The Atlantic Chronicles:
Chapter I
Bellerophon was a wise, benevolent ruler. He called his realm Atlantis, after Poseidon's second, greater domain on which the capital city was situated. Quite quickly, he sent teams of his people to unsettled land nearby. The new settlements would grow quickly. Diplomatically, he talked with Pelops to the north, who agreed to a natural, peaceful division of Iberia. And so, Bellerophon spent decades tending to his land and strengthening it. A defensive alliance was signed with Pelops, bolstering the peace in the region as the people grew.
Occasionally Ares would come and give a challenge, and twice Pan raped a girl. The populations were not happy when they heard Bellerophon’s reaction to Pan’s actions. However, all 40,000 rebels were put down, much to Hades’ delight, and all was well.
The First of Conflicts
And so Atlantis prospered. But then, Pelops began to grow unfriendly. After a decade of peaceful coexistence with Bellerophon, Pelops refused to renew the defensive pact, and began ‘asking’ for Murcia ‘as a gift’. Outraged at this, Bellerophon refused and quickly signed an alliance with old Theseus in Gaul. In response, the fool Pelops allied Perseus in Carthage. And so a standoff began that would last for years. Relatively equal armies staring at each other, both standing on favorable defensive land. If war were to come, it would be hard fought.
However, before long, Theseus would entangle himself in affairs too far to the east for Bellerophon to busy himself. It was not possible – he had to defend Atlantis. He had to stand to Pelops’ ugly threats. So Theseus cancelled his alliance, at least on paper, though both sides agreed it would be renewed after the great war in the east ended.
However, not long after Theseus’ army marched for New Sparta, Pelops delivered an ultimatum.
Pelops seemed to believe it was his destiny to dominate Iberia. And Perseus seemed to think the same for North Africa, though he cited how his empire was somehow split in half. It boggled Bellerophon how having a single, dirt-poor province on the edge of the world not directly connected to its mother empire gave Carthage a claim that its empire was ‘divided’. Poseidon, and his realm of the sea separated wealthy Sicily from the Carthaginian mainland – he was doing much more to ‘divide’ Carthage than Bellerophon was. Bellerophon prayed to Poseidon to keep up his division of Carthaginian land.
Surrender Estramurdia and Orania to myself and Perseus came a simple message from Pelops.
Bellerophon snorted. Quickly he scribbled two words onto a piece of papyrus, and headed out of his tent towards the royal stables, where Pegasus was kept.
His royal advisors were close behind. “Shouldn’t we give more thought to our response?” said one. “It’s too risky! We cannot risk war,” said another. But Bellerophon had chosen his path. His pride burned brightly as he arrived at the stables and mounted Pegasus.
“I’ll be back within an hour,” he said.
Flying on a winged steed was and still is an incredible sensation. It was a short trip – with Bellerophon and his 40,000 men camped at Granada only a few miles from Pelops and his 40,000 men in Toledo. Within half and hour, our hero landed, much to the sentries’ surprise, right in front of Pelops’ royal tent. Bellerophon smirked as he handed the note to Pelops directly, mounted Pegasus and flew high into the sky.
He could only imagine what was going through Pelops mind as Pelops read the simple note. He quickly reared the flying horse around, and charged back quickly in a low swoop, straight towards Pelops. He whispered something to Pegasus, and the horse dutifully dropped its payload. Splat.
Bellerophon laughed maniacally as he imagined Pelops shaking in anger, covered in Pegasus’s wreaking waste, ripping apart the note that read, Eat this.
The First Atlantean War
And so they went to war. For some months it was quite a standstill, until Pelops got over his timidity and the great armies clashed in Andalusia. Within days, surely by the aid of Poseidon, thousands of Peloponnesians were dead, and the rest fled back towards Catalonia. Ruthlessly, Bellerophon pursued them. He finally caught up to Pelops in Catalonia, where Bellerophon and his Atlantian cavalry converged on Pelop’s few remaining guard. The results were brutal, and all of Pelops men were slaughtered. Overseeing the battle from the skies, Bellerophon spied Pelops fleeing. His chest swollen, he swept down behind the fleeing enemy, aimed true, and cast a javelin. Bellerophon’s aim was as right as it was when he slew the Chimera. Pelops was dead.
However, in victory Bellerophon’s hubris swelled. He forgot why Zeus had nearly killed him in the other world. Within a year, he would be besieging Valencia with an army of primarily infantry. As thousands of Peloponnesian cavalry suddenly appeared and began flooding into the area, instead of fleeing as he should have, Bellerophon took to the skies and ordered his army to prepare for battle.
Unfortunately, Bellerophon’s army stood no chance on the open plain. The battlefield was too far inland – Bellerophon had made it impossible for Poseidon to help. His army was quickly routed, entirely killed or captured. He attempted to flee on Pegasus, but some peltast, using a spear made by Hephaestus himself no doubt, managed to knock him off his noble steed. He would perish.
The tide would fluctuate there after. For a while, things looked grim, until Theseus’ Gallic warriors began pouring over Pelops’ northern border to aid the Atlantean cause. Perseus, meanwhile, had occupied all of Africa including the great city of Atlantis, but was helpless to join the fight in Iberia because of the great Atlantian navy. Eventually, with Bellerophon and Pelops both dead, the regents of both countries agreed to a simple peace – Toledo to Atlantis. The Gauls were greatly disappointed by this, as they had hoped for a little something for themselves. Therefore, in the Underworld, Bellerophon promised he would make it up to Theseus (who had been killed by Autolycus several years earlier).
End of the First Atlantean War. Note Enemy claims include Murcia, 'asked' for by Pelops and Fez, which is required for Perseus to 'unify' Carthage.
The End of the Beginning
On the other side of the world, news would come of Odysseus killing Medea and annexing her land. News of this reached Atlantis, but few seemed concerned. Unless the deities directly asked Atlantis to get involved, it seemed to costly and far away to be worth it, especially since Atlantis needed time to rebuild and recover.
And so Bellerophon (and his regent) had managed to establish Atlantis on the map, and as a dominant power in the west. Bellerophon, though he had taken many strides forward, had much more coming for him and he knew it.
The challenge is just getting started – I can’t wait.