Philoscifi

On the brink of destruction, the world desperately needs a Hero. Phil Safari, a reluctant Candidate, must prove himself worthy to the gods by completing a Heroic Task: change 1000 lives for the better… or else! The following is part of the Safaris – a collection of Phil’s misadventures in Heroism. Find out how it all started and what he has learned about love, life, and the pursuit of happiness.

“Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to win the Tournament for the right to lead humanity.

“You’re not the only Candidate, Phil. Every major battle god faction has its own Candidate. There are seven other groups besides us, the Greco-Romans, including the Persians, Mesopotamians, Egyptians, East Asians, Pre-Colombians, Norse, and Tribal - a catchall category for all the other minor factions. Unsurprisingly, they all seem to be choosing warrior types, but I chose you.”

Phil snorted. “Great, I know nothing about battle. This is gonna be a massacre!”

“Oh ye of little faith… We are looking for the best leader, not another meathead. The Tournament will test competency in four categories: battle prowess, strategy & organization, execution, and management. The battle prowess and strategy categories are pretty straightforward. Execution will test your ability to create the necessary infrastructure to accomplish missions, and management will test how well you manage people.

“The Tournament is a three round playoff consisting of best-of-five series. The seeding will be randomly determined by the Tournament computer. A coin flip will decide who chooses the category for the first game, and the contestants will alternate choosing thereafter. Each category will have three or four subcategories, and the contestant who did not choose the category will get to choose the subcategory. Each category and subcategory can only be chosen once per round; in other words, it disappears from the menu after it has been chosen. Based on the choices, the computer will randomly generate the appropriate challenge for that game. If the series reaches Game 5, the computer will randomly choose a challenge from any category.

“For the Tournament, each Candidate is allowed to recruit his own team of up to 20 members. Technically, you can recruit anybody you want, but there are restrictions on how you recruit them.

“Let’s start with the easy stuff. Every Candidate has immediate access to all his faction’s heroes by default. For you that means all the heroes from Greek and Roman mythology, i.e. Odysseus, Achilles, Aeneas, etc. On top of that, you can recruit any living person without restriction.

“Now comes the tricky part. Every Candidate gets 60 gold coins that can be used to travel to any afterworld or to the past. Such a trip will cost one coin each way, per person. So that’s 2 coins for you round-trip, and one coin for your recruit on the way back. This means that you can theoretically recruit up to 20 people from the afterworld or the past, assuming you are successful on every trip - something you’ll find is easier said than done. There is a subtle but important difference between recruiting from the afterworld versus the past. I am forbidden from getting into specifics, but you’re smart enough to figure it out.

“The Exclusivity Rule requires that there be only one instance of any entity at any given time. This means that you cannot have two Napoleons, one from the afterworld and one from the past, and you cannot recruit a living person and his past self. If one team has recruited a person already, no other team can recruit that same person.

“Also, you must recruit these entities personally; Charon and Chronos will only accept coins from you. Because they lack physical presences, these entities must be bound to you in order to exist here. This means that you’ll have complete control over them; you can even dispel them and absorb their abilities in the process. What you choose to do is your business, but be aware of how your actions will affect your team.

“These are the standard rules, but Hades speculates that you can do more… much more. Because of your unique power to materialize things, you could theoretically recruit entities from dimensions that are inaccessible to other Candidates including books, games, and movies.

“You’ll need to figure out the mechanics on your own, but it appears that you’ll need to use your energy to travel to their dimensions and to bring them back. It’s also possible that you could use your energy to travel to an afterworld or the past instead of using coins. That’s it for the Tournament rules.”

Phil had the faraway stare of a man too far gone to care about anything, and who could blame him? By now the incessant buzzing in my head had reach a climax. It was definitely time to wrap this up.

“Out of all the Candidates, Phil, you are the best - not only because of your ability but because of your heart. We should have learned the dangers of hubris with Lucifer’s Fall, yet the other gods seem determined to repeat the mistakes of the past, judging from their Candidate choices. The ideal leader can wield immense power without losing his compassion and integrity. I believe that you are such a leader: the Philosopher-Hero.

“I know this has been a difficult journey for you. It pained me to see you struggle, but like a blade, a soul must be tempered to be battle-worthy. Your will to power was buried beneath thick layers of guilt and self loathing after your brother’s death. When you undertook the Heroic Task, these feelings manifested themselves as an overdeveloped, even reckless, selflessness. Only recently did you realize that there must be a balance. I wish you had more time to develop, but the enemy has forced our hand.

“Where your journey continues from here is up to you. To walk the Hero’s Path, your resolve must be strong, for it is a journey into the darkness. Thus, the only answer I will accept is that you want to continue, that you are not doing it solely out of compassion or responsibility. As the Task clearly showed, they are not strong enough to sustain you by themselves. The world will not end if you refuse. We will find someone else, and I will erase all memory of our interactions with you. You can live your life as you see fit, untroubled by any of this.

“Take some time to think about what you want to do. The Tournament will start in 40 days, and we must announce our Candidate in 10 days. I will not bother you until then, unless you call. The choice is your choice. Regardless of your decision, you are a good man, Phil. It has been a pleasure being your guardian.”

I offered my hand. Still in a trance-like state, Phil rose from his seat, shook my hand, and slowly shuffled out of the office without a word.

I collapsed in my chair and sighed. “It is finally done. Now all we can do is pray.”

A sinister laugh echoed through the room, one that I recognized and despised. “Ares, show yourself!”

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