Aeal blinks rapidly as she listens to Heraklia, clearly in shock at the knowledge that Zeus was missing and that Greece was under attack. 'Oh no, aunty! Thats terrible!' the naiad squeaks, bringing her delicate hands to her mouth as she processes the information. 'I don't know when Grandfather went missing, but Grandmother was very involved for a few years, directing Mother and my other direct aunties to protect the seas. The creatures of the oceans and rivers increasingly stopped heeding our will, but it only became really bad when the deep creatures arrived! Coming out of the bottom of the oceans, the deep creatures have a terrible ability to resurrect the dead in twisted fascimiles of their original form, and to change their form to women so that they can breed! What is worse, they bring with them a plague of madness that has corrupted my brothers and male cousins. Without the bulk of our fighters, my sisters and I have had to throw what remains of the sea and river creatures that obey us at the deep ones and the corrupted! Now we are in retreat from the great sea, left only in the waters near the temples to defend!'
Aeal collects herself as she recalls the terrors she and her sisters have been facing. 'Grandmother left for the surface a year or so ago, saying she would find our noble aunts and uncles on the surface for help. Yet we have not heard from her, and any time one of us comes up we are besetted by cruel twisted creatures that seek to rape and keep us as breeding stock! Four of my sisters are already captured, and I think many more of my cousins have been captures over the year as well!'
Her words are shocking, but they fill in some gaps. It seems that there are forces laying siege to Greece, and the war in the heavens is being replicated on the ground as well. With Zeus gone... Greece is especially weak.