenings.
