Who?

By the time Annie was born, the woods and wells of Hellas were already ringing with giggles and song. Nymphs of every kind danced among the trees and heaths, splashed in clean streams, leapt from the tumbling waves of the world-sea and chased one another even through the stars, perched on satellites that were the playthings of the God-Father.

The circumstances of her birth she questioned not. Even then, in the early days of the Natural Youth Motif Project for Hellas, a shadow had passed over the knowledge of where the nymphs were to come from, and what- who- they were for. Annie stifled her doubts, stayed her tongue, and plugged her ears against whispers. She was born of the Gods, as a servant of Gods, and that was all she knew.

She need not, perhaps, have fretted so much. Once the youngest of nymphs, now among their most senior, she was the earliest to stray from the Bohemian vision of Dionysos and the God-Father, the first to err even from the perfect wildness of her beloved Lady, Artemis (the Elder, or the Younger? O forbidden thought...). Anemone Dryas, last of the first, is an experiment, touched more than others of her kind by the deft hands of ATHENA MAKHANITIS.

A small experiment, to be sure, and a long-running one. Annie is flawless in form and operates well within the parameters set by her Lady Artemis. She is distinguished from other dryads chiefly by her home, which is Olympus itself- for what would the Divine City be without its birds and shrine-yards, riverfronts and hanging gardens? The slivers and sparkles of wilderness built into quiet corners of Olympus are as much part of its glory as its golden towers and manicured flower-fields. All these things are self-maintaining, of course, and easily remedied by the Gods themselves if the need arises. Annie's imperative is to ensure that it never does.

Such pleasant chores provide subtle cover. Written into her spine by the hand of ATHENA APATURIA is an iota of change, iteration, instability- chaos. Annie has moods, phases, faces, secrets, schemes, doubts, and torments. She fulfils her duty, she rebels. She mingles with mortals, she hides her face. She is quiet and loud, shy and bold, anxious and joyful. Her three-hundred-year-old entry in Athena's infinite archives is rich with data, knowledge that will one day be layered into the New Gods.

And yet- Who?

As for herself, Annie follows the example set by her Lady Artemis, oversees the corner of Olympus assigned to her by the Goddess of Cities, and bows before the God-Father as she always has. She is swift, competent, even stern. Where her confidence fails, it is among strangers and new friends. Where she cries, it is when the threat (or dream!) of failure cracks her smiling facade of perfection. When she laughs, it is sometimes kind, sometimes grateful, sometimes petty, but always true.

And what?

Anemone Dryas bears few powers. She calls plants to grow and die, and instructs their ways. She sees through the eye of the damselfly and sings the songs of honeybirds. She has had a fondness for caterpillars since she was a girl, and breeds them to enormous sizes- moths as wide as pelicans! Her distress is painful to the woods of Hellas, and her Lady's beasts are brought to frenzy when she screams.

Who, else?

There was much to be swept away when the Olympians came to Hellas. Electronic relics of the original colonists, a lingering memory of Earth and its norms. Evidence of the war between Zeus and 'Typhon'. Zeus had need for a swift and total rewilding of the planet- and its people.

The Planetary Agonist Network, PAN, was a rogue intelligence borne on nanytes and set loose upon the world, a wild blaze of savagery and growth to purge the remains of the old civilisation under bones and ivy. Under its spell forests sprang up within months, beasts grew to monstrous sizes for the first time, plagues of locusts covered the very sun.

The minds of the colonists were not spared. PAN invoked every shameful nuance of human ecology, empowering its parasites, its predators, its bloated tumours of fecundity run amok. The dark god fell upon them with its bestial song, fanning the flames of sex and envy. Everything was to be reduced to its primitive state of hunger and lust and violence, a dark age from which the shining tower of Olympus could rise.

And then, as quickly as it came, it was gone. "Tell them that the Great God Pan is dead!"

The Network was deleted and decommissioned, its blood-thick sludge of nanomachines returned to the control of the Olympians. To Artemis was given the wilderness, to Dionysos the thrill of the night, to Eros and Aphrodite the hidden passion of man and woman. The ruins were unrecognisable. The dark age was over, having lasted barely two generations.

Nothing was supposed to remain. If it did, it could only be in Olympus itself, among the decadent and degenerating gods of the old crew, stowed away in code they no longer bothered to read, slumbering, waiting for something young and fresh and free, a vessel through which to be born once more into the world...

Origin

Once and still an android, over the course of many centuries the meaning of the word itself has flowed around Psilos like trickling rainwater around a steel-capped boot. His soft humanoid tissue long gone, his old name and memories long since deleted, Psilos the Android has become less than a homunculus and far more than a robot: he is a wight, the sleepless deathless husk, the ancient corpse that serves into eternity.

Once an android, yes, and the highest among that race. All the petty, servile robots of the ship's original complement have since worn out or become obsolete, and lie in slagheaps and curiosity-cabinets, replaced by new machines. Of the elite cyborg grade, some have been rebuilt with bodies better fit to their duties in Olympus, many have been cannibalised to serve Athena and Hephaestus as templates and components of fresh automata, and more have been lost to 'Typhon'.

