It's all fun and games, until a cow gets it's brains punched out

So we had just left Carthage, when we run into a nasty storm. We decide to temporarily redirect to Sicily until it calms down. Upon arriving we discover the grave of Aeneas' father. Aeneas starts yelling about how it's fate and it's been exactly one year since his father's death. That didn't seem right to me, so I looked it up, he was wrong. It's only been 8 months, but then again Aeneas has always been one to be over-dramatic. You know how little kids will be really dramatic just for the sake of getting attention? Yea, well Aeneas never grew out of that phase. Although it does tend to make things more interesting, so I don't mind it too much.

Anyways, Aeneas decided to hold a celebration for his father's 8 month death anniversary. 8 days of rituals and on the 9th day games will be held. A little odd if you ask me, but Aeneas has never exactly been part of the norm. Not much happened on the first 8 days, so I'm just going to skip straight to the games.

So  the first game to be held is a boating competition. Now I want to say something real quick. whoever's idea it was to have boating become a sport is a fool. These boats, go very slowly, and its not like there's any sudden surprises usually. The only interesting thing that really happened was Sergestus crashing into the rocks. Honestly, how dumb can you get? It's not like it's a sudden turn, these boats just aren't going that fast! I overheard some people talking about how fantastic the race was later that night. It wasn't even close! People were screaming and cheering, but the team in the lead was in the lead by probably a full 30 seconds!

The footrace was even worse until the very end. Nisus sprinted from the starting line, and was really slowing down near the end. So when he noticed Salius passing him, he "slipped" in a pool of dry blood from 3 days priot, because that makes sense. Then he gets up and basically tackled Salius down on the ground. Euryalus ended up winning despite being a good 20 seconds behind Salius. After the prizes were given out Salius was given a lion's pelt for being cheated out of the race, which I think was a good move by Aeneas. However as soon as Salius got his lion pelt Nisus, the little brat, starts whining about how he was cheated too. As if that didn't make me mad enough Aeneas totally agrees with him, and gives him a very nice shield. As if the little brat would ever use it, I've seen him "fight". It usually ends up with him hiding at the back of the army, or throwing down his weapons and begging for mercy. Honestly, the whole ordeal just made me furious!

Next, and by far the most interesting was the boxing match. Immediatly this kid Dares stands up and starts bragging about how good of a fighter he is, and how no one is brace enough to fight him. Entellus seeing this, after much prodding by Aeneas, decides to throw down. Dares and Entellus end up being matched against each other. Immediately I heard bets being thrown down for Dares, because he's much younger and much more agile. Being one of the very few people who aren't brain dead in this bunch I put my money on Entellus, a much more experienced and trained fighter. The fight was a laughing stock. Entellus wiped the floor with Dares so bad that Aeneas had to call him off, otherwise I think he would have killed Dares right then and there. The look of the betters as they saw Dares get completely dominated was priceless. Afterwards Entellus feeling pretty good about himself O.K.'s a cow, by punching it in the head. I thought that was a little much, I mean who did the cow ever harm. Oh well :/

Finally was the archery contest, which actually had a couple of skilled contestants. The objective was to hit a bird tied to the mast of the ship. The first to shots were misses, but the second one actually broke the rope that the bird was tied to. At first I was annoyed, because I'm sure Aeneas would have made me go catch another bird, and tie it back up. However, the third archer actually hit the bird as it was flying away. It was truly an incredible shot! Now I want to clarify something quick before I continue this. This was near the end of the day, and the sun was setting over the ocean. Just keep that in mind. So the 4th archer also shot his arrow off despite already losing. But as it passed almost directly into the sun there was a bright glare off the shinier stone he had used. People had to look away it was so close to the sun, and by the time they had looked back the arrow had already landed in the ocean. Aeneas in his ever present genius concludes that it must have ignited in the sky. He took this as a sign from the gods, and everyone just starts high Ving him.... And I call these people countrymen.

Here's where I got furious Aeneas gives the first place prize to Mr. flaming arrow! I expected the real winner to say something, but he's just standing there shaking his head up and down. COME ON PEOPLE! Am I really the only one who can see Aeneas' stupidity???? After that I left, and went down to the beach to try and cool off. 


Aeneas just infuriates me. Giving prizes to people who clearly do not deserve it, and passing over the real winners.... I decided to just stop worrying about it, and sit by the beach.


So there I was Chillin' out maxin' relaxin' all cool. Listening to the ocean, down by the pool. When I felt a small bump, down by my foot. I opened my eyes, and guess what it was. An arrow.

No Greater Fury...

So, I think that just about sums up everything that happened before we landed in Carthage. Now to continue on from where we left off. Aeneas had just explained to Dido everything that had happened, while she stared at him with a look somewhere between a mountain cat stalking its prey, and a love struck girl. At the time, I remember I had the unmistakable feeling that something very troublesome was about to happen.I didn't unpack my belongings that night.

The next day Aeneas tells me that he's going to go out hunting with Dido....right..."hunting" Not half a day later he comes walking back down from where they left. Besides Aeneas having that big stupid grin he gets, I noticed that Dido seemed a lot more clingy than before. At this point that feeling from earlier became a full onset of pure dread.

Aeneas told us we were going to be staying in Carthage, despite all of the insanity we've been through already on our way to Italy. Does he really think that we'll just be able to stay, and the gods wont notice? Honestly, Aeneas a guy can only be so dumb. Nonetheless I still didn't unpack my belongings. I still had that feeling.

