Jason wanders around the market, hungry and virtually
penniless. And he can’t get credit because, as a friend of Hercules, he’s not
trusted for a loan. He resorts to stealing a loaf of bread, which he does
rather ineptly, dunking it in the waters of the fountain followed by the bread
seller as well. He escapes by hiding in n unoccupied building
An unoccupied people with incense, lots of dead animals, skulls and spooky, idol-like statues. An unoccupied building with an altar. An unoccupied building with an altar that has a bloody knife on it and a cut of meat.
And he takes the meat. I would say “he’s starving, that
could make him silly” but this is Jason and Atlantis,
let us be honest and say that he would always do something this foolish.
He takes it home but finds Pythagoras and Hercules are
out – and he eats the meat. All of it. Hiding the bone and plate when
Pythagoras returns (he’s been at the tavern with Hercules trying to shake him
out of his depression over Medusa before being driven off by Hercules’s
surliness). Pythagoras almost catches him before Hercules staggers in, drunk
and incapable. Well, even more drunk and incapable than usual.
A man enters the altar room Jason stole the meat from,
sniffing like an animal. When he finds the meat missing, he roars showing
animalistic fangs.
And Jason wakes up the next day curled up on the floor, much to Pythagoras’s bemusement. Finding no breakfast again, they join Pythagoras on a job he’s got for them – killing rats in a warehouse. At the job Jason tracks a rat, by smell, crawling on all fours and destroying half the warehouse in his hunt. When the owner arrives and is a little miffed, Jason knocks him down – Pythagoras and Hercules quickly hurry him out.
During the night Jason disappears. Pythagoras is woken by
the sound of something moving in the house and goes to look, following the sound
outside – and briefly seeing a wolf. He hurries back into the house, locks the
door and finds Jason missing.
The next day, Jason wakes up filthy, bruised, covered in
feathers in a chicken coop. He makes his way home, awkwardly given the
nakedness, to find both Pythagoras and Hercules up and waiting for him. He doesn’t
remember anything, he just woke up naked in an animal pen (something both Hercules
and Pythagoras consider a something that happens now and then). Pythagoras puts
in the behaviour changes and presses Jason to think about what he’s done or
where he’s been. He describes the shrine
Pythagoras checks it out and comes back with the joyful
news – it’s a temple to Hecate. Goddess of Witchcraft; Hercules again marvels
at Jason’s ignorance and they both marvel at the sheer foolishness of eating
sacrificial food to the gods.
Pythagoras goes to do some research, leaving Hercules with Jason. But when he finds the right scroll and notices the setting sun, he hurries home worried about Hercules. There he finds Jason gone – and Hercules unconscious. Not hurt – just drink. He wakes Hercules and quickly explains how the Stygian Hounds, Hecate’s guard dogs, were once priests who were transformed – and Jason has done the same and will stalk the street at night looking for prey.
Cut to said wolf stalking and killing a goat – much to
the horror of its owner.
The next day, Jason shows up on the doorstep, naked
again. And Hercules knocks him unconscious and drops him in their cellar, just
in case.
At the palace, the goatherd reports what he saw to the
powers that be and Heptarian has Ramos investigate. King Minos is feeling ill,
comforted and treated by Pasiphae – the likely cause of said illness- confirmed
when she sneaks a powder into his drink.
Pythagoras finishes his research and returns home with a
possible cure (to find a drunken Hercules, of course). The cure, unfortunately,
requires rather a lot of silver which is rather out of their price range. But
not Ariadne’s – they go find her in the Temple of Poseidon where she goes every
day and manage to pass a note to her when Pythagoras distracts the guards by
setting his clothes on fire. Yes, yes he does.
The note asks Ariadne to bring a pouch of silver for
Jason – but when they head home they’re ambushed by the warehouse owner and his
guards who drag them to the warehouse and won’t let them out until they’ve
cleaned up the mess. They manage to get the work done and hurry to the temple,
but they’re too late, an impatient Ariadne has already left – heading to the
house
Where Jason is awake and just managed to free himself in
time to answer the door to Ariadne. Naked. Much awkwardness follows as he tries
to get rid of her before sunset. She enters the house and Jason begins to
transform. Hercules and Pythagoras arrive just in time to stop him pouncing on
her. She gives them the silver and leaves when they, well, don’t answer any of
her questions. Is there a reason for this? Ok, maybe leave out the whole “Jason
ate sacrificial food” but “Jason is cursed” wouldn’t have been that far a
stretch (and don’t tell me Ariadne wouldn’t believe them – she’s lived with the
reality of a minotaur for quite some time). And Jason escapes into the night
Heptarian and Ramos get another report of a wolf and
summon the garrison.
Pythagoras and Hercules melt down the silver from
Ariadne. They go looking for Jason while dodging Heptarian’s soldiers. Using a
bone as bait, they trap him in the temple of Hecate and then block the
passageway from the soldiers.
At dawn (after much consideration of how to invent a clock by Pythagoras). They go in to find Jason – but first they have to fight off an angry, wolf-toothed priest (crushing him with the statue of Hecate. Wow, they’re trying to piss off this goddess). They get Jason home and feed him the silver cure. It seems to work when Jason wishes Ariadne doesn’t know about him being a dog (Pythagoras tries to reassure him, Hercules puts in “she’s a woman, they have memories longer than the gods.”) Seeing how badly Jason messed up, they go from reassurance to teasing
Needless to say with them all hungry, there were many
many fat jokes at Hercules’s expense. And is it necessary for him to be drunk
all the time?
I do wish occasionally, when saying things like “how ignorant
are you!?” there’d be some attempt to address Jason not being an Atlantis
native.