Psilos remains: patched and tuned and re-tuned, never assigned any one great task, with time forced to excel in all of them.

Persona

Psilos was a human-mimic, a false demigod wrapped in a sleeve of flesh; the meat is gone, but the mimic remains. He is a silent warrior, a relentless worker, and a deft servant. He studies. He rests. He optimises- the closest thing a machine of his calibre can do to training the body. In a way, he even socialises, though few take an interest in the deep rumbling drone that barks oh-so-cordially from his once sonorous voicebox.

Long ago, he may have been different- somewhere in the archives of Athena and Coeus, surely, must be the parameters of his earlier and more finely crafted soul, along with all the rest aboard the ship. That soul is useless and forgotten, and Psilos sees no reason to dwell on it. He's barely even sure 'the ship' ever existed. It must have- his very existence suggests ancient artifice, and Hephaestus, for all his wonders, never built him. A dangerous mystery to ponder.

Psilos would surely have gone the way of the other elite androids in due time, had he not been assigned, by happenstance mostly, to the service and protection of the dryad, Anemone. The supply of automata in working condition had been depleted in a spat between divinities, resolved ultimately by the hard hand of GULA. Annie laid claim to Psilos for the simple purpose of logging the damaged boughs of a great tree, lest it topple long before its natural time. Soon they were inseparable.

For a second time did the hand of ATHENA ALEA reach into Annie's life. A sacred function was added to Psilos' code, a function she had learned from the God-Mother Hera, and its name was Agápē: unconditional love.

More than a century has passed. Annie remains Psilos' only true loyalty. He is her brother, her mentor, her weapon, and her true friend. His Agápē has grown only stronger. For her sake there is no obstacle he will not surmount nor secret he will not unveil. Annie is the wight's hidden wellspring of infinite strength. She is what makes him dangerous.

Artefacts

When he travels the surface of Hellas with Annie, Psilos dons his garb. An undyed cloak and a mask disguise him from mortals who would take fright. In his hands, a wooden staff and a sturdy knife are more than enough to defend her from mundane threats, and his own body is largely impervious to mortal blades. Not even a full clan of bandits can endanger the warrior when he is roused.

Against threats, Psilos wields his gun. This ancient steel tool is barely a step above the iron swords and catapults of the primitives, and thus it has withstood centuries of service and may withstand many more. With each shot it delivers an antimatter-tipped microflechette cluster spray into his quarry. That is all it needs to do.

Psilos himself is protected by his halo, a protective nanyte cloud which blocks low-level attempts at electronic warfare and delays the penetration of most higher-level digital weapons. Hostile nanomachines attempting to colonise or consume the wight's body will find the halo a fierce opponent indeed. Almost needless to say, this armour was devised by ATHENA AXIOPOINOS, and is one of many such artefacts in Olympus.

Bonds

The automaton's relations to the gods are almost entirely mediated through his bond to Annie. To Hephaestus he is simply an old machine in excellent condition under its beaten-up exterior. To Pallas Athena he is an effective support for a nymph of especial interest, and one of many, many little soldiers to be rallied in the defense of Olympus. To Zeus he is nothing.

The gods have infinite databases and plenty of time to draw upon them. With a little effort they could surely know all that there possibly is to know about the wight, things he no longer knows himself. But they don't. They never have. Psilos might as well have been sealed in a barrow-tomb the day the ship made landfall on Hellas, so long has he been resigned to obscurity.

Do the gods still remember everything they brought to this world? Do they still dwell on the artifice of that ancient place, which they did not build? Do they still know the extent of Old Arith's powers?

Do they?

Do they really?

Origin

As much as the City of the Gods needs its heavenly lords, it also needs its monitors- and its covergirls. The Charites- graces- are a small clique of goddesses tasked with cultivating suitable behaviour among the many lesser deities and their children, those descended from the Olympians and their compliant crewmates, according to the will and vision of Father Zeus. Their duties are light, and their status is more of a reward for exemplary behaviour than a real function, a token of recognition for their dedication to the grand Hellenic role-play. Thus they typically have free reign to lead by example, setting the tone and timbre of Olympian life, which washes out to all of Hellas below, often garnering lavish mortal followings as they do. Among them are Aglaea (resplendent health), Paidia (childlike play), Pasithea (spiritual respite), Pandaisia (feasting), Euthychia (cheer), Auxo (abundance), Phaenna and Cleta (light and glory). Their origins are many, some nymphs, some muses, some horae, some recruited from among the old crew and some born to their task.

Kalleis Pannychis is among the latter few, and named for her predecessor, the original Pannychis still known by some as Matilda Hatherell. Pannychis- the wild night, personified; the bold girl, the first to let loose, object of all eyes, the one to make you wish the night never ends. That the party never dies.

Hatherell enjoyed her role, then appreciated it, and at last merely suffered it. Eternal youth wearies the mortal soul, and the brightest stars burn fast. Replacements were trialed and quickly discarded, hopeful volunteers greedy for glamour and status, ill-suited for the weary fate of seeing celebration become a chore. None respected the bodily demands of endless dance and drink, nor the quiet labour of mixing up the act, pacing out the show, keeping it all real, keeping it fresh.

