“The Atremacheid”
Written by Calyxo, 4725 AR
Dedicated to the true hero of Sylirica:
Atremachus, son of Atystratos, scion of the Atyseid dynasty
Atremachus was born on 17 Rova, 4689 AR in the Iblydan city of Sylirica, the capital of the eponymous city-state of Pol-Sylirica. His father, Atystratos, was an influential lawgiver who exerted considerable control over the Sylirican nobility and its policy. His mother, Xenatheia, was an aristocrat from the city-state of Pol-Liachora and served as a spiritual advisor to Atystratos; she died during childbirth, and Atremachus knows her only through his father’s accounts of her beauty and intellect.
Prior to his birth, Atystratos had consulted a cyclopean myth-speaker regarding a prophecy that would see him ascend to hero-godhood. However, he was told this could not occur until his firstborn son had slain his “greatest enemy.” From that point forward, Atystratos began treating the prophecy as if it was his destiny, shaping all of his decisions around the conditions it had set out for him.
Atremachus spent his early years within his father’s estate under the care of his dwarven mistress, Medacha, alongside his younger sister, Adrastia. At first, they were educated by a suite of centaur pedagogues and various other private tutors. Then, at the age of seven, he was taken to the island of Thyellados and secretly enrolled into the Sylirican agoge¹. The first stage of this training lasted until he was fourteen and focused on discipline, literacy, and obedience. The second, lasting until twenty, emphasized endurance, stealth, and deprivation. In the final stage, which continued until the age of thirty, he was elevated to a leadership role within the system, entrusted with command of his own cohort.
Upon his graduation, Atremachus became a citizen of Pol-Sylirica and took his place as a field officer within its military. At some point thereafter, he participated in the fourth failed invasion of Pol-Ptirmeios, aiding in a raid that destroyed the home village of Kelksiomides and killed his family, inadvertently contributing to his apotheosis.
One day in 4724 AR, while out on a routine patrol, Atremachus was approached by Ouranias, a centaur faithspeaker of Psomeira. Ouranias beseeched him to aid to his village in their fight against a coven of hags who had been terrorizing them for months; aid which had been previously denied by their local lordship. However, when Atremachus returned to Sylirica to inform his father about this, Atystratos instead interpreted the situation as the forespoken of ‘greatest enemy’ from his prophecy—and ordered Atremachus to hunt them down.
After several weeks of searching, Atremachus located the coven’s lair, but arrived too late to prevent the worst of it; the village elder had already been killed. He entered the den and engaged the coven, succeeding in slaying two of the hags after a prolonged confrontation—though the third, a night hag named Iolota, was able to escape by extraplanar means.
With the immediate threat subdued, Atremachus began searching the den for any remaining victims taken by the coven, during which he discovered a hidden changeling infant bearing the elder’s likeness. In that moment, he could no longer carry out his father’s directive; recognizing the child as innocent, he instead chose to spare their life and gave them the name Eryxo, a unisex name in common use at the time.
In the time that followed, Atremachus remained behind to see to the child, and in doing so failed to report back within the allotted time. Atystratos interpreted this delay as a defiance of his will, and ordered for the village to be razed as punishment. After leaving Eryxo in the care of Ouranias, Atremachus attempted to return back to Sylirica to report on the completion of his mission—but was intercepted by his father’s soldiers along the way, resulting in a violent altercation that would later lead to the wholesale destruction of the village.
Atremachus, feeling guilty for failing to protect the village from his father’s wrath, thus set out to confront Atystratos and face off against him in a duel to the death—a duel that he would ultimately win. However, in doing so, he had inadvertently fulfilled the prophecy; his father’s greatest enemy had always been himself. Atystratos was therefore immediately resurrected, and as his first act of divine intercession, he used a major curse to retributively strip away Atremachus’ mythic power—rendering him physically, mentally, and spiritually broken.
In the aftermath, having been left without any means of resistance, Atremachus was taken into the custody of the Sylirican crown and held in detention under the authority of his newly ascended father. He was formally charged with attempted regicide and remained in custody until his trial, where he was ultimately sentenced to permanent exile from all of Iblydos. He was then escorted to the docks and placed aboard a vessel bound for the northern Parchlands, under orders never to return.
Once there, Atremachus took up work as a caravan guard, drifting between wagon trains with no fixed purpose, seeking only distance from his past. His travels followed along with the famous Golden Path trade route of the region; taking him through the Meraz Desert, into the Empire of Kelesh, and even to the far shores of the Inner Sea region. In time, however, this unsettled existence left him open to what followed.
In 4725 AR, Iolota returned to Atremachus in his sleep, appearing in the form of her now-grown changeling progeny. She revealed that her child had vanished through an unknown sea portal and now sought his aid in recovering her. With no remaining cause to refuse, Atremachus accepted her request and set off for a brave new world.
Thus began the next chapter in the life of a former hero, once stripped of position and power, now set upon a journey in pursuit of something not even his own to bear.
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Footnotes:
- 1. The Sylirican ‘agoge’ is a reference to the real-world agōgē of the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta.