Long ago, Bellerophon was a mad and murderous Greek warrior who in his infamous desire to gain a kingdom was spurned from heaven by the decided bite of an inspired gadly.
We have gone back to an ancient time when Bellerophon roamed the earth. He was a demigod, the son of Poseidon and the Megarian princess, Eurynome.
Bellerophon was one of the greatest slayers of monsters on earth but didn’t have his own kingdom to rule. Overconfident, like most heroes are, desiring a kingdom of his own to rule, he tried to ride Pegasus up to Olympus to demand one.
Zeus sent a gadfly (a rather large and fierce horsefly) to bite Pegasus, thus causing the winged horse to buck and toss the rider off.
In most tellings of the tale, Athena spares him and allows him to land on softer ground where he is wounded and blind and wanders alone until his death, scorned and despised by all.
In The Crystal Crux Series, Bellerophon survives but is seriously injured and angry. Having stolen esoteric particles from the clouds around Olympus, believing they have magical properties that can aid him, Bellerophon goes deep into the earth in search of another exiled god, Hephaestus, the blacksmith and creator of many wonderous tools, edifices, weapons and marvels. He convinces Hephaestus to use the particles to create something that will help him subdue the entire earth.
Hephaestus is what I consider in my tale, to be a spawn. Some stories say he was born of Zeus and Hera. Other stories say he was birthed from Hera alone. Other tales say he was demon of fire born from volcanic gases without any parentage. Whatever his origin, he is basically soulless and eternal and in The Crystal Crux Series, amused by mortals destroying one another, the walls of his caves painted with the blood of the dead seeping down through to the earth to him.
Hephaestus agrees to help Bellerophon usurp the authority of the gods because more mortal deaths will please him.
The supernatural blueprint Hephaestus devised was a scryer’s dream. It was a small pyramidral device consisting of five unique crystals, none much larger than a man’s fist.
Hephaestus is creating a crystal ball of sorts, but this one must be assembled. Five crystals. Four that form a base. One slightly larger more powerful crystal to sit on top of the other four, the crux of the configuration.
To accomplish this work, Hephaestus enlists the aid of five gifted metallurgists with complimentary skills as both smiths and lapidaries. The artisans lived in five different regions of the world so as to gather to themselves all the various base minerals the earth had to offer.
The thing to remember is that this is a hypothesis. Even Hephaestus doesn’t know if it will work or how powerful it will be. He believes that by gathering all the elements of the earth together in these varied stones with some of the esoteric particles of heaven, the Seer who gazes into them will be able to see the souls and memories of everyone on earth, alive and dead. They will be capable of interfering in everyone’s lives for all eternity, infiltrating their exposed minds, twisting their beliefs and dreams. Take advantage of their guilt and sins.
The assistants have one year to complete their tasks. At that time, they will all meet up in Hephaestus chief volcano lair, Vesuvius.
Ophis had been slumbering for centuries in a remote European barrow. He was waiting for, hoping for the return of the last age, the age when dragons ruled the earth, the age before the first man Adam stole dominion from them in the Garden of Eden.
For those who do not know, I study and research the Bible as well as mythology and lore of other cultures. I am a follower of the Way, the Way of Yahshua, Son of Yahweh. It is not a religion or sect or a cult or anything like that. It is just a Way of being. You can’t join it or be a member. There is no membership. It just is. There is no church as people like it to be defined. No leaders. No authority figures. It spiritual and only exists when we allow the spirit to move through us and speak on whatever topic or subject is happening at the moment. The Way accepts the Red Letters of Yahshua as truth, that we are called to live in peace and harmony with one another and the earth as far as our individual spirits will allow. Do no harm. Help those who need to be helped.
But enough of that preaching from me.
I include a lot of my spiritual beliefs into the often dark tale of The Crystal Crux Series. I don’t pretend that the world is a paradise. And I don’t pretend that it can ever be made into one. I don’t believe in any kind of rapture of “Jesus” returning to fix everything.
We have to deal with reality while trying our best to live together in peace and love. That’s it.
Pero de Alava’s character is a slightly more brutish version of this mindset. He is trying to live his life in peace and harmony but the world won’t allow it.
Here we see appearance of Ophis, a dragon from the first world age. The Bible talks of three world ages and an age before mankind.
While some of Ophis’ characteristics harken back to the Egyptian serpent Apophis, the Lord of Chaos, most of my influence comes from the constellation Draco, which is romanized as Ophis. I made him a satan, a fallen leader from the world that was who wants to be leader once again but finds himself a strange new world of his creator’s making. He still wants to rise again and fight the creator. He still wants the world to be his kingdom.
In the moment granted him, the clever Norse haggled for his Viking life. Taf necessarily revealed his motive for trespassing. He offered up to the dragon everything he knew about the crystals and Bellerophon’s plan.
Taf is one of the blacksmiths secured to create a crystal, the Crux, in fact. He was digging for minerals when he accidentally awoke this black beast.
Ophis, seeing an opportunity to use these crystals to revive the dragons of the past and begin his war with the creator anew, promises Taf that he won’t destroy his village if he brings the completed crystal to him first.
Taf, of course, agrees, not wanting to see his people destroyed.
We will end today’s edition here and learn what happens to Taf and Ophis’ plan in the next installment.
Until them, stay inspired and keep reading.
Author Allen M Werner 
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