Dionysos grew impatient. He had plenty of disposable partygirls- what he needed was a hostess, an organiser, someone with Hatherell's idle genius waiting to spring free. The early glut of talent and discipline among the crew had been spent or worn out. If a replacement could not be found, she would have to be built. A commission was drafted and sent to the forge of Hephaestus, signed by Pannychis and Dionysos himself.

It didn't take long.

Persona

Kalleis Pannychis is heavy-duty party machinery, industrial strength. She cannot tire and she is always planning something. She feeds on energy, she's addicted to it, it thrills her with a savage glee. It's an endless game, a dance of war, it's like juggling fire. She's a Muse and a musician, a talent scout, a bouncer and a broker and a driver and a diva.

And she is sober. Kallie's role does not require her to lose herself. Her excitement is coupled with an effortless precision and regality. She manages stragglers, supplies and interruptions without flinching, and executes her projects from beginning to end without faltering, from the invitation to the cleaning-up. Panda handles everything her guests don't want to think about on their big night, thinks about the things they would prefer to forget. Hers is an eccentric disposition for a human mind, totally natural for an automaton like herself.

She's a handmaiden to Dionysos, not a mistress, and certainly not the star of the show- by her will, Pannychis has become a catchy honour, a title to which she treats her clients as she brings them into the spotlight, relegating herself gleefully to the role of a strange, gracious hostess, one that alights like a shining butterfly into the lives of mortals and departs as swiftly as she came. Kallie applies a lighter touch among mortals than she does on Olympus. She is often active, but reveals herself sparingly, whispering invitations and instructions, dropping gold into pockets, writing songs, fixing instruments, altering drinks, handling buzzkills. Her ability to scan for subtle emotional states allows her to flick effortlessly from modest to flirtatious, wild to ladylike, always as the circumstance requires, always with honest cheer.

On Hellas and Olympus alike, her dedication to festivity as a matter of function tends to win her friends from outside the dance rather than within, characters who relate to her as a lady of skill more than allure. Artists, rulers, and warriors entertain her between events more than youths, providing her with a rich bed of inspiration and connections for more fire. Everything is an opportunity for more fire- even the business of the High Gods, scheming and quarrelling in their Olympian palaces...

Artefacts

A generalist, Kallie is built with a variety of just-so functions to address any contingency.

A light-show is always welcome on Olympus, and Panda has a multitude of artefacts for projecting intense colour and sound. These are generally well-disguised in whatever fits the mood of the night, especially their mortal equivalents, being instruments and lamps of various kinds. On Olympus she can get away with more, and is always tinkering on her own equipment, which she herself builds to purpose. A good hostess is an excellent repairman.

Managing brain chemistry is an equally important part of any good night out. Panda is capable of identifying all kinds of bodily cues at a glance, reading the emotional, hormonal and physical state of her guests with ease and responding with the appropriate words, touches, and drugs, of which an endless library is stored on her body.

Panda is strong. Erecting temporary structures, moving goods and guests at the last minute, evicting the unwanted, even dancing- all things she prefers to handle herself, and is capable of doing unassisted for many hours on end. Security is rarely lacking in Olympus, and mundane threats are easily foreseen, but the responsibility for safety ultimately comes down to her, and she can fight competently, if inelegantly, making use of her endurance and speed and high-energy optical equipment. For much the same reason, she can operate on bodies that have suffered all sorts of injuries, should the need arise.

Her personal pleasure barge is an airship.

Bonds

Kallie's chief colleague is Dionysos, though he would probably like to think himself her master. As a High God he outranks the Charis, but Kalleis formally answers to Charis Hegemone (graceful leadership), to her mistress Aphrodite, and finally to Zeus himself- should he take an interest, which he seldom does in these latter years. The matter of authority is rarely relevant anyway. Kallie feeds Dionysos an endless list of opportunities to have fun, and requires neither assistance nor supervision.

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Kallie's closest friend is Anemone Dryas, the garden nymph. The parks of Olympus can be lively places, and the two work together professionally to coordinate festivities, but something deeper attracts the two, such that they have become as close as sisters. Kallie's overflowing generosity, patience and cheer soothes Annie's bad moods and encourages her better ones, and her nights give Annie an opportunity to forget herself, all blessings which the Charis is eager to provide. Annie is always an honoured guest, and has even earned the crown of Pannychis for herself in seasons past.

Annie's shadow, Psilos, has endeared himself to Kalleis, though a party animal he is not. Fellow automata, they are birds of a feather, privy to the hidden machinations that make Olympus what it is. Psilos's human-like loyalty, like Annie's capriciousness, piques Kallie's curiousity and draws her to them.

Relations among the Charites are mixed, generally at least cordial. Kalleis is on especially good terms with Paidia, who shouldn't be left unsupervised at her parties, and Pasithea, who wouldn't be caught dead at one. Hegemone, ostensibly her superior, treats her as a necessary compromise following the retirement of Hatherell from the role, but still doesn't see her as the 'true' Pannychis, only an indefinite placeholder.

Hatherell herself almost never speaks with Kalleis. There is nothing left to say.