Not long after I was talking with him, and Aeneas was trying to tell me about Dido on their hunting trip, and I was doing everything I could to change the subject when Mercury just kind of appears next Aeneas. That guy is way too sneaky, and way too fast, even for a god. He gives us this whole spiel about fate and Italy and all that mumbo jumbo we've heard oh so many times before. The worst part is Aeneas is just standing there with this completely surprised face, because the concept of fate is still just soooo complex.

So Aeneas tells the soldiers to start preparing a fleet to sail to Italy. Now, I say a lot of mean things about Aeneas here, but at the end of the day he's my friend, my best friend in fact. However, of all the things Aeneas has ever done, nothing is stupider than this. He forgot to tell Dido that he was leaving.

 Now he may have played it off like he was keeping a secret, but trust me. I was there when Dido screamed at Aeneas for leaving. His face wasn't one of guilt, it was a face of "oh crap, I forgot to tell her". He did the same thing on he and his previous wife's anniversary. That's another thing! Aeneas' wife died not even a year ago, but he's perfectly fine with "hunting" with a girl he JUST MET! I hate to admit it, but I enjoyed watching him get yelled at, it was about time as far as I'm concerned.

Over the next couple of days I was too preoccupied with preparing the ships to actually pay attention to Dido and Aeneas fighting, but I did notice a lot of wood was being brought into the city, whatever it was for I was certain could be nothing good.

That night I was just getting to sleep when Aeneas come crashing through the door yelling about leaving, and fate, and a whole lot of nonsensical gibberish. So I get the men up and we prepare to leave the city. It didn't take long before we were on the dark waters once again.

As we were leaving I noticed a light come from the center of Carthage. Maybe it was just my eyes playing tricks on me, but I could have sworn I saw a flicker, as if something had displaced part of the light source. At the same time I was filled with a feeling of sorrow, it was very morbid.

The whole time as I was sailing away I couldn't stop thinking about Dido. Why she chose Aeneas of all people. He's dumb, obnoxious, and uncaring.

Why him, when there are so many better guys....guys like me...

Backstory Part II

So last time I left off we were just fleeing Troy, and first thing Aeneas decided to do, in his new found leading position is to stop on the coast of Antander and to build completely new ships. Personally I felt we were a little too close to the Danaan army to just stop and build new ships. I mean what if they sent a party out to kill off the fleeing Trojans? We would have been sitting ducks! Lucky it didn't turn out like that and we finished the new ships and continues not long afterwards

Our next destination was Thrace, where in Aeneas attempted to offer sacrifices. But things can never be normal with Aeneas around can they? He starts pulling at some roots, and blood starts pouring out. Turns out that specific tree, out of all the other trees around, just happened to be the spirit of a son of Priam who was slain as a result of Troy's demise. Upon seeing this Aeneas holds a funeral for the tree, and I gotta say. Tree funerals...pretty boring. Anyways, once that was finished we headed South to Delos.

In Delos Aeneas received a prophecy from Apollo saying to go to the land of our ancestors. Immediately I though of Dardanus, but Aeneas senile old man insisted that Apollo was refering to Crete. Of course, Aeneas sided with his father and we embarked for Crete. At this point I'm starting to doubt even Aeneas' luck. Sure his demigod status gives him an otherwise otherworldly sense of direction, but I've started to consider leaving the group if they continued on such insane paths. 

For now, I decided to stick with the group, and when we do finally reach Crete Aeneas decided to settle there, and build a city. Not even a week into the construction of this new city did a deadly plague settle in the area. We left everything, and took to the sail immediately, so as to escape the plague. What Aeneas didn't consider during this was that there was a terrible storm on the horizon, which he would have noticed if he wasn't so ignorant.

So as to be expected we crashed. Solid leader skills there Aeneas. If this guy is the son of a god he sure doesn't seem to have any particular innate skills other than pure dumb luck. His entire life he's been protected by fates, or so it seemed. Now he's just leading us into more and more bad luck though. Maybe he and his mom were in a fight, and this was her way of punishing her. I'm really not very sure exactly how the gods interact with their demigod children. Back to the point though, the island we crashed on was non other than the home of the harpies. Fantastic, just fantastic. 

I warned Aeneas to do as little to annoy the the harpies as possible. So can you guess what the first thing he does is? He goes with a group of men and slaughter dozens of cattle. It couldn't have been more than X minutes before what seemed like the entirety of the harpy race was at our neck! As if fighting off those horrid creatures wasn't bad enough one of the cursed us with a curse of hunger before we could flee the Island. At this point its needless to say that I was a little angry with Aeneas.

We stop at a nearby island and make an offering to Apollo. Cuz the gods have been sooooo helpful already....

Next we head to Buthrotum where we ran into Andromache and Helenus. Helenus has this beautiful city under his control, and despite pleading on my part Aeneas decided to leave after hearing some prophecy by Helenus. Why couldn't we have stayed there and helped Helenus to rebuild the Trojan race?

So instead of resting safely in an already established city Aeneas decided to go right past Scylla. As if that wasn't bad enough, where do we decide to stop and rest? None other than the island of the cyclops. 

Now, I'm not proud of this, but I'm going to tell you anyways. I had decided to steal a ship and sail back to Buthrotum at this point. Right as I'm about to head out i run into some Danaan war veteran whose asking for our help. Of course Aeneas does decide to help him, even though he led the cyclops right to our ships. We get out by a matter of seconds before the blinded cyclops gets to where our ships were docked. Yet again, Aeneas' fate has led us into even more trouble. 

Unfortunately, Aeneas' father died soon after this. I suppose this was all just a little too much for the man, and although I didn't particularly enjoy his company, it's still sad to lose a countryman.

After this we headed to Carthage, which you already know the story of how we met Queen Dido. So hopefully this back story clears everything up from here on out.